Surviving Capitalism (Not)

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

Saturday, August 4, 2018

Friday, August 3, 2018

Who spews the most propagada MSNBC or Russia Today?

Listen and view Jimmy Dore on his show berate corporate media coverage and reveal that people such as Ed Schultz, Phil Donahue, and others were told what to say/write and not what to say/write; and if they didn't comply, they were fired. Dore contrasts these honest journalists and news anchors with corporate flunkies like Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes.

(By the way, I think Bernie Sanders was in on the game with the Democratic Party. He performed well his function as sheep-dog herding the "progressives" into the safe corral of the Party so that Hillary Clinton could ultimately benefit. Notice that he has not been expelled (fired) from the Party, and apparently finds it a comfortable home.)

(Thanks go to an activist who alerted me to this video.)

Thursday, August 2, 2018

NATO’s “News Hero” – #PropagandaWatch

Click here if you wish to access the video below (via YouTube) and show notes from James Corbett's website. (Some editing done at 3:25 PM CT to amplify my views on fascism.)

Corbett is running a series of the most outlandish pieces of propaganda that he can find on the internet. This one is hilarious and its origin is from a source that identifies with NATO.

However, what I insist is that nearly all "news" reports (like 95%) from ruling class sources (mainstream media or corporate media) are designed to shape your thinking (propaganda) about major events both domestic and international to conform with, or support, the interests of the Empire's transnational capitalists. Because Trump as a business man is mostly looking for opportunities to enhance the bottom line (profits) of "America Inc" (national capitalists), he has been the target for much of the recent propaganda issued by media owned by the ruling class. It seems that the directors of the Empire can't get over the loss of their candidate's (Hillary Clinton) presidential bid in the last election and that many Americans voted the wrong way in spite of their tremendous efforts. You can be sure that this will never happen again.

I've noticed this trend of propaganda replacing hard news taking shape over the past several decades. Of course, capitalists have always had a major influence on news reporting, but nowadays it has sunk significantly deeper into the Orwellian swamp of pure propaganda. And, this post by Corbett provides an excellent, although rather extreme, example. (You may need to wait some seconds for this video to appear on your device.)

Our Empire masters have stayed with this traditional strategy of liberalism (the ideology of capitalism) by promoting the fake propaganda of contemporary version of "liberalism", a largely political and social propaganda construct, that is irrelevant to the interests of our masters in the capitalist ruling class. The latter don't really care whether you identify as homosexual or transsexual who sometimes uses the "wrong" bathroom; likewise, they don't care if a black face is elected president who is willing and able to serve their interests. But, they do care if you (especially if you manage to reach a significant audience with ideas or information inimical to their interests) advocate actively ideas that limit in any way the capitalist system's prerogatives of property ownership. Likewise the ruling class uses all sorts of methods to control their legislative and other legal bodies to make and enforce laws in order to promote their interests of profit and power at the expense of workers.

Fascists want to eliminate all of that fake apparatus of democracy. Fascists still use propaganda to promote their imperialist agenda but it has a slightly different character: it encourages obedience to authority, militarism, and patriotism. They mainly rely on the use of force or the threat of violence against those who differ from them. With the enactment of the Patriot Acts, the 24/7 surveillance of Americans, the FISA courts, the establishment of secret services (CIA, NSA, FBI, etc), the practice of censorship, and police violence against resisting minorities, our ruling masters have gone a long way down the path of fascism. Racism is now passé (they tried targeting Muslims, but this didn't fly very well), instead the ruling class authorities refer to the USA as an "exceptional nation" which can ignore all international agreements and norms of behavior. Above all, fascists promote the interests of property owning capitalists, but without all the pretenses of "democracy", elections, civil liberties, freedom of the press, and the rule of law.

Our ruling class masters are discovering that it is increasingly difficult to maintain such fakes practices. Hence, I'm convinced, unless they are stopped by a revolutionary movement, the day will come when our capitalist masters will drop all their pretenses and implement pure fascist rule without all the pretty trimmings. That is one of the main reasons why I refer to the current practice of capitalist rule, also known as liberalism (classic), as pre-fascism.

The IMF is back in Argentina

Click here to access an interview with Eric Toussaint, international debt specialist, conducted by Sergio Ferrari posted on Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt.

While describing the details of the recent IMF loan to Argentina, Toussaint also provides an excellent illustration of the Empire's transnational capitalist orientation--privatization of profits and the socialization of debts.

