How the SCOTUS “Muslim Ban Ruling” Gives the President a Blank Check to Detain American Citizens

Click here to access article by Whitney Webb from Mint Press News. 

Mint Press speaks with legal expert and law professor Ryan Alford, who warns that hidden within the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Trump administration’s “Muslim travel ban” is a massive power giveaway to the executive branch that allows any president to order the mass detention of American citizens without worrying about a challenge from the courts.

This interview with Ryan Alford provides many illustrations of the theatrical nature of "the rule of law" that is so often touted by the capitalist ruling class in the USA. I am not referring merely to the robed costumes that the judges wear, that the justices are always seated in an elevated position above everybody else in the official proceedings, etc. The entire legal structure that the ruling class has constructed is of a theatrical nature in that the rulings are carefully scripted by appointees of the ruling class to protect and promote their class interests of profit and power. The fact that often these rulings are promoting an authoritarian, fascist-like government is carefully hidden behind legal jargon which uses such open-ended notions as "national security" to cover for racist and authoritarian directives of the executive branch that steadily weaken the legal protections for ordinary Americans supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution. 

However, this tendency is an inevitable result of a system that gives overwhelming power to one tiny self-serving, segment of society. It is a symptom which indicates that this ruling class, the capitalist class, is in the final stages of its existence. The only problem is that this class is locked and loaded with nuclear weapons; and if this does not worry you, then you need to be reminded of their ongoing attacks on our planet's habitat which supports human life.

Recommended articles for Thursday, June 28, 2018

• Neocolonialism and the “Migrant Crisis” by Manlio Dinucci from Global Research (based in Canada).

From the United States to Europe, the “migrant crisis” is causing bitter interior and international controversy about the policies which need to be adopted concerning the migrant flow. However, these movements are being represented by a cliché which is the opposite of reality – that of the “rich countries” obliged to suffer the growing migratory pressure of the “poor countries”. This misrepresentation hides its basic cause – the world economic system [capitalism] which enables a restricted minority to accumulate wealth at the expense of the growing majority, by impoverishing them and thus provoking forced emigration. [my insertion]

• The Rapid Postwar Increase of America’s Nuclear Arsenal by Shane Quinn from Global Research.

• Turkey’s European dream may be over, is the Sultan ready for Eurasia? by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times.

Erdogan has lost his parliamentary majority and must now establish a coalition with the far-right Nationalist Action Party; given the latter is anti-Western, the road ahead points in only one direction: Eurasian integration.

How Long Can The Federal Reserve Stave Off the Inevitable?

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from his blog. (Edited for greater clarity at 6:48 AM CT on 6/28/2018.)

Roberts, like so many unrepentant capitalists, insists that regulated capitalism can work, but, as he often argues, the fight must be against unregulated capitalism which has been infected and corrupted by, neoliberalism, the new form of capitalism of the 21st century. According to Roberts and others, the new version of capitalism has replaced the good old-fashioned nationalist, regulated capitalism which he presided over in his career. 

I wish he could tell that to all the workers throughout the 20th century of "regulated" capitalism (regulated by and for capitalists) like the workers that Upton Sinclair described in his books like The Jungle, The Brass Check, and King Coal (1917) or the workers that John Steinbeck wrote about in the 1930s such as Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, East of Eden, etc. No, Roberts must be referring to the immediate post WWII years when American corporations shared more of the loot with their workers because American industries were unscathed by the war and were able, with the backing of a powerful military, to thoroughly dominate the post WWII scene. Funny how things turned out.

However, he does have a good understanding, although rather superficial, as to what happened to his very weak "regulated" capitalism. It's just that his recollection of regulated capitalism is largely a myth. The capitalist system has always been used by a self-serving capitalist class at the expense and suffering of workers. Its just that over the succeeding decades the system inevitably, via the concentration of wealth and power, morphed into a monster that threatens not only the well-being of the overwhelming majority of workers but our planet's habitat that supports human life as well.

