An African Holocaust - 20th Anniversary of Genocide Perpetrated by the 1 Percent

Click here to access article and an excellent 6:35m video by Anna May Simone (Director), award-winning journalists Keith Harmon Snow (Executive Producer) and Ann Garrison posted at Indiegogo (San Francisco, California). 

The real story of the so-called Rwandan "massacre", which began in 1990, is finally getting out over the web thanks to the above people and Christopher Black, a Canadian lawyer who risked everything and won a hard fought legal battle that essentially refuted the myths propagated by Western media about the "massacre" at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Of course, this real story will never see the light of day in Western ruling class media.

The Rwandan "massacre" was manufactured by Western ruling class propagandists to hide US war crimes committed against Africans so that Western corporations could gain cheap access to their huge mineral resources, resources vital to the manufacture of the many hand-held electronic gadgets that we use everyday. 

Voice of Access: The People’s Foundation

Click here to access article by Andrew Gavin Marshall from his blog, and a reproduction of a print article in The Spanda Journal.

In the process of making a pitch for a new foundation, The People's Foundation, that is in the early stages of development, Marshall provides us with an excellent understanding of the role that major foundations such as the Rockefeller, Ford, and Carnegie Foundations play in our society and in much of the world. These foundations are sponsored by the highest levels of the capitalist elites who use their huge wealth resources in order to preserve the goose of capitalism which lays their golden eggs of power and wealth. The lengthy article reveals so many insights about this insidious form of control over our minds and imagination. 

Changes in technology and communication were facilitating the spread of more information to more people than ever before, and the concept of ‘the public’ – and specifically, how to manipulate the public – moved to the forefront of elite intellectual discussion. It was an era that gave birth to the modern university, the advertising and public relations industries, the consumer society, and the modern philanthropic foundations.

Unfortunately, the article never makes any explicit mention of what is informing every paragraph of the essay: the very system of capitalism which the above foundations are protecting and promoting. However, given the valuable insights with which Marshall always provides us, I am not leveling this as a major criticism--merely pointing it out. We all, at times, must make some compromises with the huge power of our ruling class, and one of the red lines that must not be crossed in their academic institutions is criticism of the system upon which this ruling class's power and wealth depends. Because Marshall is well connected with intellectuals who are mostly located in academic institutions, he, in making this pitch, probably did not want to provoke unnecessary opposition to his project at this early stage of development.

Counter-power as common power: beyond horizontalism

Click here to access article by "Not An Alternative", a collective based in Brooklyn NY, posted on Reflections on a Revolution.

Although I've only had time to read half of the article (before my noon deadline), it looks to be an exceptional critique of the Occupy Movement's creation of general assemblies in which movement organizers attempted to introduce a direct form of democracy. Following the critique is a 19:04m video in which Not An Alternative presented a report on the Media, Communication, Outreach panel at the Global Uprisings Conference in Amsterdam, (November 2013) 

US Capitalism on Heat again for War

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

When capitalism is in crisis, war is always an imminent danger. History shows us this to be case. The two biggest conflagrations ever, the First and Second World Wars – claiming total deaths of around 80 million – were both presaged by economic collapses in the capitalist system.

This is what makes the present juncture in international relations so disturbing.

Although I have a high regard for Cunningham's essays, what I don't like about many of them is the lack of links in the articles that document what he alleges. This is particularly true of this article in which he alleges that the Pentagon is building "model towns" as army training facilities based on some vague reference to Britain’s Daily Telegraph. He also stated that "Amnesty International has calculated that the number of vacant homes in the US is five times the number of homeless people." I was able to track down the latter reference here, but I unsuccessfully failed to find a supporting link at the Daily Telegraph regarding the much more sensational claim about the Pentagon's "model towns". 

Omidyar and the Oligarch’s Code: Enabling Extremism, Monetizing Dissent

Click here to access article by Chris Floyd from his blog Empire Burlesque.

Referring to American billionaire Pierre Omidyar, Floyd writes:

 A key element in this monetization of human misery on the part of Omidyar and his cronies is the privatization of state services aimed at providing some measure of support, opportunity and social justice for ordinary people. In country after country, our neoliberal extremists are pushing policies to turn every aspect of human community into profitable enterprises under corporate control.

