Defending the Indefensible - The Occupation of the American Mind

Click here to access two videos that make up the 56 minute film (via YouTube) "The Occupation of the American Mind" posted on Information Clearing House. 

The Occupation of the American Mind is a production of The Media Education Foundation (MEF), a Massachusetts-based organization that produces and distributes educational films about the social, cultural, and political impact of American mass media. [my link]

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"This is a film that demands to be seen. It shows, with devastating precision, how effective propaganda can hide crimes that are epic in scale and have catastrophic consequences. Please see this film, hire it, screen it, talk about it." - Ken Loach

US’ Plan B? From Alleged Evacuation of Daesh to the Murder of Russian General

Click here to access an unedited interview with "The Saker" by a representative from Sputnik posted on The Greanville Post.   

"The Saker" gives his views on the outcome of the continued operation of the US-backed Kurds in Syria.

Having realized that they lost in Syria the US has shifted to “Plan B” to maintain control over the oil-rich regions of the country, military analyst The Saker told Sputnik. The Russo-Syrian advance in Deir ez-Zor has endangered the US plan, prompting the Pentagon to target the Syrian Arab Army and Russian military personnel on the ground.

Plan B is, of course, the splitting off of Syrian territory under the control of US-backed Kurds who continue to permit US military bases on their territory.

By The Grace Of Israel - The Barzani Clan And Kurdish "Independence"

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

The Kurdish region in Iraq held a "referendum" about splitting off from Iraq to form an independent state. The referendum was highly irregular and the outcome was assured. That such a referendum was held now had more to do with the beleaguered situation of the illegitimate regional president Barzani than with a genuine opportunity to achieve independence. The referendum was non-binding. It is now onto Barzani to declare independence or to set the issue aside in exchange for, essentially, more money.

....

Arabs, Turks, and Persians see the Kurds as a recalcitrant nomadic mountain tribe and stooge of Israeli interests.

And another article on the Kurdish situation which might also interest you is entitled "Kurdistan – what the referendum is hiding" by the French intellectual Thierry Meyssan. In the article you will encounter the word "Tsahal": this means the military forces of Israel.

Combined the two articles gave me an intellectual headache and a decidedly pessimistic outlook for the future of humans. 

Do you believe in miracles?

Click here to access a book review by Craig McKee from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

It would have taken a miracle. A bunch of them, actually.

For the official story of 9/11 to be true, numerous physically impossible things would need to have taken place that day. This is the case made by prolific 9/11 researcher David Ray Griffin in his latest book, Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the World. It is the twelfth Griffin-penned volume that takes on the official government claims of what happened—and did not happen—on 9/11. It also marks his return to the subject for the first time since 2011’s 9/11 Ten Years Later: How State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed.

“Meathead” is Running the Committee to Investigate Russia

Click here to access article by Phil Butler from New Eastern Outlook.

In this very clever piece Butler examines the Committee and finds a nest of Zionist mafia types. 

Finally, for those of you who think Rob Reiner ever changed from his role as “Meathead” in the 70’s sitcom All in the Family, his organization mentioning ousted Russian oil oligarch and mafioso Mikhail Khodorkovsky proves Archie Bunker was right about his “Meathead” son-in-law all along. [my link]

Unravelling the riddle of the Kurds’ Iraqi pipedream

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times.

The extraordinary Brazilian journalist offers his take on the rather complicated interests involved in the Kurdish desire for independence in norther Iraq. It appears that Kurdish fantasies about independence are just that--fantasies.

Masoud Barzani has overplayed his hand – no regional powers are going to assent to partition of Iraq. 

Wall Street and City of London Press Panic Button on Catalonia

Click here to access article by "Don Quijones" from Wolf Street.

The author, who is a British ex-patriot and mostly lives in Spain, gives an excellent report about the financial factors behind the resistance of Western financial centers against the independence movement in Catalonia from Spain. As such the author provides an excellent illustration of the power and influence that major financial centers of Wall Street and the City of London, whose capitalists make up a core part of the ruling classes of the US-led Empire, have on political events in many countries. This is a further illustration of how contemporary capitalists control all major policy decisions both political and economic wherever they hold populations in debt. If this weapon fails to control populations, then the "jackals" are sent in, as John Perkins so well explained in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. How did this weapon of debt used by the Empire's ruling class come about?

