Escaping extinction through paradigm shift

Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from his blog Insurge Intelligence.

This British commentator senses that something is wrong with "the system", but only names it one time in this essay, and then identifies this system with all kinds of qualifiers: it's "contemporary neoliberal capitalism-as-we-know-it". So, one can infer that capitalism is not the problem per se (def.), but it is that we have strayed from the wonderful system our "Founding Fathers" left for us. 

Maybe I am being too cynical, but I can't help it. These soft critics of capitalism were "educated", or rather trained by the system and amply rewarded; and now that it is too late, they sound the alarm and say that we need to escape "extinction through a paradigm shift", a cleaned-up intellectualization of the messy concept of revolution. I expect we will see a lot more of this type of hand-wringing in the very challenging days ahead.

Articles recommended for Thursday, May 30, 2019.

• Climate Capitalists -- this is actually a collection of relevant articles posted on Winter Oak, a British based website.

• Amid grave concerns for his health, Assange transferred to Belmarsh Prison medical wing by Oscar Grenfell from World Socialist Web Site.

• Mecca summits: Saudi Arabia is using holy sites to score political goals by Madawi al-Rasheed from Middle East Eye. 

• China’s Media Wars: Not Your Average David Anymore by Grete Mautner from New Eastern Outlook.

•  How Google creates your reality -- from the News with Rick Sanchez on RT via YouTube.

• The Impact of the European Parliament Election on Iran’s Foreign Policy by Mani Mehrabi from United World (based in Turkey).

Between the Devil and the Green New Deal

Click here to access article by Jasper Bernes, the Managing Editor of Commune, from Commune. 

The author provides us with a comprehensive analysis of the Green New Deal (GND) proposed by reformers, and its potential for solving the climate crisis that is presently threatening to destroy humans and many other species. He shows convincingly, in my opinion, that the GND is a vague illusory promise to not only solve the climate crisis, but to provide universal health care, and full employment. Thus, it sounds like a campaign promise that promises everything to everyone. Further, he claims that saving capitalism and saving humans is a lie. Here are the main passages that exhibit his reasoning:

To replace current US energy consumption with renewables, you’d need to devote at least 25–50 percent of the US landmass to solar, wind, and biofuels, according to the estimates made by Vaclav Smil, the grand doyen of energy studies. Is there room for that and expanding human habitation? For that and pasture for a massive meat and dairy industry? For that and the forest we’d need to take carbon out of the air? Not if capitalism keeps doing the thing which it can’t not keep doing—grow. The law of capitalism is the law of more—more energy, more stuff, more materials. It introduces efficiencies only to more effectively despoil the planet. There is no solution to the climate crisis which leaves capitalism’s compulsions to growth intact. And this is what the Green New Deal, a term coined by that oily neoliberal, Thomas Friedman, doesn’t address. It thinks you can keep capitalism, keep growth, but remove the deleterious consequences. The death villages are here to tell you that you can’t. No roses will bloom on that bush.

It’s easy to get lost in the weeds here and lose sight of the essential. In each of these scenarios, on each of these sad, warming planets, the Green New Deal fails because capitalism. Because, in capitalism, a small class of owners and managers, in competition with itself, finds itself forced to make a set of narrow decisions about where to invest and in what, establishing prices, wages, and other fundamental determinants of the economy. Even if these owners wanted to spare us the drowned cities and billion migrants of 2070, they could not. They would be undersold and bankrupted by others. Their hands are tied, their choices constrained, by the fact that they must sell at the prevailing rate or perish. It is the class as a whole that decides, not its individual members. This is why the sentences of Marxists (and Marx) so often treat capital as agent rather than object. The will towards relentless growth, and with it increasing energy use, is not chosen, it is compelled, a requirement of profitability where profitability is a requirement of existence.