To do this, of course, one must also “monetize” democracy itself. Thus, as Ames and others have pointed out, Omidyar has also been active in “pro-democracy” NGOs and other organizations in foreign countries, working closely with Washington to bring down regimes considered insufficiently open to the strip-mining of national wealth and resources by Western elites. The aim, as in Ukraine, where Omidyar’s partnership with government was particularly active, is to replace the regimes with technocrats willing to stick the shock doctrine cattle prod to their own people.

European Central Bank cuts interest rate below zero

Click here to access article by Stefan Steinberg from World Socialist Web Site.

It appears that our global capitalist masters governing the Empire are relying mostly on one solution to the nearly worldwide economic collapse they have caused: create money and give it to themselves.

...with all the measures introduced by the world’s central banks since the crisis, the latest rate cuts by the ECB will do nothing to stimulate genuine economic growth. Instead, as was shown by the stock market rally Thursday, the ECB will only serve to fuel new speculative bubbles while further enriching the biggest banks and the millionaires and billionaires that control them.

Scientists vindicate 'Limits to Growth' – urge investment in 'circular economy'

Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from The Guardian.

...recent scientific reviews confirm that the original report's projections in its 'base scenario' remain robust. In 2008, Australia's federal government scientific research agency CSIRO concluded that The Limits to Growth forecast of potential "global ecological and economic collapse coming up in the middle of the 21st Century" due to convergence of "peak oil, climate change, and food and water security", is "on-track." Actual current trends in these areas "resonate strongly with the overshoot and collapse displayed in the book's 'business-as-usual scenario.'"

Ahmed is limited by employment in a capitalist news organization to express only vague hints at the real solution in order to disguise what he knows is really needed--revolution:

A fundamental reorganisation of the way societies produce, manage and consume resources could support a new high-technology civilisation, ... and with all that, very different types of social structures.

The Con-Artist Wing of the Democratic Party

Click here to access article by Matt Stoller from Vice.

Stoller reviews a recently published book by Tim Geithner entitled Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises; and in his review compares many of Geithner's claims with known facts to find many direct lies, lies of omission, and misleading statements. This lengthy review offers a rich source of information on Geithner as an example of what I often refer to as an Empire director. 

However, Stoller in his myopic upper-middle class viewpoint clearly misses the significance of Geithner's rapid rise to power and the crucial role that inner layers of power in the US Empire play in selecting their directors. Stoller can only frame Geithner as a "con-artist" for the Democratic party. Still, he offers so many facts that provide a much broader view of how power is exercised in the US and its empire to serve a tiny elite located in Wall Street and the most powerful financial institutions. 

Stoller can't seem to tie the facts together to see that Geithner's career was not accidentally facilitated by having intimate connections to powerful figures such as Henry Kissinger and billionaire Pete Peterson. Also, it's clear that his father's connections, like Obama's, with the powerful Ford Foundation allowed him to be seen as a loyal and trusted member of the inner-most layers of the ruling capitalist class. If Stoller could have seen this larger view, there wouldn't have been any mystery as to the rise of Geithner to the most powerful positions.

...there’s the mystery of how he managed to climb up the career ladder so quickly. He never really explains how this happens. He wasn’t a good student. He notes, as a grad student, that he mostly played pool. “During my orals, when one professor asked which economics journals I read, I replied that I had never read any. Seriously? Yes, seriously. But not long after we returned from our honeymoon in France, Henry Kissinger’s international consulting firm hired me as an Asia analyst; my dean at SAIS had recommended me to Brent Scowcroft, one of Kissinger’s partners.”

I’m sorry, but what? How does this just happen? And it goes on. One day, when Geithner was a junior Treasury civil servant, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen just called him out of the blue to ask his advice on a matter about which he knew nothing. Why? He doesn’t say—he’s just puzzled. Later on, he advances in Treasury without any real credentials in a department where a law degree or economics PhD is essential. Even Alan Greenspan eventually expressed surprise; he had just assumed Geithner had a doctorate. Power just always seemed to flow to Geithner, and he never says why. He knows why, of course—he’s an exceptional political climber. He just doesn’t say who was grooming him, why he ended up where he ended up, and what he paid to get there. It’s clear he had ideas about how the world should work, but he pretends otherwise.

