We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore LappĂ©, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, January 5, 2021

  • “Russian Hacking”: NATO PsyOp Revealed from Swiss Policy Research. My reaction: The US/Anglo/Zionist Empire specializes in psy-ops. I think the pandemic is one such psy-op. The general American public has still not realized that the US capitalist ruling class see them also as an enemy. But when they do, it will be "lights out" (def. #2) for the ruling class.
  • Russia vs a Biden Administration by The Saker (Andrei Raevsky) from his weblog. My reaction: He knows more about Russia that most experts know, and he foresees a dim future for the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire.
  • Taking ownership: The Western world is responsible for our own COVID-19 self-destruction by Jordan Schachtel from his weblog The Dossier. My reaction: Although I think that Empire agents planned the pandemic as a cover for a number of nefarious reasons, I can't prove it. If the geopolitical strategy against China was a part of their cover, it has proved to be futile. However, many other dubious objectives might be achieved by these agents including (but not limited to) population reduction, the introduction of digital money, introduction of sophisticated technology that will have adverse consequences for ordinary people, but will enormously benefit the ruling capitalist class.
  • Climate Change? ‘Yes, Please’ Says Russia by Climate Change? ‘Yes, Please’ Says Russia from secondarily Anti-Empire, but primarily from NY Times (I refuse to post it from the NY Times, a primary agent of Empire propaganda). This is a best post. My reaction: This is an important lengthy article in that it points to many near-term geopolitical implications of global warming for regions in Siberia, Canada, and the northern regions across the globe. It is a complicated picture, but Russia and China seem to be aware of it and doing the most to reap the benefits from this phenomenon:
Ultimately, it is the clumsy maneuvering of the United States that might prove most responsible for making Putin’s eastern development agenda a success. American tariffs, imposed as part of the Trump administration’s trade war with China, led to China’s own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans, creating the largest catalyst for Chinese buyers to look north for new markets. According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, China’s total food and agricultural imports from Russia increased 61 percent in 2017 and 2018, yet another example of the U.S. failure to see the chessboard when it comes to the intricate geopolitical implications of climate change.
But, of course, the NY Times, the pre-eminent newspaper of the Empire, is primarily concerned about the geopolitical implications, and not about the longer-range implications for humans and other species.

Sunday, January 3, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, January 3 , 2021

  • Never Forget How The MSM Smeared Assange: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog. (She starts off with an essay regarding the ongoing persecution of Assange, and ends up with thoughts related to his truth-telling.) My reaction: It seems that the ruling class is so immersed in lies that it cannot tolerate the truth, and the lying has been getting even worse because of well-paid careerists who can't, or won't, see the ultimate consequences. Unfortunately, the ruling capitalist class is sustained on lies, and they control our country.
  • Reiner Fuellmich | Full Interview In Berlin | Planet Lockdown (24:56) from EarthNewspaper. (Note: Fuellmich provides an update on the current German legal challenges that he is involved in. He says that "If we can convince a court of law that this is a false statement [re the validity of PCR tests], then the whole house of cards will come crashing down ....)
  • DSA Deny Their Own Manifesto Not To Advocate #ForceTheVote featuring Jimmy Dore using his YouTube channel to point out the hypocrisy of DSA and AOC. (Note: The 12:30m video does not explain what DSA is. These are the initials of the Democratic Socialists of America.) My reaction: Dore is right that the "progressives" in Congress are poseurs. They exist to pretend that the USA's government functions "democratically", but conservatives who are "democratically" elected stand in their way of progressive legislation. These "progressives" function as a cover for the capitalist ruling class to hide their self-serving agendas of profit and power. He is politically correct going after these "progressives" like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to expose what they are really all about--protecting their careers in Congress. This is a necessary step in a process to awaken the American people how "their" government representatives are all poseurs, that is, they pretend to serve their constituents back home while faithfully serving the ruling capitalist class who fund their political campaigns.
  • Good Science vs Bad Science and Propaganda: A review of [WTC Building] Seven by Dr. Piers Robinson from Off-Guardian. My reaction: He reminds us of all the lies told by the ruling class regarding events of 9/11. Can we trust their government bureaucrats to tell the truth about Covid-19 in spite of all the contrary and censored evidence supplied by medical specialists? I think not!
I noticed this article and found that it was a copy of an article posted on The Greanville Post, but whose headline did not reflect the contents. When I saw the dramatic headline, I immediately inferred that it was at least influenced by Patrice Greanville, the founder of The Greanville Post. I also read the "About" section of The Greanville Post and could find no mention of him. Perhaps he is no longer with this website, but he is clearly the founder. I ran some of his posts many years ago, but after some time I found them to be strongly biased toward revolutionary developments. The article, or rather the title--"Chile Votes to End Capitalist Rule", by Greanville is an excellent example of that bias.
Maclean's title is much more appropriate given the contents of the article. Although Greanville gives an important historical context of this event, the rewriting of their constitution, the contents no way suggests that "Chile Votes to End Capitalist Rule". Following a year of street protests, the Chilean ruling class has enabled the people to vote on writing a new constitution. But that is a long way from ending capitalist rule in Chile. The capitalist ruling class is likely to "manage" public opinion so that a bourgeois democracy results. After reading three other articles on this subject from Al Jazeera, Independent, and Internationalist 360°, I concluded that the latter website was the most objective along with the first video (of three) posted in Greanville's article. It is not likely that capitalism will be replaced by socialism (public ownership of the means of production), but that some elements of social democracy will be introduced in Chile.

