Extended absence

by Ron Horn, administrator of this blog.

I will be tied up with personal affairs until sometime after the 25th of May. Thus, there will be no posts until then.

I invite you to read those labeled "best posts" (my rating) which express my rather unique point of view on social-political issues.

Recommended articles for May 9, 2018

• Trump Ends The Nuclear Deal With Iran - What's Next? by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama. Also another good article on this latest event is We Are Being Lied To About Yet Another Middle Eastern Country By Yet Another US President by Caitlin Johnstone from her blog.

• Are Michael Isikoff and David Corn CIA Agents? by Eric Zuesse from The Greanville Post. The author contrasts the lying sociopaths Corn and Isikoff with a German truth-teller journalist who "died" under very mysterious circumstances.

• THE MARCH ON TEHERAN IS ON! Let’s have the campaign of pretexts blanket the public mind [begin] by Michael Schäfer from The Greanville Post. The author focuses on what the directorate (Deep State--for a brief description of this term read this; for an in-depth description by a researcher who has studied the Deep State for many years, listen to this interview with Peter Dale Scott) of the ruling capitalist class have planned all along regarding Iran as revealed in a Brookings Institute (a Deep State organization) document.

• Actors were paid to support Entergy’s power plant at New Orleans City Council meetings by Michael Isaac Stein from The Lens. The article reports on what is an excellent example of how the use of actors and acting in political situations is a common practice by capitalist agents who have a major interest in how governments make decisions as well as to influence the perceptions of ordinary people as in the case of the White Helmets in Syria.

Recommended articles for Monday, May 7, 2018

• China’s Determined March Towards the Ecological Civilization by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook.

‘Political correctness’ is diluting the sense of urgency, and there is plenty of hypocrisy at work: while, at least in the West and Japan, people are encouraged to recycle, to turn off the lights in empty rooms and not to waste water, in other parts of our Planet, entire islands, nations and continents are being logged out by the Western corporations, or destroyed by unbridled mining. The governments of the West’s ‘client states’ are getting hopelessly corrupt in the process.

Western politicians see absolutely no urgency in all that is taking place around the world, or more precisely – they are paid not to see it.

So, are we now dealing with the thoroughly hopeless scenario? Did the world go mad? Is it ready to get sacrificed for the profit of the very few? Are people simply going to stand passively, watching what is happening around them, and die, as their world goes literally up in flames?

It appeared so, until few months ago.

• Russia’s v. America’s Records on Democracy, and on Whistleblowers’ Safety by Eric Zuesse from Washington's Blog.

• Once China got off drugs: the link between opium and ‘liberal strongman’ Macron by Iranian-American Ramin Mazaheri. I only scanned this article and discovered that I don't agree with everything he argues, but he contributes to a valuable understanding of China's history with the ruling capitalist classes of Europe and North America.

• De-Briefing Academics: Unpaid Intelligence Informants by James Petras from Global Research.  Dr. Petas gives us a good idea of how upper-middle class academic travelers have been co-opted to serve the imperialist interests of the ruling capitalist class. Read the article to understand how he reaches the following conclusion:

What is clear in virtually all know[n] experiences is that academic informers’ ‘de-briefings strengthened the empire-builders and complemented the deadly work of the paid professional operatives of the CIA, DEA and the National Security Agency.

• The Myth of Low US Unemployment. Twisting the Definition, Manipulating the Data by Stephen Lendman from Global Research. Once again we learn that our masters are compulsive liars whenever their interests of profit and power are involved. However, due to the type of socialization that Americans are subject to throughout their lives, most of them have a very naive trust in their capitalist masters who have gotten away with lying so long that it has become essentially an automatic response to any subject where their interests are at stake. 

Recommended articles for Sunday, May 6, 2018

• 'The Biggest Player in the History of the World' by Alistair Crooke from Strategic Culture Foundation.

• Israels Murderous Strike on Syria (Via ‘Pacified’ Lebanon) by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook.

• The Historic Background of China's Perception of the West by Carl Zha posted on Moon of Alabama. Excellent review of certain aspects of Chinese history during the past 100 years.

• Diagnosing the Capitalist Disease: Our Passive Society by Chris Wright from The Greanville Post. I agree with the author that the social system impacts every institution including technology in the sense that it shapes what technology is used for.

Absence

I will be traveling for the next several days. Do not expect any posts until possibly Sunday, May 6th.

International Workers' Day!

by Ron Horn  (I was inspired by an activist, Caren, to write this post.)

