Everyone knows U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has more to do with destabilization than diplomacy. Whether arming terror states like Israel and Saudi Arabia or flattening entire countries like Libya and Iraq, American intervention is pretty much always a humanitarian disaster. At times, this policy has even included arming ISIS — the very terror group Washington claims to oppose.Then the author(s) follow this with an itemized list that is backed by very good documentation.
The reason for this help is that ISIS assists U.S. foreign policy goals. It is no secret that the U.S. has tried to overthrow the democratically elected Syrian government for years. To further their goals, the U.S. regime has more or less aligned with just about every terrorist group short of ISIS publicly, including Jahbat al-Nusra.
Yet at times this alliance has extended past terror groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner. In many situations, the U.S. has seemingly supported ISIS. Whether these instances are mere coincidence or represent a pattern of support is up to you to decide. Below are five strongest instances of the U.S. helping ISIS and other terrorist groups.
Friday, July 13, 2018
5 Times the US Actively Supported ISIS or Similar Groups
Click here to access article from MintPress News.
Τhe structural, fundamental factors pushing Western Capitalism into producing Totalitarianism and War. The role of Trump and the Neocons (Part 1 of 3)
Click here to access the first segment of speech delivered by Dimitris Konstantakopoulos to the 2nd international Congress on Marx and Marxism, held at the Beijing University on the 5th and 6th of last May and posted on the website of Defend Democracy Press. (I will not necessarily be posting the next two segments of his speech.)
I must warn you that this is a very lengthy post (you might want to start at the eighth paragraph) and it is only one segment, however I felt that the speaker's general overview of the main currents of geopolitical history since, and including, the Nazi era offered so much that was valid and insightful in this last capitalist stage of imperialism. Here is only one sample of his perspective:
I must warn you that this is a very lengthy post (you might want to start at the eighth paragraph) and it is only one segment, however I felt that the speaker's general overview of the main currents of geopolitical history since, and including, the Nazi era offered so much that was valid and insightful in this last capitalist stage of imperialism. Here is only one sample of his perspective:
[Capitalism] seems able to produce only or mainly catastrophes. It is true that many people around the globe believe global socialism is unrealistic, that talk about it is, at best, a romantic exercise. But in reality, if there is something totally unrealistic and completely utopian is to hope that Humanity will be able to survive this century without inventing a radical new and human order. This is today much more clear than it was at the time Marx and Engels were writing their Communist Manifesto or Rosa Luxembourg was formulating her dilemma “Socialism or Barbarism”. And it is true for the whole world, not only for the Global South and West, but also for China, in spite of its tremendous achievements. It has become long ago impossible to separate the destiny of any state, country, nation, or continent, even of the strongest ones, from the destiny of the world.
Time to Stop Playing “Simon Says” with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton
Click here to access article by Paul Street from CounterPunch.
The author reveals the true nature of our "Founding Fathers", who were mostly slaveholders, and their capitalist philosophy called liberalism, a philosophy loaded with hypocrisy, which took great lengths to hide their own self-seeking rule behind a fake ideology which extolled liberties and democracy. He focuses on the legal structure that these slaveholders constructed, from which we are now seeing the inevitable results: the concentration of wealth and power among a very few, never-ending wars, and the continuing assault on the environment. He frames his exposé with the childhood game of Simon Says.
He exhorts us to end this arrangement of US society by reaching this conclusion:
The author reveals the true nature of our "Founding Fathers", who were mostly slaveholders, and their capitalist philosophy called liberalism, a philosophy loaded with hypocrisy, which took great lengths to hide their own self-seeking rule behind a fake ideology which extolled liberties and democracy. He focuses on the legal structure that these slaveholders constructed, from which we are now seeing the inevitable results: the concentration of wealth and power among a very few, never-ending wars, and the continuing assault on the environment. He frames his exposé with the childhood game of Simon Says.
He exhorts us to end this arrangement of US society by reaching this conclusion:
... we must demand a new national charter, committed to the Holy Founders’ ultimate nightmare: popular sovereignty in defense and advance of the commons, broadly understood. Playing “Simon Says” with Virginia slaveholders and merchant capitalists and their clever statesmen from the 1780s is mass suicide in 2018.However, I think we must come up with other methods than simply demanding.
The Lonely Road Of The Free Thinker
Click here to access article by Tim Bryant from The Last American Vagabond.
As a free thinker I could identify with the ideas in this article. I was a bit impatient reading the first several paragraphs in which he omitted any mention of class structure, and any implication that the ruling class defines and models norms, ideas, and views that free thinkers must contend with.
It is class structured societies which we must eliminate from our planet Earth if we are to survive. While I agree with the author in promoting free thinkers, it does come with a price. Not only is this a lonely road and can incur "even physical harm on some issues", it also prevents one from enjoying a remunerative career, the personal security that goes with such a career, and makes it nearly impossible for one to support a family. These are costs which most people avoid by accepting the dominant values, views, and ideas of the ruling class. I can't blame them.
On the other hand, people who value living an authentic life, there is no other choice than to seek the truth.
As a free thinker I could identify with the ideas in this article. I was a bit impatient reading the first several paragraphs in which he omitted any mention of class structure, and any implication that the ruling class defines and models norms, ideas, and views that free thinkers must contend with.
It is class structured societies which we must eliminate from our planet Earth if we are to survive. While I agree with the author in promoting free thinkers, it does come with a price. Not only is this a lonely road and can incur "even physical harm on some issues", it also prevents one from enjoying a remunerative career, the personal security that goes with such a career, and makes it nearly impossible for one to support a family. These are costs which most people avoid by accepting the dominant values, views, and ideas of the ruling class. I can't blame them.
On the other hand, people who value living an authentic life, there is no other choice than to seek the truth.
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
8 Great Myths That Keep America Running
View this video in which Lee Camp comically demolishes eight myths that we in the USA are conditioned to believe from cradle to the grave. Although he doesn't mention the system of advanced capitalism in which inevitably give rise to such myths, he demonstrates what many people are beginning to understand: the fake indoctrination that we are all subject to.
Ed Schultz Death: What MSNBC Won’t Tell You
View this 16:15m video from the Jimmy Dore show which focuses on the recently deceased Ed Schultz as he tells his story about some of his conflicts with the management of MSNBC that led to his firing as "news" anchor. Dore explains that this is common practice at all the corporate media companies and cites a number of other people who were fired for basically the same reason.
China’s Human Robot Labor Force: The Highest Rate of Surplus Value in the History of Capitalism!
Click here to access article by Massoud Nayeri from Global Research. (This is an excellent followup of Michel Chossudovsky's article that I posted last Saturday.) (I noticed and corrected a glaring error at 7:52 AM CT on 7/12/2018--I thought I had corrected it before.)
The 45:54m video within this article focuses on the largest factory in the world called Eüfa located in China. The factory employs 17000 workers and covers .7 square miles. The video illustrates how China has become the factory of the world.
Initially the Chinese government invited Western corporations into under contract to construct parts and products using the designs of the corporations. They were able to entice these corporations with fabulous profits by using China's cheap labor force and thorough organization of labor. This illustrates the win-win principle (corporations enjoy huge profits and China acquires technological skills) advanced by Deng Xiaoping who took over China's Communist government in the late 1970s after Mao Tse-Tung died.
The next stages of this evolution saw China's engineers and technicians improving on the design of components, and later the whole product. Now frequently Western corporations simply make contracts with China's factories to produce products of China's design. While Western corporations enjoy huge profits, their labor forces often become deskilled. But capitalism is all about making profits for the owners, and there is little regard for the welfare of workers.
China has now achieved world status in most fields of technology in only decades, and at the same time China is said to have several hundred billionaires. Although China is theoretically under the control of the Communist Party, I wonder if the party can avoid being corrupted by so much wealth in the hands of a few.
The 45:54m video within this article focuses on the largest factory in the world called Eüfa located in China. The factory employs 17000 workers and covers .7 square miles. The video illustrates how China has become the factory of the world.
Initially the Chinese government invited Western corporations into under contract to construct parts and products using the designs of the corporations. They were able to entice these corporations with fabulous profits by using China's cheap labor force and thorough organization of labor. This illustrates the win-win principle (corporations enjoy huge profits and China acquires technological skills) advanced by Deng Xiaoping who took over China's Communist government in the late 1970s after Mao Tse-Tung died.
The next stages of this evolution saw China's engineers and technicians improving on the design of components, and later the whole product. Now frequently Western corporations simply make contracts with China's factories to produce products of China's design. While Western corporations enjoy huge profits, their labor forces often become deskilled. But capitalism is all about making profits for the owners, and there is little regard for the welfare of workers.
China has now achieved world status in most fields of technology in only decades, and at the same time China is said to have several hundred billionaires. Although China is theoretically under the control of the Communist Party, I wonder if the party can avoid being corrupted by so much wealth in the hands of a few.
Western Elites Decrying ‘Populism’ Betrays Fear of Democracy
Click here to access article by the Irish independent journalist Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation. (Updated at 7:38 AM CT)
There has always been a wariness among ruling elites on both sides of the Atlantic towards a genuine democratic order breaking out, as Noam Chomsky discusses in his book ‘Deterring Democracy’. Western elites have typically viewed the masses as “rabble rousers” who are deemed to be “incapable” of governing society in the “proper way” that benefits the elites, protects their profits and property, and safeguards their imperial war-making overseas.For another insightful analysis you might be interested in another article by the same author entitled "Trump Treats EU Like Bozos" from Sputnik.
This underlying tension about the control of political power in Western societies encapsulates the present historical juncture where the word “populist” is being increasingly deployed. It is a term of disparagement by a failing Western establishment. What the failed order is trying to do is divert genuine popular challenge by painting it as something uncouth, vulgar, noxious, or manipulated by foreign enemies like Russia.
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Hardcore Hitler on Hitler in Helsinki
Click here to access article by CJ Hopkins from CounterPunch. ("Helsinki", Finland in the title refers to the upcoming meeting place between Trump and Putin.)
Hopkins uses sharp-honed satire to attack the unending campaign of corporate media (and their controllers) to render ordinary Americans into mindless cult members, much like the Manson girls, who will accept, or collaborate in, the most heinous acts of their masters.
Hopkins uses sharp-honed satire to attack the unending campaign of corporate media (and their controllers) to render ordinary Americans into mindless cult members, much like the Manson girls, who will accept, or collaborate in, the most heinous acts of their masters.
If you believe cults work because people are gullible, or stupid, you need to do some research. Cults work because their members are gradually conditioned to detach from “society” (i.e., the social body that conditioned them as children) and conform to the social body of the cult. This conditioning happens systematically, often over the course of years. Scientology cult members are not introduced to the “body thetans” story the day they walk in. Nor were the Manson girls ready to butcher a house full of people for Charlie at first … it took months of orgies, acid trips, and other de- and re-programming techniques to get them to buy into his paranoid prophecy of Imminent Racist Hippie Apocalypse.
Which is what I find so disturbing, presently.
Monday, July 9, 2018
100 Kids, 100 Toys: The Rich Are Only Rich If We Let Them Be.
Click here to access article by Dariel Garner from Popular Resistance. (Thanks go to an activist who alerted me to this post.)
This delightful allegory explains some of the painful realty of inequality. But, leaving us with "the rich are only rich if we let them be" seemed rather unsatisfactory to me. It got me thinking about how we could embellish the allegory to make it more meaningful. If we equate the enjoyment of toys with political power, we come much closer.