Sugar-Coated Subjugation: Lie Back And Swallow

Click here to access article by Colin Todhunter from East by Northwest.

By only watching foreign movies in which the characters mention American movie stars, I am occasionally reminded of the powerful influence that American movies have had on colonizing the minds of people over much of the world. Hollywood has not only been a source of entertainment for Americans, but has been a powerful instrument to infect the minds of people all over the world with American values of consumption founded on the commodification of everything. As such Hollywood has functioned like religious missionaries to indoctrinate people with the values of the colonial powers, the leading capitalist nations, to prepare them for the invasion of their homelands by corporations seeking to exploit their markets, their cheap labor, and their resources.

Britisher Todhunter describes the end process in India where he resides. The dominant culture of India now reflects the same culture as found in the US. Indians are rapidly accommodating themselves to the neoliberal agenda as recently manifested by the election of a neoliberal candidate for prime minister.

...the underlying aim of celebrity product endorsement is to bind the public to a product and by implication to the company behind it and ultimately the ideology of the system, so-called economic neo-liberalism. Positive notions about ‘individual freedom’ (via consuming) and the market constituting the best method for supplying human needs are being constantly and implicitly reinforced. Today, this is what the celebrity is ultimately endorsing. This is what they are selling their souls for.

EU Gets Ready To Open Canadian Tar Sands Floodgate

Click here to access article by Sarah Lazare from Common Dreams.

As purveyors of the world's dirtiest form of fossil fuels, the directors of the capitalist Empire continue on their merry way to undermine the planet's ecosystem that supports human and other life forms. It is likely that this latest move will contribute to the US Empire's strategy to make Europe independent of Russian energy; and thus, attempt to weaken a nation that refuses to surrender its independence to the Empire. 

This is only the latest inter-capitalist-gang effort to achieve dominance in the world. The 20th century saw world wars from which the Anglo-American Empire emerged victorious. We can only look forward to more wars and planetary destruction if we, the great majority, continue to remain passive spectators.

Both the Financial Times and Reuters reported Thursday that the EU is likely to weaken the language of the not-yet-implemented plan by scrapping a requirement that bitumen—oil extracted from tar sands—be labeled as high-emissions diesel. The higher rating would have discouraged, but not prevented, imports.

Scientists: Tests prove fracking to blame for flaming Parker County wells [Texas]

Click here if you wish to access the transcript of video by Brett Shipp from WFAA TV station in Dallas.

From KHOU TV station in Texas view a dramatic 5:25m video showing flaming water from a well near a fracking operation.

For the past two years, News 8 has aired a series of stories of flames shooting from water wells in Parker County. Dangerous levels of methane gas somehow found its way into the water supply.

Lest we forget: Our present leaders can derive inspiration from other great American leaders.

The piece is entirely reproduced from a section extracted from the latest Anti-Empire Report by William Blum.

Thanks to audio recordings found in Nixon's White House office, we are privy to how our ruling class selected leaders really converse when considering actions which are, in actuality, the most extreme, unprecedented war crimes in history. There is no reason to believe that the existing US administration is any different.

White House tape recordings, April 25, 1972 

President Nixon: How many did we kill in Laos? 

National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger: In the Laotian thing, we killed about ten, fifteen [thousand] …

Nixon: See, the attack in the North [Vietnam] that we have in mind … power plants, whatever’s left – POL [petroleum], the docks … And, I still think we ought to take the dikes out now. Will that drown people?

Kissinger: About two hundred thousand people.

Nixon: No, no, no … I’d rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that, Henry?

Kissinger: That, I think, would just be too much.

Nixon: The nuclear bomb, does that bother you? … I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes.

May 2, 1972:

Nixon: America is not defeated. We must not lose in Vietnam. … The surgical operation theory is all right, but I want that place bombed to smithereens. If we draw the sword, we’re gonna bomb those bastards all over the place. Let it fly, let it fly.