Giant celebrations are occurring all over the world--except in the US--for this day in honor of workers. (Some examples: in Zambia, India, France, Cuba, and Russia.) 

That's a bit strange since it originated in the USA. It is another example of worker history that our ruling masters have almost disappeared from the consciousness of many American workers. But looking at the history of International Workers' Day, we learn that the day is as American as apple pie! 

Our ruling masters have attempted to obliterate its meaning by relabeling the day to various other meanings, by changing it to "Labor Day" and shifting it to the first Monday of September, by removing most of the history of this day from schools and educational materials, and by media corporations portrayal of the day as almost un-American by framing the day as one of potential violence. Isn't it ironic that the most violent ruling class in recorded world history treats American workers with such paranoia?

It started on May 1, 1886 with a workers' rally which led to what it sounds like was a ... false flag event--probably the most favored tactic of our capitalist masters. Historian Yohuru Williams gives us a brief history of the event which led to this day of honor for working people all over the world.

The future of work is now

Click here to access article by Peter Radford from Real-World Economics Review Blog. 

The author focuses our attention on the present and future consequences of artificial intelligence (AI) on the vast majority of humans. Nowhere does the author address that the capitalist system distorts the way this new technology will be used not for the benefit of humans, but for the enrichment of a tiny minority of "owners" who are addicted to not only profits, but power most of all.

There is no doubt that AI will have an enormous impact. There are countless breathless accounts of the number of jobs that will simply disappear as AI sweeps through the economy. These accounts usually appear from those involved in the invention and application of AI. They all end up expressing some form of fatalistic vision where the workplace will inevitably collapse under the impress of technology, wages will similarly collapse for those poor souls unable to keep up with the onslaught of robotics, with the resultant picture being grim for just about everyone except for the few who remain in the so-called “knowledge economy”.

Later he describes the inevitability of consequences under the existing social system, but again he doesn't attribute them to capitalism which we can change to serve all of humanity instead of a tiny minority of capitalists:

By simplifying the purpose of a corporation and focusing it exclusively on shareholder value the way was opened for increasing portions of the national wealth to be allocated to profit, away from wages, and thus satisfy the rising demands of investors.

The consequence was a constant re-writing of the workplace arrangement, with every step designed to reduce worker compensation so as to free up cash for profit.

For more material to learn about how this new technology of AI will be used under the existing system, I recommend another article entitled "As AI advances rapidly, More Human Than Human says, “Stop, let’s think about this” from Ars Technica.

Why the U.S. Regime Hates Vladimir Putin

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from Global Research.

Because I am currently having little time to devote to my website, I only scanned this article. What was of special interest to me was the following video.



I believe it illustrates how the Russian government under Putin and the great majority of Russian people have drawn from their long experience under the Soviet Union a hostile attitude against the intrinsic nature of capitalist greed. I don't think that the Russians will ever let the capitalist sector dominate their society, and possibly they will be so disenchanted with capitalism that they will once again turn toward a creation of a new type of socialism.

Fuck You, Actually

Click here to access article by Caitlin Johnstone (Australian) posted on The Greanville Post.

For months leftist analysts have been warning that the increasingly hysterical anti-Russia narratives being aggressively promoted by the western media would eventually be used to target the political left. Those warnings went largely unheeded in the United States where the Russiagate narrative was being ostensibly used to undermine the Trump administration, and the McCarthyite feeding frenzies which have become normalized for American audiences have now metastasized across the pond to the UK.

The author goes off on a well-deserved rant against the the British ruling class (she refers to them as "poms", Australian derogatory slang) for their anti-Russian smearing of Jeremy Corbyn, a prominent British Labour party leader.

This is as fascinating as it is infuriating. By attacking literally anything which poses an obstacle to the loose alliance of western plutocrats and secretive government agencies, the social engineers who are fueling this Russia hysteria are actually closer than ever before to openly admitting that the west is truly ruled by those plutocrats and agencies. They are now this close to saying “Russia is our enemy because it stands in opposition to the corporatist Orwellian oligarchy which is your real government.”

 But she ends on a very hopeful note--at least for the Brits:

This is a really extraordinary time to be alive. The nationless power establishment which looked completely unshakeable a matter of months ago is now flipping out like a meth addict whose stash just got stolen and publicly overextending itself in an amazingly conspicuous way. The mechanics of western imperialism and the deceitful nature of the mass media propaganda machine which holds it all together have never been as exposed as they are today.

