Articles recommended for Friday, August 9, 2019

• Climate Crisis Means the Ruling Class has Failed. Can the Working Class Inherit the Earth? by Richard Moser from Be Freedom.

• John Pilger warns: “Do not forget Assange. Or you will lose him” by Oscar Grenfell  from World Socialist Web Site.

• Chelsea Manning faces $441,000 in fines and another year in jail for refusing to testify against WikiLeaks by Niles Niemuth from World Socialist Web Site.

• Buttigieg Already Courting Super-Delegates for Support from The Jimmy Dore Show.

• Colin Kaepernick posts training video to remind NFL he's been out of the league for 3 years by Liz Roscher from Yahoo Sports.

Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China

Click here to access article by Ellen Brown from TruthDig.

Brown essentially argues that a capitalist state should manage their corporations on behalf of the capitalist class like China does. This thesis confirms her support for the capitalist class which is what I've inferred from writings in the past. To argue her thesis, she cites a number of examples of countries (referred to as "Asian Tigers economies" and Japan) that between 1960s and into the 1990s had a strong government sector that supported their capitalist enterprises. 

They were quite easily taken down by the imperial USA in the 1997 Asian crisis, and she doesn't explain why they were defeated at the time by the neoliberal policies of the US Empire, and she doesn't explain why China wasn't (other than their economy was too big). I think that China's Communist Party were far more protective of their industries both private and state-owned. 

The shallow-thinking Brown doesn't hesitate to argue her thesis that the US should adopt such a government like China. To support her argument, she also draws on an article in Foreign Affairs, a core ruling capitalist class publication, in which surprisingly advocates a similar government arrangement for the US and argues against the belligerent policies of the Obama and Trump administrations! She summarize the argument of that article as being the following:

The implication is that China, being too strong to be knocked out of the game as the Soviet Union was, needs to be coerced or cajoled into adopting the neoliberal model and abandoning state support of its industries and ownership of its banks. [This she ignores.] But the Chinese system, while obviously not perfect, has an impressive track record for sustaining long-term growth and development. While the U.S. manufacturing base was being hollowed out under the free-market model, China was systematically building up its own manufacturing base and investing heavily in infrastructure and emerging technologies, and it was doing this with credit generated by its state-owned banks. Rather than trying to destroy China’s economic system, it might be more “favorable to U.S. interests and values” for us to adopt its more effective industrial and banking practices.

She has long argued that banking should be government owned, and this article is no exception--only she wants banks to support the interests of capitalists!  In spite of the fact that she recognizes that most industries are state owned in China, she still wants banks to support privately owned industries in the USA. This is another liberal argument in support of capitalism. That is, capitalism, must be guided by the capitalist class to more efficiently support US capitalists. 

She is right when she writes that "the free market model hollowed out America’s manufacturing base". US industries under the control of capitalists logically sought short-term profits by transferring their operations to China and a number of other countries where the cost of labor was much cheaper. She can't have it both ways: supporting US capitalists while wanting them to promote national interests. The US and all other capitalist classes only use the nation when it is convenient, and dispenses with the nation when it isn't convenient for their maximization of profits. The prime objective of capitalist ruling classes is that they always seek their own class interests: profits and power. The US/Anglo/Zionist Empire is guided by neoliberal policies which considers national boundaries irrelevant in their pursuit of profits.

Recommended articles for Thursday, August 8, 2019

• China Just Went Nuclear In The Trade War, And There Is No Turning Back Now by Michael Snyder from End of the American Dream.

• The Western Alliance Is Falling Apart by Peter Koenig from Global Research.

• American Exceptionalism = Mass Murder by Glen Ford from Black Agenda Report.

• New Fears for Julian Assange from Consortium News.

• Trump in El Paso: The culprit returns to the scene of the crime by Eric London from World Socialist Web Site.

NATO’s China Double-Think

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Cunningham starts out by castigating such fools as NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg of Norway and other such lackeys of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, but sees the directors of the Empire digging their own graves by their bellicose actions and threats. 

As the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire experience one military defeat after another, threatened by the desertion of countries from the petro-dollar, and mounting debts to 23 trillion dollars, the directors of this Empire are now panicking by threatening everybody and thus, digging its own grave. Such is Cunningham's argument--and I firmly believe he is correct. Because of this I also believe that we are entering a very dangerous phase of the demise of the Empire, and with its demise the shocking effects on the people of the USA.

The War on White Supremacist Terror

Click here to access article by C. J. Hopkins from his weblog Consent Factory, Inc.

The master satirist does it once again: mockingly criticizes our masters in the ruling capitalist class for trying to "beat the drum" (def.) for more attacks on civil liberties (as if there has not been enough under the Patriot Act). (The other major mouth piece of our masters, The Washington Post, is also demanding this. One cannot fault our masters for a lack of coordination.) No doubt they have in mind first attacking "white supremacists" as only a first step; then they will use this to take away what's left of the civil liberties of all of us.   

Hopkins describes the latest scary myth being promoted by our masters to exploit the recent attacks on US citizens in order to curtail our civil liberties:

The official narrative of the moment is Democracy versus The Putin-Nazis (also known as The War on Populism), which I’ve been covering in these columns, satirically and more seriously, for the better part of the last three years. According to this official narrative, “democracy is under attack” by a conspiracy of Russians and neo-Nazis that magically materialized out of thin air during the Summer of 2016, right around the time Trump won the nomination. OK, the Russia part kind of sputtered out recently, so the global capitalist ruling classes and their mouthpieces in the corporate media are now going full-bore on the fascism hysteria. They’ve been doing this relentlessly since Trump won the election, alternating between the Russia hysteria and the fascism hysteria from week to week, day to day, sometimes hour to hour, depending on which one is “hot” at the moment.

These recent mass shootings have provided them with a golden opportunity, not just to flog the fascism hysteria once again, but to fold it into the terrorism hysteria which Americans have been indoctrinated with since September 11, 2001 (the objective of which indoctrination being to establish in the American psyche “the Terrorist” as the new official enemy, replacing the “Communist” official enemy that had filled this role throughout the Cold War). 

Articles recommended for Wednesday, August 7, 2019

• India's Tryst with Destiny: Freedom Struggle from Exploitation and Degradation is Global by Colin Todhunter (Brit.) from his weblog East by Northwest.

• Any Turkish operation into northern Syria ‘unacceptable’: Pentagon chief by "TM" from Turkish Minute.

The following articles have different perspectives regarding the protests/strikes in Hong Kong:

• Hong Kong, Kashmir: a Tale of Two Occupations by Pepe Escobar from Strategic Culture Foundation.

• Kashmir and Palestine: The story of two occupations by Goldie Osuri from Al Jazeera (Qatar).

• General strike signals entry of working class into Hong Kong protests by Peter Symonds from World Socialist Web Site.

Articles recommended for Tuesday, August 6, 2019

• US to ring China with missiles in nuclear arms race by Andre Damon from World Socialist Web Site.

• Charter School Apologia by Shawgi Tell from Dissident Voice.

• More Fake Happy News About Jobs by Paul Craig Roberts from his weblog.

• What kind of rebellion will it take to save humanity from extinction? by Pip Hinman from Green Left Weekly (Australia).

• Nuclear power somehow always makes a loss by Paul Brown from Climate News Network.

• Attack on Iran would be an attack on Russia by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times.