To those who believe that the GND can serve as a "transitional program", he writes: 

If you build a party and other institutions around the idea of solving climate change within capitalism, do not be surprised when some large fraction of that party resists your attempt to convert it into a revolutionary organ. The history of socialist and communist parties is reason for caution. Even after the leaders of the Second International betrayed its members by sending them to slaughter each other in the First World War, and even after a huge fraction split to form revolutionary organizations in the wake of the Russian Revolution, many continued to support it, out of habit and because it had built a thick network of cultural and social structures to which they were bound by a million and one ties. Beware that, in pursuit of the transitional program, you do not build up the forces of your future enemy.

He then reaches this rational conclusion:

We cannot keep things the same and change everything. We need a revolution, a break with capital and its killing compulsions, though what that looks like in the twenty-first century is very much an open question. A revolution that had as its aim the flourishing of all human life would certainly mean immediate decarbonization, a rapid decrease in energy use for those in the industrialized global north, no more cement, very little steel, almost no air travel, walkable human settlements, passive heating and cooling, a total transformation of agriculture, and a diminishment of animal pasture by an order of magnitude at least. All of this is possible, but not if we continue to shovel one half of all the wealth produced on the planet into the maw of capital, not if we continue to sacrifice some fraction of each generation by sending them into the pits, not if we continue to allow those whose only aim is profit to decide how we live.

For now, a revolution is not on the horizon. We’re stuck between the devil and the green new deal and I can hardly blame anyone for committing themselves to the hope at hand rather than ambient despair. Perhaps work on legislative reforms will mean the difference between the unthinkable and the merely unbearable. But let’s not lie to each other.

But what if revolution were possible to overturn the capitalist rule and restore ordinary humans to exercise control over their planet, and these people became instantly highly informed instead of dumbed-down as to the threat of global warming? Well, as McPherson argues, we would still have, what has become known as, McPherson's Paradox to deal with. 

The latter explains that in addition to spewing greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, into our atmosphere, we have also spewed other substances that act as dimmer of solar radiation that is heating up our planet Earth. So if we had the technological means to stop the heating of our planet through geoengineering, which we don't, we could easily accelerate the global warming crisis. This is a synopsis of this paradox. But I should let the biologist and generalist (of the physical sciences) Guy McPherson explain this paradox in his own words:

The only problem I have with McPherson's analysis is his targeting "civilization" as the culprit that has led humans to this critical point. McPherson's has been trained in the physical sciences, but his weaknesses in the liberal arts is evident. He doesn't know of the history comprising the last 10,000 years of one ruling class after another dominating the rest of their societies, and likewise the efforts of ordinary people both successful and unsuccessful at eliminating one ruling class after another. However, revolutionary efforts at eliminating the rule of capitalists has apparently been too much for ordinary humans to accomplish. The latest and most dominant transnational ruling class, the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, has used the advancements of knowledge to avert any further revolution. But in their obsessive concern to amass profits and power, they have destroyed the habitat that supports human life and that of many other species.

Civilization has a broad concept has at its core meaning a desire to understand our human existence. To suggest that we could have saved ourselves by remaining ignorant and scrounging around looking for plants that we can dig up and animals to kill in order to eat and survive is completely absurd.  

Articles recommended for Tuesday, May 28, 2019

• Perry’s Attack on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 and the Empire’s Lost Grip on Reality by Matthew Ehret from Strategic Culture Foundation.

• The US-China Decoupling by Patrick Lawrence from Consortium News.

Unexpected surge in global methane levels

Click here to access article from Climate Nexus which "is a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors".  

I am not sure who the scientific organizations this article referred to, but some scientists clearly expected this surge because of increasing temperatures in the polar regions and the melting of the permafrost. I've posted at least six articles with scientific documentation that scientists, based on research, expected the increase in methane level in the past five years: 3-5°C temperature rise is now ‘locked-in’ for the Arctic, The climate emergency with Dahr Jamail, Arctic thaw imperils climate goals, Climate change in the Anthropocene: An unstoppable drive to Hothouse Earth?, Researchers Tally the Global Cost of Melting Permafrost, and Thawing Permafrost Will ‘Seep, Not Explode’ CO2.