We should explain how this arrangement came about. Thus, we may add to the allegory that the biggest kids with the aid of other kids formed a gang. The gang formed classes: the very biggest became known as the upper class, the next biggest became known as the upper-middle class, and the bigger than average became known as the middle class. This gang led by the biggest kids beat up and threatened the disorganized smaller kids, and the gang ended up getting all of the toys. Over time they set up a complex series of rules that make it so easy for the gang to acquire new toys that are created by the poor kids with the assistance of kids from the upper-middle and middle classes. Blinded by this system of rules, the vast majority of poor kids simply go along with the ruse.
The first step in changing this arrangement, the poor kids, who are the majority, must see how the arrangement works to insure that they remain without any toys. Much work must be done to educate them about this system of unfair rules. Then, they must organize to take toys away from the upper classes and smash their system of rules that creates so much inequality.
This delightful allegory explains some of the painful realty of inequality. But, leaving us with "the rich are only rich if we let them be" seemed rather unsatisfactory to me. It got me thinking about how we could embellish the allegory to make it more meaningful. If we equate the enjoyment of toys with political power, we come much closer.
We should explain how this arrangement came about. Thus, we may add to the allegory that the biggest kids with the aid of other kids formed a gang. The gang formed classes: the very biggest became known as the upper class, the next biggest became known as the upper-middle class, and the bigger than average became known as the middle class. This gang led by the biggest kids beat up and threatened the disorganized smaller kids, and the gang ended up getting all of the toys. Over time they set up a complex series of rules that make it so easy for the gang to acquire new toys that are created by the poor kids with the assistance of kids from the upper-middle and middle classes. Blinded by this system of rules, the vast majority of poor kids simply go along with the ruse.
The first step in changing this arrangement, the poor kids, who are the majority, must see how the arrangement works to insure that they remain without any toys. Much work must be done to educate them about this system of unfair rules. Then, they must organize to take toys away from the upper classes and smash their system of rules that creates so much inequality.
The straight-forward climate question Josh Frydenberg will not answer
Click here to access article by David Spratt from Climate Code Red (Australia). (Edited for greater accuracy and clarity at 5:30 PM CT on 7/10/2018.
Josh Frydenberg is the Australian government's Minister for the Environment and Energy. A member of the Australian parliament, Adam Bandt, asked him five questions in relation to the threat of global warming. David Spratt is puzzled about the delay in answers to Bandt's questions.
There has been much talk in ruling class circles about imposing carbon taxes on industrial companies that emit carbon into the air, and many capitalist countries see this as a way toward a "market" or capitalist solution to global warming (see this and this). The author noticed that there was a marked delay in the minister's answers to the questions posed by Bandt, which, in turn evoked some of his own questions contained in the last paragraph.
The issue is much like the practice of slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. The leading capitalist nation, England, made the practice illegal in England in 1772 simply because the ruling class had their own labor supply to exploit as indentured servants or those that ended up in workhouses, but they would never interfere with the practice in their colonies (until 1834) where the colonial ruling classes depended largely on slave labor. Both members of England's and America's ruling classes, despite their fervent affirmations of the liberties of liberalism (the ideology of capitalism) engaged in numerous circumlocutions and hypocrisy in order to continue the practice in the colonies. (Read especially Liberalism by Domenico Losurdo for numerous, well-documented illustrations.)
Thus, the capitalist nations of the world, especially under the US Empire, will pretend to take actions against the impending climate destabilization, but will not do anything serious that might interfere with their pursuit of profits and power.
Josh Frydenberg is the Australian government's Minister for the Environment and Energy. A member of the Australian parliament, Adam Bandt, asked him five questions in relation to the threat of global warming. David Spratt is puzzled about the delay in answers to Bandt's questions.
There has been much talk in ruling class circles about imposing carbon taxes on industrial companies that emit carbon into the air, and many capitalist countries see this as a way toward a "market" or capitalist solution to global warming (see this and this). The author noticed that there was a marked delay in the minister's answers to the questions posed by Bandt, which, in turn evoked some of his own questions contained in the last paragraph.
So what's the problem? Perhaps the minister does not want say “no”, climate change is not an existential risk, because the evidence is to the contrary, and he does not want to say “yes”, because that would imply a duty of care that his government has chosen not to exercise?I will supply my own answer to Spratt's questions. The Australian minister knows that there is no solution to the impending climate crisis that capitalists will go along with. Carbon taxes interfere with profits and power.
The issue is much like the practice of slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. The leading capitalist nation, England, made the practice illegal in England in 1772 simply because the ruling class had their own labor supply to exploit as indentured servants or those that ended up in workhouses, but they would never interfere with the practice in their colonies (until 1834) where the colonial ruling classes depended largely on slave labor. Both members of England's and America's ruling classes, despite their fervent affirmations of the liberties of liberalism (the ideology of capitalism) engaged in numerous circumlocutions and hypocrisy in order to continue the practice in the colonies. (Read especially Liberalism by Domenico Losurdo for numerous, well-documented illustrations.)
Thus, the capitalist nations of the world, especially under the US Empire, will pretend to take actions against the impending climate destabilization, but will not do anything serious that might interfere with their pursuit of profits and power.
Saturday, July 7, 2018
China and the Restoration of Capitalism. The Largest Cheap Labor Factory in the World
Click here to access article by Michel Chossudovsky, editor and founder of Global Research.
As a contrary view I am offering this to left-wing readers who are attracted to the rise of China in world affairs. I would like much more documentation of his views from independent sources, but the article presents a much needed contrary view to many left-wingers in the West who view China in such glowing terms. I, myself, remain skeptical and ambivalent about the astonishing economic development of China. However, I view the rise of China and other independent nations as a positive development to counter the obsessive imperialism of the US-led Empire.
It will be most interesting to see how Trump's trade war with China unfolds. Hopefully for us ordinary people in the US, it won't be devastating for our well-being. However, if it is, it might furnish fertile soil for growing a revolution that will replace capitalism with a system that can serve and empower all of the people.
As a contrary view I am offering this to left-wing readers who are attracted to the rise of China in world affairs. I would like much more documentation of his views from independent sources, but the article presents a much needed contrary view to many left-wingers in the West who view China in such glowing terms. I, myself, remain skeptical and ambivalent about the astonishing economic development of China. However, I view the rise of China and other independent nations as a positive development to counter the obsessive imperialism of the US-led Empire.
It will be most interesting to see how Trump's trade war with China unfolds. Hopefully for us ordinary people in the US, it won't be devastating for our well-being. However, if it is, it might furnish fertile soil for growing a revolution that will replace capitalism with a system that can serve and empower all of the people.
The Parallel Universe of BBC Panorama
Click here to access article by Kit from Off Guardian.
This website is devoted to exposing the Guardian's website and their print reports as engaging in fake news and views . I suspect that the website was started by people who witnessed around 2012 the steady decline of the paper into pure propaganda serving the imperialist policies of the Empire much like what we have in the USA. The Guardian was formerly recognized as providing reasonably independent news and criticism of the British government's policies. Then something happened. Likely agents of the ruling classes of the Empire infiltrated, threatened, and co-opted some of the editorial staff who hadn't already left in disgust.
The same goes for all mainstream media like the BBC. Here in this piece the author targets a particular program carried on BBC television.
This website is devoted to exposing the Guardian's website and their print reports as engaging in fake news and views . I suspect that the website was started by people who witnessed around 2012 the steady decline of the paper into pure propaganda serving the imperialist policies of the Empire much like what we have in the USA. The Guardian was formerly recognized as providing reasonably independent news and criticism of the British government's policies. Then something happened. Likely agents of the ruling classes of the Empire infiltrated, threatened, and co-opted some of the editorial staff who hadn't already left in disgust.
The same goes for all mainstream media like the BBC. Here in this piece the author targets a particular program carried on BBC television.
The BBC flag-ship documentary series “Panorama” has long been a stalwart of state-funded television propaganda. They can always be relied upon to tell us what we’re supposed to think. In August 2013, on the very day of the Commons vote on military intervention in Syria, BBC News at 10 aired some dishonest footage from “Panorama: Saving Syria’s Children”. The full docoumentary, a shambolic piece fiction designed to outrage the public into supporting war, was aired just a month later.
Friday, July 6, 2018
Trump fires opening shot in trade war against China
Click here to access article by Nick Beams from World Socialist Web Site.
This Australian socialist not only announces the launch of the US trade war against China, but explains some of the major economic impacts this will have on Western companies doing business with China, and in China. Where this war will end is generating much controversy worldwide. I guess we should be grateful that it is an economic war and not a nuclear war. However, there will likely be serious adverse consequences for ordinary people throughout the globe. Could this be a last desperate act to maintain the US Empire's hegemony over the rest of the world? Stay tuned and informed by using independent honest and reliable sources.
This Australian socialist not only announces the launch of the US trade war against China, but explains some of the major economic impacts this will have on Western companies doing business with China, and in China. Where this war will end is generating much controversy worldwide. I guess we should be grateful that it is an economic war and not a nuclear war. However, there will likely be serious adverse consequences for ordinary people throughout the globe. Could this be a last desperate act to maintain the US Empire's hegemony over the rest of the world? Stay tuned and informed by using independent honest and reliable sources.
The Trump administration has gone ahead with its threat to impose tariffs on China under section 301 of the 1974 US Trade Act, imposing levies on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods from midnight, with a further $16 billion to be targeted in the near future.
The action is the first shot in a direct trade war against China, with President Donald Trump telling reporters yesterday that more is to come.
Pointing to the inevitability of escalation, Robert Holleyman, former deputy US trade representative in the Obama administration, said: “Once these tariffs start going into effect, it’s pretty clear the conflict is real. If we don’t find an exit ramp, this will accelerate like a snowball going down a hill.”
Thursday, July 5, 2018
Recommended articles for Thursday, 7/5/2018
- Facebook Algorithm Flags The Declaration Of Independence As “Hate Speech” by Mac Slavo from LewRockwell.com. (Thanks to a tip from an activist.)
- NED Pursues Regime Change by Playing the Long Game by Edward Hunt from Lobe Lob.
The open talk of U.S. meddling in other countries around the world was so commonplace that the U.S. mass media spent no time covering the hearing, even though the speakers did encounter some pushback. Not all members of Congress are on board with the programs.
The "open talk of US meddling in other countries" and the fact that it is absent in corporate media is not because it is so commonplace. It is because media corporations are controlled by the same ruling class as are government agencies. They simply don't want the public to know about the "democracy promotion" activities of their NGOs. They have never publicized such activities.
- Ten years after the Wall Street crash, record stock buybacks and mergers by Gabriel Black from World Socialist Web Site.
The only comment I have to make is that this phenomenon of increasing concentration of ownership/wealth/power is inevitable for those who are ruled by a capitalist system. Thus, this is the story of not only the past 10 years, but it is the story of capitalism. And, the end result is always fascism.
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
World Bank solution for lack of jobs: Cut worker protections
Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder.
Dolack takes apart a recent report issued by the Empire's World Bank to indicate what the report really means.
Dolack takes apart a recent report issued by the Empire's World Bank to indicate what the report really means.
Here’s a key passage in the report: “Rapid changes to the nature of work put a premium on flexibility for firms to adjust their workforce, but also for those workers who benefit from more dynamic labor markets.”And later he writes:
Dynamic for who? What we have here are code words meaning make it easier to fire people.
... there are no thoughts on how new jobs might be created when capitalists are in a frenzy of eliminating jobs to maintain their profit rates and survive relentless market competition. More schooling, which is what “investing early in human capital” amounts to, is fine by capitalists, as long as they don’t have to bear any of the costs. It’s up to students to take on more debt to create this new “human capital.”