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

If the economy is so good, why are wages flat?

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

Dolack explains why wages are so flat in spite of the abundance of reports in ruling class media that things are rosy for workers. Read the article to see how he reaches this final conclusion:

The hyper-competitive nature of capitalism, under which our labor is a commodity, can’t be altered; at best through massive effort reforms can be achieved until the next wave of attacks commences. As long we continue to fail to question the world economic system, our conditions will only worsen.

Heatwave 2018 explained - BBC Newsnight

Posted by BBC Newsnight via YouTube.

Because of numerous heat waves and other symptoms of dramatic global warming such as wildfires, and freak weather, I've noticed this summer a rather dramatic increase of concern about the effects of global warming expressed through mainstream media websites. The lack of reporting in the past is in sharp contrast to what alternative and independent sites have been reporting for many years (for current reports see this, this, and this).

It seems that the capitalist ruling classes can no longer ignore or downplay this threatening trend, and must reassure or "explain to" the public that the capitalist authorities recognize the problem and by using a careful selection of scientists, to suggest that the authorities have it under control. Meanwhile, through independent and alternative sites, scientists and other experts on climate are increasingly describing these trends in terms of dramatic climate destabilization within decades and likely leading to the extinction of humans.

Monday, July 30, 2018

The Salisbury Bookshop Sketch

Click here to access article by Rob Slane from his website The Blogmire. (Thanks for this hilariously satirical post go to an activist in northwestern Oregon.)

Slane has re-written the dialogue from an old Monty Python sketch back in 1968 and updated it to target the recent reports of poisonings in England that were broadly and sensationally reported by Western media. Could it be that the Empire propagandists were trying to draw attention away from the World Cup soccer games in Russia?

The door of a bookshop opens and in walks Mr Roderick Praline, played by John Cleese. He walks over to the counter and rings a bell. A moment or two later the owner of the establishment, played by Michael Palin, enters nervously from a door behind the counter.

Saturday, July 28, 2018

America’s Allies Against Russia & Iran

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from The Greanville Post.

In this article the Zuesse digs up some very inconvenient facts about the growth of fascism in the USA. He is famous for digging up inconvenient historical facts about the rise of fascism in the US, but he is always careful to disassociate it from capitalism. According to him (and many others) it's an aberration, an infection from the outside.

Zuesse's take on history is through the lens of someone who does not recognize the differences that the rising capitalist class represented from the earlier aristocrats from the era of feudalism. Thus capitalists are simply the modern form of aristocrats. Apparently he doesn't object to aristocrats, but only fascist aristocrats. This is because he doesn't see, or doesn't want to see, that the dynamics of capitalism are different than what existed under the rule of the monarchs and aristocrats during the feudal era. He always steers clear of analyzing the dynamics of capitalism. (It's a mystery to me why this website appointed him as Senior Contributing Editor.)

This lack of discrimination has much in common with the politicos who are now fashionably referred to as paleoconservatives (old-fashioned conservatives). The latter enjoyed top dog status in the US ruling capitalist class for much of the 20th century and earlier, but have been largely replaced by neo-conservatives (more overt fascists) who first infiltrated the Reagan administration and now appear to be top dogs. To be sure, Zuesse has demonstrated via his prolific writings, which are frequently well-documented, that he has a good grasp of history. But by avoiding the reality of capitalism and being extremely careful to always disassociate capitalism from fascism, he is very much like the paleoconservatives (Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, Paul Craig Roberts, etc).

In sharp contrast to such a view of political history, I regard fascism as the end state of capitalism, or capitalism as pre-fascism. For a similar view of capitalism but with a detailed documented analysis, you should read The Apprentice's Sorcerer by historian Ishay Landa.

This blindness provides Zuesse with a certain safety from any repercussions to his career as an historian. (I've never found any references to his career, and I wonder why.) However, it does cause him to make mistakes in interpreting historical events. For example, Zuesse writes:

Under Hitler, hereditary rights and obligations were publicly recognized; and democracy, the rule over a land by the residents on that land, was publicly condemned. .... As an ideology, nazism totally affirms both the hereditary principle, and the imperialist principle. This is what the U.S.-Saudi alliance likewise affirms. And that is why, for example, the CIA has always favored monarchies and opposed democracies (or at least authentic ones, which the U.S. aristocracy cannot control).