American Totalitarianism and the Culture of Fake News

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

This independent Irish observer offers an insightful commentary on the results of a recent Pew research report that, according to Reuters, indicated "Only a quarter of U.S. adults in a recent survey could fully identify factual statements - as opposed to opinion - in news stories ...." 

This culture of systematic brainwashing – in a much-vaunted democracy by a self-declared free, independent news media – is undoubtedly a factor in why American citizens seem to have such a hard time telling facts from fiction. The fake news phenomenon in the US is neither new nor unexpected. It’s a corollary of the way the population has for decades been degraded to a status of controlled subjects. This has long been the objective of US elite propagandists like Edward Bernays who in the 1920s strove to “control the habits and thoughts of the populace”.

As an illustration of this type of brainwashing, see this video regarding the control of information by key officials and agents regarding the assassination of John Kennedy.

But, in spite of such reports, there is hope that eventually Americans will see through the self-serving lies and propaganda that is daily spewed through all the institutions controlled by the ruling capitalist class as illustated in this report. 

A Tale of Two Nuclear Deals: The China and Iran Factors Behind the Singapore Summit [part 2]

Click here to access article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from Strategic Culture Foundation. 

This independent Canadian journalist makes some very astute comments on the recent negotiations between North Korea and the Trump administration with his sharp observations regarding various members of the US administration, his comments about Libya's attempted negotiations, other relatively unknown facts, and Chinese and North Korean perspectives. 

The only criticism I have is the posting of this article. It should read "part 2" in the headline. By this omission and the citing of "Part 1" in the introduction, one could be easily misled that this article was Part 1. I didn't post Part 1 when it previously appeared because it reported on the history of what led up to the recent negotiations which I felt my learned readers and others already knew.

What’s Really Behind Anti-China Protests in Vietnam?

Click here to access article by Joseph Thomas from New Eastern Outlook.

It's amusing to me that subversive Empire agents are now promoting the traditional Vietnamese concern to be independent from their powerful neighbor, whereas during the Vietnam War days, they always promoted the domino theory to justify in the brainwashed minds of most Americans the US military intervention in Vietnam, that the latter was only a neutral "block" that the Chinese wanted in order to construct their "evil" communist empire.

It is clear that Vietnam’s so-called opposition is in no way “nationalist,” and merely opposes Chinese interests in Vietnam because Washington opposes them. By taking US and European funding and carrying out Western directives, they are actively undermining Vietnam’s sovereignty, not upholding it.

It is also clear why the US and European media omit mention of [the sponsorship of] opposition leaders even when covering significant events like the recent anti-China street protests. Had the truth been told to international audiences, the opposition’s hypocrisy would be exposed and their legitimacy undermined.

Slavery Past and Present

Click here to access a YouTube video showing an excerpt from a talk delivered by Prof. Richard D. Wolff who explains Marxist concepts like surplus value ("value added"), revolution, fake democracy, class structure, strikes (as a weapon used by workers against employers) in terms that most ordinary people can understand. (This video was sent to me by an activist.)



However, the implication he leaves us with is that the establishment of worker coops, which he promotes within capitalism, is a method to change the system of capitalism into something that is egalitarian. This is utter nonsense. If this were true, the capitalist ruling class would never permit the establishment of such coops. Thus, he avoids offending the ruling class and any adverse repercussions to his teaching career by advocating something that is no threat to the system. Likewise, by permitting such talk to exist in their universities, the ruling capitalist class can still lay claim that it promotes free discussion of ideas in their educational institutions. The fact that such discussion of socialist concepts is so rare in our universities rejects this view.

This what Yugoslavia had before the US Empire destroyed the country in 1999 and restored capitalist control of that country. The working class under the anti-fascist leadership of Tito established worker coops at the end of WWII when it wasn't possible for the Western capitalist nations to stop this social experiment. The point is: that the establishment of worker coops cannot be a revolutionary method to overturn capitalism. It can only be a basis for a socialist type of society following the overthrow of capitalism.