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
How the Iran sanctions drama intersects with OPEC-plus
Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times.
This Brazilian independent journalist digs up much material on the oil wars that powerful and oil-rich nations are presently engaged in. It looks complicated, but more oil is required to power mostly privately owned enterprises. Escobar comments:
This Brazilian independent journalist digs up much material on the oil wars that powerful and oil-rich nations are presently engaged in. It looks complicated, but more oil is required to power mostly privately owned enterprises. Escobar comments:
Shaded by all these dramatic eruptions, we find some startling data. Iran – and Russia – may sit on an astonishing $45 trillion worth in oil and gas reserves. US fracking is largely a myth. Saudi Arabia may have at best 20 years of oil supply left. It’s all about energy – all the time.And reaches this sad conclusion:
The OPEC-plus-Iran puzzle is far from solved. Only one thing is certain; the future spells out brutal, covert resource wars.
Secret U.S. Wars Endanger Africa
Click here to access article by Bernhard from his blog Moon of Alabama.
Unfortunately, there are few independent reporters who can enlighten us as to what the US Empire is really doing Africa. This German blogger and super-sleuth digs up much material about the US's mysterious actions in Africa. As elsewhere in world, these operations are mostly secret; and if reported on, are loaded with self-serving propaganda issued by the Empire's ruling class that wants to secure from Africa all the riches they have.
Unfortunately, there are few independent reporters who can enlighten us as to what the US Empire is really doing Africa. This German blogger and super-sleuth digs up much material about the US's mysterious actions in Africa. As elsewhere in world, these operations are mostly secret; and if reported on, are loaded with self-serving propaganda issued by the Empire's ruling class that wants to secure from Africa all the riches they have.
As Trump ‘Goes Nuclear’ Against Iran and China, What’s Next?
Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from Strategic Culture Foundation. (Updated commentary at 4:46 PM CT. I added commentary to clarify my position as to "what's next?".)
Today we see Russia and China, who champion a multi-polar world, as new challengers to the dominance of the US Empire that has used all of these methods on behalf of their self-serving capitalist classes in their mad attempt to control the entire world. Crooke is an expert at parsing the relationships of these most powerful nations of the world. In this article he prepares his readers to expect very little at the upcoming talks between Presidents Trump and Putin that are scheduled to meet on 16 July, in Helsinki.
Some questions remain. If after Russia, China, and the proponents of the multi-polar world succeed in thwarting the ambitions of the US Empire, what then? Will they allow an empowered and enlightened people to emerge and take control of their own societies, or will they, too, promote new ruling classes to emerge and repeat the raging class wars of the last 10,000 years? And, if it's not too late, can they prevent the threat of devastating climate destabilization and save humans?
... multipolarity stands in direct opposition to western universalism, and to ‘end of history’. It is not anti-western per se, but it is directly opposed to the western utopian projects that have attempted to slice all that is human down to a ‘single size fits all’, model society. The Russian Eurasian notion is of different cultures, autonomous, and sovereign, that precisely denies universality and hegemony, in principle.The only problem with this perspective is that it is very naive. Ever since humans settled down in agriculture communities, every society has been wracked with ruling classes whose origins were established by violence using a variety of methods ranging from outright physical (including the threat of) violence to very indirect methods of imposing oppressive conditions upon the subjugated such as economic sanctions, psychological manipulation, control of information, etc.
Today we see Russia and China, who champion a multi-polar world, as new challengers to the dominance of the US Empire that has used all of these methods on behalf of their self-serving capitalist classes in their mad attempt to control the entire world. Crooke is an expert at parsing the relationships of these most powerful nations of the world. In this article he prepares his readers to expect very little at the upcoming talks between Presidents Trump and Putin that are scheduled to meet on 16 July, in Helsinki.
Some questions remain. If after Russia, China, and the proponents of the multi-polar world succeed in thwarting the ambitions of the US Empire, what then? Will they allow an empowered and enlightened people to emerge and take control of their own societies, or will they, too, promote new ruling classes to emerge and repeat the raging class wars of the last 10,000 years? And, if it's not too late, can they prevent the threat of devastating climate destabilization and save humans?
Saturday, June 30, 2018
How the SCOTUS “Muslim Ban Ruling” Gives the President a Blank Check to Detain American Citizens
Click here to access article by Whitney Webb from Mint Press News.
However, this tendency is an inevitable result of a system that gives overwhelming power to one tiny self-serving, segment of society. It is a symptom which indicates that this ruling class, the capitalist class, is in the final stages of its existence. The only problem is that this class is locked and loaded with nuclear weapons; and if this does not worry you, then you need to be reminded of their ongoing attacks on our planet's habitat which supports human life.
Mint Press speaks with legal expert and law professor Ryan Alford, who warns that hidden within the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Trump administration’s “Muslim travel ban” is a massive power giveaway to the executive branch that allows any president to order the mass detention of American citizens without worrying about a challenge from the courts.This interview with Ryan Alford provides many illustrations of the theatrical nature of "the rule of law" that is so often touted by the capitalist ruling class in the USA. I am not referring merely to the robed costumes that the judges wear, that the justices are always seated in an elevated position above everybody else in the official proceedings, etc. The entire legal structure that the ruling class has constructed is of a theatrical nature in that the rulings are carefully scripted by appointees of the ruling class to protect and promote their class interests of profit and power. The fact that often these rulings are promoting an authoritarian, fascist-like government is carefully hidden behind legal jargon which uses such open-ended notions as "national security" to cover for racist and authoritarian directives of the executive branch that steadily weaken the legal protections for ordinary Americans supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution.
However, this tendency is an inevitable result of a system that gives overwhelming power to one tiny self-serving, segment of society. It is a symptom which indicates that this ruling class, the capitalist class, is in the final stages of its existence. The only problem is that this class is locked and loaded with nuclear weapons; and if this does not worry you, then you need to be reminded of their ongoing attacks on our planet's habitat which supports human life.
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Recommended articles for Thursday, June 28, 2018
- Neocolonialism and the “Migrant Crisis” by Manlio Dinucci from Global Research (based in Canada).
From the United States to Europe, the “migrant crisis” is causing bitter interior and international controversy about the policies which need to be adopted concerning the migrant flow. However, these movements are being represented by a cliché which is the opposite of reality – that of the “rich countries” obliged to suffer the growing migratory pressure of the “poor countries”. This misrepresentation hides its basic cause – the world economic system [capitalism] which enables a restricted minority to accumulate wealth at the expense of the growing majority, by impoverishing them and thus provoking forced emigration. [my insertion]
- The Rapid Postwar Increase of America’s Nuclear Arsenal by Shane Quinn from Global Research.
- Turkey’s European dream may be over, is the Sultan ready for Eurasia? by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times.
Erdogan has lost his parliamentary majority and must now establish a coalition with the far-right Nationalist Action Party; given the latter is anti-Western, the road ahead points in only one direction: Eurasian integration.
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
How Long Can The Federal Reserve Stave Off the Inevitable?
Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from his blog. (Edited for greater clarity at 6:48 AM CT on 6/28/2018.)
Roberts, like so many unrepentant capitalists, insists that regulated capitalism can work, but, as he often argues, the fight must be against unregulated capitalism which has been infected and corrupted by, neoliberalism, the new form of capitalism of the 21st century. According to Roberts and others, the new version of capitalism has replaced the good old-fashioned nationalist, regulated capitalism which he presided over in his career.
I wish he could tell that to all the workers throughout the 20th century of "regulated" capitalism (regulated by and for capitalists) like the workers that Upton Sinclair described in his books like The Jungle, The Brass Check, and King Coal (1917) or the workers that John Steinbeck wrote about in the 1930s such as Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, East of Eden, etc. No, Roberts must be referring to the immediate post WWII years when American corporations shared more of the loot with their workers because American industries were unscathed by the war and were able, with the backing of a powerful military, to thoroughly dominate the post WWII scene. Funny how things turned out.
However, he does have a good understanding, although rather superficial, as to what happened to his very weak "regulated" capitalism. It's just that his recollection of regulated capitalism is largely a myth. The capitalist system has always been used by a self-serving capitalist class at the expense and suffering of workers. Its just that over the succeeding decades the system inevitably, via the concentration of wealth and power, morphed into a monster that threatens not only the well-being of the overwhelming majority of workers but our planet's habitat that supports human life as well.
Roberts, like so many unrepentant capitalists, insists that regulated capitalism can work, but, as he often argues, the fight must be against unregulated capitalism which has been infected and corrupted by, neoliberalism, the new form of capitalism of the 21st century. According to Roberts and others, the new version of capitalism has replaced the good old-fashioned nationalist, regulated capitalism which he presided over in his career.
I wish he could tell that to all the workers throughout the 20th century of "regulated" capitalism (regulated by and for capitalists) like the workers that Upton Sinclair described in his books like The Jungle, The Brass Check, and King Coal (1917) or the workers that John Steinbeck wrote about in the 1930s such as Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, East of Eden, etc. No, Roberts must be referring to the immediate post WWII years when American corporations shared more of the loot with their workers because American industries were unscathed by the war and were able, with the backing of a powerful military, to thoroughly dominate the post WWII scene. Funny how things turned out.
However, he does have a good understanding, although rather superficial, as to what happened to his very weak "regulated" capitalism. It's just that his recollection of regulated capitalism is largely a myth. The capitalist system has always been used by a self-serving capitalist class at the expense and suffering of workers. Its just that over the succeeding decades the system inevitably, via the concentration of wealth and power, morphed into a monster that threatens not only the well-being of the overwhelming majority of workers but our planet's habitat that supports human life as well.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
American Totalitarianism and the Culture of Fake News
Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation.
This independent Irish observer offers an insightful commentary on the results of a recent Pew research report that, according to Reuters, indicated "Only a quarter of U.S. adults in a recent survey could fully identify factual statements - as opposed to opinion - in news stories ...."
But, in spite of such reports, there is hope that eventually Americans will see through the self-serving lies and propaganda that is daily spewed through all the institutions controlled by the ruling capitalist class as illustated in this report.
This independent Irish observer offers an insightful commentary on the results of a recent Pew research report that, according to Reuters, indicated "Only a quarter of U.S. adults in a recent survey could fully identify factual statements - as opposed to opinion - in news stories ...."
This culture of systematic brainwashing – in a much-vaunted democracy by a self-declared free, independent news media – is undoubtedly a factor in why American citizens seem to have such a hard time telling facts from fiction. The fake news phenomenon in the US is neither new nor unexpected. It’s a corollary of the way the population has for decades been degraded to a status of controlled subjects. This has long been the objective of US elite propagandists like Edward Bernays who in the 1920s strove to “control the habits and thoughts of the populace”.As an illustration of this type of brainwashing, see this video regarding the control of information by key officials and agents regarding the assassination of John Kennedy.
But, in spite of such reports, there is hope that eventually Americans will see through the self-serving lies and propaganda that is daily spewed through all the institutions controlled by the ruling capitalist class as illustated in this report.
A Tale of Two Nuclear Deals: The China and Iran Factors Behind the Singapore Summit [part 2]
Click here to access article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from Strategic Culture Foundation.
This independent Canadian journalist makes some very astute comments on the recent negotiations between North Korea and the Trump administration with his sharp observations regarding various members of the US administration, his comments about Libya's attempted negotiations, other relatively unknown facts, and Chinese and North Korean perspectives.
The only criticism I have is the posting of this article. It should read "part 2" in the headline. By this omission and the citing of "Part 1" in the introduction, one could be easily misled that this article was Part 1. I didn't post Part 1 when it previously appeared because it reported on the history of what led up to the recent negotiations which I felt my learned readers and others already knew.