Did you notice that he doesn't provide any documentation to support his contention about Hitler's support of the "hereditary principle"? Because there is none. In contrast, Landa writes with extensive documentation:

Hitler did not wish to revive the closed caste society of the middle ages, but rather to construct society according to paramount capitalistic-liberal tenet of equal opportunities, competition and individual merit. Like the majority of his right-wing contemporaries, he endorsed open [his emphasis] elitism, which admits into its ranks and promotes new talent from below. Hitler's "aristocratic principle of nature" was thus in fact distinctly meritocratic, i.e., bourgeois.The whole system revolves-- ... at least in theory--on "the principle of achievement". [Capitalists always view their success in business as "achievement" no matter how it is achieved.]

In stark contrast to their ideology, in practice the Nazi's always honored the hereditary principles of the capitalist class. This is because the German fascist-capitalists only pretended to be a basic alternative to the ruling capitalist class. They only differed in one way: to the capitalists' strategy of always presenting a democratic facade to their rule.

Venezuela on the verge of a social explosion?

Click here to access article by Jorge Martin from In Defense of Marxism (a British Trotskyist website).

The Maduro government has been careful to maintain the loyalty of the army top brass, by giving them a stake in the economy (through companies like CAMIMPEG and AfgroFANB), and by appointing military officers to run state-owned companies (from PDVSA to Aceites Diana), where they have been notoriously inefficient and corrupt, and more recently by raising the wages of the top officers.

Martin has been following events in Venezuela for quite some time, and he has always argued that the Venezuelan Bolivarian revolution did not go far enough. On my visit to that country in late 2005, I left with the very same impression. One factor in retarding the left's progress toward an authentic revolution is the psychological residue of capitalist influence throughout the country. This phenomenon is precisely what Caitlin Johnstone warned about in yesterday's post ("old patterns of fear and greed and need to control which are constantly used to manipulate us", and I might add, for us as well indoctrinated subjects, to control and manipulate others while striving for "success").

Maduro and previous administrations under Chavez appointed bureaucrats and military officers who had the necessary skills to run government offices, but they were so infected by capitalist norms of behavior that they often reverted to old patterns of behavior. Chavez saw the need to educate ordinary people and promoted free education through the college level. This was a good policy, but was it enough?

Friday, July 27, 2018

Humanity Is Deciding If It Will Evolve Or Die [one of the best all-time posts]

Click here to access article by Caitlin Johnstone from her website. (I added a commentary at 6:25 PM CT.)

So many words of wisdom from someone who, I am convinced, has traveled down this road to psychic transformation before. This is a route upon which, as she argues, we must all go on to determine whether our human species will "evolve or die".

Throughout recorded history and across all cultures around the world, there have been individuals testifying that it is possible to undergo a transformation in the way one relates to the world, experiencing life as it actually is instead of filtered through unconscious conditioned thought patterns. After such a transformation, thought becomes the useful tool it’s supposed to be instead of the writer, director and star of the whole show.

If such a transformation is possible on an individual level, it is possible on a collective level as well. With a shift in our relationship with thought and ego, we would become impossible to propagandize, and therefore able to determine a course of action that isn’t selected for us by plutocratic manipulators. We can awaken from the old patterns of fear and greed and need to control which are constantly used to manipulate us, and begin working in harmony with each other and our environment instead.

She refers to a sociopathic elite, but omits from her brilliant essay is that we are raised in sociopathy from birth onwards. It's not surprising that our capitalist society churns out so many sociopaths. Not only do agents of capitalism shape and infiltrate every institution, but our minds as well. The "old patterns of fear and greed and need to control" are not intrinsic human qualities, but must be inculcated. And, they are by every institution in the current society. However, she does make the profound point that we must rid ourselves of these foreign qualities in order to awaken our true natures that express values of equality and compassion in order to "begin working in harmony with each other and our environment ..."; and I might add, to rid ourselves of this scourge of capitalism.

Nuking Sounds Fun When You’re High as a Kite

Click here to access article by Martin Berger from New Eastern Outlook. (Although I regard Berger's arguments in most of his articles as consistent with reality, I often see signs that they were written in haste and this article is no different. Some examples in this article: I would like to have seen some documentation for the phrase "According to one of the Pentagon press conferences given in 2014" which referred to commanding officers distributing drugs to their soldiers, some of whom controlled nuclear missiles, and some documentation about the BZ agent; and the use of the "OPCW" instead of Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.)