The Beginning of the End of the Bilderberg Era

Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Many critical observers are jumping on the bandwagon to forecast the end of the US-led capitalist Empire. Well, the signs are everywhere that the Empire is losing its grip, but I think that many such critics have no commitment to a classless society where all the people are empowered. Could Crooke be one of these? This piece has aroused my suspicions.

Like many others who pose as a pseudo-left, Crooke wildly exaggerates James Burnham's influence, and by describing him as a former Trotskyite, smears the radical revolutionary efforts of all of Trotsky's followers. Yes, there were some ex-Trotskyites (Christopher Hitchens, David Horowitz, Irving Kristol, etc) who became influential in constructing the US Empire; but in contrast to Crooke, I see this as evidence that was well expressed in Burnham's books The Managerial Revolution and The Machiavellians: the lure of power infecting highly educated, upper-middle class sociopaths back in the 1940s. Such sociopathic socialists saw the wind shifting to the right and jumped ship from revolutionary socialist activities to those ships going in the fascist direction. They rationalized this shift by making the pretentious claim that they, because they were indispensable in running capitalist enterprises, were forming a new ruling class who were about to replace capitalists.

Could it be that Crooke, like many old-fashioned patriotic Brits, merely expresses a sour taste in his intellectual mouth because Great Britain is not so "great" anymore and has been replaced by the US Empire? I really don't know--just asking.

Is Gene Editing the New Name for Eugenics?

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

Influential people such as Bill Gates and government departments such as the Pentagon are pushing gene editing as the new frontier of biotechnology. The fact that this poses profitable opportunities for biotech corporations is very likely the motivation behind these risky efforts.

With the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the USDA and the Pentagon DARPA all involved energetically advancing gene editing and especially the highly-risky Gene Drive applications in species such as mosquitoes, one has to ask is gene editing becoming the new name for eugenics in light of the fact that GMO technologies have been so vigorously opposed by citizen groups around the world. Honest scientific research is of course legitimate and necessary. But unregulated experimentation with technologies that could wipe out entire species is definitely not the same as planting a variety of hybrid corn.

The US Ruined Their Countries, Now Trump Calls Them “Animals” and Sends Them Back

Click here to access article by Jon Jeter from Mint Press News. (Added sentence for clarity of views at 7 PM CT.)

Jeter concentrates mostly on the relatively recent history of US interference in Honduras to illustrate how the US ruling class promotes and secures their investments throughout Central America, but at the same time such interference also brings misery and death for ordinary people. Hence, many of them flee north. 

It’s important to contextualize the Americas historically as a battle between the mostly European settlers who own the New World and the mostly indigenous and black workers who built it. Destabilizing Central America allows multinationals to continue to exploit labor and resources, and dates back to the CIA’s 1954 plot to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala’s Socialist President Jacobo Arbenz, whose plan to redistribute land to the country’s landless peasant farmers threatened the massive holdings of the United Fruit Company, the predecessor of Chiquita Brands. The coup eventually triggered a civil war between leftist rebels and the U.S.-backed military, led by avid anti-Communist generals.

But, to blame Trump for this, as implied by the title, is ridiculous.

If the Chinese don’t believe in democracy, do they believe in meritocracy?

Click here to access article by Robin Daverman posted on The Greanville Post. (This post was originally a long answer to a deceptive question posed on Quora which was repeated in this post.)

My life experience and education, both formal and informal, has shaped my belief that all cultures are shaped by the interests of ruling classes, or at least this is true since the history of ruling classes began roughly when humans began settling in permanent communities. Because the culture in China is much older than those in the Western capitalist countries, much has been lost to explain why Chinese culture is different from the West. Perhaps this can be partially explained by China's self-imposed isolation from the West. I believe that Daverman's insights about contemporary Chinese culture are valid based on what I do know about contemporary China from reading articles and books and viewing Chinese films.

Somehow social ethics became deeply rooted in Chinese culture and present a formidable bulwark against sociopathic tendencies among their people. Hopefully, this bulwark will endure. Therefore, the question in the title of this article comes from a fake Western ideological perspective which holds that elections automatically equal democracy.