Friday, January 1, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, January 1, 2021

  • Pigs Catch COVID – UK Bans Free Range Chickens! – War on Meat / Animal Ag by Christian Westbrook of California from his weblog Ice Age Farmer. (Note: He addresses various signs of shortages of animal protein in this 16:21m video report that, in his opinion, suggests future shortages of our meat supply. He cites current articles which report coronavirus infections in animal stocks which supply our meat. At the end of this video he refers us to a website that promises so much as solutions to meet this protein crisis as well as many other societal problems. I will comment on this website in the next post.)
  • The Greater Reset by followers of a relatively new philosophy of "agorism". (Note: "The Greater Reset" is a response to the Great Reset.) My commentary follows: 
This website espouses a new movement created by followers of "agorism" that offers solutions to many societal difficulties that we are now experiencing. Agorism is a philosophy that is gathering support from various critics of neoliberalism. Is this an effective answer to today's problematic capitalist nightmare? My tentative conclusion is negative. After perusing various websites that offer explanations about various aspects of agorism, I have found numerous disturbing elements.

Perusing the Wikipedia entry for agorism, I find that it was strongly influenced by the American version of libertarianism, the followers of Ludwig von Mises of the Austrian School, and such "notables" as Ayn Rand. They (seminal ancestors and current agorists) all want a return to earlier forms of pure capitalism which has inevitably spawned what we are currently experiencing as neoliberalism, a transnational capitalist philosophy that exclusively focuses on profit, and non-capitalists, that is, ordinary people be damned.
 
This movement is no threat to the transnational capitalist class--in fact, they welcome these new antagonists--that is in control of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire that has a history of ignoring in practice the destabilization of our climate such that they are ensuring our extinction along with most other species. This is their cardinal sin, but it ignores their history of exploitation of workers, numerous and neverending wars, poverty, inequality in all aspects, etc. To return to some mythical golden age of capitalism is out of the question. Capitalism is the problem and the solution is revolution. 
I think that the leaders of the agorist movement have been influenced by ruling class's version of history, the indoctrination and 24/7 propaganda that they have been exposed to throughout their lives that they are so confused and inadequately prepared to solve anything. My tentative conclusion is that they (agorists) are excelling as critics but totally failing as revolutionaries. As a result, we will have to look to foreign activists to find revolutionary solutions (or at least outside of the core nations of the current Empire, that is, USA and what was formally known as the British Empire).
  • Planet Lockdown featuring Catherine Austin Fitts in a 48:31m interview posted on Truth Matters channel of YouTube (with some unnamed person) expressing her views regarding the significance of the lockdown and related matters that our ruling class has in the form of governors' emergency powers to dictate activities on the general population. According to this post "The full film, when released, will be available at https://www.PlanetLockdownFilm.com".