Keep pushing against the machine, clear-eyed rebels. Truth is winning. Truth will prevail. The bastards are about to fall. 

An Afghan Year: My Road from Soldier to Socialism

Click here to access article by Adam Denker from The Greanville Post.

I found reading this article to be an emotionally gripping experience. Denker sounds like a very ordinary young American:

I joined the National Guard to pay for college. I didn’t really think of the consequences at the time. After all: I’m an American, I was raised to worship my country and adore the military, and I did. Receiving a college education seemed like fair payment for "service to my country".

 It was a transforming experience for him.

... the worst part was what I was slowly being forced to accept: everything I had believed in my whole life was a lie. I had always been a patriotic American. I believed we weren’t perfect but that we were “the good guys.” I truly believed that the Afghans wanted us there, that we were protecting and helping them. But now, as I saw the war around me, and why it was being fought, as well as the inhuman attitude towards even the Afghan civilians that my fellow soldiers had, I couldn’t keep believing this lie.

There was no greater example of the lie than the contractors who were there.

But the worst was yet to come. Read (if you can) what he experienced and concluded looking at a five or six year old girl who was searching for and collecting old Soviet mines from a field. 

Dr. Gilbert Doctorow: “America Is Absolutely Corrupt”

Click here to access an interview with Doctorow by independent Algerian journalist Mohsen Abdelmoumen posted on American Herald Tribune's website. (I must thank an attentive and dedicated activist for this post.)

This is a most fascinating interview of a Russian scholar with a PhD in history from Columbia University. The interview obviously took place in Belgium, and the journalist asks wide ranging questions about the USA in relation to Russia. Several questions asked about the state of journalism today and the appearance of fake news in the USA which was of considerable interest to me.

[Abdelmoumen:] Do you think that the disappearing of the paper press plays in favor of misinformation?

[Doctorow:] This plays a huge role, but it is not a recent situation. Mr. Noam Chomsky, the great American dissident, wrote as co-author in 1985 the book The Manufacture of Consent. It's a matter of censorship out of censure. Today, when someone graduates as a journalist and hopes to make a living, to have a family, there is only one thing to do: go into public relations for a big company. It requires the same skills for an employer who pays the salary. And finally, the journalists became corrupt. .... Journalists are retiring and it's over, they are not replaced them because there is no money.

[Abdelmoumen:] Is not journalism disappearing and are we not moving towards a press made by the citizens, like the alternative press?

[Doctorow:] The alternative press is a good thing but it is not the same size and it is not the same quality, in principle. If real journalism had continued, it would be much more sophisticated and much more educated than what we have now. We are talking about fake news. There are many fake news because there are no professional intermediaries, and even among the major publishers, I do not speak of the press but of the publishers in general, they sacked the writers. If you are dealing with a big edition, in most cases there are no real writers. All the services of an edition have disappeared, that is to say that the professions are under digital attack.

Globalopoly

I couldn't find the name of this British cartoonist in my limited time. Here is a link to his/her website.

 

World employers report

Click here to access article by David Ruccio from Occasional Links & Commentary.

 Economist Ruccio comments on the latest World's Bank report. This is how he starts out:

The history of capitalism is actually a combination of two histories: it’s a history of employers attempting to hire workers and develop new technologies to make profits and expand the reach of capitalism; it’s also a history of workers banding together to improve wages and working conditions and imagine ways of moving beyond capitalism.

The World Bank’s World Development Report, currently in draft form, comes down firmly on the side of employers and their historical role.

Russia and the War Party

Click here to access article by Carl Boggs from The Greanville Post. 

More examples of well-rewarded liberals promoting the imperial agenda of the US-led Empire.

The steady deterioration of American political discourse seems to have reached its lowest ebb in historical memory, visible in the rightward shift of both Democrats and Republicans. One sign is the frenzied Democratic assault on Republicans from the right, especially in foreign policy. Another is the resounding silence on the most crucial problems facing humanity: threat of catastrophic war, nuclear arms race, ecological crisis, health-care debacle, the worsening miseries of global capitalism. Tabloid-style spectacles have increasingly filled media space. Still another sign is the intensifying anti-Russia hysteria promoted by unhinged liberals in Congress and the corporate media, reminiscent of the worst McCarthyism.

Another example of this descent into absurdity is the book Russian Roulette, by liberals Michael Isikoff and David Corn – Beltway writers whose shrill anti-Russian crusade has received highest accolades by the New York Times and such promoters of the permanent warfare state as Rachel Maddow ....