• The Military-Industrial Jobs Scam by Nia Harris, Cassandra Stimpson, and Ben Freeman from TomDispatch.

• Europe’s record heat melted Swiss glaciers by Chelsea Harvey from Science.

• Brazilian institute head fired after clashing with nation’s president over deforestation data by Herton Escobar from Science.

Michael Hudson: Global Warming and U.S. National Security Diplomacy

Click here to access article by Michael Hudson from Naked Capitalism.

Hudson, who is employed as an economics professor at University of Missouri (Kansas City, MO), must not challenge capitalism overtly and directly. Nevertheless, I am amazed that he has gotten away with his more subdued criticisms of the system. For example, he must make less than blunt, mild statements like the following:

To implement a successful Green policy program, it thus is necessary to move beyond the environmental problem to take on a broad and wealthy array of vested interests. They will cite free-market ideology as justification for taking their money in the short run, without care for the weather disaster they are causing. That makes the task much more daunting, and also may limit the ideological appeal of a real Green program. 

Could he be writing that it is necessary for a successful Green policy program to replace capitalism with some system that doesn't reward a small minority of people to benefit from the exploitation of nature and people and, instead, is responsive to the needs of all people? 

PBS: Keeper of Official State Myths

Click here to access article by Bill Willers from Dissident Voice.

Willers's remarks about the prime role of PBS as gatekeeper and propagandist for the Deep State parallels my own experience after many years of watching the ad-free programming which is funded by major US corporations and the rich endowments of capitalists. Yes, they always thank "viewers like you", but I think the appeal to the public functions as a propaganda cover to legitimatize their programming. While corporate advertisers sponsor commercial programs to increase sales of their products, they also insure the future of the capitalist system by lavishly funding PBS.

He concludes with this summary statement:

American mainstream journalism is now a tapestry of lies of omission. PBS, however, is a standout in this area, because its prominent, “in depth” productions on Nova, American Experience and Frontline are considered widely to represent the best investigative journalism available. It is this reputation that places PBS above the networks in the public mind. As PBS has willfully avoided specific areas for exploration, and has excluded truths that a governmental power structure does not want aired, it has made itself a powerful tool in the rewriting of history.

Thus, not only ordinary adults of the present generation are influenced by these lies, but their children study these lies in history classes. The lies become a manufactured "reality".

(Have you noticed that so many dissident writers like Willers are retired from academia? This is because their academic careers, while they actively pursue such careers, are threatened if they don't support the Deep State's lies.)

Articles recommended for Monday, August 5, 2019

• Seeking Justice for 9/11 Heroes: An Interview with New York Area Fire Commissioner Christopher Gioia. Andrew Steele of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth interviews the NY fire commissioner. (transcript included)

• Lust for Profits, Not Love of Democracy: The Real Reason Washington Wants Maduro Gone by Stephen Gowans from his weblog.

• Animals adapt to climate heat, but too slowly by Tim Radford from Climate News Network. (Because humans are animals, I would prefer that the title be "Other animals ....")

• Americans Should Be Very Skeptical Of Calls For New “Terrorism” Laws by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog.

• US to ring China with missiles in nuclear arms race by Andre Damon from World Socialist Web Site.

Dancing with Grief

Click here to access article by Dahr Jamail from Titanic Lifeboat Academy (originally from Resilience).

This post is an exception to my policy to post articles from their original websites. I encourage you to click on this website to see for yourselves the many fine articles appearing on it.

The people at Titanic Lifeboat Academy have devoted so much time and effort into warning people about the climate crisis and have trained people to live sustainably. I recommend this website especially to those of you who are now resigned to the destabilization of our climate. 

Articles recommended for Sunday, August 4, 2019

• July heatwave up to 3C hotter due to climate change from Phys.org, featuring articles by international scientists and related professions. It is a part of a network called Science X and based in Britain.

• Why did the UK commander of HM Montrose refrain from firing on the IRGC? Who in Iran gave orders to capture the “Stena Impero”? by Elijah J. Magnier from his weblog.

Articles recommended for Saturday, August 3, 2019

• Big-business parties preside over a social catastrophe in 21st century America by Kate Randall from World Socialist Web Site.

• Faux Humanitarian Irwin Cotler, the White Helmets, and the Whitewashing of an Appalling Agenda by Vanessa Beeley from Mint Press News.

• US-Russia Arms Control Treaty to Expire Friday by Dave DeCamp from AntiWar.

• New NBC Attack On Alec Baldwin, JFK Research Is Attack On Truth, Democracy by Andrew Kreig from The Indicter (Sweden).

The Citadels of America’s Elites: Fractured and At Odds with Each Other

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

Crooke, an ex-MI6 (British counterpart to US's CIA) agent, has been following the reports of two journalists from the Financial Times, a key newspaper of US capitalists, and what he writes suggests that the directors of the Deep State in the USA are inclined to aggressively pursue a new cold war with Russia, China, and Iran. Crooke begins his article (it contains a couple typographical errors) with this foreboding statement:

Something is ‘up’. When two Financial Times columnists – pillars of the western Establishment – raise a warning flag, we must take note: Martin Wolf was first off, with a piece dramatically headlined: The looming 100-year, US-China Conflict. No ‘mere’ trade war, he implied, but a full-spectrum struggle. Then his FT colleague Edward Luce, pointed out that Wolf’s “argument is more nuanced than the headline. Having spent part of this week among leading policymakers and thinkers at the annual Aspen Security Forum in Colorado,” Luce[tr] writes, “I am inclined to think Martin was not exaggerating. The speed with which US political leaders of all stripes have united behind the idea of a ‘new cold war’ is something that takes my breath away. Eighteen months ago the phrase was dismissed as fringe scaremongering. Today it is consensus.”

Do I need to argue that regardless of who gets elected as president in America's managed elections in 2020, the winner, like the clownish Trump, must bend to the will of the Deep State or else he/she will be taken out (def.) one way or another?

Totalitarian Democracy means end of Freedom for the People - William Binney, Herland Report TV.

Click here to access an interview with ex-CIA officer William Binney (via YouTube) conducted by Hanne Herland (Norway), founder of the Herland Report, historian of comparative religions, bestselling author, commentator and TV producer.

Binney tells what he knows about the infiltration of media corporations by CIA agents, and other subversive actions. Some excerpts from the interview:

William Binney says: "The media is totally infiltrated by the CIA and various other agencies. When it comes to national security, the media only talk about what the administration wants you to hear, and basically suppress any other statements about what's going on that the administration does not want get public. The media is basically  the lapdogs for the government."

"William Casey, who was the director of Central Intelligence Agency back when Reagan was president, said at one point that you'll know how effective we are once at least 70 percent of what’s publicly known is false."

"In other words, they have been infiltrating the press for decades and they're pushing their thinking and agenda to the media, so the media will promulgate it to the public. The public won't even have any idea what’s really going on."

"The objective is to keep everybody uninformed so that they can't make a smart decision about anything. Everything is being done behind this secret door that you are not supposed to know about. That is really destroying the fundamental essence of democracy."

"That was what our Constitution was all about, that the people were supposed to know what the government was doing. Not the government knowing what the people were doing at all times, they way it is turning today."

"We are pretty much heading towards a totalitarian system. In this country, democracy has been subverted, much I think by Dick Cheney. He masterminded this because he would spend time in Congress, he knew about the congressional operation, how it worked. He was assistant to President Nixon, spying on everybody. He knew that he needed to know things about people in the opposition. What better way to do it than have a sister agency and the US government just open up and collect everything, store it, so you can go in and look at it at any time retroactively and examine anybody." 

