The fires this time: Implications for ecosocialist strategy

Click here to access article by Richard Smith from Climate & Capitalism.

The author has contributed so much to alerting the public to the death trajectory that capitalism is taking all of us. His strength is his study of economics which has informed his view that the capitalist system and a habitable planet are on a collision course. 

However, I think his present weakness is promoting the Democratic Socialists of America as offering a solution. I've always found the latter to be an inconsistent critic of capitalism and often willing to offer only token actions to counter its influence. I think that nothing less than an organized revolutionary movement can put a stop to this death spiral. The time to offer only individualistic passive solutions is at an end (for example, see this). It's time to get serious. That is why I have proposed one.

The rule of capitalist ruling classes, especially under the leadership of the US-led Empire, is built upon a mountain of lies. I have noticed an increasing frequency of deceptive reports spread by their corporate media, and likewise, an increase of efforts to censor information that expose their lies. It appears that they are desperate to protect their mountain of lies, deceptions, false-flags, psyops, etc. I am convinced that the most effective way to weaken and ultimately destroy that mountain is a movement committed to telling the truth. This will have to be organized from the ground up by people who see the urgency of taking effective action. 

Carbon Monoxide from California Wildfires Drifts East

Click here to access report from NASA. 

My curiosity was piqued yesterday by weather reports on area (Minneapolis) weather reports that it was unhealthy to exercise outside because of the smoke from Canadian wildfires. (I wanted to ride my bicycle on a route through my town as a routine exercise.) Scanning several weather broadcasts from other channels, I found the same reports, that is, that wildfires in Canada were the cause of the darkened sky. Because I was skeptical that the smoky skies were all caused by Canadian wildfires, this morning I decided to scan reports from the web. Guess what?

There are fires reported across the globe from Siberia to Greece to Portugal as well as the west coasts of USA and Canada (see also this, this, this, and this). The Guardian even announced that it was time to do something about climate change! But "not to worry" because the Secretary of the Interior says that it's all the fault of environmentalists! (sarcasm)

Other recommended articles for Thursday, August 16. 2018

• Taibbi: Censorship Does Not End Well from Rolling Stone.

• Why Are ATMs Disappearing at an Alarming Rate after a Wave of Branch Closures? by Don Quijones (a Brit who lives mostly in Spain) from Wolf Street.

Climate change in the Anthropocene: An unstoppable drive to Hothouse Earth?

Click here to access this review by Ian Angus of a report entitled Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene by Will Steffen and other scientists posted on Climate & Capitalism. 

Corporate media has given such unusual coverage to a report published in a subscription-only scientific journal that the editors have since removed it from a paywall. Could it be that this was caused by concern about feedback loops reported by the scientists in addition to the extreme weather that nearly everyone is experiencing?

As the Earth warms, positive (amplifying) feedbacks are becoming stronger: the authors identify ten that have global impacts and that could be radically accelerated by relatively small temperature increases, including thawing permafrost, release of ocean floor methane hydrates, weakened land and oceanic CO2 absorption, increasing bacterial respiration in the oceans, dieback of Amazon and/or boreal forests, reduced northern snow cover, loss of Arctic and/or Antarctic sea ice, and melting of polar ice sheets.

Any one of these could substantially accelerate global warming, and if one passes a tipping point, it may trigger a “tipping cascade,” permanently accelerating others.

Angus quotes their conclusions:

“Incremental linear changes to the present socioeconomic system are not enough to stabilize the Earth System. Widespread, rapid, and fundamental transformations will likely be required to reduce the risk of crossing the threshold and locking in the Hothouse Earth pathway....

“The contemporary way of guiding development founded on theories, tools, and beliefs of gradual or incremental change, with a focus on economy efficiency, will likely not be adequate to cope with this trajectory. …

“To avoid crossing a planetary threshold … a deep transformation based on a fundamental reorientation of human values, equity, behavior, institutions, economies, and technologies is required.”

 And then states the following: 

Although stated in very general terms, these points have deeply radical implications.