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, December 31, 2020

There are various things the filmmakers haven’t figured out, including, of course, the fact that there are powerful social and economic interests invested in identity politics. But that will come.
  • Who Is Bill Gates? (part 1 of 4 parts) by James Corbett from his website. Corbett is a Canadian who lives in Japan. (Note: This is first part podcast lasts about two hours and focuses on a billionaire, top funder of the UN's health agency (the World Health Organization), and one of our successful capitalist masters. I've only will listened to 20 minutes of this video, and already I am impressed.) This series promises to be best posts--Part Two / Part Three / Part Four.
Perhaps some reputational damage has been inflicted on the experts who warned that the real threat of the coronavirus was overreacting, or worse, racism, and on the elite activists who advanced a deeply unpopular police abolition agenda ahead of national elections, and on the scientific establishment that declared “white supremacy” to be “a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19”. 
But those costs are marginal compared to the material and political gains. If you are one of the people or organisations which repeatedly got the coronavirus wrong, abetted wanton political violence and destruction, or once again misread the American electorate, odds are very good that your funding streams, political influence, institutional power and leverage over your fellow Americans are going increase over the next four years of the Biden administration.
  • The American Money Tree: The Untold Story of US Aid to Israel by Ramzy Baroud from Mint Press News. My reaction: Israel plays an important part in securing the Middle East for the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. They deserve the annual billion dollar reward for their services, that is, in the eyes of the directors of the Empire. Spending this money on useless eaters like ordinary Americans such as universal health care, forgiveness of student debt, and to sustain them through this official pandemic is always a wasted effort, that is, in the eyes of our masters in the transnational ruling capitalist class of the Empire.

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Wednesday, December 30, 2020

  • Polarization, Then a Crash: Michael Hudson on the Rentier Economy featuring an interview with Michael Hudson, a left-wing economist, with Lynn Fries who writes for her blog GPEnewsdocs.com. My reaction: I often wonder what moral conflicts Hudson, a child of Trotskyist parents, have had when he worked as an advisor to Wall Street, major banks, figures like Rockefeller, and as a professor at American institutions of higher learning. He still writes for left-wing publications in the USA and occasionally speaks in the language of Marxism. It appears that material advantages as an economics advisor to capitalist organizations seduced him. He now only distinguishes the productive aspects of industrial capitalism (capitalism v. 1) in contrast to the anti-social aspects of what is referred to as neoliberalism (capitalism v. 2--Hudson refers to this as a "rentier economy") which places making money as an end to itself, and which exploits entire societies as well as workers. But it is hard to deny his affection for version 1, a more pure exploitation of workers which might cause his parents to roll over in their graves.
  • Russia vs the Biden Administration by "The Saker" (Andrei Raevsky) from his weblog. My reaction: I always like to read Raevsky's article because, as a descendent of White Russians and an American entrepreneur himself, he knows a lot about Russia. However, in contrast to his ancestors, he is very critical of US policies toward today's Russia. 
  • The Year the Ruling Class Got Woke by Tom Slater from Anti-Empire. This is a best post because it points to the significance of the use of  identity politics as instrumental for imposing censorship.
  • The Woke Freikorps by John Steppling from his weblog. (Note: He is primarily a culture critic, but makes clear that his politics are informed by Marxism.) My reaction: This is a somewhat lengthy article, but very worthwhile reading if you have the time and need to be mentally challenged to think about the broader aspects of culture today. I found a correspondence (def. #3) with his observations about American culture and my own.

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, December 29, 2020

  • 2020: The Year the Tree of Liberty Was Torched by John W. Whitehead from The Rutherford Institute. My reaction: 2020 was not the "year the tree of liberty was torched". It has been happening ever since capitalism took over from feudal authorities some several hundred years ago. The bourgeios proponents merely replaced the feudal authorities.
We could transform this nation if only Americans would work together to harness the power of their discontent and push back against the government’s overreach, excesses and abuse.

Targeting a capitalist government for this situation is the problem which all anarchists will embrace, but will accomplish nothing. The only solution is revolution, that is, a change from an advanced capitalist system to a democratically empowered socialist system. Anarchists, agorists, libertarians (as practiced in America), etc. have much to learn. But will they learn it in time to avert the impending catastrophes of nuclear war or the destabilization of our climate? Stay tuned and stay informed.

Monday, December 28, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Monday, December 28, 2020

Sunday, December 27, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, December 27, 2020

Apparently, a proven background in preying on average Americans is now a prerequisite for getting a job as a Wall Street regulator.

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Posts will be spotty this week: Tuesday, December 22 through Saturday, December 26, 2020

I expect to have a full posting on Sunday, December 27, 2020.