War & Revolution2

The following video interview is with law professor (and columnist for left publications in Mexico) John Ackerman, and conducted by two members of the MexElects' website, an independent Mexican website which hopes to bring a left-wing perspective on the national elections scheduled for July 1st. These elections have been viewed by many progressives in both Mexico and the USA as heralding a new political direction, but many of Ackerman's comments challenge this notion.

My old ears could not decipher all of the rapidly delivered comments by Ackerman, but I learned much about Mexican politics, specifically, the details about how the ruling Mexican capitalist class manage their elections so that they never lose while pretending to be a "democracy". Such methods are familiar to politically aware observers here in the USA. 

In spite of the censorship and the election rigging, it appears that ordinary Mexicans are much more informed about what occurs in their country than Americans are regarding their own country. Could this be because the management of news, information, and entertainment is much more sophisticated here in the USA?

What Big Meat doesn’t want you to know about slaughterhouses

Click here to access article by Martha Rosenberg from Intrepid Report. (Edited for omissions and greater clarity at 10:24 AM CT.

The real issues regarding immigrant labor are always submerged by the flood of lies portraying such people as solely victims whose human rights are being threatened. Indeed, they are! But this portrayal hides the real motivation by corporations to hire the most desperate and most compliant labor force at rock bottom prices. This current coverage of illegal immigrants by corporate media is being cynically used by the Deep State to add to the criticism of, and further undermine, the Trump administration.

The corporations that are owned by the ruling capitalist class have a difficult time exploiting such a vulnerable workforce and keeping the real incentives for this practice out of the consciousness of ordinary Americans. Hence, this practice will continue and the issues of illegal immigration will always be with us as long as corporations can profit from it. Have you noticed that corporations never get prosecuted for hiring such workers?

What is also kept out of the consciousness of ordinary Americans is the widespread and often brutal interference in Central America by the US ruling class to keep those countries open to US investors looking to make easy profits. This, in turn, results in governments throughout Latin America turning against their own people with their ruling classes actively collaborating with our powerful ruling capitalist class because of the inducements of wealth and power. This article explains some of the reasons why corporations like to hire illegal immigrants, and Wayne Madsen in article entitled "Political asylee numbers will soon skyrocket" explains, as an example, how the foreign policies of our ruling masters result in the type of government in Columbia which, in turn, drives people at great risk to themselves to head to the USA.

Steve Cutts wins a Webby award for best animated video

Click here to access is award winning video created by Steve Cutts whose illustrations and cartoons I've often posted on this website. (If you have AdBlocker extension on your Firefox browser like I do, it can take as much as 40 seconds to upload. Then you will need to click on the image of his video to play it. Even if you have this extension on your computer, it's well worth the wait. You can also upload it on Cutts' website much easier and you will get the full version.)

This video illustrates and satirizes the pursuit of happiness in capitalist societies.

Black Agenda Report Book Forum: Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom

Click here to access an interview with Canadian Stephen Gowans conducted by Roberto Sirvent and posted on Black Agenda Report.

I regard Gowans as one of the top political intellectuals in today's world. The fact that he refers to Domenico Losurdo as a source of his influence, resulted in my ordering (from Abebooks) his latest book entitled Liberalism: A Counter-History.

In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Stephen Gowans . Gowans is an independent political analyst whose principal interest is in who influences formulation of foreign policy in the United States. His book is Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea's Struggle for Freedom.

Hong Kong’s Paradoxical “Independence” Movement

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook. [Edited for greater clarity throughout the day.]

Using the example of Hong Kong, the author illustrates how well-funded US sponsored NGOs lure educated young people in foreign countries to join in US's subversive activities on behalf of the Empire. These young people are enticed by the many rewards that their wealthy sponsors can provide them and the promise of lucrative future careers serving the Empire. Such rewards in these sociopathic individuals often offset their moral responsibility to others in their own countries. 