Another Beautiful Soul: Counterpunching the Global Assault on Dissent

Click here to access article by Canadian Stephen Gowans from What's Left. 

Gowans provides a perfect illustration of a well indoctrinated and very likely an upper middle class person who is heavily promoted by liberal media such as CounterPunch and Truthdig because she likes to promote identity politics and support Empire policies. Although trained in physics and astronomy, Sonali Kolhatkar has become the darling of the liberal-oriented, supposedly "alternative" media industry. She has, and will be, given all kinds of rewards and encouragement to continue in this line of work because she has so well served to justify and rationalize the policies of the ruling capitalist class to politically liberal Americans.

Kolhatkar’s professions of neutrality notwithstanding, it’s clear whose side she’s on in the matter of the US war to impose neo-colonial slavery on Syria (and after Syria, Iran), but it’s not clear why. She certainly hasn’t arrived at her position by reasoned analysis; none is offered. Her disquisition is embarrassingly unsophisticated. She appears to be unaware of the issues that lie at the root of the conflict. She’s oblivious to the reality that mass media are jingoistic. And she’s incapable of recognizing glaring lapses of her own logic. We can only wonder what Counterpunch saw in her piece.

Identity Politics: Diversion from the Growing Economic Crisis?

Click here to access article by Ghada Chehade, originally from occupied Palestine and now a citizen of Canada, from The Political Anthropologist (based in Canada). (You will need to register (free) in order to access the full article and all other articles on the website.)

A politics that addresses identity and minority issues without examining the larger socioeconomic system and class relations cannot adequately address the disproportional disenfranchisement and economic despair experienced by minority groups. At the same time, a focus on identity and individual issues prevents us from seeing what we have in common, pitting different groups against one another and distracting them from – and from uniting over – their common economic plight.

I don't think that this phenomenon of identity politics just sort of happened. I am convinced that it has been promoted by the ruling capitalist class who must obscure the class structure they have imposed on society and all understanding of their overwhelming influence to shape institutions and ideology to promote their interests of evermore profits and power. 

By promoting identity politics they distract attention away from the class structure that their class has created: powerless and insecure wage workers (working class) who are essentially "wage slaves" and live from paycheck to paycheck; a middle class who have attained a measure of security (home ownership, and respectable status and extra privileges), but who are often in extreme debt to maintain this lifestyle; the upper-middle class who are highly trained (and indoctrinated) scientists, researchers, managers, technicians, and professionals who make the capitalist system function, enjoy high salaries, and serve their masters of the capitalist class; and finally the ruling capitalist class who own most of the assets of our country, live off of their ownership of property, only work if they want to, and exercise control over every institution of society.

The latest cartoons by political cartoonist Stephanie McMillan, and her comments

Thanks go to an activist for this post.

When you come after their bottom line, capitalists freak out.

 

Dedicated to ABF drivers who are currently being fed a shitty contract that puts them back to where they should have been 5 years ago. The CEO got a 31.9% increase in total compensation, while the company is offering its workers a measly $2/hr raise over the next 5 years. That doesn't even keep up with the cost of living. [my link]

Capitalism inherently involves imperialist wars, oppression, exploitation, and ecocide. Humanity can do better! We must overcome capitalism and move beyond it to a different kind of economy that allows for a classless and sustainable arrangement of society. The future of our species and the planet depend on it.

Recommended web posts for Tuesday, 4/24/2018

• The West’s Trauma of its Dissolution by Alistair Crooke from Strategic Culture Foundation. This top geopolitical analyst summarizes what we know is happening regarding recent events with Russia and in Syria and tries to make sense of it all. Many questions remain. See how he reaches this conclusion:

The attack on Syria is not some 'bump in the road', easily passed, and after which, we may sigh, and slump back to business as usual.  The trauma generated by secular western utopianism (European Enlightenment) being in dissolution is not something to be passed through quite so easily.  'Otherness' - other cultures - are coalescing and taking us to different outcomes, albeit still in their latency.  We should expect more 'bumps in the road'.  We should expect surprise.  The next 'bumps’ might well be more dangerous.  The West's trauma of its dissolution will not be short or without its violence, particularly as the shock of finding that 'technology' is not somehow inherent to western culture, but that the 'other' can do it as well, or even better, strikes at the very core of the western 'myth' of its own exceptionalism.