I will always take notice of the use of "liberal" and "liberalism" to describe politics in the USA, and this grabbed my attention coming from a magazine online group that were earlier actual descendants of the British aristocracy that were replaced by "liberals" in the contemporary sense. I have over my adult lifetime puzzled over the lack of distinction with the usage of words related to "liberalism", and earlier in the magazine and later in the online posts that CounterPunch has run its articles. It is confusing when I discover the word in articles in other publications. I don't know which definition is meant except by the intellectual content framed by the author. There were, and continues to be, two definitions of the word which I will explain.

The original definition is now regarded as a "classical" definition of the word. While writing his commentary, I found to my surprise the distinction recognized in an article written only last summer by Robert Longley and posted on ThoughtCo's website entitled "What Is Classical Liberalism? Definition and Examples". In this article he distinguishes the two in one sentence: "Today, classical liberalism is viewed in contrast to the more politically-progressive philosophy of social liberalism." Thus, the argument here is that the current use of "liberalism" is only a subset of what is now termed "classical liberalism", the ideology of capitalism. And, according to his definition, the current use of the word prevalent throughout especially the USA means only a kind of social form of classical liberalism with its emphasis on civil rights supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution. Notice that this definition does not in any way disturb liberalism in its classical meaning.

History has demonstrated that "social liberalism" is essentially propaganda used by the capitalist ruling classes to prettify the essential inequalities of capitalism and to diminish the use of classical liberalism, the ideology of capitalism. This propaganda serves to hide the social harms in the forms of racism, poverty, exploitation, wars, etc. that have been done to the general population under capitalist regimes that have always favored the enrichment of the few over the health and welfare of the many. These crimes are the result of capitalism and its self-serving ideology of classical liberalism and today's liberalism ("social liberalism") that has functioned over the past several centuries to create the conditions of today. Can you who identify as liberals in the contemporary sense continue to ignore these conditions: lack of access to healthcare, widespread poverty, racism, neverending wars, and the destabilization of the climate which is threatening to end nearly all life on planet Earth including humans? 

Now our masters in the capitalist ruling classes have promised us more social harms to come under the Great Reset where, according to promises by them, we "will own nothing and be happy". Could this be another ideology like "social liberalism" that serves to hide their wet-dream of total control over us, that is, a "new world order" under their control and serving only their needs? If you like the present social-economic reality or are thoroughly indoctrinated by the propaganda of the current ruling class, then you will obey them like sheep headed down the chute to be slaughtered; but if not, you need to see what they have planned for us, actively oppose their plans, and then destroy their system of capitalism, that is, private ownership of the economy, that has given them so much power and wealth but has caused so much destruction on societies today. [I have done some editing of this commentary on 12/25/2020 to clarify my argument.]
  • CHD Article on Big-Picture Look at Current Pandemic Beneficiaries Accepted by Peer-Reviewed Journal from Children's Health Defense. (Note: The fact that this article was accepted by the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice and Research is a recognition of it importance that I overlooked earlier in this month.) My reaction: The rather lengthy article contains what the ruling class has planned for us ordinary people (not billionaires and their sycophants) according to the Great Reset project.
  • Is Society Collapsing? by Kirkpatrick Sale from CounterPunch. My reaction: He should win the bet, but the financial circumstances of the escrow holder will determine the winner. If he/she is a member of the ruling class of capitalists, he will lose the bet. But if she/he is a worker, he will win the bet. If he/she is in between, who knows? If society is collapsing, all humans will ultimately lose because humans need societies to exist.
The promoters of the dominant productivist model and of the capitalist system first denied the existence of a major issue, namely the environmental damage and climate change, and they still actively support policies that worsen the situation. Next, when their position became impossible to uphold, they made the headlines in international media by publishing a report on the issue, thus attempting to give credence to the idea that international institutions and the governments of the most industrialized countries have taken the measure of this serious problem, while in fact it had been deliberately concealed for decades. At the end of the day, those who defend the current system [capitalism] imply that it can solve a problem it is largely responsible for, thus permitting its own perpetuation. It is urgent to understand that the only fair and sustainable solution involves a radical questioning of this productivist capitalist system, which cannot but generate environmental damage and careering inequalities. [my insertion]
  • The Future of Vaccines featuring James Corbett, a Canadian, delivering his research about the new mRNA vaccine supposedly to treat SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 illness in a 41:34m video from his weblog The Corbett Report. This is a best post
If the Gateses and the Faucis and the representatives of the international medical establishment get their way, life will not return to normal until the entire planet is vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. What many do not yet understand, however, is that the vaccines that are being developed for SARS-Cov-2 are unlike any vaccines that have ever been used on the human population before. And, as radically different as these vaccines appear, they represent only the very beginning of a complete transformation of vaccine technology that is currently taking place in research labs across the planet. This is a study of The Future of Vaccines.
  • Covid-1984 And The Agendas To Come with James Perloff. In this Activist Post Spiro Skouras interviews "author, journalist and recently retired registered nurse, James Perloff" in a 54:10m video interview in which Perloff discloses that his book was banned by Amazon. I note that he asserts (at 17:57m) that the future that we can expect is "bolshevism in America". This is another example of the confusion by current critical activists who mix up fascism with bolshevism which forbad private ownership of the economy as existed in Western capitalist countries. Perloff's use of the term bolshevism only applies to the Stalinist rule of the Soviet Union after bolshevists in that country were attacked mainly by viscerally anti-communist armies of the British ruling class (also 13 armies of other capitalist ruling classes of nations including the USA) which aligned themselves with the small Russian capitalist class and caused a civil war. This eventually caused Stalin's takeover of the Soviet Union. Then the nation was ruled autocratically by Stalin, who was a supreme nationalist (not an imperialists that Western propagandists portrayed him as), and together with his loyal followers in the bureaucracy formed a new self-serving ruling class. This example demonstrates the effectiveness, and the confusion of activists, resulting from 75 years of anti-communist propaganda. 