–

“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” – Michael Ledeen, former Defense Department consultant and holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute

Beware of Kicking the Dragon and Bear!

Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from CounterPunch.

This is quite a lengthy article, but a very important one. It, along with other articles I've perused and other experiences I've had recently, has impressed upon me the power of the Empire's propaganda not only to frame issues within the US, but worldwide in order to manufacture consent for Empire policies.

Here in the US I sometimes feel that most of my fellow Americans are living in some kind of artificial, parallel universe of information and understanding. I find it hard to carry on a serious conversation with them about international affairs. What I usually get are regurgitated versions of sound-bytes propagated by corporate media that have little to do with reality, or turns reality on its head always in support of US Empire policies.

I try to be understanding by considering that most Americans are struggling to survive, and often with the burdens of overwhelming debts. They don't have the time to find alternative, reliable sources of information. But, to my astonishment, when I try to help them find such sources, they react with very strong resistance. It's not an angry form of reaction because my approach is always very gentle. It appears that they looked at my suggested articles or websites, but then they always make excuses about not having time to really read the material. It's as if I were challenging their religious beliefs! (I think they experience what mental health professionals refer to as "cognitive dissonance".) Such is the power of the Empire's propaganda and their ubiquitous indoctrination agencies.

Vltchek, as an independent investigative journalist, has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries, and traveled widely throughout the world. He knows what is going on, and knows what is being reported by transnational media corporations is often times a totally false picture of reality. And, he is worried that the Empire's propaganda machinery is preparing people for major, catastrophic wars.

The anti-Chinese and anti-Russian propaganda howl is reaching a deafening crescendo, especially in Asia. Western media outlets are in the highest gear, spreading propaganda through both their own outlets and through their local media affiliates in the client states, mostly owned by big business.

China and Russia are now vilified, openly insulted, and blamed for the escalation of tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, and for the military build up. The entire mighty Western propaganda machine is now at work, demonizing China, Russia and other independent countries.

It is because the West is obviously pushing this planet towards the war. Not to see it would require truly great discipline.

WW III: More Interclass Than International

Click here to access article by Ismael Hossein-Zadeh from CounterPunch.

The author begins his essay by describing the global nature of capitalism under the rule of the US Empire, and argues that there is a kind of WWIII in that international capitalists associated with the Empire constitute a new ruling class that is waging austerity wars against populations under their control.

WW III is already here; it has indeed been raging on for years: the unilateral, cross-border neoliberal war of austerity economics that is waged by the transnational class of financial oligarchy against the overwhelming majority of world citizens, the global 99%.

In contrast to Andre Vltchek this author sees the aggressive policies pursued by the Empire as likely being limited to small wars and various subversive projects. 

Globalization of capital and interdependence of world markets has reached a point where large scale military clashes of the magnitude of World Wars I & II could lead to financial catastrophe for all. Not surprisingly, the network of transnational financial elites, who often elect politicians and run governments from behind the scenes, seem to be averse to another wholesale international war that could paralyze worldwide financial markets. 

Christopher Black Destroys the Myth of the Rwandan “Genocide”

Click here to access a one hour and 14 minute interview conducted by James Corbett with an international lawyer from Toronto who is not only familiar with what the real story is about the Rwandan "genocide" based on a successful legal case he won, but many other phony stories concocted by the Empire's propaganda machinery. I don't normally have the time to listen to such a lengthy address, and you may feel the same way. But, just listen to the first 6:15m of the interview to see if you can resist listening to much more. There are also four supporting documents at this post that are valuable.

Addendum, 6-8-2014:

I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to learn that the books Black recommended in the very last part of the interview are difficult to get. One book he recommended is entitled Global Justice Or Global Revenge?: International Criminal Justice At The Crossroads by Hans Kochler. It was out of print at Amazon, but I found used copies available at their Canadian subsidiary called Abe Books.

Rwanda 1994: Colonialism dies hard, the English translation of Robin Philpot's book Ça ne s’est pas passé comme ça à Kigali, appears to be available only online.