This independent Canadian journalist makes some very astute comments on the recent negotiations between North Korea and the Trump administration with his sharp observations regarding various members of the US administration, his comments about Libya's attempted negotiations, other relatively unknown facts, and Chinese and North Korean perspectives.
The only criticism I have is the posting of this article. It should read "part 2" in the headline. By this omission and the citing of "Part 1" in the introduction, one could be easily misled that this article was Part 1. I didn't post Part 1 when it previously appeared because it reported on the history of what led up to the recent negotiations which I felt my learned readers and others already knew.
What’s Really Behind Anti-China Protests in Vietnam?
Click here to access article by Joseph Thomas from New Eastern Outlook.
It's amusing to me that subversive Empire agents are now promoting the traditional Vietnamese concern to be independent from their powerful neighbor, whereas during the Vietnam War days, they always promoted the domino theory to justify in the brainwashed minds of most Americans the US military intervention in Vietnam, that the latter was only a neutral "block" that the Chinese wanted in order to construct their "evil" communist empire.
It's amusing to me that subversive Empire agents are now promoting the traditional Vietnamese concern to be independent from their powerful neighbor, whereas during the Vietnam War days, they always promoted the domino theory to justify in the brainwashed minds of most Americans the US military intervention in Vietnam, that the latter was only a neutral "block" that the Chinese wanted in order to construct their "evil" communist empire.
It is clear that Vietnam’s so-called opposition is in no way “nationalist,” and merely opposes Chinese interests in Vietnam because Washington opposes them. By taking US and European funding and carrying out Western directives, they are actively undermining Vietnam’s sovereignty, not upholding it.
It is also clear why the US and European media omit mention of [the sponsorship of] opposition leaders even when covering significant events like the recent anti-China street protests. Had the truth been told to international audiences, the opposition’s hypocrisy would be exposed and their legitimacy undermined.
Slavery Past and Present
Click here to access a YouTube video showing an excerpt from a talk delivered by Prof. Richard D. Wolff who explains Marxist concepts like surplus value ("value added"), revolution, fake democracy, class
structure, strikes (as a weapon used by workers against employers) in terms that most ordinary people can understand. (This video was sent to me by an activist.)
However, the implication he leaves us with is that the establishment of worker coops, which he promotes within capitalism, is a method to change the system of capitalism into something that is egalitarian. This is utter nonsense. If this were true, the capitalist ruling class would never permit the establishment of such coops. Thus, he avoids offending the ruling class and any adverse repercussions to his teaching career by advocating something that is no threat to the system. Likewise, by permitting such talk to exist in their universities, the ruling capitalist class can still lay claim that it promotes free discussion of ideas in their educational institutions. The fact that such discussion of socialist concepts is so rare in our universities rejects this view.
This what Yugoslavia had before the US Empire destroyed the country in 1999 and restored capitalist control of that country. The working class under the anti-fascist leadership of Tito established worker coops at the end of WWII when it wasn't possible for the Western capitalist nations to stop this social experiment. The point is: that the establishment of worker coops cannot be a revolutionary method to overturn capitalism. It can only be a basis for a socialist type of society following the overthrow of capitalism.
However, the implication he leaves us with is that the establishment of worker coops, which he promotes within capitalism, is a method to change the system of capitalism into something that is egalitarian. This is utter nonsense. If this were true, the capitalist ruling class would never permit the establishment of such coops. Thus, he avoids offending the ruling class and any adverse repercussions to his teaching career by advocating something that is no threat to the system. Likewise, by permitting such talk to exist in their universities, the ruling capitalist class can still lay claim that it promotes free discussion of ideas in their educational institutions. The fact that such discussion of socialist concepts is so rare in our universities rejects this view.
This what Yugoslavia had before the US Empire destroyed the country in 1999 and restored capitalist control of that country. The working class under the anti-fascist leadership of Tito established worker coops at the end of WWII when it wasn't possible for the Western capitalist nations to stop this social experiment. The point is: that the establishment of worker coops cannot be a revolutionary method to overturn capitalism. It can only be a basis for a socialist type of society following the overthrow of capitalism.
Monday, June 25, 2018
The Beginning of the End of the Bilderberg Era
Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from Strategic Culture Foundation.
Many critical observers are jumping on the bandwagon to forecast the end of the US-led capitalist Empire. Well, the signs are everywhere that the Empire is losing its grip, but I think that many such critics have no commitment to a classless society where all the people are empowered. Could Crooke be one of these? This piece has aroused my suspicions.
Like many others who pose as a pseudo-left, Crooke wildly exaggerates James Burnham's influence, and by describing him as a former Trotskyite, smears the radical revolutionary efforts of all of Trotsky's followers. Yes, there were some ex-Trotskyites (Christopher Hitchens, David Horowitz, Irving Kristol, etc) who became influential in constructing the US Empire; but in contrast to Crooke, I see this as evidence that was well expressed in Burnham's books The Managerial Revolution and The Machiavellians: the lure of power infecting highly educated, upper-middle class sociopaths back in the 1940s. Such sociopathic socialists saw the wind shifting to the right and jumped ship from revolutionary socialist activities to those ships going in the fascist direction. They rationalized this shift by making the pretentious claim that they, because they were indispensable in running capitalist enterprises, were forming a new ruling class who were about to replace capitalists.
Could it be that Crooke, like many old-fashioned patriotic Brits, merely expresses a sour taste in his intellectual mouth because Great Britain is not so "great" anymore and has been replaced by the US Empire? I really don't know--just asking.
Many critical observers are jumping on the bandwagon to forecast the end of the US-led capitalist Empire. Well, the signs are everywhere that the Empire is losing its grip, but I think that many such critics have no commitment to a classless society where all the people are empowered. Could Crooke be one of these? This piece has aroused my suspicions.
Like many others who pose as a pseudo-left, Crooke wildly exaggerates James Burnham's influence, and by describing him as a former Trotskyite, smears the radical revolutionary efforts of all of Trotsky's followers. Yes, there were some ex-Trotskyites (Christopher Hitchens, David Horowitz, Irving Kristol, etc) who became influential in constructing the US Empire; but in contrast to Crooke, I see this as evidence that was well expressed in Burnham's books The Managerial Revolution and The Machiavellians: the lure of power infecting highly educated, upper-middle class sociopaths back in the 1940s. Such sociopathic socialists saw the wind shifting to the right and jumped ship from revolutionary socialist activities to those ships going in the fascist direction. They rationalized this shift by making the pretentious claim that they, because they were indispensable in running capitalist enterprises, were forming a new ruling class who were about to replace capitalists.
Could it be that Crooke, like many old-fashioned patriotic Brits, merely expresses a sour taste in his intellectual mouth because Great Britain is not so "great" anymore and has been replaced by the US Empire? I really don't know--just asking.
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Is Gene Editing the New Name for Eugenics?
Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook.
Influential people such as Bill Gates and government departments such as the Pentagon are pushing gene editing as the new frontier of biotechnology. The fact that this poses profitable opportunities for biotech corporations is very likely the motivation behind these risky efforts.
Influential people such as Bill Gates and government departments such as the Pentagon are pushing gene editing as the new frontier of biotechnology. The fact that this poses profitable opportunities for biotech corporations is very likely the motivation behind these risky efforts.
With the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the USDA and the Pentagon DARPA all involved energetically advancing gene editing and especially the highly-risky Gene Drive applications in species such as mosquitoes, one has to ask is gene editing becoming the new name for eugenics in light of the fact that GMO technologies have been so vigorously opposed by citizen groups around the world. Honest scientific research is of course legitimate and necessary. But unregulated experimentation with technologies that could wipe out entire species is definitely not the same as planting a variety of hybrid corn.
The US Ruined Their Countries, Now Trump Calls Them “Animals” and Sends Them Back
Click here to access article by Jon Jeter from Mint Press News. (Added sentence for clarity of views at 7 PM CT.)
Jeter concentrates mostly on the relatively recent history of US interference in Honduras to illustrate how the US ruling class promotes and secures their investments throughout Central America, but at the same time such interference also brings misery and death for ordinary people. Hence, many of them flee north.
Jeter concentrates mostly on the relatively recent history of US interference in Honduras to illustrate how the US ruling class promotes and secures their investments throughout Central America, but at the same time such interference also brings misery and death for ordinary people. Hence, many of them flee north.
It’s important to contextualize the Americas historically as a battle between the mostly European settlers who own the New World and the mostly indigenous and black workers who built it. Destabilizing Central America allows multinationals to continue to exploit labor and resources, and dates back to the CIA’s 1954 plot to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala’s Socialist President Jacobo Arbenz, whose plan to redistribute land to the country’s landless peasant farmers threatened the massive holdings of the United Fruit Company, the predecessor of Chiquita Brands. The coup eventually triggered a civil war between leftist rebels and the U.S.-backed military, led by avid anti-Communist generals.But, to blame Trump for this, as implied by the title, is ridiculous.
If the Chinese don’t believe in democracy, do they believe in meritocracy?
Click here to access article by Robin Daverman posted on The Greanville Post. (This post was originally a long answer to a deceptive question posed on Quora which was repeated in this post.)
My life experience and education, both formal and informal, has shaped my belief that all cultures are shaped by the interests of ruling classes, or at least this is true since the history of ruling classes began roughly when humans began settling in permanent communities. Because the culture in China is much older than those in the Western capitalist countries, much has been lost to explain why Chinese culture is different from the West. Perhaps this can be partially explained by China's self-imposed isolation from the West. I believe that Daverman's insights about contemporary Chinese culture are valid based on what I do know about contemporary China from reading articles and books and viewing Chinese films.
Somehow social ethics became deeply rooted in Chinese culture and present a formidable bulwark against sociopathic tendencies among their people. Hopefully, this bulwark will endure. Therefore, the question in the title of this article comes from a fake Western ideological perspective which holds that elections automatically equal democracy.
My life experience and education, both formal and informal, has shaped my belief that all cultures are shaped by the interests of ruling classes, or at least this is true since the history of ruling classes began roughly when humans began settling in permanent communities. Because the culture in China is much older than those in the Western capitalist countries, much has been lost to explain why Chinese culture is different from the West. Perhaps this can be partially explained by China's self-imposed isolation from the West. I believe that Daverman's insights about contemporary Chinese culture are valid based on what I do know about contemporary China from reading articles and books and viewing Chinese films.
Somehow social ethics became deeply rooted in Chinese culture and present a formidable bulwark against sociopathic tendencies among their people. Hopefully, this bulwark will endure. Therefore, the question in the title of this article comes from a fake Western ideological perspective which holds that elections automatically equal democracy.
War & Revolution2
The following video interview is with law professor (and columnist for left publications in Mexico) John Ackerman, and conducted by two members of the MexElects' website, an independent Mexican website which hopes to bring a left-wing perspective on the national elections scheduled for July 1st. These elections have been viewed by many progressives in both Mexico and the USA as heralding a new political direction, but many of Ackerman's comments challenge this notion.
My old ears could not decipher all of the rapidly delivered comments by Ackerman, but I learned much about Mexican politics, specifically, the details about how the ruling Mexican capitalist class manage their elections so that they never lose while pretending to be a "democracy". Such methods are familiar to politically aware observers here in the USA.
In spite of the censorship and the election rigging, it appears that ordinary Mexicans are much more informed about what occurs in their country than Americans are regarding their own country. Could this be because the management of news, information, and entertainment is much more sophisticated here in the USA?