Monday, December 21, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Monday, December 21, 2020

  • AOC Interview Signals She's Unwilling to Fight Pelosi For Medicare 4 All featuring Jimmy Dore from his YouTube channel. My reaction: Here is Dore trying his damnest to use the existing democratic machinery to pass legislation that has some semblance to univerisal health care. I wish him luck because his efforts are futile because the capitalist ruling class rules the USA behind their facade of "democracy", and they don't want Medicare for All. If AOC and the progressive members of Congress vote for universal Medicare, they will not return to Congress mainly because they depend on the rich ruling capitalist class for re-election campaign funds. That's the "beautful" secret of liberal democracy (also see "bourgeois democracy").
As we discussed yesterday, Americans will not be given Medicare for All despite overwhelming public support because an immense amount of power depends on keeping them in a state of financial struggle so they don’t interfere in the affairs of a nation which serves as the hub of a global empire. The US political system does not exist to serve the interests of Americans, it exists to serve the interests of the empire. No part of that system is there to protect the people from the powerful; it’s there to protect the powerful from the people.
Some of the most pressing questions now being raised by thinking citizens watching the unravelling of their worlds include:

Why are so many highly educated people willing to give up their innate power to think in order to have shadowy experts tell them what is true and how to behave?

Why are so many of our fellow citizens so willing to give up their rights and freedoms to protect themselves from invisible threats like viruses with a 99.9% survival rate or changing climate which used to be called “the weather” having little to do with human activity?

Why are so many people incapable, and unwilling to accept the idea of conspiracy, or intention as an efficient, existent phenomenon in world affairs when such things as “Great Reset” are being spoken allowed by misanthropic billionaires on a daily basis?

The dominant narrative calls this ‘globalisation’, a euphemism for a predatory neoliberal capitalism based on endless profit growth, crises of overproduction, overaccumulation and market saturation and a need to constantly seek out and exploit new, untapped (foreign) markets to maintain profitability. 
In India, we can see the implications very clearly.

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, December 20, 2020

  • 21WIRE LIVE hosted by Patrick Henningsen with special guest Brian Berletic. Henningsen of 21st Century Wire interviews (1 1/4 hour) Brian Berletic, who now lives in Thailand. Note: Berletic ("Tony Cartalucci") explains how he was politicized, quit the Marine Corps, went to Thailand where he became aware of US subversive operations, and his views on multipolarism. My reaction: Over the last 15 years he has moved from a loyality to the US's official political perspectives to a realization of what lies beneath the outward appearance of "democracy": a political view ("follow the money") that corporations really determine US foreign policies. However, he doesn't yet seem to be aware that a tiny class of capitalists who own and control corporations also determine domestic policies that are so disfunctional for the vast majority of Americans.