Propaganda, Censorship, Power, & Control — Inside the Submissive Void [an essential read & study)

Click here to access article by Greg Maybury (Australian) from Russia Insider.

This is one of the best all time articles that I've posted over the nearly 10 years I've been blogging. The article, filled with many supporting documented links, should not be merely read, but studied because it contains so many insights to be learned about the disturbing reality that we are currently experiencing today. One of the paragraphs may summarize this:

We now live in the Age of the Big Shill—cocooned in a submissive void no less—an era where nothing can be taken on face value yet where time and attention constraints (to name just a few) force us to do so; [where] few people in public life can be taken at their word; where unchallenged perceptions become accepted reality; where ‘open-book’ history is now incontrovertible not-negotiable, upon pain of imprisonment fact; where education is about uniformity, function, form and conformity, all in the service of imposed neo-liberal ideologies embracing then prioritising individual—albeit dubious—freedoms.

But what is most valuable is his review of how we arrived at our present nightmarish situation.

After reading this post, I considered dropping out of blogging because this article exposes so many insights about this current reality: seemingly inevitable prospects of nuclear war and environmental catastrophes which will likely lead to our extinction. My weblog has been precisely dedicated to exposing these insights, yet in one article Maybury does it all.  Mostly out of habit and the need to preserve my sanity while living in an insane society controlled by the capitalist directors of the Empire, I will probably not discontinue blogging.

MintCast Interviews Doug Valentine, Author of The Phoenix Program and The CIA as Organized Crime

Click here to hear Whitney Webb of Mint Press News having an insightful interview with Douglas Valentine who has written and revealed so much about the dirty secrets of the CIA. (I must thank an activist for forwarding this article to me.)

Even though the interview last for nearly an hour, I think you will find it very interesting. The CIA has been the main agent of the capitalist ruling class, particularly of the likewise well hidden Deep State which is essentially a board of directors of this nation as well as their US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. 

Although he begins his discourse by stating that the CIA does their subversive work legally, he soon ends up arguing that they "are given a pass" by legal authorities who believe that they are doing their work on behalf of the security of the nation. Of course, they are doing it on behalf of the capitalist ruling class. They and their collaborators are so thoroughly enmeshed in powerful centers in every institution that they now have overwhelming license to do their dirty work. This includes not only high crimes of assassination, drug trafficking, 9/11, etc., but the promotion of every fantastic story that they serve up to their gullible population. I have for some time regarding the USA as a vast open psychiatric ward of delusional people. Valentine explains how this dreadful state of affairs (def.) gradually developed over the years since WWII.

Articles recommended for Wednesday, July 31, 2019

• Philip Weiss: The role of Jewish Democrats in bill that could imprison Israel boycotters for 20 years by Philip Weiss from If Americans Knew. 

• Climatic Change hits the Arctic by Jessica Corbett from Defend Democracy Press.

• Torturing and Exterminating Assange to terrorize journalists around the globe by Nick Miller from Defend Democracy Press.

• Alaska Governor Demolishes Climate Research by Robert Hunziker from Dissident Voice.

• How a Small Group of Pro-Israel Activists Blacklisted MintPress on Wikipedia by Whitney Webb from Mint Press News.

Space Lunacy: $ Trillion Space Games and False Prophecies by Billionaires While Rome Burns

Click here to access article by Dr. Andrew Glikson from Global Research.

This article has provoked many thoughts as I've watched the space exploration programs--I've watched most of them--televised by PBS.  I always watch programs created by major media corporations with an eye toward class bias (which I have an almost natural instinct for), and these programs have elicited many such thoughts. Among these were an increase in skepticism about the moon landing in 1969. Previously I thought such speculation was bizarre, but I began to increase my natural skepticism after a series of gross mishaps in NASA's attempts (including the deaths of three astronauts), but then suddenly everything went perfectly! (I still believe that NASA succeeded.) 

Last night I watched "A Year in Space & Beyond a Year in Space". I started watching this film about 15 minutes after it began, so I missed the introduction which I believe introduced the subject as an international effort. The Russians invited Britain, Japan, USA, and others to participate in this experience in which a Russian rocket propelled them to a space station. While there the astronauts performed many experiments over nearly a year. 

Anyway, the point I wish to make that the show was designed around US astronaut Scott Kelly, his twin brother, and family, but not that it was an international effort promoted by the Russian government, using a Russian rocket, and launched by the Russians from Kazakhstan. No doubt the huge space station was launched by the Russians using their more powerful rockets. The film provided very little of the scientific findings that the mission was devoted to. Because of the focus of attention was on the heroics of Scott Kelly, I inferred that it was an effort to "sell" further space exploration to the American public, particularly to gain their support for a rocket exploration to Mars. It was easy to imagine that the billionaires wanted the US government to do this costly research to facilitate their quest to colonize other planets after they destroy this one and toss into the cosmic dumpster along with 99.9% of humans.   

Articles recommended for Tuesday, July 30, 2019

• Revelations on the attacks of 2004 and 2017 in Spain by Thierry Meyssan from his weblog Voltaire Network.

• The Manson Murders, JFK, 9/11, and the Psychopathy of Power by Kevin Barrett from The Unz Review.

The Information War is Over and We Have Lost--[I challenge you to] Change My Mind.

Click here if you wish the video directly from James Corbett's weblog.

Corbett addresses the important issue of management of information by mainstream corporations like Facebook, Google, etc. to control our access to information that we can access readily over the internet. And, as he says, their control will likely eliminate any undesirable information that the directors of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire does not want us to know.

The ability to view alternative ideas and contrary opinions and come to our own conclusions is the basis of cognitive liberty. Big tech is now turning the screws and making sure that no one using their platforms will find these alternative viewpoints. Sure, there will be ways to get this information out, but most people will never even know that it exists. This battle in the information war has been lost. Change my mind.

The Discovery and Rediscovery of Metabolic Rift

Click here if you wish to access the following talk by Ian Angus at a recent Marxism festival in London directly from Climate & Capitalism.

I have in the past posted many articles by the astute Angus, and now we see him in person in the following 38m50s video. The remainder of the video is devoted to the comments by the participants at the talk.

In his address Angus, after defining the concept, reviews the long materialist history of the metabolic rift caused by humans beginning with intuitive observations by ancient Greeks over 2000 years ago. During the past two centuries scientists and Marxists have added to this by their study of nature and the implications derived from these studies.



If you want more of Ian Angus and/or the festival organized in London by the Socialist Worker's Party, I recommend this video presentation.

Climate emergency new update

Click here to access the latest post of Climate Code Red by David Spratt, the founder of Australia's leading website alerting Australians to the threats of climate destabilization.

I learned a lot reading this post about the lower level legislators across the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire and their growing concern about responding to their constituent's pressure to do something about the climate crisis. I wasn't aware that many in cities and American states were passing resolutions recognizing the growing crisis. This could be that I don't spend much time watching corporate news reports covering world events. Although I can't totally escape corporate news reports which are devoted almost exclusively to self-serving propaganda of the capitalist ruling class, I typically spend each morning scanning independent alternative media to find snatches of news and analyses about real events. This Australian post informed me about real events regarding the climate crisis that major media corporations failed to cover (here I am referring to major media corporations of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire like CNN, MSNBC, BBC, etc.). Or did I simply miss such reports?