There is also this lengthy document posted online from a New Zealand website entitled "The Dallaire Genocide Fax" by Chris Black.

Capitalism & Climate Change: The Growth Problem Part 1 of ?

Click here to access article by Alyssa Rohricht from blog Black Cat Revolution.

It is so encouraging to see so many others beginning to see the dramatic contradictions between capitalism and our planet's ability to sustain human and other life forms.

Many argue that market and techo-based approaches are the way to combat climate change. They push for carbon taxing and trading, geo-engineering, and renewable energy without considering the fact that the system itself is incompatible with sustainability. By its very nature, capitalism seeks only to grow and accumulate – an idea that is diametrically opposed to a sustainable existence. 

In this series, I will examine how the capitalist system has brought us to climate disaster, and why it cannot get us out of it.

Who the hell are the Henry Jackson Society?

Click here to access article by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed from his blog The Cutting Edge.

I've sporadically encountered this right-wing, elite think tank in my journeys across the World Wide Web; and the material I encountered strongly suggested that they were among the top influentials in the ruling class. Having spent a lot of time in the Northwest of the US, I knew who Henry Jackson was (long time Senator from Washington state), and thus assumed that it was an American think tank--it's British. Actually, with this article written by a very astute author, it is now clear to me that the Society plays a key role in what historian Carroll Quigley has referred to as The Anglo-American Establishment (title of his very important book) which arose to dominant power after WWII and has become, what many refer to as, the US Empire, or simply the Empire (a 4th Reich?).

Also, the fact that this Society is British-based is a clear illustration of how the capitalist ruling class directorate of the Empire crossed national boundaries in the decades since WWII as described by Quigley. Subsequent to this development, they went on to thoroughly integrate the capitalists of many other countries into what is now familiar to most political analysts, a US-led Empire complete with its own army--NATO.

Senator Henry Jackson of Boeing's Washington state played a key role in bringing into the government important neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, Douglas Feith, Robert Kagan (and wife Victoria Nuland), Charles Horner, and James Woolsey . 

...it is hugely important to understand [why] that HJS [Henry Jackson Society] and the interests it represents are so out of whack with not only what the vast majority of the public would agree with or desire, but even what most policymakers would want to see happening in the world.

The Great Climate Change Conspiracy

This 17:40m video was produced by Truthloader, a YouTube channel, a project of ITN Productions (Britain).

The video explores the conspiracy conducted by the fossil fuel industry and their collaboraters (for example, see this article) throughout the capitalist world to sow doubt about and/or deny the scientific evidence of the growing threat of climate destabilization which is likely to end in the extinction of humans.

The US media and the release of POW Bowe Bergdahl

Click here to access article by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site.

The American media is once again exhibiting its boundless capacity for dispensing propaganda and promoting the most backward and reactionary conceptions. Such is the campaign of vilification directed against Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, released May 31 in Afghanistan in a prisoner exchange with the Taliban.

The depiction of Bergdahl by many mainstream media pundits illustrates a principle that the ruling capitalist class espouses: obedience to their authority is a virtue and those that exhibit it are celebrated as heroes, those that don't are castigated as traitors.

As far as the media apologists for imperialism are concerned, a soldier who is horrified by crimes against humanity and refuses to participate in them is a criminal, while those who obediently carry out atrocities are heroes. It should be recalled that the defense of “just carrying out orders” was flatly repudiated by the Nuremberg Tribunal into the crimes of the Nazis during World War II. Those who would revive it today are paving the way for even greater crimes.  

'We Are Resetting the Net to Shut Off Mass Surveillance'

Click here to access article by Jon Queally from Common Dreams.

To mark the one year anniversary of the first reporting based on information revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden on June 5, 2013, privacy advocates, organizations, and technology companies all over the world on Thursday are participating in 'Reset The Net'—an online day of action in which participants pledge to take real steps to protect online freedoms and fight back against mass surveillance.

Queally reports that many "websites, app developers, organizations, and individual internet [are promoting] what they call 'privacy packs' so that people everywhere can have better access to online privacy and encryption tools.