Saturday, December 19, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Saturday, December 19, 2020

  • Through the (Empire's & Zionist Israel's) Looking Glass by Ron Horn for Surviving Capitalism (Not). This is a best post. (At 4:48 PM CT I edited, and added to, this post.)
In the past I have frequently used Wikipedia entries for explanations and documentation for various items, but apparently starting in 2010, this online encyclopedia has been corrupted by secret political agencies of what I refer to as the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire which was gradually formed after WWII. This practice is consistent with all their efforts at dominating ordinary people through control of the information they access. This indoctrination and propaganda elements represent essential hallmarks of neofascism that the directors of the Empire have adopted.
At first propaganda agents only targeted media corporations, academic (see this example), and entertainment organizations by supporting people who played along with the capitalist ruling class's agenda to control all information ordinary people received. Often these subversive efforts were aided by actual infiltrations of targeted organizations.
However, apparently beginning around 2010, agents of the Empire started noticing people being influenced by accurate online organizations like Wikipedia. Thus, they immediately began to subvert these organizations in order to screen out ideas and information that did not support the Empire's agendas, and likewise, to support ideas and information that did. Wikipedia was one such project. See this, this, this, this, and this. Thus, in the past, I frequently used Wikipedia entries to document claims I made in my posts, but in the past several years I've had to exercise judgment as to which entries to use or not to use. It seems that any of their posts that are remotely political can be rejected. 
But most ordinary people are not aware of this development, and believe everything that they learn from subverted organizations that are omnipresent in their lives. (See this satirical piece.) Propaganda agents have since added social media to their list of targets to influence the preceptions of ordinary people who are thoroughly confused by the pandemic project. 

Friday, December 18, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, December 18, 2020

This presentation is the result of a collaborative effort between Dr. Mumper and the team of doctors, scientists and researchers affiliated with Children’s Health Defense.
  • The Economic Reset with Ernst Wolff featuring the latter being interviewed by Dave Cullen from his YouTube channel Computing Forever. This is a best post. (Note: Wolff shows how the Great Reset (he refers to it as a "restart"), which will have extreme consequences for our economies and societies, is hidden from public view by the covid crisis. The latter is functioning as a cover for astounding changes in our economies.) My reaction: It is no wonder that our masters in the capitalist ruling classes are pushing the covid crisis so vigorously.

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, December 17, 2020

  • Barbarians at the barn: private equity sinks its teeth into agriculture from GRAIN. Note: I am posting this lengthy article to show you that investors and managers of worker and government pension funds are taking over farmland all over the world and causing many problems for humans and the environment to add to their wealth. This is how capitalist practices serves the food needs of humans the profits and power needs of a tiny minority of capitalists and associated professionals working in Wall Street.
It is disconcerting that the biggest players in the private equity industry are people’s pension funds, followed by governments’ development finance institutions. They are responsible, yet there is zero connection between them and the people whose money they are investing, much less between them and the communities impacted by these investments.
  • Year Zero by CJ Hopkins, a political satirist, from his weblog Consent Factory, Inc. 
2020 was GloboCap Year Zero. The year when the global capitalist ruling classes did away with the illusion of democracy and reminded everyone who is actually in charge, and exactly what happens when anyone challenges them. 
In the relatively short span of the last ten months, societies throughout the world have been transformed beyond recognition. Constitutional rights have been suspended. Protest has been banned. Dissent is being censored.
  • New World Next Year 2021 featuring James Corbett and James Pilato offering an-end-of-the-review and some hopeful predictions about next year. It lasts nearly 34 minutes and is posted on The Corbett Report.
  • Life Without Lies from the YouTube channel of Journeyman Pictures, a one minute preview entitled "The Troublemaker". This is a best post because it is so urgent.
Facing up to the climate crisis on a journey of self-discovery
It is in times of crisis that we find out what really matters to us, that we get to discover who we really are, as individuals and as a society. The Troublemaker delves deep into the ideas and emotions behind the international wave of civil protest, born in the face of the unfolding climate crisis. Through the eyes of a visionary leader who co-founded ‘Extinction Rebellion’, and a previously law-abiding citizen inspired to take action, The Troublemaker aspires to stir the audience from passive resistance to a life-affirming defence of our future. Now that we understand more about what a ‘global crisis’ feels like, it can no longer be ignored.