It developed over many years of capitalist rule whereby the capitalist classes accumulated more and more wealth extracted from exploited worker populations and stole cheap resources from countries they dominated. Think British Empire, the many years of exploitation of workers, the kidnapping of millions of African slaves, think US control over much of Latin America through occasional invasions to remind leaders of US power as well described by Major General Smedley Butler in his book War Is a Racket (1935), WWI, the emergence of US power after WWII, etc. This wealth was accumulated over many years in the Anglo-American empires which developed into today's US-led Empire. Now for anyone or any nation to purchase anything, they usually have to borrow money from a bank. And, now the Empire's capitalist financiers hold nearly everyone and "sovereign" nations in debt, and exercise considerable control over them with these debt obligations always backed by the threat of violence from their police and military. 

The is the inevitable evolution of capitalism into the advanced form we see today all over the Empire.

Internet censorship and government war plans

Click here to access article by Andre Damon from World Socialist Web Site.

The growing attempts to implement censorship measures to internet services by the ruling capitalist class indicates that the latter has no qualms about introducing overt fascist methods of censorship as its imperialist operations abroad and its austerity and police state measures here at home are increasingly exposed and discussed over these services.

On the eve of the UN assembly, the Times published an unambiguous brief for censorship of the Internet in the form of an op-ed column by the ambassador to the UN under Barack Obama, Samantha Power.

Under the headline “Why Foreign Propaganda Is More Dangerous Now,” and on the pretext of combating Russian disinformation and subversion, Power calls for the use of “professional gatekeepers” to police public discourse on the Internet.

Power, a leading proponent of “human rights” imperialism, looks back nostalgically at the Cold War as a golden age of news dissemination, when “most Americans received their news and information via mediated platforms.”

If they succeed in shutting out accurate information about their war crimes and secret nefarious operations, then all is lost for the people to prevent either a nuclear war conflagration or the calamities of climate destabilization.

The Super Patriotic Draft Dodger’s Rag: “Fire the Son-of-a-Bitch”

Click here to access article by Edward Curtin from The Greanville Post.

Curtin shines much needed light on the hypocrisy of American liberals and asks some very penetrating questions:

Who will take a knee for a radical redistribution of economic and political power?  Who will link arms for the end to capitalist exploitation and the amassing of obscene wealth by a few at the expense of the many?  Who will refuse to support war and war-making?  Who will tell it like it is and say that the demon of racism can only be eliminated if the others are?  Liberals won’t.  Conservatives won’t. Who will?  Who will pay a price?

Racism has been a very convenient weapon used by the capitalist ruling class (comprised of both liberals and conservatives) to divide Americans and divert their attention away from the many social and economic disasters of their system. Trump has now given White racists and police forces permission to use that weapon more aggressively.

Also he touched on what I  have long observed about football games (especially NFL games) as useful spectacle to promote social cohesiveness:

In a society of the spectacle, NFL football is the most spectacular and entertaining mass hypnotic induction into the love of war and violence that we have.  Goodell says that “the NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture.”

I think Goodell is right but for a very wrong reason. The sense of unity is devoted to the spectacle of violence, aggression, and dominance which are what US foreign policies are all about. The latter two characteristics also are useful attributes for capitalists domestically while in pursuit of profits and power at the expense of workers.

There is another excellent article posted on the same website that might interest you: "Good Blacks, Bad Blacks: From Washington and DuBois to Morgan Freeman and Colin Kaepernick" by Paul Street.

White America, for the most part, makes a critical distinction between “good” and “bad” Black Americans – and a related distinction between “good” and “bad” Black behavior.  It goes way back. 

How the BBC Spreads Lies: How to read propaganda [a Best Post]

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse posted at A Bird's Eye View of the Vineyard (The Saker). 

Although this outstanding article give some clues about reading propaganda, its major contribution is discerning the Mid-East strategies of the US ruling class that is supported by an abundance of major links.  It's clear from a careful reading of this article that the US Empire uses and manages the many conflicts among Sunni nations, Shia nations, Kurdish aspirations, and other national interests as a means to not only balkanize countries surrounding Israel, but more importantly to curtail Russian and Iranian influence in the area while maintaining their own dominance.