No doubt lower level legislators within the Empire are responding to pressures from their constituents to do something about the increasingly obvious climate crisis. Although legislators must obey the interests (profits and power) of the ruling class, they get around this contradiction by passing meaningless resolutions in order to pacify ordinary people. I think the lack of coverage of these pressures by the media corporations is primarily because they don't want ordinary people to know about such efforts.

Although the articles provoke many thoughts about the contemporary political scene, I haven't the energy or time to expound on them. As we increasingly experience extreme weather events, I will only argue that the pressures of ordinary people will grow stronger as they become aware of the extent that they have been lied to until, at some point in time, ordinary people will violently vent their desperate anguish and anger against all perceived authorities. I hope I am still not around to see this. 

Articles recommended for Saturday, July 27, 2019

• How Fast is the Climate Changing? by John Molyneux from Rebel (Ireland).

• CapitalGate’s the Problem, Not Russiagate by Frank Scott from Dissident Voice.

• Destabilizing Pakistan: Bookending Washington’s China Policy by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook. 

• “Human Right Activists” Celebrate Facebook-Twitter Censorship by Joseph Thomas from New Eastern Outlook.  

• First setbacks for the Muslim Brotherhood by Thierry Meyssan from his weblog Voltaire Network.

How Capital Heats the Planet: Introducing Fordulat Journal’s Latest Issue on “Climate Change and Capitalism”

Click here to access a review by Zsolt Kapelner of a recent leftist journal (in Hungarian) devoted to a leftist perspective on climate destabilization. (Once again, I must thank an activist for forwarding this article to me.)

Kapelner's review covers both radical perspectives: that of a bottom-up reconstruction of society and a state structure supported by the people to challenge capital's way of exploiting man and nature to the fullest (a la Cuba). The journal articles also advocate a variety of other schemes to modify capital's normal practices in a last ditch attempt toward sustainable economies.

I have over the life of this weblog (nearly 10 years) gone from pointing out the need to change the system of capitalism which is the fundamental dynamic factor which determines the way we live to urgently advocating a revolutionary necessity to overturn capitalism, and finally to a position that recognizes that it is too late to avoid extinction but we should prepare revolutionary strategies to attack capitalism to punish the class who benefits from it.

I'm no philosopher, but I recognize that humans have evolved from primitive notions of humans as being the center of reality, which gave rise to many supernatural mythologies (religions) to explain this notion, to where we are today: reassuring views emanating from the ruling capitalist class that hijacked science, which emphasized material reality of our existence, to serve their class of people--the owners of our economies. Thus, instead of science being used to serve the health and welfare of people in general, it has been used in a very manipulative way to serve only this tiny class of capitalists at the expense of the rest of humanity and preserving our natural environment. I concluded that this class of people became addicted to the power and wealth that their self-serving system delivered to them. Now we are facing the extinction of nearly all life of our planet Earth.

Because of the time scale of the destruction of our environment is so large in comparison to our human life span, we humans in general failed to discover this destruction until it was nearly at the end stages of catastrophe (about 1970). Yet we still had time to change our fate and we had warnings at the time, but capitalist agents were always urgently motivated to pursue their control of the Earth's population of humans. They downplayed such warnings by obscuring the issues, adding many distractions (wars included), outright censorship of any views of our impending doom, etc.

Now I think it is too late to save ourselves; but in the time remaining, I think that the class has brought this about--the high crime of our extinction in addition to those of many other species--must be punished. I have no doubt as the climate destabilization progresses to dramatic alterations that threaten human life, it will awaken people to the necessity of dramatically altering the way we live in a desperate attempt to save the human species from extinction. But as the environment that supports human life (and that of many other species) begins to dramatically destabilize as it is becoming obvious now, I think it will become increasingly clear to most populations that the class who are responsible for this greatest of all crimes must be punished. Those of us conscious of this end must prepare people for this remaining task. Thus, I see in these journal articles preliminary attempts to do just that.       

Articles recommended for Friday, July 26, 2019

• Mindbreaking - The mental health effects of environmental change by Jan Wyllie and Jennifer Hynes via YouTube. See also this link. (Thanks go to an activist for alerting me to this post.)

• Not In My Name: Academics Publicly Attacking UN Torture Rapporteur by "contraspin" from BSNews.

• Chelsea Manning’s lawyer refutes conspiracy allegation against Julian Assange by Mike Head from World Socialist Web Site.

Once Again Chomsky and Achcar Provide a Service to the US Global Dictatorship

Click here to access article by Canadian Stephen Gowans from his weblog.

Gowans accuses some of America's as well as Britains leading intellectuals as collaborating with the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire to destabilize governments that the Empire doesn't like with most recent target of Venezuela. He accuses them of using sophistry to rationalize these destabilization efforts. Chomsky and Democracy Now's Amy Goodman have already dramatically demonstrated this by their opposition to questioning the government's version of what happened on 9/11/2001 and many other crimes instigated by the Empire (see this, this, this, this, and this).

Recommended articles for Thursday, July 25, 2019

• New book launched: ‘An important contribution to the fight to stop capitalist destruction’, a book review of System Change Not Climate Change by Valerie Lannon from Climate & Capitalism

• End Forever War? Divest Zionism by Kurt Nimmo from his weblog Another Day in the Empire.

• War Profiteers and the Demise of the US Military-Industrial Complex by Dmitry Orlov from his weblog Club Orlov. 

• Pentagon May Have To Explain Their 1,000 Bases, a post via YouTube from Redacted Tonight.

• People Think Epstein Was a Spy for an Intelligence Agency — and They Might Be Right by Derrick Broze from Activist Post.

Articles recommended for Tuesday, July 23, 2019

• Challenging global corporate power by James Shultz from Ecologist.

• Acid oceans may trigger mass extinction by Tim Radford from Climate News Network.

• Khamenei’s three commandments for the Iranians: the Middle East is heading towards “maximum danger" by Elijah J Magnier from his weblog.

• Did John Bolton Light the Fuse of the UK-Iranian Tanker Crisis? by Gareth Porter from Dissident Voice. 

• B(o)r-exit by Bernhard (Germany) from his weblog Moon of Alabama.

• Do You Choose the Truth or War Propaganda? Your Choice Makes a Difference. By Mark Taliano from Global Research.  

• The Just World Fallacy: Why People Bash Assange And Defend Power by Caitlin Johnstone from Medium. (Recently I have been having increasingly difficulties accessing her website. Yesterday and today I have been unable. Censorship?)

• Multinational Pharmaceuticals and Medicine: Under Fire Worldwide by Dimitris Konstantakopoulos from United World (Turkey).

• How the pharmaceutical companies, Congress and the DEA made the opioid epidemic a billion-dollar industry by Genevieve Leigh from World Socialist Web Site.

March of the Uyghurs

Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook (independent news and analysis based in Russia).

Vltchek has a number of unnamed sources he uses to support his report on the latest "useful idiots" used by Western subversive agents to undermine the Chinese government's control of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China. We must rely on Vltchek's unnamed sources for much of this; so if you consider him a reliable source (as I do), read the article to discover the details of this project to undermine China.