Do you think that our masters who are addicted to profit and power supplied by their system of capitalism can even consider such changes? If not, then who? (The revolutionary question of our time.)

The Minority

Click here if you wish to access this post from the website of Ghada Chehade, a very talented Palestinian Canadian, who sent me this post from her website:

         The Minority

This white man is not my enemy
No, this white man hasn’t done shit to me

Let’s talk about the E-C-O-N-O-M-Y
That’s the real issue here

Don’t. You. See.

It’s not just about race,
but economic d-i-s-p-a-r-i-t-y

Most white men today are suffering just like me

You see, the problem aint with the majority
But a tiny little minority:

The Uber Wealthy Authority
That enslave us through financial s-u-p-e-r-i-o-r-i-t-y

Black and brown do have it worse

But economic suffering is a global curse
Orchestrated by and for the globalists’ purse

And when we turn on each other
We. Make. The. Situation. Worse

For divide and conquer is an age old trick

It makes the majority weaker
And the rich more slick

Able to stop us from seeing our common plight
And prevent us from waging a common fight

Against the ones with all the Authority…
That. Uber. Wealthy. Minority. 

Climate Change Bites Big Business

Click here to access article by Manuel García, Jr. from CounterPunch. 

... climate change denialism was heavily promoted by corporate and partisan (right wing) media, and by legions of corporate agents, flacks and factotums masquerading as elected representatives in federal and state governments. That has now changed.

Climate change is now all over the front pages of the newspapers and is the headline story of the mainstream mass media ....

What is the likely response by our masters' bought-and-paid-for government? 

Big Capital is now openly scared about climate change, and that is what we are now seeing as headline news.

We will also be seeing urgent promotions – presented as mass media news and commentary – for varieties of government subsidized protection for those sectors of Big Business that feel most financially threatened by the biting furies of climate change.

The Target Is Assange and Wikileaks, and the Role of Australia

Click here to access a 38:50m interview with John Pilger conducted by Dennis Bernstein of KPFA FM radio (a listener sponsored radio station) in Berkeley, CA posted on Pilger's website.

You will learn about Assange's health, the legal aspects of his case, the significance of his ongoing persecution by agents of the US Empire, among other topics related to Julian Assange, the renowned activist who has led the effort in countering the Empire's dirty secrets. 

Articles I found on 8/12/2018 that may be of special interest to readers of my website

• Jordan – Staunch Western Ally – Angry and Confused by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook. He visits Jordan and reports on what he finds in this colony of the US Empire which it faithfully serves.

• Brecht: On the matter of political illiteracy from The Greanville Post.

• Bunker Mentality: Start Preparing for Ecological & Economic Disaster Free of Corporate Overlords by Robert Bridge from Strategic Culture Foundation.

It’s time to stop acting like children and face an ugly truth: our current materialistic lifestyles are not sustainable in the long-term, and probably not in the short term either. Our incredible level of wastefulness, compounded by Earth’s finite resources, guarantees that the planet’s 7 billion people are living on borrowed time. Exactly what ‘short-term’ means, however, is a question none of us can really answer. It may mean the day after tomorrow or another 500 years. Again, nobody can say. But given the upsurge of interest, for example, in “doomsday prepping” among people of average means (a topic that even the high-brow Financial Times reported on), to the construction of sprawling underground bunkers for the elite, there is a growing consensus among many people that it is time to start taking back some control of our lives.

• America’s unending reign of police terror by Niles Niemuth from World Socialist Web Site. 

While racism plays a role in some police killings, and in the brutal measures directed against immigrants, this is entirely subordinate to the role of the state as an instrument of class rule. It is not a matter of making the police more racially diverse or electing more African American prosecutors. Decades of racially integrated police forces have illustrated quite starkly that black cops can be just as vicious, corrupt and murderous as their white counterparts.

The fight against police violence is a class question.

What If There Were No Official Narratives?

Click here to access article by Caitlin Johnstone from her website. (I thank an activist for alerting me to this excellent article.)