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Wednesday, December 16, 2020

After reading her article, I could still not understand "how Portland radicalized" Lippy. She attempts to be apolitical without any politics of her own. The fact that this is posted in CounterPunch, a liberal online publication, is the only clue as to her politics. Because her article was posted in this publication, I can only make an assumption about her politics: her actions were motivated by a concern for minorities who have historically been oppressed. 
By politics, I refer to the hierarchical class structure which underlies all history of human societies after they first settled in agricultural communities. This class structure, which gives more opportunities and decisions to some people in contrast others, has divided people and caused serious social conflicts ever since humans settled in these communities. 
Because we live "in a country of lies" (Curtin), the ruling class uses the arts of deception extensively to maintain their dominance and privileges over the rest of the population. The system of capitalism gives certain members, identified as capitalists, so much power over the rest of the population that they are able to impose their rules, manners, and interests on the former. Thus, they became a ruling class. In order to protect their wealth and privileges, they have had to resort to many subterfuges to remain in power. 
These capitalists proceeded to take power away from the monarchy and the aristocracy, which had ruled for a number of centuries initially through the use of arbitrary rules and violence or the threat of violence. But later, they to succumbed to self-serving mythologies, mostly religions, to maintain their rule. This new capitalist class based their power on the claims of "ownership" of the rapidly developing economic properties (industries) that started roughly in the 15th century in Europe. Because they were a minority, they had to appeal to the majority of citizens. They did so by calling themselves "liberals" (freedom from arbitrary rules laid down by monarchs and aristocrats) to appeal to ordinary people who resented the arbitrary nature of feudal authorities, and to claim they were establishing democracies (rule by the people). These were the first two lies, but they didn't stop there. 
The new capitalist classes became dominant everywhere and resorted to many lies to legitimatize their rule in the eyes of the vast majority. They rewrote history and laws which essentially sanctified the ownership of economic property. Naturally, the small publishers initially tended to distort their reporting to favor the new ruling capitalist classes. They reorganized lands that belonged to feudal authorities into nations. Capitalists appealed to nationalist instincts to wage wars to secure more resources. Naturally, they told lies to cover their covetous motivations. They spread stories about the inferiority and barbarity of their enemies.
Over time, capitalism consolidated so much property in the hands of a relatively few people that it was increasingly noticed by activist members of the general public which challenged the rule of capitalists. These latter became known as socialists or communists because they challenged private ownership of economic property. The capitalist ruling classes, in order to retain their dominant status, increasingly used "propaganda" to distort the thinking of their subject in self-serving ways. They also used their dominance over all institutions (education, history, entertainment, etc.) to impose their self-serving views on the rest of their societies which became ever larger over time as was the ownership of economic property secured in ever fewer hands. They told lies about racial minorities in order to divide and control ordinary Americans. This racist strategy has been resurrected today by the capitalist ruling class to sustain their diminishing power. I suspect it underlies the recent events in Portland and the confused politics of Lippy.
But the fundamental problem is that the general public is so confused about the nature of their societies and politics that they are easily manipulated by capitalist authorities. They have been lied to so much for so long by highly trained and remunerated propaganda specialists that they no longer have a realistic grasp of political reality. This, I suspect, applies to Lippy, the author of this article, and to so many activists like her. 
To rid themselves of this confusion, activists need to renew their conceptions of reality by studying history by real historians and to pursue the ever elusive truth about what is happening in the world through alternative media. This is precisely why I started on a journalistic project about three years ago: to restore some semblance to reality so that activists can no longer be manipulated. They must reject material conveniently furnished by media corporations. They must study real history from a working-class point of view if they are to effectively challenge the ruling capitalist class.