Agents of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire frequently use various disgruntled populations to undermine their primary challengers to their power and profits: China, Russia, and Iran. Iran suffers the most aggressive threats because the Empire views them as the most easily bullied by threats to their country, but Russia and China are too powerful to bully. Thus Chechens in Russia were used by the Empire to damage Russia, the Kurds and their aspirations for independence have been used by the Empire and Israel to undermine the Syrian government, and the Uyghurs are used to undermine China. Sometimes this done in the name of "human rights", but this is only a cynical public relations cover to promote their interests of being in control of the world to serve their insatiable appetites for more profits and power.

How Capital Heats the Planet: Introducing Fordulat Journal’s Latest Issue on “Climate Change and Capitalism”

Click here to access article by Zsolt Kapelner posted on LeftEast (based in Romania).

This article reports on the efforts of Hungarians to target capitalism as being the cause for the increasingly obvious phenomenon of global warming.

As temperatures rose close to 50°C in North India and water supplies were about to cease, and as a tremendous heat wave descended upon Europe, a sizeable crowd gathered on 18 June in the community centre/pub Gólya operated by a leftist cooperative in the middle of Budapest, Hungary. The occasion was the publication of the new issue of the social theory journal Fordulat(“Turn”) on Climate Change and Capitalism.

The journal was established in 1985 and has since been run by the College for Advanced Studies in Social Theory, a hub of Marxist and left-leaning students of social sciences that regularly publishes thematic issues on topics such as Social Reproduction or Digital Capitalism. Each issue, produced in Hungarian, collects translations, book reviews and original papers on the topic in question.

Extinction Rebellion: Not the Struggle we Need, Pt. 1

Click here to access article by a group called "Out of the Woods" posted on libcom.org, an anarchist website based in France. 

This is a critique of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) that is most active in Europe as a means of preventing the extinction of humans that is driven by the capitalist empire known informally, but accurately, as the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. There have been a number of article posted on Wrong Kind of Green (see this and this) that has revealed the top-down nature of this movement and the likely involvement of agents of the ruling capitalist class to supervise it. This post reinforces this contention by the well documented examination of actual events of people who have participated in XR activities. 

This critique is not to damage the efforts of well meaning people participating in XR activities, but to insure that the movement is not controlled by the Empire in order to preserve their system of capitalism that is destroying the habitat of nearly all living things.

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Shocking Origins of the Jeffrey Epstein Case

Click here to access article by Whitney Webb from Mint Press News. 

Although I skimmed this article and recommended it before, I now wish to offer a brief commentary on introduction to this piece.

Webb explains the long American history in which organized crime has operated at the highest political levels to coerce government officials into supporting their interests. Nowadays it appears that the capitalist system has devolved into a system which supports organized crime rather than the welfare of the American people. Because of the key role that the USA plays in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, the interests of organized crime affects all nations of the world. 

It is increasingly hard to differentiate organized crime from contemporary capitalism. This is because it has now fully integrated, or merged, with the capitalist system. This system seems to be a perfect host for organized crime. (For a good history of this development, I highly recommend reading a book entitled The Money and the Power by S. Denton & R. Morris.) 

Dynamic Systems, Ocean Acidification, and Tipping Points

Click here to access article by Paul Beckwith from his weblog Paul Beckwith, Climate System Scientist.

In this article Beckwith explains to ordinary people the complex nature of the Earth's oceans which are now, due to the vast increase of the burning of fossil fuels during this industrial era, rapidly acidifying at a rate that is unprecedented in the Earth's history dating back hundreds of millions of years ago. 

Two recommended articles to keep you informed about the latest threats to human existence (Saturday, July 20, 2019)

• Britain Pirates Iranian Ship 'Grace 1' - Iran Responds - Takes British Tanker Hostage by Bernhard from his weblog Moon of Alabama.

• Most Important Message Ever from Arctic News. Credit for this post goes to an activist who submitted it to me.

Articles recommended for Friday, July 19, 2019

• Hidden in Plain Sight: The Shocking Origins of the Jeffrey Epstein Case by Whitney Webb from Mint Press News.

• Inside the Yellow Vests: What the Western media will not report (Part 3) by Ollie Richardson from A bird's eye view of the Vineyard.

• Sergey Lavrov’s interview with the newspaper Argumenty i Fakty (transcript) from A bird's eye view of the Vineyard.

• Western intellectuals freak over ‘Frankenstein’ China by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times. 

• WikiLeaks Editor Kristinn Hrafnsson, Michael Isikoff, Pepe Escobar, As’ad AbuKhalil on CN Live! Friday 2pm EDT from Consortium News.

• Drug companies poured 76 billion opioid pills into US neighborhoods in just six years by Genevieve Leigh from World Socialist Web Site. 

To the Moon!

Click here to access article by Deena Stryker from New Eastern Outlook.

I think Stryker has got something, that is, some kernel of valid insight from the recent abundant coverage by media corporations about the next big thing--returning to the moon and going to the other planets. I initially thought that this was only a commemoration of the moon landing in 1969, but I now think they have another agenda.

After reading this article, I think that our ruling masters in the Empire's capitalist class, who are thoroughly addicted to profits and power, are looking elsewhere for their salvation. They have essentially given up on this planet, and want us to support them in their new agenda of saving themselves. Their self-serving system of capitalism has destroyed our habitat on planet Earth so they want to move to another planet (and repeat the same cycle). Their promotion and widespread coverage of this new venture is to subvert our minds into supporting this project by sacrificing our already perilous existence in order to save them!

Following the 2008 economic meltdown, knowing that the earth is likely to become inhospitable to humans in the near future, the 1% ceased pretending to care about the 99%, quoting Stephan Hawking Stephen Hawking:

“I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let’s hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load.”

“Even if humans manage to avoid a nuclear stand-off over the next thousand years, our fate on this planet is still pretty much certain. University of Sussex astrophysicist Dr. Robert Smith says eventually the aging Sun will accelerate global warming to a point where all of Earth’s water will simply evaporate.” 

16 Tons of Madness

Click here to access article by John R. Hall from Dissident Voice.

There are so many insights about political reality packed in this article and so many experiences that I can identify with. Hall was a dissident and activist during the Vietnam War among young people. I, who was slightly older, tried to warn this generation of the lies spread by our media corporations in support of this war and the ruling class's project of building their empire. 

Long ago I discovered the secret of their success which I attributed to their incessant indoctrination and the use of psychological warfare techniques on ordinary Americans that were so similar to their efforts to sell all their fast foods, cosmetics, and other worthless junk solely to obtain profit for capitalists in place of more costly services to really benefit the health and welfare of ordinary Americans. 

The ruling capitalist class convinced Americans that this was the American Way of Life and that their families would flourish if they played along. And they did. The ruling class were dedicated to their self-serving project of profit and power; but to accomplish this, they had to erase through their propaganda and indoctrination any class consciousness that ordinary Americans might have that was left over from the Great Depression of the 1930s. And they did.

Immediately after WWII they launched a comprehensive campaign to rid ordinary American of any beliefs about a class consciousness by inculcating beliefs about the "Red Menace" and the Russian threat. They used all their media, political as well as all institutions in this effort to substitute a fear of the Russians for lingering notions of social-economic justice which they labeled subversive. This period was known as McCarthyism. They also used the carrots of full employment, GI Bill, and the much vaunted "Yankee know-how" among ordinary Americans to distract them from any "subversive" thoughts about their imperialist foreign policies and contribute to the building of their empire. And American families benefited ... for a while. 