Some scientists, particularly those who support the findings of biologist and generalist Guy McPherson, argue that it is already too late to avoid catastrophic climate destabilization: Support for action surges, majority say we face climate emergency, Hope is a Mistake and a Lie, David Suzuki & GM [Guy McPherson]- Abrupt Climate Change - Compassion in the Face of Death, No Surrender, and Two articles written by highly educated scholars illustrates the power of capitalist ideology.

Shielding the World From US Chaos Is No Easy Task

Click here to access article by Federico Pieraccini from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Since the Empire's failure to overturn the government of Syria and other evidence, there has been wide speculation that US weapons supplied in abundance by the US military industry has turned the Empire into a largely "paper tiger". Pieraccini evidently holds this view which is supported by considerable evidence. He writes:

Pentagon planners have no intention of revealing their military vulnerabilities in a war with Iran. The loss of US military prestige would also show to countries hitherto under Washington’s thumb that this dog has more bark than bite, making it all the more difficult for the US to browbeat countries with the threat of military force in the future.

What Trump seems to find difficult to understand is that his foreign policy is slowly eroding the superpower status of the US. The free pass Trump has given to the neocons and the pro-Israel and pro-Saudi lobbies have only served to bring the US the the brink of a new war with Venezuela, the DPRK, Iran or Syria. With Trump not really committed to any war himself, this will only lead to a humiliating backdown.

In spite of Trump's love affair with Israel and Saudi Arabia, I wonder if the Deep State, a virtual board of directors of the US capitalist circles and influentials in British and others in the ruling classes of the US/Anglo, Zionist Empire are aware of this theoretical reality and argument. Just wondering.

Fine dust and fossil capital in Korea

Click here to access article by John R. Eperjesi from Climate & Capitalism.

This professor living and working in Seoul, Republic of Korea (South Korea), has noticed rising levels of concern in South Korea as polluted air has been darkening skies over the country. He writes:

In Korea, China is often blamed for the pollution wreckage, a scapegoating one routinely hears from taxi drivers, random people on the subway, students, and even from some professors. The blaming of China has radiated throughout Korean society, amplified by opportunistic politicians and click-bait media headlines, resulting in a hysterical us vs. them opposition that views fine dust as an illegal immigrant, sneaking across borders and corrupting our clean air. This nationalist narrative has unleashed some disturbing online violence against China and Chinese people.

There is no doubt about the fact that a significant amount of air pollution originating in mainland China drifts across the Korean Peninsula. But here I want to offer an alternative ecocritical framework for thinking about the crisis of air pollution in South Korea in which fine dust is viewed as a product of fossil capital, defined by Andreas Malm as “an economy of self-sustaining growth predicated on growing consumption of fossil fuels, and therefore generating sustained growth in emissions of carbon dioxide.”[2]

The US is aware the confrontation with Iran is over a large geographical area: next rendezvous in less than 60 days

Click here to access article by Elijah J Magnier from his blog.

I missed the two significant points to this article when I hurriedly read it after returning from vacation: 1) the Zionist lobby will likely support Trump in the next election; and 2) the 60 day limit that Iran's government has decided to impose on a re-negotiation of the JCPOA agreement, which Trump unilaterally cancelled, before restarting it nuclear weapons development. Magnier interprets this as meaning that if Europe withdraws imports of fossil fuels from Iran that Iran will begin development of nuclear weapons. 

Addressing point number one, I think that many domestic political analysts think that Trump will be defeated in the 2020 presidential elections, but Magnier suggests that this is not so because of the influence that the powerful Zionist lobby has over US policies and because of Trump's full support of Israel interests. Point well taken.

Point number 2. I think that European countries decisions to not comply with US restrictions on importing energy from Iran could signal a major turning point in the dominance of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire instead of merely signaling a deadline for Iran's project for nuclear weapons development. I think that many of the capitalists in European countries are wavering in their allegiance to the belligerently aggressive policies of the Empire, and are more interested in their own economic well-being. These countries may be forced to pay higher prices for their energy if they comply with the US sanctions (being forced to pay higher prices to import US natural gas), and the economic benefits of joining China's Belt and Road Initiative are very inviting for European capitalists.