My old ears could not decipher all of the rapidly delivered comments by Ackerman, but I learned much about Mexican politics, specifically, the details about how the ruling Mexican capitalist class manage their elections so that they never lose while pretending to be a "democracy". Such methods are familiar to politically aware observers here in the USA.
In spite of the censorship and the election rigging, it appears that ordinary Mexicans are much more informed about what occurs in their country than Americans are regarding their own country. Could this be because the management of news, information, and entertainment is much more sophisticated here in the USA?
Saturday, June 23, 2018
What Big Meat doesn’t want you to know about slaughterhouses
Click here to access article by Martha Rosenberg from Intrepid Report. (Edited for omissions and greater clarity at 10:24 AM CT.
The real issues regarding immigrant labor are always submerged by the flood of lies portraying such people as solely victims whose human rights are being threatened. Indeed, they are! But this portrayal hides the real motivation by corporations to hire the most desperate and most compliant labor force at rock bottom prices. This current coverage of illegal immigrants by corporate media is being cynically used by the Deep State to add to the criticism of, and further undermine, the Trump administration.
The corporations that are owned by the ruling capitalist class have a difficult time exploiting such a vulnerable workforce and keeping the real incentives for this practice out of the consciousness of ordinary Americans. Hence, this practice will continue and the issues of illegal immigration will always be with us as long as corporations can profit from it. Have you noticed that corporations never get prosecuted for hiring such workers?
What is also kept out of the consciousness of ordinary Americans is the widespread and often brutal interference in Central America by the US ruling class to keep those countries open to US investors looking to make easy profits. This, in turn, results in governments throughout Latin America turning against their own people with their ruling classes actively collaborating with our powerful ruling capitalist class because of the inducements of wealth and power. This article explains some of the reasons why corporations like to hire illegal immigrants, and Wayne Madsen in article entitled "Political asylee numbers will soon skyrocket" explains, as an example, how the foreign policies of our ruling masters result in the type of government in Columbia which, in turn, drives people at great risk to themselves to head to the USA.
The real issues regarding immigrant labor are always submerged by the flood of lies portraying such people as solely victims whose human rights are being threatened. Indeed, they are! But this portrayal hides the real motivation by corporations to hire the most desperate and most compliant labor force at rock bottom prices. This current coverage of illegal immigrants by corporate media is being cynically used by the Deep State to add to the criticism of, and further undermine, the Trump administration.
The corporations that are owned by the ruling capitalist class have a difficult time exploiting such a vulnerable workforce and keeping the real incentives for this practice out of the consciousness of ordinary Americans. Hence, this practice will continue and the issues of illegal immigration will always be with us as long as corporations can profit from it. Have you noticed that corporations never get prosecuted for hiring such workers?
What is also kept out of the consciousness of ordinary Americans is the widespread and often brutal interference in Central America by the US ruling class to keep those countries open to US investors looking to make easy profits. This, in turn, results in governments throughout Latin America turning against their own people with their ruling classes actively collaborating with our powerful ruling capitalist class because of the inducements of wealth and power. This article explains some of the reasons why corporations like to hire illegal immigrants, and Wayne Madsen in article entitled "Political asylee numbers will soon skyrocket" explains, as an example, how the foreign policies of our ruling masters result in the type of government in Columbia which, in turn, drives people at great risk to themselves to head to the USA.
Friday, June 22, 2018
Steve Cutts wins a Webby award for best animated video
Click here to access is award winning video created by Steve Cutts whose illustrations and cartoons I've often posted on this website. (If you have AdBlocker extension on your Firefox browser like I do, it can take as much as 40 seconds to upload. Then you will need to click on the image of his video to play it. Even if you have this extension on your computer, it's well worth the wait. You can also upload it on Cutts' website much easier and you will get the full version.)
This video illustrates and satirizes the pursuit of happiness in capitalist societies.
This video illustrates and satirizes the pursuit of happiness in capitalist societies.
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Black Agenda Report Book Forum: Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom
Click here to access an interview with Canadian Stephen Gowans conducted by Roberto Sirvent and posted on Black Agenda Report.
I regard Gowans as one of the top political intellectuals in today's world. The fact that he refers to Domenico Losurdo as a source of his influence, resulted in my ordering (from Abebooks) his latest book entitled Liberalism: A Counter-History.
I regard Gowans as one of the top political intellectuals in today's world. The fact that he refers to Domenico Losurdo as a source of his influence, resulted in my ordering (from Abebooks) his latest book entitled Liberalism: A Counter-History.
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Stephen Gowans . Gowans is an independent political analyst whose principal interest is in who influences formulation of foreign policy in the United States. His book is Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea's Struggle for Freedom.
Hong Kong’s Paradoxical “Independence” Movement
Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook. [Edited for greater clarity throughout the day.]
Using the example of Hong Kong, the author illustrates how well-funded US sponsored NGOs lure educated young people in foreign countries to join in US's subversive activities on behalf of the Empire. These young people are enticed by the many rewards that their wealthy sponsors can provide them and the promise of lucrative future careers serving the Empire. Such rewards in these sociopathic individuals often offset their moral responsibility to others in their own countries.
There will always be sociopaths among us regardless of any one society. It is the responsibility of well socialized people to see that their influence is minimal. This also means that well socialized adults must strive to provide opportunities for young people to contribute to their societies in a productive way. In addition, they must insure that values of social justice, equality, truth, beauty, forgiveness, empathy, responsibility, cooperation, courage, patience, etc (perhaps you can think of others) are inculcated as an essential part of the socialization process and thereby thoroughly reject the crass, self-serving aggressive, materialist values of the US-led Empire. Could it be that the Chinese Communist Party that controls nearly all policies in China are not sufficiently promoting this kind of socialization?
Using the example of Hong Kong, the author illustrates how well-funded US sponsored NGOs lure educated young people in foreign countries to join in US's subversive activities on behalf of the Empire. These young people are enticed by the many rewards that their wealthy sponsors can provide them and the promise of lucrative future careers serving the Empire. Such rewards in these sociopathic individuals often offset their moral responsibility to others in their own countries.
There will always be sociopaths among us regardless of any one society. It is the responsibility of well socialized people to see that their influence is minimal. This also means that well socialized adults must strive to provide opportunities for young people to contribute to their societies in a productive way. In addition, they must insure that values of social justice, equality, truth, beauty, forgiveness, empathy, responsibility, cooperation, courage, patience, etc (perhaps you can think of others) are inculcated as an essential part of the socialization process and thereby thoroughly reject the crass, self-serving aggressive, materialist values of the US-led Empire. Could it be that the Chinese Communist Party that controls nearly all policies in China are not sufficiently promoting this kind of socialization?
A Gateway for Truth
I would like to share with you an email I received from an activist in the Boston area announcing a new website where one can find the hidden-from-us, real history of the USA and other topics not covered well in conventional history books.
This One's For John
Today is the June Solstice, where the Sun, appearing to travel along the ecliptic, reaches the point where it is farthest north of the celestial equator. In the northern hemisphere days are longest and nights shortest while the opposite is happening in the southern hemisphere.
Four years ago the concept was hatched of what today begins at https://hiddenhistorycenter.org/. A compelling and provocative scaffolding is now in place through which to relay information, raise questions, and generate discussion. The driving imperative has been to craft something akin to what John Judge would have envisioned were he alive to establish a brick-and-mortar Museum of Hidden History in D.C. to serve as its complement on the internet.
Beyond 1984
The yearning has been constant over the past four years to ask John what he thought, what he wanted, what to do, to seek his advice and counsel. This internet aspect of the Hidden History Center project of the Museum of Hidden History is our endeavor to manifest what John explored and expressed throughout his days here. I want to express my gratitude and appreciation for Amie Tracey, nonpareil web wizard. This redesign/upgrade would not have been possible without her good-natured help, support, savvy, and counsel.
The framework is not yet at full power; of the intended 49 subtopics—see the linked list of 31 Second Tier Subjects in Table of Contents—19 remain to be implemented including Alternative Economic Systems, Climate Catastrophe, Drones and Targeted Assassinations, Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless Tech, Food Security, GI Resistance/Counter-Recruitment, and Nanotechnology.
Military Intelligence Dominance
On September 1st 2001, John wrote:
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said there are three pillars that hold up the current system of domestic oppression: poverty, racism and militarism. In order to have real democracy, economic justice, peace and a unified society, we have to both envision our own liberation in our time and take back our history, power and moral integrity.
The reason Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. King were both loved and hated, both followed and murdered had to do with their use of “satygraha” or truth force and “ahimsa” or nonviolent harmlessness. These powerful tools moved them outside the control game that has secured privilege for a few over millenia. These systems of privilege, which are the real, deep violence of society, cannot be challenged or defeated using their own violent methods. Nor can they be changed by substituting a new elite in the seat of power, or by reforming them.
As I see it, the crucial steps that must be taken now to stop the current trend to global corporatization, fascism and genocide/ecocide/ethnocide include the following, here in the belly of the beast....
There are many brilliant people and communities thinking about, practicing and expanding these ideas and actions that are the answer to the current global dilemma. If you are inspired, if you wish to share your vision of them, if you want to learn more, please contact us.
We Are Children Of Earth & Sky
This is an invitation to rededicate ourselves to both envision our own liberation and take back our history, power, and moral integrity. Please communicate with us, sharing your own endeavors and pursuits on behalf of the Seventh Generation yet unborn and your ideas of what to build into the Hidden History Center internet archive.
Encoded in our individual DNA is the experience of our lineage from the very beginning. Whose whole perceptional reality was what I was just saying: all things have being, we’re made up of the Earth—all my relations, pray to spirits. See, and they didn’t pray to man or human form. The closest they came to it was they prayed to spirits that were called ancestors. And because they were praying to those ancestors for help and guidance, they understood that we were borrowing today from the past and the future. We’re borrowing it from both places. So they had this understanding of reality. They knew that to keep the balance was the purpose.... The reason for being was to keep the balance.... So this was what I will call a spiritual perception of reality. Because of the spiritual perception of reality they understood that life was about responsibility. It wasn’t about the abstraction of freedom—it was about responsibility.
—John Trudell, What It Means To Be A Human Being (2001)
May we all continually awaken to and be renewed by recognition of our participation in and partaking of life at this unique time of Koyaanisqatsi.
For the Earth, the children, and all that follow us here,
I remain, sincerely yours,
Dave
Hidden History Center is a project of the Museum of Hidden History, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and presentation of little-known history. We depend on your tax-deductible contributions to continue our work.
Dave Ratcliffe
editor and publisher
rat haus reality press
Roslindale, MA 02131
https://ratical.org/rhrPress.html
Assistant Director Museum of Hidden History
https://hiddenhistorycenter.org/MoHH
Archivist, Board member Committee for Nuclear Responsibility
https://ratical.org/radiation/CNR/
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Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Clueless or Just Plain Stupid?
Click here to access article by Peter Radford from Real-World Economics Review Blog.
The title of this article refers to the relatively new chairman, Jerome Powell, of the Federal Reserve who expressed surprise at the failure for wages to rise in this period of supposedly low unemployment and corporate tax cuts. Likewise, this mystery affects a lot of Radford's friend in the economics profession.
He writes that there is no mystery. Those, in the upper-middle class, who work in high places serve their capitalist masters. To do this, they frequently encounter contradictions between capitalist theory and reality. To psychologically handle these contradictions, they must, in order to serve their masters and earn high salaries and numerous perks, engage in self-deceptions consciously or unconsciously.