Then in the 1980s they saw corporations buying out and merging with other corporations to reap ever greater concentrations of wealth and power. Later on in the 1980s these behemoth corporations saw their next opportunity to obtain profits and power from employing desperate low paid workers in other countries, and they moved their factories there. The story is far more complex than I can express, but the result has been the disappearance of any sense of class consciousness and "Yankee know-how". Instead we have seen the rise of poverty, homelessness, massive debts incurred by ordinary Americans, never-ending wars, the destabilization of our climate, etc. 

Hall vividly describes where we are now to those of us who can still manage to see reality somewhat clearly.  

Articles recommended for Monday, July 15, 2019

• The UK must release the Iranian tanker; The UAE’s mission to Tehran by Elijah J Magnier from his weblog.

• As Cost of Climate Crisis Grows, Climate Movement Escalates by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers from Dissident Voice.

• Why are Anti-Migrant Arguments Pure Hypocrisy? by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook. 

• Understanding American Capitalism (Revisited/ 2), a book review and analysis by Patrice Greanville from his weblog The Greanville Post. 

• XR [Extinction Rebellion] summer rebellion begins by Sian Harrison and Sam Tobin from Ecologist.

From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment: Romanticism as a Tool for Elite Agendas

Click here to access article by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin from Dissident Voice.

The author demonstrates how characterizations of major ideological trends of thought are largely influenced by ruling classes ("elites"). One such period called the Enlightenment, which emphasized the discoveries of the material nature of our Earth (and a little beyond), also was anathema to the rise of capitalist ruling classes. 

In addition, the Enlightenment examined the old ideas of feudalism and discovered that they were full of errors like the divine right of kings, feudalism's cosmology which placed the Earth at the center of the universe, and obedience to Roman Catholicism also gave rise to a whole new range of ideas that were first dramatically expressed during the French Revolution and soon led to socialist ideas, that is, to ideas of equality of rights and opportunities among inhabitants of regions. 

However, simultaneous to this, capitalist classes arose in various European countries which would soon formed ruling classes in those countries, and they saw such ideas as incompatible with their interests of private economic property and all the benefits derived from that ownership and control. They soon shaped what became known as a ideological period of Romanticism. This period was characterized not only by the mystification of nature but to differences such as language, race, and above all, nationalism that always favored the regions under the control of capitalist ruling classes.

The influence of Romanticism on politics shifted revolutionary thinking from burgeoning socialist movements to nationalism instead. Nationalism is the perfect class conciliatory ideology in that it retained the full social order/hierarchy (i.e. it includes the elites) and homogenised the people by excluding other national languages and foreign communities while putting the elites into positions of leadership and control.

Using divide and rule tactics and stirring up xenophobic attitudes and fears, the elites ran the new homogenised nations and used them for their old purposes: war. Modern global power struggles of the twentieth century started with nation set against nation in the First World War. 

Now we have entered a period identified as neoliberalism (the ideology of the new capitalism) as the capitalist ruling classes have outgrown their nation-states and formed transnational capitalist ruling classes such as we see in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire versus the rest of the world. Trump represents ideologically the earlier period of capitalism which glorified nationalism while the Deep State (see this, this, this, and this), which is in command of the Empire, pushes their neoliberal agendas under the Empire using deceptive psychological practices developed in propaganda against enemies in WWI and WWII, but this time aimed at their own populations. 

Recommended articles for Saturday, July 13, 2019 [updated]

• Challenging capitalism is the ultimate climate mitigation strategy by Hans Baer (Australian) from Climate & Capitalism.

• What’s really going on in Hong Kong by Reese Ehrlich from 48 Hills (San Francisco based). 

• Top Assange Defense Account Deleted By Twitter by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog. 

• ‘We did bad, evil things there’ – Vet turned peace activist on growing dissent with US forever wars by Kareem Raheem from RT.

Iran Keeps Calm While U.S. And Britain Continue Their Provocations

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

This article is a warning not to trust fake Western news reports--as if we needed any. But we do! The public of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire have short memories. Every generation needs to be reminded of the past false narratives by the capitalist ruling class in order to get their support for war. But can the public be reminded? There is decreasing chances of this happening because of the ongoing development of capitalism to increase the concentration of ownership and/or control of all institutions. 

Well paid ruling class  agents only need to fool about 65% of their nation's populace in order to promote wars. Under current circumstances of the concentration of ownership and infiltration of other media corporations, this is quite easily achieved.

Bernhard isn't fooled which is common among people who pay attention. But worker populations of the Empire are mired in debts, work long hours, and have been intentionally conditioned not to think critically by most public schools that they are fairly easily influenced by fake or exaggerated reports. Still, most populations are fed up with ongoing wars and the steady deterioration of their living standards, and thus it is becoming harder for propaganda agents to get them to support Empire wars. 

Two articles recommended for Thursday, July 11, 2019

• The Muslim Brotherhood as an auxiliary force of MI6 and the CIA by Thierry Meyssan (French independent political analyst) from his weblog Voltaire Network.

• The Death of Privacy: Government Fearmongers to Read Your Mail by Philip Giraldi from Strategic Culture Foundation (independent website based in Russia).

The United States of Fascism Hysteria [updated]

Click here to access article by C. J. Hopkins from his weblog Consent Factory, Inc.

This time Hopkins uses his well-honed satirical weapons on what he identifies as liberal anti-fascists. However, although some liberals are involved, I think the real target are unthinking anti-fascist anarchists. These people have a way of predictably reacting to the latest propaganda by the fascist Deep State who have for a long time practiced and perfected their skills at manipulating people. Because of the many years of propaganda and psychological warfare directed at the American people (as described by Christopher Simpson in his excellent book Science of Coercion), there is no shortage of these dumbed-down, uncritical thinking people.

Concentration camps and dead people are nothing to joke about. It’s OK, however, to cynically use them to whip people up into a paroxysm of manufactured mass fascism hysteria. Not that the neoliberal ruling classes and the corporate media would ever do that. No, they would never repeatedly attempt to evoke our hatred of the actual Nazis (and their actual concentration camps … which people were dragged out of their homes, loaded onto trains, and shipped away to, and which you could not voluntarily depart) in order to short circuit our critical thinking, or otherwise emotionally manipulate us into supporting their War on Populism.

Many anarchists among the working class, who simply do not have the time to develop critical thinking skills, do not realize that contemporary capitalism has morphed into a new version of neoliberal fascism because they have always been taught to believe that fascism were stereotypes depicted by goosestepping fascist thugs who beat up decent people and send them on trains to their death. This new updated fascism uses more sophisticated psychological methods to deceive and manipulate people in order to continue their self-serving exploitation of people and nature.  

Two articles recommended for Tuesday, July 9, 2019

• Iran Not to Forget Downing of Passenger Plane by US from Tasnim News Agency (Iran).

• Assange Supports Shocked by UK Government Call for Press Freedom from RT via YouTube.

Game of Risk: DC Submersion, Guadalajara Hail, Planting Glorious Trees, Antarctic Regimens, Arctic Blues

Click here to access article by Paul Beckwith from his weblog Paul Beckwith, Climate System Scientist.

Beckwith introduces the topic by showing that the nation's capital (DC) is very recently experiencing major flooding, and goes on to explain that there are a number of ways to access weather related information. Such extreme weather is going to be common event in our future, and it will likely not be covered in corporate media, at least, not in the short term.