Again I must register my strong opposition to Zuesse's use of the feudal term "aristocracy" and related terms instead of the accurate term "ruling class" or "capitalist ruling class". It becomes even more absurd when he writes sentences which mix up both capitalist and contemporary feudal ruling classes like the following:

Whereas the Sauds’ and Israel’s main focus is on conquering Iran, the U.S. aristocracy’s main focus is on conquering Russia; but the entire Saud-Israel-U.S. alliance of aristocracies is simultaneously anti-Shia and anti-Russian. While the three aristocracies have different priorities, they are all in this together.

Words matter because they can reveal the critically important realities of human existence or they can obscure them. While Zuesse's articles contributes a lot to the former, he still insists on hiding capitalism and capitalist ruling classes behind the term "aristocracy". Or maybe he is so brainwashed that he thinks social systems don't matter. I am absolutely convinced that the comprehensive system of capitalism and capitalist ruling classes are the prime issues confronting humans today. The rule of primarily advanced capitalist classes threaten the very existence of humans with the prospect of extinction from both the immediate risk of nuclear wars and the longer term threat of climate destabilization. Thus I view such obfuscation as an intellectual crime against humanity.

I can only infer from the glaring absence of any specific biographical matter on Eric Zuesse, beyond the vague description of "investigative historian", that this is a deliberate practice on his part to hide his affiliations with academia in order to protect himself from employment repercussions. In other words, he considers his own material well being above the well being of humans in general. This reflects the personality development of individualism which is so strongly promoted under the social-economic system of capitalism. I fear that this current human characteristic will likely lead to the extinction of humans. 

And then he rather hypocritically, in my opinion, continues on to criticize the BBC for failing to mention important information about the Jordanian background of a UN officer, the UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein who claimed...

Russia is committing “grave human rights violations” in Crimea, according to a report by the United Nations.

The UN human rights agency says it has documented arbitrary arrests, torture and at least one extra-judicial execution in the region.

 There is an urgent need for accountability. 

Avoiding Nuclear War: Why Kim Jong-Un’s Strategy Makes Sense

Click here to access article by Federico Pieraccini from Strategic Culture Foundation. (My thanks go to Christopher P. in northwest Oregon for alerting me to this excellent article.)

There's method to Kim Jong-Un’s reported madness (in US corporate media). This is the thesis argued by the author that attempts to give a rational perspective from North Korea's point of view, and I think he is quite convincing. 

...the strategy of the Pyongyang is working: on the one hand, they are developing a nuclear weapon to deter external enemies; on the other, they are obligating the PRC to adopt a particularly hostile attitude towards South Korea’s deployment of THAAD. In this sense, the numerous economic actions of Beijing towards Seoul can be explained as a response to the deployment of the THAAD batteries. China is the main economic partner of South Korea, and this trade and tourism limitation is quite damaging to South Korea’s economy.

My only criticism is this statement referring to the THAD missiles the US has installed in South Korea: "As repeatedly explained, it is useless against North Korean rockets...." I am quite well-read (def.), but I often skip over technical details of weapons. Thus I was offended by this statement and the fact that he didn't bother with furnishing a link to support it. Here is such a link from a South Korean source.

[Weekly series of the Russian Revolution of 1917] September 25 – October 1: Lenin urges Bolshevik leaders to prepare for the seizure of power

Click here to access this week's account of the historical Russian Revolution from the World Socialist Web Site. (Note: I am posting a series of articles on the Russian Revolution; but they are from my selection of the best sources which, in my well-read judgement, are the most accurate.)

I will be posting a weekly summary of activities during the Russian Revolution of 1917 as well as articles by historians of that great event. You may be interested to read my introduction to the latter series if you have not already done so.  

Now that the Bolsheviks have obtained majorities in the Moscow and Petrograd soviets, Lenin launches a campaign to orient the party for a planned insurrection. Meanwhile, Kerensky and his supporters try to assemble a new pro-war “coalition” government.