The title of this article refers to the relatively new chairman, Jerome Powell, of the Federal Reserve who expressed surprise at the failure for wages to rise in this period of supposedly low unemployment and corporate tax cuts. Likewise, this mystery affects a lot of Radford's friend in the economics profession.
He writes that there is no mystery. Those, in the upper-middle class, who work in high places serve their capitalist masters. To do this, they frequently encounter contradictions between capitalist theory and reality. To psychologically handle these contradictions, they must, in order to serve their masters and earn high salaries and numerous perks, engage in self-deceptions consciously or unconsciously.
... reality has become inconvenient. It contradicts what our elite prefers to believe.
So rather than waste time tearing their hair out over Trump’s manifest ignorance and disregard for democracy, perhaps my friends all ought to be pondering their own role in transferring power to the unelected elite that is currently enriching itself and starving the masses of a prosperous and secure future.
As Social Security and Medicare Go Bankrupt, US Gives $10.5 Million a DAY to Israel
Click here to access article by Rachel Blevins from Activist Post.
The article includes other immoral and criminal spending on nefarious activities beyond support for Israel such as the never-ending wars in the Middle East. But such reckless spending at the expense of taking care of our elderly citizens omits our contribution to NATO and military support for many countries near Russia in order to intimidate the Russian government, the numerous US military bases strewn all over the world, the CIA which has a history of overthrowing governments on behalf of the Empire's corporations, the numerous "aid" programs designed to corrupt foreign governments and their officials and to support fake non-political NGOs which prepare the groundwork among foreign citizens to undermine their governments. This list doesn't include the domestic uses to surveil its citizens, subsidies and tax breaks to corporations, and on and on.
These sad facts provide proof that the Empire's trans-national capitalist class is really concerned about the precarious nature of its control over the world and not the welfare of its citizens. That is precisely why they must deceive their citizens into believing that they are concerned about humanitarian issues.
A current example of the latter is the ubiquitous coverage they give in their corporate media of the separation of children from their parents under the government's immigration policies. This is not new, but it has been increasing under the Trump administration. Meanwhile they give military support to the feudal regime in Saudi Arabia which results in the starvation of the people, especially the children, of Yemen--but you won't see this covered in corporate media.
The Deep State (the informal, behind the official scenes capitalist board of directors of the US-led Empire), which is smarting from their defeat in the last presidential election of their candidate Hillary Clinton, are using their news and information media to discredit Trump in every way they can to prepare citizens for his removal from office. The Deep State is not accustomed to losing, but in recent years they have been losing everywhere. Sooner or later the American people--not only the elderly--will suffer catastrophic consequences from these policies and their failure to overthrow this capitalist regime and establish a social system that is truly their own.
The article includes other immoral and criminal spending on nefarious activities beyond support for Israel such as the never-ending wars in the Middle East. But such reckless spending at the expense of taking care of our elderly citizens omits our contribution to NATO and military support for many countries near Russia in order to intimidate the Russian government, the numerous US military bases strewn all over the world, the CIA which has a history of overthrowing governments on behalf of the Empire's corporations, the numerous "aid" programs designed to corrupt foreign governments and their officials and to support fake non-political NGOs which prepare the groundwork among foreign citizens to undermine their governments. This list doesn't include the domestic uses to surveil its citizens, subsidies and tax breaks to corporations, and on and on.
These sad facts provide proof that the Empire's trans-national capitalist class is really concerned about the precarious nature of its control over the world and not the welfare of its citizens. That is precisely why they must deceive their citizens into believing that they are concerned about humanitarian issues.
A current example of the latter is the ubiquitous coverage they give in their corporate media of the separation of children from their parents under the government's immigration policies. This is not new, but it has been increasing under the Trump administration. Meanwhile they give military support to the feudal regime in Saudi Arabia which results in the starvation of the people, especially the children, of Yemen--but you won't see this covered in corporate media.
The Deep State (the informal, behind the official scenes capitalist board of directors of the US-led Empire), which is smarting from their defeat in the last presidential election of their candidate Hillary Clinton, are using their news and information media to discredit Trump in every way they can to prepare citizens for his removal from office. The Deep State is not accustomed to losing, but in recent years they have been losing everywhere. Sooner or later the American people--not only the elderly--will suffer catastrophic consequences from these policies and their failure to overthrow this capitalist regime and establish a social system that is truly their own.
Monday, June 18, 2018
A Call to Bring Julian Assange Home
Click here to access article by John Pilger from ConsortiumNews.
The Australian government has an obligation to free Julian Assange, John Pilger told a rally in Sydney on June 16 [their time, but our time on Sunday, the 17th], marking Assange’s six years’ confinement in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.Also, for a description of this event, read this piece from World Socialist Web Site.
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
Click here to access article by Dr. Gary G. Kohls from Global Research.
It didn't take me much time to flash on the thought that I was looking into a virtual mirror that portrayed the zeitgeist of current times, and here in the good ol' USA. The details are different, but the process of inducing compliance with evil among "educated" people is much the same. It also occurred to me that this process was being accelerated with the advanced methods of "public relations", that is, the advanced methods developed since WWII to influence people not only to consume, but to accept the overwhelming deceptions about what the ruling transnational capitalist classes under the US-led Empire (the Fourth Reich?) are doing in the world.
Here I am thinking of the ever-present means of inducing a false consciousness about world events through the various means of electronic communication: TV most of all, movies, Facebook, and other electronic means of herding the "sheeple" into thought-pens. Even the technology of 24/7 surveillance of citizens is used to measure how well their brainwashing is doing, and is used to modify and perfect their techniques. All these methods have been accelerated by the concentrated ownership of media and guidance by the CIA and other secret agencies, and now the attack on the internet and the World Wide Web which favors corporate use of this wonderful technology, a technology that was originally designed to be used democratically.
Added to this array of technological advancements is the mountain of debts that our ruling masters have induced most of us to take on amidst a developing reality of precarity. Debts act as an inhibiting influence over any resistance to the general brainwashing process described above.
Journalist Milton Mayer traveled to Germany in the wake of World War II to find out how ordinary, normally decent, educated German people got caught up, co-opted or neutralized in the horrible devolution of the country that ended in the atrocities with which we are all so familiar — and a World War that cost countless lives.The retired physician from northern Minnesota provides potentially insightful excerpts from a book about "educated" Germans shortly after WWII in an attempt to explain how they followed Hitler and the fascists into compliance with their horrendous actions. However, he doesn't provide the insight. I think he leaves that for each of us to experience. I lived through WWII, and like many others, I wondered how "educated" and decent people could follow their leaders into such a miasma of evil. Let me tell you about my experience while reading the article.
The book he wrote should be better known: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 was published in 1955 by the University of Chicago Press.
It didn't take me much time to flash on the thought that I was looking into a virtual mirror that portrayed the zeitgeist of current times, and here in the good ol' USA. The details are different, but the process of inducing compliance with evil among "educated" people is much the same. It also occurred to me that this process was being accelerated with the advanced methods of "public relations", that is, the advanced methods developed since WWII to influence people not only to consume, but to accept the overwhelming deceptions about what the ruling transnational capitalist classes under the US-led Empire (the Fourth Reich?) are doing in the world.
Here I am thinking of the ever-present means of inducing a false consciousness about world events through the various means of electronic communication: TV most of all, movies, Facebook, and other electronic means of herding the "sheeple" into thought-pens. Even the technology of 24/7 surveillance of citizens is used to measure how well their brainwashing is doing, and is used to modify and perfect their techniques. All these methods have been accelerated by the concentrated ownership of media and guidance by the CIA and other secret agencies, and now the attack on the internet and the World Wide Web which favors corporate use of this wonderful technology, a technology that was originally designed to be used democratically.
Added to this array of technological advancements is the mountain of debts that our ruling masters have induced most of us to take on amidst a developing reality of precarity. Debts act as an inhibiting influence over any resistance to the general brainwashing process described above.
Sunday, June 17, 2018
The corporate media’s world of illusions
Click here to access article by Jonathan Cook of Nazareth from is blog.
Cook uses the metaphor that was so well illustrated in the film Matrix to explain why we in the West are so brainwashed about the issues between Israelis and Palestinians.
Cook uses the metaphor that was so well illustrated in the film Matrix to explain why we in the West are so brainwashed about the issues between Israelis and Palestinians.
The conclusion from this is that the way to change our societies fundamentally for the better depends on a change in our consciousness, on liberating ourselves from false perspective, on stepping through the door.Of course, the "Great Western Narrative" applies to not only the issues in occupied Palestine, but to a number of other issues that the Empire's ruling capitalist class are so concerned with. Having walked through the door of the illusions created by the Great Western Narrative, Cook knows so well what is really happening in this corner of the world.
If we remain in a world of illusions, of false hierarchies of virtue, oblivious to the role of power, we will continue to be Neo living in his dream world.
Saturday, June 16, 2018
State of the Climate – It’s Alarming!
Click here to access article by Robert Hunziker from CounterPunch. (This post is another activist contribution.)
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (“NOAA”) concern about CO2 is decisive: “Today’s rate of increase is more than 100 times faster than the increase that occurred when the last ice age ended.” One hundred times anything is big.
That is an unprecedented rate of growth with profound and nasty negative consequences for temperature, climate, ecosystems, and species on land and in the oceans, nothing good.
Friday, June 15, 2018
Utopia and technology
Click here to access article by economist David Ruccio from his Occasional Links & Commentary website.
I've recently experienced the new digital technology while re-settling in another area of the country, and had considerable difficulties with it. Although it offers conveniences, I think that American companies are overdoing its introduction in an effort to reduce payroll expenses and to enhance profits. Digital technology is used by owners to reduce the normal complex interactions between their workers and customers into very narrow digital categories without workers. This is another illustration of how benefits from advances made in any field in a capitalist society always go to the rich ruling class and often at the detriment to workers and the general public.
Anyway, in an effort to keep up with latest technological developments, I thought this explanation about blockchains might clarify the subject for you and me.
I've recently experienced the new digital technology while re-settling in another area of the country, and had considerable difficulties with it. Although it offers conveniences, I think that American companies are overdoing its introduction in an effort to reduce payroll expenses and to enhance profits. Digital technology is used by owners to reduce the normal complex interactions between their workers and customers into very narrow digital categories without workers. This is another illustration of how benefits from advances made in any field in a capitalist society always go to the rich ruling class and often at the detriment to workers and the general public.
Anyway, in an effort to keep up with latest technological developments, I thought this explanation about blockchains might clarify the subject for you and me.
Recommended articles for Friday, 6/15/2018
- Europe Faces Crossroads as Atlantic System Crumbles by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook.
The world events of the past days are significant far beyond the apparent divide within the G7 industrial nations. If we imagine the planet as a giant electric force field, the lines of flux are in dramatic reordering as the post-1945 global dollar-based system comes to its disordered end phase. Europe’s political elites are currently split between rationality and irrationality. The developments to the East however are drawing more and more force and we are seeing the early phases of what might be called a geopolitical polarity reversal within the EU from West to East. The latest developments across Eurasia including the Middle East, Iran and above all between Russia and China are gaining in importance as Washington offers only war, whether trade war, sanctions war, terror war or kinetic war.
- The Real Results Of The Trump-Kim Summit - Freeze For Freeze (And Some Amusement) by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama.
- Antarctic melt holds coastal cities hostage. Here’s the way out. by Eric Holthaus from Grist.
Antarctica’s glaciers are massive enough to flood every coastal city on Earth. So it’s no exaggeration to say that what happens in Antarctica over the next few decades will determine the fate of not just Miami and Mumbai, but also the course of human history. If we’re lucky and quickly start cutting emissions, Antarctica’s glaciers might mostly remain in place. The alternative is unthinkable.