Iran declares war on the USA’s covert influence in Iraq.

Click here to access article by Elijah J Magnier, an exceptionally independent journalist from Kuwait, from his weblog. 

Although most figures in Iraq are unfamiliar to Americans, Magnier tries to explain how the prime minister of Iraq and the Iraqi government, who are under tremendous pressure to enact various anti-Iran measures,  must balance off the threats posed by the American occupation of their country with powerful anti-USA factions within Iraq. Obviously in many respects, the US officials are treating Iraq as an old-fashioned colony on which they can impose their will whenever they want regardless of the consequences for Iraq.

One realistic threat that the USA poses for Iraq is the co-optation of military leaders who may be used by US authorities as a coup attempt to oust Iraq's prime ministers whenever they don't sufficiently obey US commands. But there are loyal forces in Iraq that are keeping a watchful eye of such military leaders, and presumably could prevent such a coup from happening. Up til now, such forces, together with the population as a whole, have prevented the American strategy of divide and rule by separating Iraq into three countries:

Many US and western analysts take it upon themselves to regularly and harshly criticise Hashd, ignoring the fact that it was Hashd that saved Iraq (and the rest of the Middle East) from ISIS when all other “security” forces were on the run. The US objective in imposing this reform was to cripple all Iranian friends and allies in Iraq and divide Mesopotamia into Kurdistan, Shiistan and Sunnistan.

Articles recommended for Monday, July 8, 2019

• The International Spy Museum in DC: Lies, Spies, and Paranoia by Melvin Goodman from CounterPunch.

• Yellow Vests: The undercover cop scandal that the Macron regime tries to cover up by Ollie Richardson from A bird's eye view of the Vineyard. 

• US Now Admits it is Funding "Occupy Central" by Tony Cartalucci from his weblog Land Destroyer Report. 

• Ex-FBI, CIA Officials Draw Withering Fire on Russiagate by Ray McGovern from Consortium News.

DSA/Jacobin/Haymarket-sponsored ‘Socialism’ conference features US gov-funded regime-change activists

Click here to access article by Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal from The Grayzone.

Has "left" organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of American (DSA) been taken over by subversive agents paid by Empire-serving NGOs and directly from the government? Well, the authors provide well-documented facts that suggest this is so. That reminds me of one of Lenin's insightful quotes: “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”

However, I think the article overstates a typical anti-Trotskyist views by painting them all with the same brush of cynical subversion. Although I don't agree with everything that the group behind World Socialist Web Site publishes, but they are a genuine followers of Trotsky, whereas the groups and organizations mentioned in the article fit the insight attributed to Lenin, but being applied by subversive agents of the US ruling class.

The 2019 Socialism Conference, like its annual predecessors, combines calls for radical economic democratic transformation and progressive social progress with the demonization of independent foreign governments that are targeted by the US government for regime change, such as Nicaragua, Cuba, Syria, Iran, China, and Russia.

The schedule of panels on foreign policy and international issues features a veritable who’s who of leftist regime-change activists. There is even a talk devoted specifically to demonizing the anti-imperialist left.

Douglas Valentine on China Rising Radio Sinoland: the CIA is global capitalism’s secret gangster army

Click here if you wish to access this interview with Douglas Valentine conducted by Jeff Brown of Radio Sinoland directly from The Greanville Post. It is well worth the hour and eighteen minutes it takes to listen to the interview.

As he mentioned in the interview, Valentine has talked, and reported on these interviews, with more CIA employees than any other person. This enlightened Valentine to the reality of the many subversions of reality that our masters in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire have used to oppress us since capitalism reared its ugly, imperialist head in the settler colony of the USA under our "Founding Fathers" in 1776. 

As he tells it, he was pressured by a brave publisher to write this book entitled The CIA as Organized Crime, and he finally did. The interview, like the book, serves to sum up his thinking about what he has learned from since these CIA interviews. I haven't heard anything that I disagree with, except that I would put somewhat different accents on his various views.


 

Articles recommended for Sunday, July 7, 2019

• Iran and the EU: divorce proceedings underway by Elijah J Magnier from his weblog.

• The Muslim Brotherhood as assassins by Thierry Meyssan from his weblog Voltaire Network (France).

• Life After Arctic Blue-Ocean-Zero: Abrupt System Disruption by Paul Beckwith from his weblog Paul Beckwith, Climate System Scientist. 

US Foreign Policy Is A War On Disobedience

Click here to access article by Caitlin Johnstone (Australian) from her weblog. 

Johnstone's concern about the continuation of human species is very much appreciated, but I think she fails to diagnose the problem.

... we’ve all got some important questions to ask ourselves, haven’t we? Do we desire to stay in the familiar US-controlled world order at the price of omnicide and ecocide, or do we wish to roll the dice and bet on humanity instead? Do we wish to stay the course because it preserves a status quo that is all we’ve ever known, or do we take a leap of faith on the possibility that we can de-escalate all geopolitical enmity and move into collaboration with each other and with our ecosystem?

This choice right here is why I write so much about mankind’s need to transcend its old conditioning patterns and move into something wildly unprecedented. Our current fear-based mentality makes a populism-driven leap of faith into transcendence impossible and ensures that we remain on an oligarch-driven trajectory toward extinction. I firmly believe that we have the freedom to either pass or fail this test, but we don’t have the freedom not to take it. We’ll transcend our old conditioning patterns which we inherited from our evolutionary ancestors who lived in a wildly different world from the one we’ve created, or we will perish. It’s an A or B choice, but the choice is ours.

I argue that it is not our inherited "fear-based mentality" from our evolutionary ancestors so much as it is the addiction to power which concentrated wealth delivers in abundance. Thus, aggression in the form of imperialism is necessary to preserve the system of capitalism and makes imperialism a necessity for the continuance of this system. 

If "fear-based mentality" is at the root of the problem, I think it may be a result of our conscious awareness of death because power creates the illusion of omnipotence. To survive as a species, we humans must outgrow this fear of death by recognizing the reality that our evolved species is only an infinitesimal and fragile part of the web of life that continually tries to renew itself on a tiny planet within a vast universe. We must grow out of the immature delusions spread by the old religions that we must ...

have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth [including other humans].  (Gen. 1:26)

How Stupid Do They Think We Are?

Click here to access article by Patrick Armstrong (Canadian) from Strategic Culture Foundation (independent, based in Russia).

And he is only pointing to some of the lies we've been told. 

I don't think it is a matter of stupidity as much as it is to the ubiquitous nature of the lies. This has been accomplished by the overwhelming control that our masters have in the Deep State, which is essentially a board of directors of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, over every mass media as well as all ideological institutions like education and the film industry. For as Goebbels, another fascist master of propaganda, once said:

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

A New Volkisch Mythos

Click here to access article by John Steppling posted on Wrong Kind of Green. 

This essay contains so many observations about today's fascism that I'm surprised I missed it in May when it was originally posted in CounterPunch. This upgraded fascism is reflected in many forms from the use of Greta Thunberg to the promotion of depopulation of Africa and other places that people of color live. Meanwhile, capitalists see in global warming as having exciting growth opportunities.

Yellow Vest Realities and Reactions [updated]

Click here to access a nearly one hour interview with Prof. Gabriel Rockhill of Villanova University conducted by KPFA's C. S. Soong.