The CIA: 70 Years of Organized Crime

Click here to access this interview with Douglas Valentine conducted by Lars Schall and posted on CounterPunch. (Edited at 7:35 PM Seattle time for clarity.)

Although it begs belief (def.) that Valentine was able to completely fool the then CIA Director William Colby about his mission to study the CIA, nearly everything he's written in his book The CIA as Organized Crime is corroborated by many other independent sources. But his entrée (def. 1b) provided by Colby allowed Valentine to interview many other CIA officers.  This access enabled him to become probably the foremost expert outside of the Deep State on this nefarious organization due to the compartmentalization that usually occurs among their officers. And the knowledgeable Lars Schall makes this a top-notch interview.

LS: How important is mainstream media for the public perception of the CIA?

DV: It’s the most critical feature. Guy Debord said that secrecy dominates the world, foremost as secret of domination. The media prevents you from knowing how you’re being dominated, by keeping the CIA’s secrets. The media and the CIA are same thing.

Eva Bartlett in North Korea – Going Behind the Media Iron Curtain

Click here to access article featuring an interview with Bartlett and video shots she took on her visit at the end of August to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and posted on 21st Century. (Note: the audio quality of her voice deteriorates at various times in the interview. Also the interview cuts of before the end at 31:51m of the full 32:45m interview; if you want to hear the end you can do so here.)

This extraordinary Canadian journalist shows how independent journalists can give a very different impression of life in other countries, especially those designated derogatorily by such names as the "Axis of Evil", than corporate media gives us within our iron-curtain of Empire propaganda.

On the other hand, if you like the simplistic "good-guy, bad guy" cartoonish propaganda fed to adolescent people (adults with an adolescent personality) by the Empire's corporations, you will love this piece produced by Hollywood's Zionists featuring an African-American celebrity and talking-head. People like you never regard Hollywood both as a propaganda agency of the fascist Deep State (as mostly explained by Caitlin Johnstone) and an equal opportunity briber.

Trump scolds Kim Jong-un

Kim Jong-un with his little rocket responded by saying "you are a mentally deranged and senile old man".

I don't mean to belittle this spat because it is very dangerous. But it's better to laugh about such things than merely complain or worry. Better yet is to become active and informed in order to remove from power a class of people who mostly depend on violence to bully others into giving them cheap labor, resources, and generally to have their way in the world.

[Weekly series of the Russian Revolution of 1917] September 18 – 24: Bolsheviks obtain majorities in Moscow and Petrograd soviets

Click here to access article from the World Socialist Web Site.

I am posting a series of weekly/daily series of articles describing the events of the Russian Revolution from the WSWS website.

I will be posting a weekly summary of activities during the Russian Revolution of 1917 as well as articles by historians of that great event. You may be interested to read my introduction to the latter series if you have not already done so. 

Following the Kornilov affair, support for the Bolsheviks surges, and they win control of the Moscow and Petrograd soviets, followed one by one by provincial soviets. The crisis of the newly formed Kerensky dictatorship deepens. All the while, the war rages on, and mass hunger and deprivation fuel working-class rebellions around the world.

The Kurdish Question: Why Federalization In Syria And The Creation of A Kurdistan Is A Very Bad Idea

Click here to access article by Brandon Turbeville from Activist Post. 

It is obvious that the US has long abandoned Plan A to get rid of President Assad of Syria and install a more compliant puppet as head of state. Now it's Plan B executed by the US's terrorist strategists in the CIA and Israel's Mossad. This is convincingly argued in this lengthy article in which Turbeville adds numerous quotes from other independent journalists and observers to bolster his argument. 

Shortly after the Russian entrance to the Syrian theatre, American media became full of stories praising the heroism of the Kurdish fighters battling against ISIS in areas such as Ayn al-Arab (Kobane) and others. From stories promoting the fighting prowess of the Kurdish brigades to cleverly created propaganda campaigns regarding female Kurdish fighters, the Western press, including the alternative media, was full of stories telling Americans that the Kurds were the real victims and the real heroes of the crisis. This propaganda campaign came about the same time that the Syrian military began making serious gains against Western-backed terrorists with the help of Russia. Thus, as America’s terrorists began losing the war, America produced another “freedom fighter” poster child – the YPG. 