There’s still so much we don’t know about Antarctica. But a series of major breakthroughs in recent years have raised the urgency and scale of scientists’ efforts. This week’s papers put that information into context. The clear takeaway: There is no sign of a slowdown in Antarctica’s melt rate.
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Brzezinski's Ghost: The Geopolitics of the Trump Administration
Click here to listen to a one hour interview with geopolitical analyst F. William Engdahl conducted by Bonnie Faulkner on her radio show called "Guns and Butter" carried on many listener sponsored stations on the Pacifica Network.
Engdahl elaborates on many subjects the late Zbigniew Brzezinski who had so much influence over anti-Russian policies and strategies because of his almost obsessive hatred of all things Russia. Brzezinski, whose family had a history in the Polish aristocracy, was brought into prominent political influence by the Rockefeller clan who were, and probably still are, key members of the Deep State. These policies, which Engdahl reviews, have continued under theneocons ziocons like Wolfowitz, the Bush clan, Rumsfeld, and in recent years, Victoria Nuland. Brzezinski's influence is seen by Engdahl to be continuing in the Trump administration.
Engdahl elaborates on many subjects the late Zbigniew Brzezinski who had so much influence over anti-Russian policies and strategies because of his almost obsessive hatred of all things Russia. Brzezinski, whose family had a history in the Polish aristocracy, was brought into prominent political influence by the Rockefeller clan who were, and probably still are, key members of the Deep State. These policies, which Engdahl reviews, have continued under the
America’s Public Are Foie-Gras Ducks
Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from Strategic Culture Foundation.
Zuesse uses a brilliant analogy to illuminate the insight that the American public is "fattened" on lies and various other deceptions in order for the ruling class (he erroneously refers to them by using a feudal term "aristocracy" instead of ruling capitalist class) to harvest and consume them at various times. He, step by political step in the election process, refers to the reality analogs that mirrors the fattening of geese to suit the interests of the rich and powerful in order to reveal the obscene nature of American "democracy". Of course, his use of the analogy is much too narrow because one can apply this analogy to the entire ideological spectrum that includes all institutions: media, education, entertainment, etc.--but I refuse to criticize him for that.
Zuesse uses a brilliant analogy to illuminate the insight that the American public is "fattened" on lies and various other deceptions in order for the ruling class (he erroneously refers to them by using a feudal term "aristocracy" instead of ruling capitalist class) to harvest and consume them at various times. He, step by political step in the election process, refers to the reality analogs that mirrors the fattening of geese to suit the interests of the rich and powerful in order to reveal the obscene nature of American "democracy". Of course, his use of the analogy is much too narrow because one can apply this analogy to the entire ideological spectrum that includes all institutions: media, education, entertainment, etc.--but I refuse to criticize him for that.
America’s voters are foie gras birds, but some of these birds (the Republicans and especially independents) are more resisting than some others (Democrats) are.
The way that America’s billionaires farm this public is by feeding to the voters the politicians, without even considering the needs — much less the wants — of that public.
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Empire Files: Peter Joseph & Abby Martin on Abolishing Capitalism [updated with corrected links]
Click here to access access a 45 minute interview with Peter Joseph that is conducted by Abby Martin.
I initially accessed a re-posted excerpt of the interview with Joseph today, but then I discovered that the entire interview was posted in August of last year that was originally posted on TeleSur.
Martin introduces Joseph by citing his earlier career in advertising and equity trading, but doesn't mention anything about his subsequent founding of the Zeitgeist movement. (I hadn't yet read the introduction posted on YouTube.) I began to think that she was interviewing someone totally different, but after some research I concluded that the two different persona were one and the same.
In this extended interview you will learn many things about how capitalism functions such as Wall Street gimmicks to cheat ordinary investors, creating demand for products through advertising, how debt is used by our masters in the capitalist ruling class to further enrich themselves at our expense, how the system is wrecking our habitat and threatening our demise, among other topics. When he gets to his vision for change in the latter part of the interview, he becomes more abstract and moralistic.
Joseph is another perfect illustration of how a well-trained and skilled person was hired by corporations to serve in critical functions that make capitalism work. However, Joseph, unlike many others, apparently did not succumb to his conditioning in sociopathy through the inducements he received from high salaries and perks that corporations give to such talented people. In time he began to learn about the disastrous effects that the system of capitalism created for the overwhelming majority of people and our habitat on planet Earth. He apparently took his insights, dropped out of the corporate rat-race, and founded a movement to attack the capitalist system.
In a more recent interview he appeared on the Jimmy Dore Show to explain some of his views that he wrote in his book entitled The New Human Rights Movement. In this interview he focuses on the structure of capitalism that has many secondary consequences that adversely impact the lives of ordinary people.
I initially accessed a re-posted excerpt of the interview with Joseph today, but then I discovered that the entire interview was posted in August of last year that was originally posted on TeleSur.
Martin introduces Joseph by citing his earlier career in advertising and equity trading, but doesn't mention anything about his subsequent founding of the Zeitgeist movement. (I hadn't yet read the introduction posted on YouTube.) I began to think that she was interviewing someone totally different, but after some research I concluded that the two different persona were one and the same.
In this extended interview you will learn many things about how capitalism functions such as Wall Street gimmicks to cheat ordinary investors, creating demand for products through advertising, how debt is used by our masters in the capitalist ruling class to further enrich themselves at our expense, how the system is wrecking our habitat and threatening our demise, among other topics. When he gets to his vision for change in the latter part of the interview, he becomes more abstract and moralistic.
Joseph is another perfect illustration of how a well-trained and skilled person was hired by corporations to serve in critical functions that make capitalism work. However, Joseph, unlike many others, apparently did not succumb to his conditioning in sociopathy through the inducements he received from high salaries and perks that corporations give to such talented people. In time he began to learn about the disastrous effects that the system of capitalism created for the overwhelming majority of people and our habitat on planet Earth. He apparently took his insights, dropped out of the corporate rat-race, and founded a movement to attack the capitalist system.
In a more recent interview he appeared on the Jimmy Dore Show to explain some of his views that he wrote in his book entitled The New Human Rights Movement. In this interview he focuses on the structure of capitalism that has many secondary consequences that adversely impact the lives of ordinary people.
Court sanction of AT&T-Time Warner merger strengthens corporate grip on news and entertainment
Click here to access article by Barry Grey from World Socialist Web Site.
Read this article to learn about the increasing tendency of capitalists to concentrate ownership in ever fewer hands, a tendency that affects every profit-making enterprise. However, the effects of this merger will further undermine, along with the termination of internet neutrality, any efforts by independent journalists to bring accurate information to ordinary people. Instead, the merger will result in more propaganda that justifies ruling class policies that create precarity among ordinary people at home and never-ending wars abroad.
Read this article to learn about the increasing tendency of capitalists to concentrate ownership in ever fewer hands, a tendency that affects every profit-making enterprise. However, the effects of this merger will further undermine, along with the termination of internet neutrality, any efforts by independent journalists to bring accurate information to ordinary people. Instead, the merger will result in more propaganda that justifies ruling class policies that create precarity among ordinary people at home and never-ending wars abroad.
Coming just one day after the termination of net neutrality, the legal requirement that Internet service providers treat all communications as equal and not discriminate against websites, the federal court ruling sets the stage for the further consolidation of monopoly control over the Internet, social media, television, films and news outlets, and the suppression of oppositional points of view.
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Recommended articles for Tuesday, June 12, 2018
- As Net Neutrality Officially Ends, Internet Defenders Gear up for a Fight by Jessica Corbett from Mint Press News.
Now that the repeal is in effect, ISPs “have the green light to begin degrading our access to the internet,” said former FCC commissioner and Common Cause special adviser Michael Copps. “Monopoly phone and cable companies will undoubtedly seek to maximize profits by favoring their own content over their competitors and creating fast lanes and slow lanes ultimately at the expense of consumers.”
And later in the article:
... it has sparked an unprecedented backlash from across the political spectrum, and internet users are coming out of the woodwork to fight tooth and nail in Congress, in the courts, and at the local and state level,” she continued. “This summer we’ll channel our anger productively and harness the power of the internet to mount an unprecedented district-by-district campaign to get Congress to do their job.”
- The end of net neutrality: The US ruling elite escalates campaign of internet censorship by Andre Damon from World Socialist Web Site.
The control over the internet by a handful of social media monopolies and internet service providers, which conspire against the democratic rights of the population, makes clear that the defense of democratic rights is inseparable from the ending of private ownership of the internet infrastructure. Internet access is a basic social right, which must be freely available to all without the interference of corporations or the state.
I'm sure the author would agree that private ownership over any significant segment of our capitalist economy results in private interests taking both wealth and power away from the people.
- Twelve Tips For Making Sense Of The World by Caitlin Johnstone from her blog.
- There Are No War Heroes. There Are Only War Victims by Caitlin Johnstone from her blog. I especially liked the title. She attacked another lie that our official leaders always say at gatherings related to veterans: our hero-soldiers died serving their country, the USA.
- What Sy Hersh Knows by Christian Lorentzen from Vulture (a website produced by the New York Magazine). Lorentzen interviews one of America's top independent journalists, Seymour Hersh, about his latest book entitled Reporter: A Memoir.
Monday, June 11, 2018
Churchill and WW Two: The Man and the Myth
Click here to access article by British historian Mike Faulkner posted on The Greanville Post. (Some editing was done as late as 6/14/2018 to strengthen my views.)
Faulkner knows history very well, but it is sad that his writings will be read by a small fraction of the people in the West. They will get their understanding of history from movies like this current one, Darkest Hour, and all the other "historical" films that capitalist movie studios produce.
Some topics that Faulkner didn't emphasize enough was the split in the ruling classes of the Western capitalist nations between support or opposition to the fascists. Mostly these ruling classes supported the fascists. This was only a little more than a decade after Russian revolutionaries established the Soviet Union. When fascist powers reared their ugly head in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, the other capitalist (pre-fascist) nations stayed "neutral" in contrast to the fascist nations of Germany and Italy which provided massive military support for the reactionary Spanish conservatives against the elected government of Spain.
I have read widely sources that described what went on in the 1930s and I am convinced (see this and this) that there was a conspiracy by capitalist ruling class to promote and prepare Hitler and the Nazis to move to the east to attack and destroy their arch nemesis, the Soviet Union. This was during a time when Western capitalist nations were plagued by an economic collapse and when Western workers increasingly were aware that there was full employment in the Soviet Union which was industrializing at a rapid pace.
My doubts about the standard history I received in US schools occurred when I learned that suddenly in 1929 Hitler turned against his Brown Shirts (SA) and supported the SS who wore black uniforms. I couldn't understand why he would turn against his own supporters. But I now think that ruling capitalist classes of the other countries began to see that the Nazis could be used to attack and destroy the Soviet Union. The SA consisted largely of working class people; so the capitalist agents bargained with Hitler, promised abundant financial backing by major industrialists like Fritz Thyssen, and created the SS which consisted of more upper class Nazis.
(Incidentally, I think the Nazi's and others hatred for Jews stemmed from the fact that the leaders of Bolshevik revolution in Russia were mostly Jewish.)