This Australian wonder woman strikes again with this brilliant essay about how our masters thoroughly manipulate the news about major events in order to control us for their benefit of power and profits. In this essay her remarkable imagination takes us into a world where we are only fed raw material about events across the world, and what that would be like. Unfortunately, most people already believe what they are fed by mainstream sources is raw material instead of fabricated stories. But there are increasing numbers who believe the exact opposite, and someday maybe they will prevail. She imagines that someday.

How Turkey's Currency Crisis Came To Pass

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

This is a major geopolitical alert! With Erdogan of Turkey laying down the gauntlet (def), it looks obvious to me that the current economic warfare of the Trump administration waged against Turkey portends a major shift from Turkey's lukewarm alliance with the US Empire to the emerging powers of Russia, China, etc. 

The Limits of Green Energy Under Capitalism

Click here to access article by David Klein from Truthout.

The author argues that the effects of climate destabilization confronts us humans with only two stark choices: staying with the existing system of capitalism or replacing it with a sustainable system.  

Too Late? A Horror Story

Click here to access article by Gene Warren Jr. from The Socialist.

The author writes about his personal extensive efforts, and that of his friends, extending over many years to warn about the future destabilization of the biosphere followed by the likely extinction of humans and other "higher" life forms.

I personally, in a number of public meetings, was called a “kook catastrophist,” a “Neo-Malthusian,” an “apolitical tree hugger,” and many other negative epithets – I haven’t heard any of that in-your-face name calling in the last six or seven years.

So what has changed? Reality. If you have been paying attention and are not mired in rigid ideology, then continued denial is no longer an option.

Recommended articles for Friday, August 10, 2018

• Washington Has Lured EU into Anti-China Trade Front by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook. 

• First they came for Alex Jones… Now Facebook bans Venezuela news site from RT. 

• Why Trump Cancelled the Iran Deal by Eric Zuesse from Strategic Culture Foundation.

• Who Has Profited From Your Beliefs? by Caitlin Johnstone from her website.

The fact of the matter is that the ideas which have taken the most widespread hold in social consciousness are those which were advanced by people with influence over society, and the people with the most influence over society are, and always have been, those in power. It is self-evident that those in power are always going to encourage belief systems within the populace which benefit those in power, so, logically, most of the popular beliefs, values and ideas in our society exist predominantly because at some point, someone powerful wanted them to.

So now we’ve got a world in which powerful people inject beliefs into social consciousness that benefit the powerful, as well as vestigial, culturally ubiquitous ideas from ages past about how important it is to be placid and obedient.

Recommended articles for Wednesday, August 8, 2018

• Washington allies with ISIS as great power conflict trumps “war on terror” by Bill Van Auken from World Socialist Web Site.

• Eternity, nature, society and the absurd fantasies of the rich by Kurt Cobb from Resource Insights.

• Trump’s Talk of Isolating Iran Speaks More to US Global Isolation by independent Irish journalist Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation.  

I thoroughly agree with his argument that Trump's sanctions against Iran is very likely to backfire to the detriment of the US economy and ultimately the hegemony of the US Empire over the entire world. However, I would not lay the responsibility for this foreign policy entirely on Trump. I think that the entire American (and much of the British) ruling class supports such a move, and this support would exist whoever was president. However, there is a split among European corporations over this policy, and the policy is likely to sow dissension among Europeans and ultimately impact NATO.

Together with the trade war against China, such policies illustrate the desperation that the American capitalist ruling class are now experiencing. Hopefully they will not do something foolish that will have much worse consequences. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans remain unaware as to the ultimate effects of these policies on their already deteriorating standard of living, and it will be a rude awakening for them.

How identity politics makes the Left lose its collective identity

Click here to access article by British doctor Tomasz Pierscionek from RT. (I thank an activist in northern Oregon for alerting me to this article.)