In This Blitzkrieg of Idiocy, Fascist Marches, Fake-news Coups, and What Looks Like a Race Toward Extinction – What is the Place of Literature?

Click here to access a speech given by Arundhati Roy posted in Scroll.in (India). (This is a transcript of her lecture at the PEN America Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture delivered by her on May 12 in New York City.)

I discovered this by reading a very abridged version on Wrong Kind of Green's website that narrowly excerpted her comments about the threatening climate destabilization. This post gives the full version of her talk which, I believe, portrays Indian politics as much the same as the Empire's politics, but with an Indian accent which gives us insights about what is going on in this second most populous country. In addition, I think there is much to be learned from her profound observations about reality as we head into the nightmare of climate destabilization and human extinction.

She also asks, and provides her answers to, the following question:

‘In this blitzkrieg of idiocy, fascist marches, fake-news coups, and what looks like a race toward extinction – what is the place of literature?’

Articles recommended for Saturday, May 25, 2019

• View the Frontline Documentary on Gaza That PBS Pulled by Alison Weir from The Unz Review. 

• Jade Helm and its Repercussions by Gordan Duff from New Eastern Outlook.

• Microsoft’s ElectionGuard a Trojan Horse for a Military-Industrial Takeover of US Elections by Whitney Webb from Mint Press News. (After our refusal to elect Hillary Clinton, our capitalist masters are now determined that their preferred official leader will be elected. Our "mistake" will never happen again.)

• The US Army Asked Twitter How Service Has Impacted People. The Answers Were Gut-Wrenching. by Caitlin Johnstone from her blog.

• Amazon helps US gov’t eliminate dissent from the Rick Sanchez show on RT.

• The Making of a “Rapist” by Pamela Anderson from The Indicter.

• “Truth ultimately is all we have:” Julian Assange appeals for public support by Oscar Grenfell from World Socialist Web Site.

Graeme MacQueen Reveals The Anthrax Deception

Click here to access the interview conducted by James Corbett with Graeme MaxQueen, author of The Anthrax Deception. 

I agree with Corbett that this is an important, well-written, and well-documented book, which I read, about the anthrax attacks of members of Congress immediately following 9/11. The reports we got in corporate media played up the hysteria and then at some point the FBI shut down their investigations, fantastic stories were contrived, and media coverage was quickly dropped. 

Let me be clear, because I've seen this manipulation of the American people since the assassinations of the Jack and Bobbie Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, the very aggressive attacks on the Black Panthers, the "War of Drugs", etc, etc., I knew that this was another false-flag event like 9/11 to stampede Congress into supporting very aggressive foreign policies. 

Our rich and powerful capitalist-fascist masters have succeeded time after time to fool the American people so that now they don't hesitate to spin fantastic tales through their media: "Russiagate", reports of chemical attacks that the Syrian government carried out on their own people, the Empire's efforts to create domestic and foreign "terrorist" attacks to create chaos and fear (the "strategy of tension") domestically, to create their own terrorist army called ISIS to destabilize the Syrian government, and to enhance support for very aggressive attacks on foreign nations starting with Iraq and Afghanistan. Briefly putting aside the outrageous crimes committed by a very well hidden Deep State of major capitalists, I am curious how long my fellow Americans will accept such outrageous operations and tales. 

Recommended articles for Friday, May 24, 2019

• The Belligerence of Empire by Kenn Orphan from his blog.

• The evidence we were never meant to see about the Douma ‘gas’ attack by Robert Fisk from the Independent (Britain).

• Syrian Gas Attack Was Staged Leaked Documents Reveal ( Live From State Theater Austin, Tex.) from The Jimmy Dore Show via YouTube.

• The western media is key to Syria deceptions by Jonathan Cook from BSNews.

• US-Backed Terrorists “Struggle” After Returning from Syria by Ulson Gunnar from New Eastern Outlook.