Berger points out how many commanders of armies throughout history have drugged their soldiers in order to prepare them to engage in all sort of horrible acts in war time, and juxtaposes this with a more recent startling documentation that the Pentagon is drugging soldiers who are in control of nuclear weapons.

Thursday, July 26, 2018

CIA/FBI/DOJ Plot To Overthrow The President Of The United States

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from his website. (Thanks go to an activist for alerting me to this article.)

I was shocked at this headline and the contents of the article. I wonder if Roberts, as a former member of the Reagan administration, can get away with such an allegation which, of course, we know is quite apparent given all the escalating attacks on Trump through the ruling class media corporations.

An open letter to Bill McKibben

Click here to access the letter by Eric Schechter, a retired professor of mathematics, posted on The Greanville Post.

The ignoring of the man-made system of capitalism is common among those upper-middle class professionals who want to enjoy a well-paid career. They go to great lengths to avoid offending their bosses who are themselves employed by, and serve, the ruling class of capitalists. Even Schechter is this letter does not name the system (although he may have omitted the name to avoid shocking McKibben and to increase his chances of getting a response). It has a name--capitalism. Hence, upper-middle class writers often treat the economic system as an absolute fixture of reality much like nature or gravity.

La izquierda está consumida por la propaganda occidental [The Left is Consumed by Propaganda]

Click here to access article from Wrong Kind of Green posting a speech (translated into English) delivered by Gustavo Borges Revilla, director of the Venezuelan media project Misión Verdad during the 24th Sao Paulo Forum in Havana, Cuba held July 15th -17th. (An activist alerted me to this post.)

Missions in Venezuela were begun under former President Hugo Chavez to create a variety of grass roots organizations in Venezuela. Thus, Venezuelan media project Misión Verdad (Truth Mission) is some kind of media project of a grass roots organization.

In his speech Gustavo Borges Revilla warned the audience that the capitalist Empire wages war in the form of propaganda to subvert and indoctrinate leftists of the world in addition to all their other means of warfare.

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Why Socialists Have Always Fought for Open Borders

Click here to access article by Wladek Flakin from Left Voice.

The author explains the Marxist roots regarding this issue that is often resulted in divisions among workers in various countries; and, of course, this is always encouraged by capitalist ruling classes in order to divide workers.

The capitalists and their states use migration to divide workers and increase the rate of exploitation. But workers have no interest in limiting the movement of their class sisters from other countries. As the history of capitalism has shown, restrictions on migration don’t really stop anyone from moving – xenophobic laws simply deny immigrants their rights, and therefore lower wages even further.

And, more importantly (in my opinion), he clarifies the long standing socialist position as articulated by leading Marxists, in contrast to many confused socialists, that real socialists must not be misled into thinking that they should simply take control of the capitalist organization of society. No, capitalist societies are integrated societies, that is, they are thoroughly organized to serve the ruling class of capitalists.

When and if socialists take power (before the catastrophic destabilization of our ecosystem), they must thoroughly reorganize their societies to reflect their values of egalitarianism by creating their own institutions, instilling in every person that they must take some role in the decision-making apparatus that governs their society, and recognizing the critical need for a worker-oriented education in order to effectively participate in governing society. The latter would require workers (everyone, since capitalists would no longer exist) to reduce their work week to about 15 hrs (this could now be easily attainable in order to satisfy all their essential needs) in order to attend classes.

Marxists argue for workers’ control of production – the proletariat must seize the means of production to open the road to a classless society. However, Marx argued that workers cannot simply take over the existing state apparatus, i.e. the police, the army, the border regime, etc. Workers’ revolution must smash the state and replace it with organs of self-organization (councils, militias etc.). This is why Marxists reject all demands for "workers’ control" of the capitalist state as illusory.

Trump Drops the Value of the EU as an Ally — to Zero

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

This government careerist of the fallen British Empire and quite astute geopolitical analyst attempts to shed light on the meaning of the recent Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, Finland. Since then the American ruling class, who own and control corporate media, has treated the meeting as a major scandal and has dramatically escalated their attacks on Trump. Unfortunately, his analysis of the significance of the meeting and its aftermath is marred by biases that was shaped by his career in the British Imperial government.

For example, in contrast to other analysts, Crooke doubts that Trump will be removed from office simply because he has committed no crimes! (ha, ha) In addition, he drags out the tired old reactionary theme that Wall Street funded the revolutionaries of the 1917 Russian Revolution, and adds a new twist: Stalin took control of the country and the Trotskyists, who were bought and paid for by Wall Street, were removed; and this caused the American ruling class to turn against Russia. Total nonsense!