Hitler's megalomania can be explained by the fact that he was conscious of his powerful backing, and only became a threat to the Western capitalist countries when he attacked Britain. Britain and the other capitalist allies were forced into collaboration with their arch enemy, the Soviet Union, to prevent Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers from taking over the domination of the world from the British Empire and its capitalist allies. That is when arch-imperialist, racist Churchill re-entered the stage of history and became the hero of capitalist history. (Earlier he backed aggressively the efforts of the British to crush the Soviets immediately after their revolution, but failed because Britain's armed forces were too exhausted to do so.) True to his obsessive anti-Soviet views, he always sought to delay FDR's efforts to launch a second front in continental Europe to take the pressure off the Russians (read Roosevelt and Hopkins by Robert E. Sherwood).
I recently read a book by Terry Parssinen entitled The Oster Conspiracy of 1938. Although he takes the same standard view that the Nazis were totally home grown, he was curious enough to uncover the much neglected, and in my opinion deliberately neglected, history of this first revolt against Hitler and the Nazis. The standard view holds that it was all the fault of Neville Chamberlain and his "appeasement" policies. But what he uncovers could also support the argument that the Western capitalist ruling classes refused for political reasons to support a vigorous anti-Nazi movement which consisted mostly of German generals and some diplomats in Germany. I see this as further evidence that the British capitalist ruling class and others saw the German fascists as useful for their plans to destroy the Soviet Union. I think the facts that he uncovers furnish more support for this alternative explanation than the conventional version of these historical events.
Faulkner knows history very well, but it is sad that his writings will be read by a small fraction of the people in the West. They will get their understanding of history from movies like this current one, Darkest Hour, and all the other "historical" films that capitalist movie studios produce.
Some topics that Faulkner didn't emphasize enough was the split in the ruling classes of the Western capitalist nations between support or opposition to the fascists. Mostly these ruling classes supported the fascists. This was only a little more than a decade after Russian revolutionaries established the Soviet Union. When fascist powers reared their ugly head in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, the other capitalist (pre-fascist) nations stayed "neutral" in contrast to the fascist nations of Germany and Italy which provided massive military support for the reactionary Spanish conservatives against the elected government of Spain.
I have read widely sources that described what went on in the 1930s and I am convinced (see this and this) that there was a conspiracy by capitalist ruling class to promote and prepare Hitler and the Nazis to move to the east to attack and destroy their arch nemesis, the Soviet Union. This was during a time when Western capitalist nations were plagued by an economic collapse and when Western workers increasingly were aware that there was full employment in the Soviet Union which was industrializing at a rapid pace.
My doubts about the standard history I received in US schools occurred when I learned that suddenly in 1929 Hitler turned against his Brown Shirts (SA) and supported the SS who wore black uniforms. I couldn't understand why he would turn against his own supporters. But I now think that ruling capitalist classes of the other countries began to see that the Nazis could be used to attack and destroy the Soviet Union. The SA consisted largely of working class people; so the capitalist agents bargained with Hitler, promised abundant financial backing by major industrialists like Fritz Thyssen, and created the SS which consisted of more upper class Nazis.
(Incidentally, I think the Nazi's and others hatred for Jews stemmed from the fact that the leaders of Bolshevik revolution in Russia were mostly Jewish.)
Hitler's megalomania can be explained by the fact that he was conscious of his powerful backing, and only became a threat to the Western capitalist countries when he attacked Britain. Britain and the other capitalist allies were forced into collaboration with their arch enemy, the Soviet Union, to prevent Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers from taking over the domination of the world from the British Empire and its capitalist allies. That is when arch-imperialist, racist Churchill re-entered the stage of history and became the hero of capitalist history. (Earlier he backed aggressively the efforts of the British to crush the Soviets immediately after their revolution, but failed because Britain's armed forces were too exhausted to do so.) True to his obsessive anti-Soviet views, he always sought to delay FDR's efforts to launch a second front in continental Europe to take the pressure off the Russians (read Roosevelt and Hopkins by Robert E. Sherwood).
I recently read a book by Terry Parssinen entitled The Oster Conspiracy of 1938. Although he takes the same standard view that the Nazis were totally home grown, he was curious enough to uncover the much neglected, and in my opinion deliberately neglected, history of this first revolt against Hitler and the Nazis. The standard view holds that it was all the fault of Neville Chamberlain and his "appeasement" policies. But what he uncovers could also support the argument that the Western capitalist ruling classes refused for political reasons to support a vigorous anti-Nazi movement which consisted mostly of German generals and some diplomats in Germany. I see this as further evidence that the British capitalist ruling class and others saw the German fascists as useful for their plans to destroy the Soviet Union. I think the facts that he uncovers furnish more support for this alternative explanation than the conventional version of these historical events.
American Pravda: Breaching the Media Barrier [updated]
Click here to access article by Ron Unz from his website The Unz Review. (Thanks go to an activist who alerted me to this article.) I added a link to Phil Butler's article on 6/13/2018.
Taking Unz's argument at face value, I think the article serves more to illustrate that members especially of the upper-middle class are disturbed by the gross lies that corporate media are spreading than it serves to argue for an effective strategy to counter their lies.
The capitalist system is based on private ownership of any productive enterprises in societies. Thus the owners inevitably evolve into a class with considerable power over the rest of society and over time, because of the dynamics of capitalism, ownership becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The security of the vast majority of people are faced with increasing wars and precarity, and they naturally engage in all sorts of resistance. To counter such resistance, the owner class must counter this resistance by using their media to spread ever greater deceptions about what they are doing in the world. This is precisely what is happening today.
The class that has contributed heavily to this end-development of capitalism is the well-rewarded upper-middle class of technologists, scientists, and highlyeducated trained and indoctrinated professionals in every field of endeavor. (Phil Butler is an excellent example of this phenomenon.) Currently even they, in spite of receiving many rewards and perks, are having a difficult time believing the lies that are constantly spewed by their counterparts in corporate media. As a consequence many, such as Ron Unz, Patrick Buchanan, Paul Craig Roberts, Ron Paul, Andrei Raevsky (The Saker), Bernhard (blogger for Moon of Alabama) are now defecting--some such as Chris Hedges more than others. As a consequence Unz has not posted any of Hedges' writings on his website since 2016, and he was published frequently on his website previously.
I noticed on the right side of this posting that he posted an interview with David Harvey, a noted American Marxist, conducted by Chris Hedges. Because David Harvey has not appeared on this website before, it seems to me that Harvey's post was juxtaposed with this article in order to establish his neutrality and credibility regarding capitalism. Considering the evidence of his postings as a whole, I think Unz, as a member of the upper-middle class and a conservative, is worried about the fascist direction that his masters in capitalist ruling class are going. Thus, he and his fellow-rebels are waking up and smelling the foul odors emanating from the increasing fascist actions taken by their masters in the capitalist class and they are defecting--but only so far. Not far enough to challenge the system from which they have benefited so much, but are only desperately striving to return to an earlier stage of capitalism like in the 20th century when they, as an upper-middle class, flourished.
However, there is another argument that one could make--I won't because I prefer to believe that Unz is honest--that he and agents of the ruling class are cleverly trying to co-opt alternative media to tame it and capture its audience as much as possible so that the threats posed by this opposition media are diminished.
Taking Unz's argument at face value, I think the article serves more to illustrate that members especially of the upper-middle class are disturbed by the gross lies that corporate media are spreading than it serves to argue for an effective strategy to counter their lies.
The capitalist system is based on private ownership of any productive enterprises in societies. Thus the owners inevitably evolve into a class with considerable power over the rest of society and over time, because of the dynamics of capitalism, ownership becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The security of the vast majority of people are faced with increasing wars and precarity, and they naturally engage in all sorts of resistance. To counter such resistance, the owner class must counter this resistance by using their media to spread ever greater deceptions about what they are doing in the world. This is precisely what is happening today.
The class that has contributed heavily to this end-development of capitalism is the well-rewarded upper-middle class of technologists, scientists, and highly
I noticed on the right side of this posting that he posted an interview with David Harvey, a noted American Marxist, conducted by Chris Hedges. Because David Harvey has not appeared on this website before, it seems to me that Harvey's post was juxtaposed with this article in order to establish his neutrality and credibility regarding capitalism. Considering the evidence of his postings as a whole, I think Unz, as a member of the upper-middle class and a conservative, is worried about the fascist direction that his masters in capitalist ruling class are going. Thus, he and his fellow-rebels are waking up and smelling the foul odors emanating from the increasing fascist actions taken by their masters in the capitalist class and they are defecting--but only so far. Not far enough to challenge the system from which they have benefited so much, but are only desperately striving to return to an earlier stage of capitalism like in the 20th century when they, as an upper-middle class, flourished.
However, there is another argument that one could make--I won't because I prefer to believe that Unz is honest--that he and agents of the ruling class are cleverly trying to co-opt alternative media to tame it and capture its audience as much as possible so that the threats posed by this opposition media are diminished.
Sunday, June 10, 2018
The Eerie Silence Surrounding the Assange Case
Click here to access an interview with John Pilger conducted by Dennis Bernstein of Pacifica Radio posted on ConsortiumNews. (Updated with link to Assange at 2:50 PM Seattle time.)
Pilger’s (opening) Statement
There is a silence among many who call themselves left. The silence is Julian Assange. As every false accusation has fallen away, every bogus smear shown to be the work of political enemies, Julian stands vindicated as one who has exposed a system that threatens humanity. [Added link to Assange]
The 'West' Is Past
Click here to access article by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama.
But what are the implications of this for the capitalist Empire? Also read the astute comments following the article.
But what are the implications of this for the capitalist Empire? Also read the astute comments following the article.
Why Venezuela and Syria Cannot Fall
Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook.
Vltchek talks to a Scandinavian "progressive" crowd but for some rather obscure reason they, for the most part, cannot understand his view that people in countries like Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia are in a desperate battle for survival against the US-led Empire and its selfish individualism.
For example, this "progressive" commentator, a Cuban-American, objected to the term "gusano" because he argued that it was an ethnic slur--and not an ideological slur which it is.
Let me be clear, I am not opposed to identity politics, but it has been used by the ruling capitalist classes to divert attention from the issues related to wars and precarity for the vast majority of people.
Vltchek talks to a Scandinavian "progressive" crowd but for some rather obscure reason they, for the most part, cannot understand his view that people in countries like Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia are in a desperate battle for survival against the US-led Empire and its selfish individualism.
I am well aware of the fact that many of my readers are from the West. Somehow, particularly in Europe, I cannot explain, anymore, what it really is to be a revolutionary. Recently I spoke at a big gathering of ‘progressive’ teachers, which took place in Scandinavia. I tried to fire them up, to explain to them what monstrous crimes the West has been committing all over the world, for centuries.I believe that the "rather obscure reason" is the success of Western propaganda to infect the minds of its more "educated" subjects, or the essential (for the survival of the capitalist class) upper-middle class pampered workers, with identity politics, the latest version of self-seeking that capitalism propagandists have used for centuries to fool its subjects to support the rule of this increasingly tiny, rich, and very powerful class of people.
I tried and I failed. When the lights went on, I was drilled by hundreds of eyes. Yes, there was an applause, and many stood up in that fake cliché – a standing ovation. But I knew that our worlds were far apart.
What followed were pre-fabricated and shallow questions about human rights in China, about “Assad’s regime”, but nothing about the collective responsibility of people of the West.
To understand what goes on in Syria and in Venezuela, requires stepping out of the Western mindset. It cannot be understood by selfish minds that are only obsessed with sexuality and sexual orientation, and with self-interest.
For example, this "progressive" commentator, a Cuban-American, objected to the term "gusano" because he argued that it was an ethnic slur--and not an ideological slur which it is.
Let me be clear, I am not opposed to identity politics, but it has been used by the ruling capitalist classes to divert attention from the issues related to wars and precarity for the vast majority of people.
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