• Democracy vs. The Putin-Nazis by C.J. Hopkins from his website Consent Factory, Inc.

The London Climate Protests – Raising The Alarm [another reaction to this article]

Click here to access article by David Cromwell, editor of Media Lens, and from the latter's website (Britain). 

I posted this article a few days ago after arriving from a grueling road-journey to the West Coast to visit activists. I was hurriedly sifting through articles that seemed important to me, and offered no comment to this one other than describing its contents. This morning I have another reaction, particularly to one statement made by Cromwell which I quoted in my original post:

Even if corporate interests were crazed enough to think they could promote mass public dissent on this scale in the cause of profit, they would have no way of controlling the outcome.

I counter this argument with one I have advanced for years: that our ruling class of capitalists are indeed "crazed enough", and thus perfectly able to lead such movements so that they can control the outcome to insure that such movements don't interfere with their obsession with power and profits. They are insane. Period. And ordinary people are so disoriented by our capitalist master's control of all ideological and media institutions that they will be led like sheep into benign forms of protest. I don't know, but I think it is too late anyhow; yet, I intend to continue my lifelong fight against our "crazed" executioners to the last breath (def.).

The Climate Movement: What Next?

Click here to access article by Clive L. Spash from Wrong Kind of Green.

According to this article, economist Spash was asked to provide comment on the recent Great Transition (Tellus Institute) round-table discussion focused on the climate movement which began with an invited statement from Bill McKibben. Spash in his commentary writes:

The climate movement, like all environmental NGOs, has been subject to the influence of neoliberalism and corporate capture. Neo-liberals love to attack government while totally ignoring the corporate control of the economy. In the USA the extent of government capture is just ignored (from the President down and not just the most recent President either). There is a general failure to link the social and economic to the ecological. Political analysis is lacking, social theory is absent and there are a dearth of substantive ideas as to alternative economies from the existing paradigms of economic growth and price-making markets.

Hence the climate movement promotes price incentives (taxes, carbon trading), innovation and new technologies, commodification of Nature (ecosystems as goods and services, natural capital), offsetting losses of biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions, and new quantitative measures of growth as progress.

It looks like the answer to the question posed in the headline is: faking progress by our capitalist masters.  

Manual for Survival. A Chernobyl Guide to the Future - book review

Click here to access the review by Elaine Graham-Leigh of Manual for Survival. A Chernobyl Guide to the Future authored by Kate Brown posted on Counterfire.

Because of the wide disparity in the reporting of deaths and health problems caused by the 1986 disaster to a nuclear plant in Chernobyl, a city located in Ukraine on the border with Belarus, and other accidents to nuclear facilities, the book's author examines the research done by these disparate sources. She finds considerable bias among official sources in numerous countries that is causing the under-reporting of health problems and fatalities due to the fundamental fact that the material necessary for nuclear weapons are produced in these plants, and other contaminating, largely economic factors. The reviewer, Graham-Leigh, writes:

Remarkably, although it has been more than thirty years since Chernobyl, the mainstream position is still that, aside from the 54 confirmed fatalities, ‘the final death toll will never be known’. We have apparently learnt so little from Chernobyl that scientists managing the aftermath of the Fukushima accident in 2011 were still saying that ‘they had no certain knowledge of the effects of low-dose exposures to radiation in human beings’, as if such a thing had never happened before. Kate Brown’s measured and well-informed study is an attempt to provide some of that missing certainty.

US is about to sanction the world if they don't stop purchasing Russian arms

Click here to access article by Andrew Korybko from InfoRos (Russia).

This American geopolitical analyst based in Moscow examines the latest economic warfare launched by the US administration to counter the influence of the Russians and Chinese who wish to break the dominance of power in the hands of ruling class capitalists and their US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. He focuses on the purchase of weapons in this geopolitical struggle.