The stories he refers to in alternative media promoting the latest version of "freedom fighter" heroes are such items by anarchist David Graeber, who has long championed the Syrian Kurds (see the latest), and one by Pete Dolack, who has otherwise contributed much to our understanding of financial issues. However Turbeville insists, and I agree with him, that this view serves Empire propaganda and fits very well with the Plan B of the US and its partner-in-crime Israel to balkanize Israel's Arab neighbors. I don't think it is a mere coincidence that Iraqi Kurds are holding a referendum on Monday while this is going on in neighboring Syria. Perhaps the Kurdish leader, Masoud Barzani, is a Mossad agent after all, as alleged numerous times by various observers. At least there is considerable evidence that the Kurds have long enjoyed the support and collaboration by the Israelis in their quest for independence. The US is against the referendum officially, but I think it is only a cover to protect them from the ire of the Iraqi government.

Single Payer, the Democratic Party and the Nonprofit Industrial Complex

Click here to access article by Russell Mokhiber from The Greanville Post.

I am posting this piece only as an illustration of an incorrigible reformist liberal who still thinks that...

...the people at the grassroots...have lit the prairie fire that will not be extinguished by Democrats, or Green Democrats, or public interest Democrats, or the Democratic public option, or Democratic incrementalism, or Democratic affiliated sheepdogs.

It will not be extinguished until single payer becomes law. That means overcoming the pharmaceutical industry, the healthcare industry, the Democratic Party, Green Democrats, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and the nonprofit industrial complex.

Onward to single payer.

He makes this statement following his excellent exposé of the frustrating lessons he's learned while working in various liberal groups to pass legislation that purportedly serves the interests of ordinary people. This piece shows the political immaturity of American liberal activists which, I believe, constitute the majority of American activists. (The same applies to another post from the same website entitled "A Cure For Mad Trump Disease" in which the author claims that the solution is electing the right people to Congress!)

There is no way that a single payer medical plan will ever be permitted to pass into law in the US as long as the capitalist class is in control. Private insurance plans are a bonanza for the capitalist ruling class. Likewise with all the other progressive measures that interfere with the ruling capitalist class's pursuit of wealth/power and their attempt to control the world. While in pursuit of the latter goal, they have wracked up a huge government debt of $20 trillion dollars, which is owed to mostly Empire capitalist creditors who bet on the Empire by purchasing US Treasury securities. Their investments can only be realized if they succeed. 

Obviously at this point our masters have only one option: to continue with "business as usual". And, likewise, we have only one option if we are going to save ourselves from a nuclear war conflagration or a more gradual extinction due to climate destabilization. Guess what that is?  

The forbidden questions about the Korea crisis

Click here to access article by Moss Roberts from Asia Times. 

Why does Washington insist on continuing the war games? Is it about strategy, military budgets, promoting weapon sales, face? Is the purpose to maximize tensions and so push South Korea away from China and toward Japan?

The author asks many serious questions about why sensible solutions are not followed by the US, South Korea, and Japan. The answer is the US-led Empire's compulsive policy of rollback which began after WWII against the influence of the anti-capitalist nations, Soviet Union and China, and is now continuing a similar policy under contemporary conditions in which these nations with mixed economies and North Korea (with a bureaucratically run socialist system) are beginning to seriously challenge the Empire's imperial dominance. US propaganda organs sell this imperialist policy to its citizens as "American exceptionalism" or as America's "unique leadership" in world affairs.

Russia’s Interesting New Oil Geopolitics

Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook. 

Engdahl lends his geopolitical perspective on the current situation in the Middle East.

Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, Qatar. They are weaving deeper peaceful economic ties, walking away in the case of Qatar and Turkey from their ill-conceived US-inspired war against Syria’s Bashar al Assad, developing long-term energy cooperation and defense ties. At the heart is Russia’s emerging new oil geopolitics.

The response to this all from the sinking Titanic that used to be known as the United States of America, of its military lobby and their Wall Street bankers who actually run Washington policy via their web of think-tanks, is infantile: war, destabilizations, color revolutions, sanctions as a form of economic war, demonization, lies. That’s all rather stupid and ultimately boring. [Notice his description of the shadow government, what I refer to as the Deep State.]