This is an excellent article regarding the use of identity politics by various factions of the capitalist ruling class that ultimately serves the latter's interest to divide and control the majority. Some people within, and especially outside these factions, are not conscious of the role they play in supporting the ruling class because they have been thoroughly indoctrinated to identify with their masters and their interests of profit and power. Such people can be regarded as "useful idiots".

Recommended articles for Tuesday, August 7, 2018

• Fear and Loathing In And Of The USA by Christopher Black from New Eastern Outlook.

• Codename Acor Sycamore - The Saudi-U.S.-Al-Qaeda Plan To Reconquer Canada by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama. Also you might be interested in a related article entitled Canada Refuses to Back Down After Saudi Arabia Freezes New Trade

• In A Corporatist System Of Government, Corporate Censorship Is State Censorship by Caitlin Johnstone from her website. It looks like the ruling class censors are going after "low-hanging fruit" in their initial phase. This reminds me of Niemöller's famous quote: "First they came for...."

Recommended articles for Monday, August 6, 2018

• Taibbi: Beware the Slippery Slope of Facebook Censorship from Rolling Stone. The following statement shocked me:

As noted in Rolling Stone earlier this year, 70 percent of Americans get their news from just two sources, Facebook and Google. As that number rises, the power of just a few people to decide what information does and does not reach the public will amplify significantly.

• Eternity, nature, society and the absurd fantasies of the rich by Kurt Cobb from his blog.

• Confronting Authoritarianism vs. Disciplining Democracy: The Recent Protests in Jordan and US Attempts at Democracy Promotion by Benjamin Schuetze from Jadaliyya. Jordan has been obviously very important strategically for the Empire and its military incursions in Syria. The author starts off with this introduction:

Jordan currently ranks among the highest recipients of US foreign aid worldwide, both in absolute terms and particularly so on a per capita basis. Besides military and economic support, Jordan has over the past years also been the target of a whole plethora of US democracy-promotion interventions. As a result, there are probably only a few Jordanian state institutions that have not in one way or another been the target of external attempts at some form of capacity building and institutional engineering.

Later he writes:

Comparing US attempts at alleged democracy promotion with the recent protests highlights important differences in both approaches and the key actors. In fact, such comparison reveals the extent to which many US-funded programs in the country are about the disciplining of democratic demands and shaping them such that they become compatible with existing authoritarian power structures.

Some thoughts on liberal democracy as a deceptive term

Click here to access article by Jim O’Reilly from his blog Comments on Global Political Economy. (Unfortunately, I am not a natural writer. There was much needed editing to clarify my arguments at 9:55 PM CT and 8:35 AM CT on 8/7/2018. So, if you have read my commentary before these edits, I recommend that you read my commentary again.)

This British born and educated American has had a career in banking, and knows about the key role that bankers have played in the capitalist era. In this article he reflects on the frequent use of the term "liberal democracy" and what Ishay Landa's important book entitled The Sorcerer's Apprentice has to say about it. Landa shows how the capitalist class with its ideology of liberalism has attempted throughout its era of hegemony to pursue two basic conflicting strategies--economic and political liberalism. O'Reilly quotes Landa:

Political liberalism splits apart from economic liberalism and effectively undermines it, since the logical economic upshot of democracy is not capitalism but its antithesis, communism.

Ideology, as has been used by ruling classes throughout the history of humans (roughly the last 10,000 years--roughly 2% of human existence), is nothing more than an attempt to legitimate class rule by a tiny minority over the vast majority. Since fascists and their ideologues started appearing in the 20th century with their attacks on liberals and liberalism, Landa reveals that the ruling capitalist classes have had a love/hate relationship with them, but mostly that of accommodation. (Initially Anglo-American capitalists loved fascists; but when Germany and Japan attacked first Britain and then the USA in their efforts to build their own empires, they represented a major threat to the British Empire and their friends. This forced the Anglo-American ruling capitalist classes into a collaboration with their arch-enemy the Soviet Union.)

