Most Latin American republics continue to be dominated by people who govern out of pure self-interest while paying lip service to the needs and well-being of the general public.
Europe is not ready to revolt. Or, possibly more accurately, given the 43 percent participation rate, Europeans simply see the European Parliament as irrelevant. Given the little power it has, and the anti-democratic structure of European Union institutions, many saw the election as simply as an opportunity to cast a protest vote.He concludes the article with this insight:
An intensified race to the bottom is all that is on offer by the governments and institutions of the world’s mature capitalist countries. There is no tweak of policy, nor exchange of one corporate party for another corporate party, that can solve the structural crisis of the global economic system.You might also want to take a look at Wayne Madsen's take on the election entitled "European Parliament’s New 'Neo-Nazi / Far Right' – Not so 'Nazi' and not so 'Far Right'" as a measure of political change among Europeans who voted. He essentially argues that many of these "far right" parties have been de-contaminated of much of their traditional far-right views and have been co-opted into supporting most pro-Empire policies.
Contradictions and shortcomings in the political movement in the east should be expected in conditions where for decades, workers and ordinary citizens have been excluded from democracy and citizen engagement. The deadly civil war now being waged against the movement, with NATO’s firm backing, makes conditions enormously more difficult. Indeed, the goal of the military intervention is precisely to weaken and destroy any movement towards a grassroots and working-class revolution.
The desires of the population in Luhansk, Donetsk and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine are crystal clear—they cast ballots in large numbers on May 11 for political autonomy and social justice. All but the most hidebound of Western reporters in the region acknowledge that support for autonomy is widespread and is growing with each Kyiv regime attack.
By becoming aware of what has already been done by other people, past and present, with their struggles and movements, either in our own communities or elsewhere, we will immediately get a much clearer perception of the possibility of not just one but many other worlds.
Seeing those possibilities in their reality, with their dreams and their challenges, with their victories and their contradictions, will help us envision our own possibilities here and now and better organize our own struggles. This is the contribution that this article aims to give to all those who are struggling for self-liberation from the straitjacket of occupational blackmail.Her examination of the "possibilities in their reality" leads to this conclusion:
Breaking out of the multiple crises that afflict the world today — both in the domains of the economy and work as well as in the domain of ecology and public health — requires no lesser effort than completely abandoning the “treadmill of production”, including the politics, economics and ideology of unlimited growth. This requires an ecological revolution as theorized by Carolyn Merchant: a complete shift in the social organization of production, reproduction and consciousness.
For decades social critics have bemoaned the influence of sports and entertainment spectacles in ‘distracting’ workers from struggling for their class interests. According to these analysts, ‘class consciousness’ was replaced by ‘mass’ consciousness. They argued that atomized individuals, manipulated by the mass media, were converted into passive consumers who identified with millionaire sports heroes, soap opera protagonists and film celebrities.
The culmination of this ‘mystification’ —mass distraction— were the ‘world championships’ watched by billions around the world and sponsored and financed by billionaire corporations....
Today, Brazil is the living refutation of this line of cultural-political analysis. Brazilians have been described as ‘football crazy’. Its teams have won the most number of World Cups. Its players are coveted by the owners of the most important teams in Europe. Its fans are said to “live and die with football” . . . Or so we are told.
Yet it is in Brazil where the biggest protests in the history of the World Cup have taken place.More details on the events related to the World Cup in Brazil are supplied by an activist from India in an article entitled "A spectre on the World Cup".
[my emphasis]
A frequently used psychiatric diagnosis for rebellious young people is oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). This so-call “disorder” was created by a committee within the American Psychiatric Association and listed, in 1980, in the APA’s diagnostic manual, the then DSM-III. ODD’s symptoms include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules” and “often argues with adults.” Since 1980, ODD has become an increasingly popular psychiatric diagnosis for young people, with an increasing number of those diagnosed being drugged for this “condition.”
...with the victory of the allies, including the Soviet Union, there was no reaction to fascism of the “look where capitalism leads [or can lead].” Rather the United States, unscathed physically by the war, moved immediately to re-secure capitalism in Western Europe. The Marshall Plan was designed specifically to restore Western Europe’s industrial base, especially that of Germany (the western part only, of course), which had been so heavily damaged during the war. No Marshall Plan aid for the Soviet Union, of course. On the contrary, announced by Winston Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech...the “75 Years War Against the Soviet Union” was resumed almost immediately.
This ‘coup’ is the practice of hijacking the public debate – and really the background political culture – by controlling the framing of the issues, by defining all the terms, and by inventing agenda-fuelled labels, however false, to slap onto people and things; labels that get repeated over and over, without a hint of irony, on talk radio, TV, increasingly tabloidized ‘newspapers’, the internet …and any media outlet owned by Rupert Murdoch… until these become society’s default positions, so that they no longer have to be defended or explained. For example, ‘welfare’ is now practically a profanity in some circles; estate taxes are ‘death taxes’; affirmative action is ‘reverse discrimination’; tax cut is ‘tax relief’; and all kinds of oppressive and discriminatory policies are ‘traditional values.’