I have often posted articles by this British establishment figure because he understands how the Anglo-American ruling classes think, and he often brings this skill to bear on major geopolitical issues. However, in this article he shows his ruling class biases that enabled him to pursue a successful government career in the British Imperial government. On the other hand, in this article he demonstrates that he understands Trump and his entrepreneurial competitive strategies.

Monday, July 23, 2018

Sunday, July 22, 2018

It’s all fake: Reality TV that masquerades as American politics

Click here to access article by John W. Whitehead from Intrepid Report.

Now that I've moved into a new building that includes basic cable television, I occasionally watch TV programs (although mostly sports events when I'm not surfing the internet), but I can't help noticing the other programs presented while searching through various channels. I also occasionally linger a while on a particular program to see the kind of material it is presenting. I discovered old movies like Mash (the comedy program set in the Korean War--it never seems to die), religious programs, soap operas, weather reports, managed-news programs by the CIA (see this, this, this, this, and some posts that our masters have taken down--see this and this), sports programs, and tons of commercials.

Anyway this article provides good advice about watching cable TV programs.

Look behind the political spectacles, the reality TV theatrics, the sleight-of-hand distractions and diversions, and the stomach-churning, nail-biting drama, and you will find there is a method to the madness.

We have become guinea pigs in a ruthlessly calculated, carefully orchestrated, chillingly cold-blooded experiment in how to control a population and advance a political agenda without much opposition from the citizenry.

This is mind-control in its most sinister form.

And the author summarizes his essay with this statement:

The bottom line is simply this: Americans should beware of letting others—whether they be television news hosts, political commentators or media corporations—do their thinking for them.

Friday, July 20, 2018

Pillaging the World. The History and Politics of the IMF

Click here to access article by Ernst Wolff from Global Research.

This article gives an excellent summary of the origins, design, and function of the IMF which has played a major role in the post WWII project that left the USA undamaged and the dominant power in the world. The former pro-fascist American "isolationists" came out of the American woodwork to construct their own Empire by using secrecy, deception, and a key ideological component of capitalism--the principle contained in the capitalist version of the Golden Rule: those who own the gold (or control money) [must] rule the world.

No other financial organization has affected the lives of the majority of the world’s population more profoundly over the past fifty years than the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since its inception after World War II, it has expanded its sphere of influence to the remotest corners of the earth. Its membership currently includes 188 countries on five continents.

For decades, the IMF has been active mainly in Africa, Asia and South America. There is hardly a country on these continents where its policies have not been carried out in close cooperation with the respective national governments. When the global financial crisis broke out in 2007, the IMF turned its attention to northern Europe. Since the onset of the Euro crisis in 2009, its primary focus has shifted to southern Europe.

Officially, the IMF’s main task consists in stabilizing the global financial system and helping out troubled countries in times of crisis. In reality, its operations are more reminiscent of warring armies. Wherever it intervenes, it undermines the sovereignty of states by forcing them to implement measures that are rejected by the majority of the population, thus leaving behind a broad trail of economic and social devastation.

You may also be interested in viewing Ernst Wolff talking about the IMF via YouTube.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Capitalism's obsession

by British award winning illustrator and animator Steve Cutts from his website.

Coming Coup Against Trump

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from Sputnik. (Thanks go to an activist who alerted me to this article.)

The long campaign by the ruling class to remove Trump from office is finally coming to a head, or at least, that is the opinion of this Irish independent journalist. After reading his arguments, I agree with him.

An American president holds a long-overdue meeting with the leader of the world's second nuclear power. The meeting was a success in terms of opening a friendly dialogue between the two leaders. And yet the US ruling class excoriate this event as a "disgrace" and "criminal collusion".

The interests of ordinary American citizens, as with the mass of people around the world, are not served by irrational hostility towards Russia. It is in our interests to have peaceful dialogue and to develop mutual understanding between the US and Russia to avert confrontations.

It is only an unrepresentative elite who could possibly want hostility.

This showdown promises to be filled with drama--of what kind, it is impossible to tell at this point. I believe that it will be far more dramatic than the historical Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. One thing I am sure of: the political consciousness of many ordinary Americans will never be the same again.

Saturday, July 14, 2018

Trump, NATO and ‘Russian aggression’

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times.

Escobar continues his long-standing argument, that the US Empire is succumbing to the leadership of China and Russia, convincingly by interpreting the latest Trump's actions at the recent NATO meeting in Brussels, the European headquarters of the US-led Empire.