Landa in his book exposes fascists for what they are: they intended to deal with this contradiction in liberalism by destroying political liberalism. But when they began constructing self-justifying ideologies, they had considerable difficulty. He examines the writings of various fascist ideologues and finds gross deceptions and contradictions as they go to great lengths trying to pretend that their ideology serves the people as a whole, rather than strictly the capitalist class.

On the other hand, Landa likewise exposes the deceptions of liberalism (to fool the vast majority of people) and shows how their ideology evolved over time from the early stages when they were still battling the rule of feudal authorities until the 20th century when they were confronted by the increasing strength of democratic forces that political liberalism had spawned: the rise of unions and the spread of suffrage to greater parts of Western societies. 

Although the author, O'Reilly, of this article uses Landa's research to bolster his thesis that the term "liberal democracy" is a contradiction, unfortunately at end of this article he prefers the term  "oligarchy", the term that simply means rule by the powerful few rather than the much more accurate term "capitalism": rule by a specific oligarchy--by capitalists. This current term (oligarchy) has become fashionable with many political writers and analysts because it obscures the fact that in our age the term capitalist ruling class means a powerful few who are the dominant owners of financial, industrial, and commercial property. I can only imagine that this error of O'Reilly is psychologically necessary to defend his life-long career in banking.

Since WWII and the ascendance of the US-led transnational capitalist Empire there has been a dearth of ideological writings while, at the same time, there has been an abundance of pro-capitalist propaganda. This was, I believe, intentional because of the confusion about liberalism. It appears that our masters wanted to end the efforts to construct a self-justifying ideology. In 1992 this was accomplished formally by a member of the ruling class in a book entitled The End of History and the Last Man by a prominent neoconservative, Francis Fukuyama, who argued that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and free market capitalism of the West was the end point of humanity's sociocultural evolution. Nowadays, writing about ideology in conventional media, and much of the left media, has become passé if not taboo, rather like farting in public.    

I don't know where Landa is going with this analysis because I am only half way through the book. However, it appears to lend solid support for my view that fascism is always the final stage of capitalism because sooner or later the capitalist class must turn to the means of violence, or the threat of violence, to maintain their rule.

Why West Fears ‘Made in China: 2025’

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

With a devotion to private property and inheritance, the cornerstones of capitalism, capitalists see the world through a lens of domination and control that has been so well expressed and promoted by the late Zbigniew Brzezinski: as quoted in the article: “it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America.” 

Of course, what he meant, and many others who represent the ruling class mean by such language, is that American capitalists must formulate policies of the state, which they control, to prevent China and any other competitor from threatening and displacing American capitalists (now the US Empire's transnational capitalists). Economics is always a zero-sum game for capitalist enterprisers. 

I can't fault China's ruling class, the Chinese Communist Party, for the "win-win" strategy first formulated by Deng Xiaoping back in the middle '70s: selling Chinese cheap labor to the Empire's corporations in return for opportunities to rapidly learn western industrial technology. They were completely aware of the addiction that Empire capitalists have for profitable opportunities. 

What I am concerned about is that China's ruling class will be satisfied with merely outplaying the game of capitalism against their Western opponents and creating hundreds more Chinese billionaires. What I'd like to see is more indications that the Chinese Communist Party intends to create a system that replaces the capitalist cornerstones of private property and inheritance with a system that creates an egalitarian society which promotes the welfare of all of the people because all of the people will be empowered to insure this outcome.

Recommended articles for Saturday, August 4, 2018

• Edward Snowden: 5 years in Russia and still relevant as ever by Seraphim Hanisch from The Duran. I have been curious about Snowden's personal life in Russia and the author provides some information on this.

• AngloZionist attack options against Iran by "The Saker" from his website A bird's eye view of the Vineyard. I think when the author makes this political observation about how our ruling class regards Trump, he is right on target.

It appears that the Neocons have a basic strategy which goes like this: “we hate Trump and everything he represents, but we also control him; let’s use him to do all the crazy stuff no sane US President would ever do, and then let’s use the fallout of these crazy decisions and blame it all on Trump; this way we get all that we want and we get to destroy Trump in the process only to replace him with one of “our guys” when the time is right“.