Amid much hysteria, the notion has been widely peddled in the United States that President Obama's "new" foreign policy doctrine, announced last week at West Point, rejects neo-cons and neo-liberals and is, essentially, post-imperialist and a demonstration of realpolitik.
Not so fast. Although stepping back from the excesses of the Cheney regime - as in bombing whole nations into "democracy" - the "desire to lead" still crystallizes might is right.
Moreover, "exceptionalism" remains the norm.
The 24-member 9/11 Consensus Panel – which includes physicists, chemists, engineers, commercial pilots, attorneys and lawyers – today announced three new studies confirming the controlled demolition of World Trade Center 7.
The studies scientifically refute the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) claim that, for the first time in history, fire caused the sudden and complete collapse of a large, fire-protected, steel-framed building on 9/11.The article provides more evidence that building 7 of the World Trade Center was fully rigged with demolition explosives, a condition that takes weeks to accomplish. Hence, this lends additional support to other abundant evidence that the other buildings likewise were set up for a controlled demolition.
...given Smit's desire for reform, this article will make some strategic suggestions for how he might best use the Eden Project's excellent corporate connections to address some of the most egregious problems caused by his capitalist colleagues.Don't be taken in by Barker's statement as to his purpose in writing this article. What he really does is expose the true nature of "green capitalism" as practiced in Britain to add grace to capitalism in the eyes of British liberals who may have some guilty concerns about the environment. He specifically takes aim at Tim Smit and the well-connected people of the "Eden Project".
Today capitalists everywhere confront great uncertainty, as markets crash and endemic corruption at the highest levels erode competitive markets. Throughout the world, large majorities of the labor force question, challenge and resist the massive transfers of public wealth to an ever reduced oligarchy. Electoral politics no longer define the context for political opposition.
Capitalism, neither in theory nor practice, advances through reason and prosperity. It relies on executive fiats, media manipulation and arbitrary police state intrusions. It increasingly relies on death squads dubbed “Special Forces” and a ‘reserve army’ of para-military fanatics.
The new power bloc is the merger of big business, the wealthy professional classes, upwardly mobile, elite trained technocrats and cadres of ethno-religious fanatics who mobilize the masses.
...billions of dollars from Arab oil exports began to flow back in exchange for new American and Western-made weapons arsenals. According to rough estimates, in the next few years, the Arab Gulf countries will buy weapons worth over $ 120 billion. American arms dealers are again rubbing their hands together and counting the windfall from their bloody business.
The New World Order (NWO) is the banksters (Rothschild, Rockefeller) plan to achieve world dictatorship. There are two main obstacles: Russia and China. The attacks on Syria with foreign mercenaries (the Syrian opposition is not violent) aim to cut Russia of from the gas supply for Europe. New pipelines are planned from Saudi Arabia and Qatar via Syria to Europe, making the Russian gas obsolete. The attack on Syria targets even China and Iran in the long run.Unfortunately, from my point of view, Engdahl, like several other geopolitical analysts, sees a hopeful future in a multi-polar capitalist world. Still, his insights of the global rivalry between the US Empire and the BRIC countries are very valuable.
F. William Engdahl has published a best seller in China: Target China. In the interview he gives an overview to that in China famous book.
The narrow extractivism/anti-extractivism counter position has been used to foster divisions among social movements, weakening the unity needed for radical change to achieve radical change.
There is ample evidence to show that foreign governments and NGOs have been working to stoke, rather than resolve, tensions among the regions’ diverse social movements. Such forces are happy to promote “anti-extractivism” if it serves to bring down popular governments and roll back changes.This website has now produced two other views on this issue in a current article entitled "Two views of ‘extractivism’ and ‘buen vivir’".
As usual with Bilderberg conclaves, the 2014 meeting in Copenhagen is cloaked in secrecy with a massive public and private security presence in place to deter protesters or inquisitive reporters. For example, journalists were cleared out of the Copenhagen Marriott Hotel, one of the venues for the Bilderberg meeting, by security staff. The journalists were later detained by Danish police for asking too many questions about the Bilderberg meeting.
If all industrial activity stopped right now, we would already be committed to 2.65°C, a global average temperature rise of three times what we are currently experiencing. With all the drought, flooding, hurricanes, landslides, fires, and other manifestations of climate change that we are undergoing now, I shudder to think what the world will be like in 2050 and yet humans continue to burn coal and other fossil fuels at breakneck speed. According to the Climate Accountability Institute, half of all emissions have been produced in the past 25 years.
Charitable activities that undermine democracy and state sovereignty are immensely useful to the ruling class. Robust, effective social programs in developing countries are an impediment to the current imperial agenda of worldwide expropriation; healthy people, in control of their own destinies and invested in the social well-being of their communities, are better equipped to defend their claim to the wealth they possess and produce. Far better, from the point of view of the Good Club philanthrocapitalists, if the world’s poorest billions remain wholly dependent on a largesse that may be granted or withdrawn at pleasure.
Polish artist Pawel Kuczynski has worked in satirical illustration since 2004, specializing in thought-provoking images that make his audience question their everyday lives. His subjects deal with everything from social media to politics to poverty, and all have a very distinct message if you look closely enough…