I was most interested in the observations and analysis of Rockhill about French intellectual's lack of support, and even criticism of, the Yellow Vest Movement. This suggests support for my observations that the rich capitalist ruling class in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire has co-opted the highly trained and indoctrinated upper-middle class in their class warfare against other working classes. Unfortunately, he doesn't explain how this was done. But it seems obvious to me: material rewards and the threat of unemployment. Because of technological advancements and the awareness of intellectuals as "opinion leaders" who play a crucial role in capitalist society, the capitalist ruling class must support them in order for today's capitalism to sustain itself.

Yellow Vests protest for the 33rd straight week in Paris

Click here to access article from Defend Democracy Press.

You won't hear much, if any, about the ongoing Yellow Vests protest in the realities created by media corporations in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. But you will hear about the suspicious one-day protests in China, and elsewhere where the well paid agents of the Empire are functioning. And, you won't hear about the teachers striking all over North America for better wages and working conditions. They are not interested in those realities.

‘The coup turned Honduras into hell’: Interview with President Manuel Zelaya on 10th anniversary of overthrow by US

Click here to listen to or read a transcript of an interview with the former President of Honduras conducted by Anya Parampil from The Grayzone.

Learn from a leader of Honduras who refused to be a puppet of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire as he reports on what he learned about the Empire and capitalism:

MANUEL ZELAYA: That is how capitalism works. In the US, France, anywhere. Capitalism is based on just one principle: accumulation of wealth. That is how it functions here and in the rest of the world.

A small elite of transnational [corporations] associated with people in countries who clean up for them. They do business, and that business creates the need to set up security [power] for themselves.

No Longer Fiction: Orwell’s 1984 is the Reality of Our Times

Click here to access article by Robert Bridge from 21st Century Wire.

Because Orwell, a British veteran of the Spanish Civil War, finally realized the reason why the "democratic" Western nations did not come to the aid of a democratically elected government in Spain while fascist nations were attacking it, and wrote about his awakening in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the warnings were tragically ignored. We are now living in the world he imagined in the late 1940s. Could it be that the ruling classes of Western "democratic" nations wanted their own empire? Could it be that WWII ended up as a kind of civil war between ruling capitalist classes of the fascist countries of the Axis and the Anglo-American wannabees?

Do you think that Bridge learned the lessons of this prescient book when he asks questions like these?

The book ends with the words, “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” Will we too declare, like Winston Smith, our love for ‘Big Brother’ above all else, or will we emerge victorious against the forces of a technological tyranny that appears to be just over the horizon? Or is Orwell’s 1984 just really good fiction and not the instruction manual for tyrants many have come to fear it is? [my emphasis]

Yes, indeed, time is running out for all of us because most people, like Bridge, have consistently asked the wrong questions ever since Orwell wrote the book. What are the "forces of technology"? Technology are essentially sophisticated tools, whereas capitalism is a system that privileges owners of economies over the rest of us, and thus capitalist ruling classes have used technology to secure and protect their system of privileges and power.

The plot to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power

Click here to access article by Jonathan Cook from Countercurrents (based in India, but rather international).

Cook keeps mentioning a "system" that is fundamentally behind the plot to destroy Corbyn as a candidate for Prime Minister of Britain, but never identifies it. What system do you think he is referring to?  And, why do you think he never identifies it?

For example, he writes in the final paragraph:

As long as we colluded in the manufactured consensus of western societies, the system operated without challenge or meaningful dissent. A deeply ideological system destroying the planet was treated as if it was natural, immutable, the summit of human progress, the end of history. Those times are over. Accidents like Corbyn will happen more frequently, as will extreme climate events and economic crises. The power structures in place to prevent such accidents will by necessity grow more ham-fisted, more belligerent, less concealed to get their way. And we might finally understand that a system designed to pacify us while a few grow rich at the expense of our children’s future and our own does not have to continue. That we can raise our voices and loudly say: “No!”

Posts recommended for Wednesday, July 3, 2019

• Countdown to “Full Spectrum Dominance” by T.J. Coles from CounterPunch.

• The Only Thing Worse Than The World Dying Would Be If It Died Unseen And Unappreciated by Caitlin Johnstone (Australian) from her weblog.

• Former British Parliamentarian George Galloway Speaks out on the Violent Criminalization of Julian Assange in an interview conducted by Dennis J. Bernstein and Randy Credico. This is a transcript of their broadcast from KPFA, a listener funded radio station in Berkeley, California via Covert Action Magazine. You can also listen to the interview directly from the station (nearly one hour).

• Corporations have 'hijacked justice' by Sam Cossar from Ecologist. 

• The global war on refugees by Will Morrow from World Socialist Web Site.

• Sea Ice Nitty-Gritty, Profoundly Disturbing European Heatwaves from the weblog of Paul Beckwith, Climate Scientist. (four 15:00m videos with his introductions related to the subject.)

Mutu: rethinking our radical media

Click here to access article by "E & J" from Libcom (Britain). 

Although I am not an anarchist, who I think are too limited in their thinking, I am delighted by this post which reports on a rising network of grassroots independent media in France. The establishment of such networks is exactly what I think is vitally needed to counter the crushing oppression of ruling class corporate media. Media corporations serve only as propaganda and psychological warfare operations of the ruling capitalist class to create confusion and a false consciousness among ordinary people.

In May 2018, we attended a conference of the Mutu network in France, a network of local radical media websites which operate much like Indymedia did, but with a completely transparent editorial process.

We were blown away to discover how each of these sites, many we hadn’t even heard of, were acting as hubs for the various social movements taking place in cities and regions across France, focusing on local struggles and issues. With this focus, they became places where people went to find out about social conflicts when they broke out. But as we listened to descriptions of these sites connecting with groups of striking workers or occupying students, we also realised they function to draw together the various struggles within a given locality into a multi-faceted working-class movement.

Penguin, Rothschild and Zionist Pressure [updated]

Click here to access article by Gilad Atzmon (British) from his weblog.

This post is for those of you who have been targets of false accusations of being anti-Semitic, have been profoundly disturbed by the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire's use of Israel use as a "Beachhead in the Middle East" (Gowans), and equally disturbed by the equivalence of Jews with Zionists.

Penguin announced this week that in response to claims of ‘antisemitism’ it has stopped printing Col. Pedro Baños’ best selling book, “How They Rule the World.”

The scandal erupted when it was revealed that passages in the original Spanish edition of the book related to the Rothschild dynasty were omitted from the Penguin Random House English translation. The meaning of this deletion is in itself devastating. It suggests that Penguin attempted to kosherize a book by editing and deleting sections so it would  not offend Jewish sensitivities.

And George Galloway, a British member of parliament, agrees:

 

The IMF and World Bank: Partners In Backwardness

Click here to access a nearly one hour interview conducted by Bonnie Faulkner with economist Michael Hudson. 

In this interview Faulkner revisits Hudson's 1974 book Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, and Hudson explains how the budding US Empire engineered at the close of WWII the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to always favor the capitalist wealthy at the expense of working classes all over the world to enlist the support of  the world's capitalists for the leadership of the US Empire. This was at a time when most of the world was in ruins, except for the USA, from WWII . 

These institutions have shaped most of world as we know it today: a neoliberal economic order in the world which facilitated Empire corporations at the expense of Third World nations. Thus, agents of the Empire essentially bribed local elites, small cliques of capitalists, to support this arrangement. 

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