• The British Are Driving the West’s War Agenda—But Why? by Richard C. Cook from Global Research. This retired political analyst argues that the Privy Council of Britain is behind all the recent acts of war and false-flags against Russia. I doubt this. It seems like an attempt to excuse US agents from the recent provocative acts. What I, and others like Carroll Quigley, have argued all along that following WWII the British ruling class, which ruled over the nearly defunct British Empire, merged with the US ruling class and have since then co-opted many top capitalists from all over Europe and Japan that makes up the ruling class of US-led Empire. Nevertheless, Cook adds some very interesting information on the British section of the Empire's ruling class.

• Superpower Confrontation in Syria: It's Not Over (this is only an introduction.) Listen to Bonnie Faulkner, of KPFA in Berkeley, California, as she interviews "The Saker" to ascertain his take on the recent missile attack on Syria and several other important subjects.

Recommended articles for 4/23/2018

• US Decries Chinese High-Speed Rail in Laos by Joseph Thomas from New Eastern Outlook. I had to laugh over the allegations made in the Quartz article. It was another example of the psychological defense mechanism of projection, that is, attributing a characteristic to others that one uses so often. The ruling class of the USA is expert at using the "debt trap" to subjugate others after many years of practice. They have used this practice not only subjugate nations, but their own population as well. People in the USA have been thoroughly conditioned to accept debt, and there are very few without debt. I think that this is a prime method of control of dissidence.

• Capitalism is not the problem by Cameron Pike from A bird's eye view of the Vineyard. This represents a desperate attempt to defend the system of capitalism. I think it represents the thinking of those who have been successful in lesser business enterprises, the current Russian ruling class, and the thinking of "The Saker" (Andrei Raevsky) at this website. Raevsky, by his own reporting, is a descendant of a military officer who was active in the Russian Revolution who fled to Switzerland when the opposition backed by many Western capitalist nations was defeated. This military officer, no doubt, was part of the opposition to the Bolsheviks and likely identified with the embryonic Russian capitalist class during the early 20th century. 

Pike's defense of capitalism is quite shallow, amateurish, and typical of most North American political liberals. I'm not sure it is worth the effort to criticize it. In any case, I don't have the time to do it now--maybe sometime in the future.

• The CIA Democrats vs. Julian Assange by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site.

The lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), naming WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange as co-conspirators with Russia and the Trump campaign in a criminal effort to steal the 2016 US presidential election, is a frontal assault on democratic rights. It tramples on the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which establishes freedom of the press and freedom of speech as fundamental rights.

Neither the Democratic Party lawsuit nor the media commentaries on it acknowledge that WikiLeaks is engaged in journalism, not espionage.... 

Surprise, surprise! (sarcasm) 

Recommended articles for 4/22/2018

• The End of Growth, Seven Years Later by Richard Heinberg from his website. (Note: Because I am thoroughly immersed in activities to look for another home, I only scanned this article, but found it very interesting. It was highly recommended by an activist who studied under Heinberg.)

• “How Come?” Questions by Andrew Levine from CounterPunch. This offers some tips in understanding Empire propaganda, the "Newspeak" of our times.

• World War is Still in the Cards by Dan Glazebrook from CounterPunch. (Another contribution by a fellow activist.)

• The MoA Week In Review And Open Thread 2018-19 by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama. This is one of my favorite websites which is managed by an expert truth-teller. In this piece you learn about the color revolutions that agents of the Empire are promoting right now. The capitalist directors of the Empire never tire of creating chaos throughout the world in order to support their addiction to profits and power.

• A false flag attack on a USN ship next? by Nick from A bird's eye view of the Vineyard. The author begins the article how a US aircraft carrier could be a prime victim of a false-flag attack that ruling class directors would use to declare war on their latest enemy. He then goes on to other prime examples of the use of false-flag attacks to fool citizens in rallying around the flag, and ordinary impressionable youth going off to foreign lands to kill other ordinary people. It seems this trick works every time. 

I personally have researched the attack on Pearl Harbor, and I believe that this attack qualifies as a false-flag excuse to get us into war with the ruling capitalist class of Japan who were on their way to create their own empire in Asia (the phrase "Empire of Japan" was often used). They along with German and Italian ruling capitalist classes threatened the Anglo-American capitalists and their allies for control of the world. These competitive enemies of the Anglo-American capitalists forced the latter into a repugnant alliance with the Soviet Union in order to defeat them, but shortly after the end of WWII the Anglo-American empire soon turned on the Soviet Union because they interfered with the predatory activities of their new victorious Empire. And, as they say, "the rest is history" (ref,).