... military relationships aren't the same as most trading ones where the customer simply purchases a product and that's usually the end of the exchange. Rather, they usually imply long-term partnerships where the seller agrees to maintain the military wares for an agreed-upon length of time and train the end user in how to properly operate them, which lays the basis for more comprehensive and strategic relations between the two parties as a result of these trustful ties.

There are also billions of dollars to be made these deals too, to say nothing of any others that result from this exercise of "military diplomacy". In addition, countries that have established these close "deep state" relations with Russia and China are generally more aligned with those two multipolar Great Powers and not as easily manipulated by the US, which is of course concerning from an American standpoint.

Democracy vs. the Putin-Nazis

Click here to access article by C.J. Hopkins from The Unz Review.

This excellent piece about reality deserves so much more of my attention, but I am short of time--I have other tasks to accomplish first. First, of all, this isn't the usual excellent piece of satire that he usually does. In this article he is very serious and insightful.

The post reminds me of a famous quote from Karl Rove who was so influential in the Bush, Jr. administration.

We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

Because our masters have so much power--they own everything--they can create self-serving "realities". When one reads in the newspapers, see on TV, read in books, hear on the radio from NPR the same "realities", they become reality that is accepted by the people. Our capitalist masters have always done this, but they are now doing it at much greater intensity simply because they own or control every significant media. And also, they have so frequently succeeded in imposing these "realities" on us that they have the confidence that we will believe the most ridiculous "realities".

The “Democracy versus The Putin-Nazis” narrative is our new “reality,” whether we like it or not. It does not matter one iota that there is zero evidence to support this narrative, other than the claims of intelligence agencies, politicians, the corporate media, and other servants of the ruling classes. The Russians are “attacking democracy” because the ruling classes tell us they are. “Fascism is on the march again” because the ruling classes say it is. Anyone who disagrees is a “Putin-sympathizer,” a “Putin-apologist,” or “linked to Russia,” or “favored by Russia,” or an “anti-Semite,” or a “fascist apologist.”

Question the official narrative about the Gratuitously Baby Gassing Monster of Syria and you’re an Assad apologist, a Russian bot network, or a plagiarizing Red-Brown infiltrator.

The London Climate Protests – Raising The Alarm

Click here to access article by editor David Cromwell from Media Lens (Britain). 

Cromwell offers some powerful insights about the mass concern over climate destabilization:

After thirty years of mortifying indifference and inaction, now is not the time to promote the belief that the crucial alarm that is at last being raised by Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion has been cynically 'manufactured'. It is our job to ring the alarm and ensure that something is done. But first we must ring the alarm!

Even if corporate interests were crazed enough to think they could promote mass public dissent on this scale in the cause of profit, they would have no way of controlling the outcome.

And later:

Herman and Chomsky's 'propaganda model' was not designed for this scenario. When individual corporate media editors, journalists, advertising and political executives realise that they and their families are genuinely facing death, it is not at all certain that they will continue to support the subordination of people and planet to profit to no purpose. At this point – the point where the mortally-threatened corporate lions lie down with the mortally-threatened activist lambs - the propaganda model may start to break down. Either way, it is our job to continue pressuring corporate media and, more importantly, replacing them with honest, non-corporate alternatives pushing for real change.

The protests must continue, must escalate, and governments must be made to adopt a kind of war-footing subordinating everything – especially profit – to the survival of our own and all other species.

Recommended articles for Wednesday, May 22, 2019 -- (frequent updates)

• The American Pathocracy by Paul Craig Roberts from his blog. (Updated at 9:30 AM, 9:40 AM, 9:45 AM, 10:40 AM, and 6:30 PM.)

• Israel’s Independence Day: Commemorating the dispossession of the natives and rise of the West’s outpost in the Middle East by Canadian Stephen Gowans from his blog What's Left. 

Gowans provides us with an excerpt from his recently published book Israel, and teaches us some of the real history of Palestine after WWII. I highly recommend this book to reveal the efforts of the the Anglo-American capitalist ruling classes in collusion with Jewish nationalists to establish "Fort Israel", a European Jewish colony, to guard oil and gas resources in the Middle East for the benefit of newly emerging empire of Anglo-American capitalists against Arab nationalists who wanted such resources used for their benefit.