... Trump’s demand for 4% of GDP on defense spending for all NATO members will never fly. The sales pitch should be seen for what it is: a tentative “invitation” for an increased EU and NATO shopping spree on US military hardware.

In a nutshell, the key factor remains that Trump’s Brussels blitzkrieg did make his case. Russia cannot be a “threat” and a reliable energy partner at the same time. As much as NATO poodles may be terrified of “Russian aggression”, the facts spell out they won’t put their money where their rhetorical hysteria is.

But will the Deep State and its Empire go down willingly? Stay tuned, or better yet, stay aware and active.

********

Trump's behavior at the NATO meeting and the upcoming meeting with Putin in Helsinki deserves great satire, and Finian Cunningham supplies it with his piece "Trump Defects to Russia?"

America

Click here to access article by Caitlin Johnstone from her website. (Edited for greater clarity at 10:12 PM CT.)

Americans are in their nature as compassionate and generous a people as you will ever meet anywhere else on earth; they’ve just got manipulative sociopaths elbows-deep in their minds conducting psyops all the time, and it makes them a bit weird. But their good-naturedness is evident in the fact that even the propaganda used to manipulate them into consenting to depraved war agendas is always meant to exploit their caring and compassion: it’s always about saving children from a monstrous dictator, or spreading freedom and democracy. Americans are blasted in the face with so many hero narratives from Hollywood and television that this makes perfect sense to them, and of course they want their military to do something heroic and save those poor kids. Even the sick things they consent to are rooted in basic good intentions. America is a country full of decent people with propaganda boxes around their brains.

Propaganda is what makes America America.

It is my conviction that ordinary people of the world are "full of decent people"; but when there are self-serving, sociopathic ruling classes, the latter will always find ways to control ordinary people who are under-educated, indoctrinated, and propagandized to serve their masters. The only solution is to rid the world of systems that give advantages to some humans at the expense of others. All people must be empowered.

While reading this article, I was sad to see this brilliant woman use the feudal term "aristocrats" to refer to our ruling masters. She has succumbed to the influence of people like Eric Zuesse who, like her, has not rid himself of capitalist indoctrination. Using the term detracts from the insight that our masters are capitalists--not aristocrats ruling over medieval fiefdoms. Using the term "aristocrats" is a type of circumlocution that our slave-holding, "Founding Fathers" engaged in to avoid talking about slavery, indentured servants, etc, that existed during their time while they were celebrating the liberties of liberalism, the ideology of capitalism.

The feudal ruling classes were hereditary and their rule was based on the use of weapons to maintain control of land and its inhabitants during a time when humans engaged in rather primitive agriculture. During the current era it is necessary to distinguish a new ruling class from the old ruling class. They are called capitalists. This new class essentially sanctified the ownership of private property under the rules of capitalism. Their rule is based on the ownership of the much more elaborate means of production produced with advanced technology that humans first developed using scientific methods during the Age of Enlightenment. Now we see the result: gross inequality, the concentration of ownership of the means of production among a relatively few powerful people, never-ending wars, and a destabilization of our planets ecosystem that portends catastrophic consequences for the existence of human life.

China’s silky charming of Arabia

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times.

The Brazilian independent journalist reports on China's influence in the Middle East and in Germany that may portend a dramatic shift in the political winds in these important areas. There are even some indications of this in Iraq where the US Empire destroyed so much of its physical and political infrastructure.

Under the radar, away from World Cup frenzy and the merger and acquisition of Cristiano Ronaldo Inc. and Fiat, the eighth ministerial meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF), established in 2004, sailed on in Beijing, hosted by President Xi Jinping.

Amid the torrential pledge of loans and aid, China committed to invest right across the Arab world in transportation infrastructure, oil and gas, finance, digital economy and artificial intelligence (AI).

Friday, July 13, 2018

5 Times the US Actively Supported ISIS or Similar Groups

Click here to access article from MintPress News.

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.

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.

Then the author(s) follow this with an itemized list that is backed by very good documentation.

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:

[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:

... 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.

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.

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.

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.

For another insightful analysis you might be interested in another article by the same author entitled "Trump Treats EU Like Bozos" from Sputnik.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.”

Dynamic for who? What we have here are code words meaning make it easier to fire people.

And later he writes:

... 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:

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.

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?".)

... 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.

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

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.

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 ...."

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?