• Class exploitation and the market: The secret of the $1 trillion corporation by Andre Damon from World Socialist Web Site. Read this to see how the author reaches this conclusion:

The coming period will see many expressions of growing working-class resistance to exploitation and inequality. These struggles can only succeed if workers understand that they are confronting not just one company, union or government, but the entire capitalist system, whose basic operation is predicated on the continuous suppression of workers’ wages for the enrichment of the financial oligarchy. [my emphasis]

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.)

Recommended articles for Friday, August 3, 2018

• The Great ‘Oracles of War Propaganda’ Blame Everyone But Themselves from 21st Century Wire.

• The West has Performed ‘Philosophical Coup’ against the Left by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook.

• They Work To Manufacture Consent Because They Need It. So Don’t Give It To Them. by Caitlin Johnstone from her website.

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.

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.

Recommended articles for Monday, July 30, 2018

• Iran-US Escalation and the Strait of Hormuz factor by Salman Rafi Sheikh from New Eastern Outlook. I've noticed this morning about four or five other articles which suggest or clearly predict the likely attack on Iran by the US Empire (see this, this, this, and this).

• Workers in US face growing class battles by Jerry White from World Socialist Web Site.

• Extreme global weather is 'the face of climate change' says leading scientist by Damian Carrington from The Guardian.

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.

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?

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.

Recommended articles for Friday, July 27, 2018

• The War for Net Neutrality by John Mason for The Saker blog. (Updated at 1:30 PM CT)

• Democrats’ anti-Russia campaign leaves most Americans unmoved by Barry Grey from World Socialist Web Site.

• 'Evacuation of White Helmets Shows That It is Western Product' – Military Expert from Sputnk. 

• Pakistan's 'Populist' Wins The Election by Bernhard from his blog Moon of Alabama.

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.

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. 

Recommended articles for Wednesday, July 26, 2018

• ‘Tweet of Mass Destruction’ ratchets up tension on Iran by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times.

• Syria: The White Helmets’ Final Performance by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.

• A New World Order: That Possible Dream by Christopher Black from New Eastern Outlook. After giving up out of frustration on other subjects to write about, the author writes that the only solution is to create another "world order" after the disasters created by the various capitalist world orders.

These successive world orders are continually upset by the very conditions and circumstances they produce as capital searches for ways to increase its exploitation of resources, including human beings who are seen as just another resource to be used and destroyed, for new ways to secure more profit. And so at each new historical phase, a new balance of world forces is established by fresh military conflict, followed by a fresh set of agreements, followed by new conflicts ad infinitum as the dialectic requires in a logic that only a socialist world order can stop.

And, he goes on to argue that this can only be created by "working people of the world".

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.

Recommended articles for Monday, July 23, 2018

• ‘Kill All the Gentlemen’ — seven centuries of class struggle in rural England, a book review of Martin Empson's new book by Ian Angus posted on Capitalism and Climate. 

• Israel Evacuates White Helmets From Syria to Send to Western Nations by Jim Carey from Geopolitics Alert.

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.

Recommended articles for Friday, July 20, 2018

• How to Survive America's Kill List by Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone.

When a U.S. citizen heard he was on his own country’s drone target list, he wasn’t sure he believed it. After five near-misses, he does – and is suing the United States to contest his own execution.

• Court Grants Julian Assange Freedom Just As U.S. Ramps Up Claims by Andrew Kreig from The Indicter Magazine.

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.

Capitalism's obsession

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

Recommended articles for Wednesday, July 18, 2018

• Climb Down From the Summit of Hostile Propaganda by Norman Solomon from ConsortiumNews.

• Trump’s Treasonous Traitor Summit or: How Liberals Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the New McCarthyism by CJ Hopkins from CounterPunch. 

• Syrian War Report – July 17, 2018: Militants Are On Full Retreat In Southern Syria from South Front.

• EFF Sues to Invalidate FOSTA, an Unconstitutional Internet Censorship Law by David Greene from Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.