• The Missing Step by Craig Murray (Britain) from his blog. 

He reports on the legal and the not-so-legal maneuvers used by the Empire and omitted by corporate media, the propaganda organs of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, to capture Julian Assange. Assange functioned as a journalist who reported crimes committed by the Empire furnished him by whistleblowers and other sources. Such independent sources are dangerous to the ongoing operations of the Empire and its ruling capitalist classes to dominate the entire world.

• How to Find Broken Links Online by James Corbett from his blog The Corbett Report. (You might also do your own search on the subject.)

I have been increasingly frustrated by the no longer active links to important articles that I have used in the past to reveal supporting information to various arguments that I advanced. Corbett provides some very useful information on what to do if you encounter such links.

• Raising the Alarm – On the Capitalists Seeking to Profit from the Climate Crisis, a statement from the Wrong Kind of Green Collective posted on Wrong Kind of Green. (I advise people who are focused of the looming catastrophes of climate destabilization to follow this blog daily. They are revealing the real agendas that some prominent climate movements are serving--it's not the welfare of ordinary people.)

Over the past few weeks there has been much discussion among the online community concerning our six-act investigative series “The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg”. Some have continued to question the veracity of the information compiled by Wrong Kind of Green (WKOG).

Our series sought to illustrate how Thunberg’s image is being both propelled and exploited by various entities interested in promoting certain projects and ideas that will benefit their stock portfolios and bank accounts under the guise of “saving the planet”. 

• Vicious Cycle: The Pentagon Creates Tech Giants and Then Buys their Services by T.J. Coles from CounterPunch.

• What does “climate emergency” mean? Let’s define that OUTSIDE parliament by "GL" from People and Nature. (Britain)
  

Referring to the recent resolution passed by the British parliament declaring "a climate emergency", the author writes:

On one hand it’s a weapon in the hands of each and every campaign on climate change in the UK. It makes it all the more difficult for politicians and trade union leaders to defend their indefensible decisions to support fossil fuel companies and fossil-fuel-intensive infrastructure projects.

On the other, it’s a reflection of a huge political effort to co-opt, neutralise, patronise and smother the growing movement against politicians’ inaction on climate change. The cynicism and sophistication of these efforts should not be underestimated: they have been going on globally ever since the Rio agreement on climate change was adopted in 1991. And meanwhile, fossil fuel use has risen by about 60%.

We need to define, outside parliament, what this emergency means, and how it is going to be tackled.

• Iran: Preparing the ‘Battle Space’ by Alastair Crooke from Strategic Culture Foundation. 

• ‘Clash of civilizations’ or crisis of civilization? by Pepe Escobar from A bird's eye view of the Vineyard. 

• Insidious Aggression: Sanctions as Covert Warfare by Tim Beal from CovertAction Magazine. 

• The Disinformationists by C.J. Hopkins, master satirist, from his blog Consent Factory, Inc. (Some entertainment to keep you laughing while in a despondent mood.)

I'm back, and posts selected by activists while on vacation -- updated

I arrived home yesterday from a long and exhausting drive from the West Coast of the USA to the Midwest where I now live. I enjoyed visits with some very astute activists who have followed my blog for a number of years.

I recommend the following articles (updated at 9:20 AM) that I missed while on vacation and which were forwarded to me by fellow activists who share serious concerns about the catastrophes that we are currently experiencing and lie ahead under this crisis-prone capitalist system. In the future I expect to be adding commentaries to the posts that I select and want to share with you.

• Newly Released FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks by Whitney Webb from Mint Press News.

• What is the Relationship Between Loneliness and Capitalism? by an anonymous writer for Dandelion Salad.  (This post included numerous important articles by other commentators related to the same subject.)

• The End of Supergiants: And What It Means by Dr. Louis Arnoux from Damn the Matrix.

• The Struggle Is the Meaning by Craig Murray from his blog (Britain).