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, December 15, 2020

  • Socialist Media - The New Rules featuring JP Sears, a comedian doing a parody of YouTube censorship rules. My reaction: I got a chuckle over this, but it is obvious that Sears has been thoroughly indoctrinated in US propaganda that has the socialist/communist countries as the source of all evil. He believes this despite the fact that they are the countries, according to this pervasive propaganda, that are the sworn enemies of US and all capitalist countries. This illustrates the power of propaganda to instill in subjects over all their lives the narratives of their propaganda. You can still be entertained by his satire here.
  • Critical and Revolutionary Theory from Internationalist 360° featuring a 35:00m video appearance (after which is a Q&A to the full 1 hr and 31m--I'm still listening to it) of Gabriel Rockhill, who I consider the best Marxist intellectual in the USA, lecturing on this subject. A best post. (Note: This post is appropriate mostly for advanced students of the subject, and for those who are concerned about mostly post-war subversion of Marxist oriented intellectuals.) My reaction: I especially learned a lot about the history of the subversion of Marxist oriented intellectuals (beginning about 24 minutes into his lecture) or "the policing of the left border of acceptable [Marxist] critique" that especially occurred due to influence of CIA agents in the post-WWII period. I have personally noticed the corruption of "acceptable critique". 
  • Brexit Bluster Exposes the Waning of English Power by Patrick Cockburn from CounterPunch. Call for your responses: I don't understand the Brexit issue, and especially it's influence the people of Northern Ireland. If anyone understands the issue in whole or in part, I invite emails responses to Ron, goatmeal36@yahoo.com. Is Cockburn right about his argument that Brexit represents a waning of British power?
  • Menacing Methane – An Analysis by Robert Hunziker from CounterPunch. (Note: I listened to Dr. Peter Wadhams' hour and half lecture. However, Hunziker provides a good summary of his lecture in which he cited an immediate warning of a methane burst which will likely have catastrophic consequences for humans. If this article is of interest to you, you might also find this post interesting.) My commentary follows:
Wadhams has trained as a physical scientist who is rather pessimistic about humans solving this problem. However, where I, who has trained as a political sociologist through mostly independent study and experience, differ from him in that he blames the "ignorance" of humans in general for this lack of concern of the threats posed by the climate crisis, whereas I blame primarily the capitalist classes of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire which control all institutions of their societies. 
These capitalists are entirely addicted to their system of capitalism which has delivered to them so much profits and power that now they have created a powerful ruling class and an Empire. Therefore, it is no surprise that this Empire dominates the UN and its climate organization IPCC which he faults for having consistently underestimated the dangers of the climate crisis. It is obvious to me, and I'm joined by increasing others, that capitalism and the health of the planet are in direct opposition to each other.
During this current pandemic declared by the UN's World Health Organization, we see the obvious corruption of the UN agency through Bill Gates' top funding of the organization, but the majority of humans don't see his influence as corruption thanks to capitalist media coverage. Here in the USA the threats posed by the climate crisis is known by "climate change" which suggest a relatively benign threat thanks to the same capitalist media coverage. Wadhams, as a top climate scientist, claims that the threat is imminent.

Monday, December 14, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Monday, December 14, 2020

This article is another illustration of when "push comes to shove" (def.) "liberals" will always go with the capitalist ruling class and their government. What the author has written--and she has impeccable liberal credentials--in my opinion, supports censorship of non-governmental highly trained experts. What she has written supports government policies that mandates vaccines directly or indirectly by tolerating businesses which discriminate against those who don't trust pharmaceutical corporations which have a record of profiting off drugs like opioids. After all, her main argument is that people who don't trust pharmaceutical corporations and government fake health agencies impair the health of others. This is an argument that we, the people, must be "shoved" by mandatory laws into compliance which will force people who don't trust for-profit pharmaceutical corporations and which are indemnified from lawsuits, to take their vaccines. This is the same argument that the government, which are controlled by the capitalist ruling class, are the final authority on what's best for Americans. What happened to the belief that government derives from the consent of the governed? and the Bill of Rights which protects basic freedoms of minorities? Oops? I think we caught them on a very slippery slope to fascist capitalism?
For the new Left, then, it was not capitalism but the democratic social order altogether that was the source of oppression — not just of black people, or of workers, but of us, the college bourgeoisie. The civil rights movement of black Americans became the template for subsequent claims by women, gays and transgender persons, each based on a further discovery of moral failing buried deep in the heart of America. Hence a further license, indeed mandate, granted to individual conscience, as against the claims of the nation.
My reaction: The "new Left", that is, ("liberals") were influenced, as always, by the ruling class who had an interest in shaping them into this thought disorder--thinking that society was the problem, not capitalism.
  • Trump’s Last Chance to Snub the Deep State by Ron Ridenour from Strategic Culture Foundation. My reaction: It might be his last chance, but I hardly think he will do it because such pardons will "snub" the entire capitalist ruling class of which he is a prime member.

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend for days: Saturday & Sunday, December 12 & 13, 2020

  • AOC Schooled By NFL’s Justin Jackson On Forcing Med4all Vote Now! featuring Jimmy Dore blasting AOC (Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) as a careerist--her career comes first rather than needs of her constituents. My reaction: She will definitely lose her position in Congress if she crosses Pelosi. Look what happened to Sen. 
  • How the Media Wants You To Think featuring JP Sears, a comedian, and others performing their versions of fascist collaborators in a 3:17 post on his channel belonging to YouTube. (satire) He also has been threatened by YouTube about the loss of his channel.