There will always be sociopaths among us regardless of any one society. It is the responsibility of well socialized people to see that their influence is minimal. This also means that well socialized adults must strive to provide opportunities for young people to contribute to their societies in a productive way. In addition, they must insure that values of social justice, equality, truth, beauty, forgiveness, empathy, responsibility, cooperation, courage, patience, etc (perhaps you can think of others) are inculcated as an essential part of the socialization process and thereby thoroughly reject the crass, self-serving aggressive, materialist values of the US-led Empire. Could it be that the Chinese Communist Party that controls nearly all policies in China are not sufficiently promoting this kind of socialization? 

A Gateway for Truth

I would like to share with you an email I received from an activist in the Boston area announcing a new website where one can find the hidden-from-us, real history of the USA and other topics not covered well in conventional history books.

                                                      This One's For John

Today is the June Solstice, where the Sun, appearing to travel along the ecliptic, reaches the point where it is farthest north of the celestial equator. In the northern hemisphere days are longest and nights shortest while the opposite is happening in the southern hemisphere.

Four years ago the concept was hatched of what today begins at https://hiddenhistorycenter.org/. A compelling and provocative scaffolding is now in place through which to relay information, raise questions, and generate discussion. The driving imperative has been to craft something akin to what John Judge would have envisioned were he alive to establish a brick-and-mortar Museum of Hidden History in D.C. to serve as its complement on the internet.

                                                           Beyond 1984 

The yearning has been constant over the past four years to ask John what he thought, what he wanted, what to do, to seek his advice and counsel. This internet aspect of the Hidden History Center project of the Museum of Hidden History is our endeavor to manifest what John explored and expressed throughout his days here. I want to express my gratitude and appreciation for Amie Tracey, nonpareil web wizard. This redesign/upgrade would not have been possible without her good-natured help, support, savvy, and counsel.

The framework is not yet at full power; of the intended 49 subtopics—see the linked list of 31 Second Tier Subjects in Table of Contents—19 remain to be implemented including Alternative Economic Systems, Climate Catastrophe, Drones and Targeted Assassinations, Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless Tech, Food Security, GI Resistance/Counter-Recruitment, and Nanotechnology.

                                                 Military Intelligence Dominance

On September 1st 2001, John wrote:

    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said there are three pillars that hold up the current system of domestic oppression: poverty, racism and militarism. In order to have real democracy, economic justice, peace and a unified society, we have to both envision our own liberation in our time and take back our history, power and moral integrity.

    The reason Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. King were both loved and hated, both followed and murdered had to do with their use of “satygraha” or truth force and “ahimsa” or nonviolent harmlessness. These powerful tools moved them outside the control game that has secured privilege for a few over millenia. These systems of privilege, which are the real, deep violence of society, cannot be challenged or defeated using their own violent methods. Nor can they be changed by substituting a new elite in the seat of power, or by reforming them.

 As I see it, the crucial steps that must be taken now to stop the current trend to global corporatization, fascism and genocide/ecocide/ethnocide include the following, here in the belly of the beast....

 There are many brilliant people and communities thinking about, practicing and expanding these ideas and actions that are the answer to the current global dilemma. If you are inspired, if you wish to share your vision of them, if you want to learn more, please contact us.

                                      
                               We Are Children Of Earth & Sky

This is an invitation to rededicate ourselves to both envision our own liberation and take back our history, power, and moral integrity. Please communicate with us, sharing your own endeavors and pursuits on behalf of the Seventh Generation yet unborn and your ideas of what to build into the Hidden History Center internet archive.

Encoded in our individual DNA is the experience of our lineage from the very beginning. Whose whole perceptional reality was what I was just saying: all things have being, we’re made up of the Earth—all my relations, pray to spirits. See, and they didn’t pray to man or human form. The closest they came to it was they prayed to spirits that were called ancestors. And because they were praying to those ancestors for help and guidance, they understood that we were borrowing today from the past and the future. We’re borrowing it from both places. So they had this understanding of reality. They knew that to keep the balance was the purpose.... The reason for being was to keep the balance.... So this was what I will call a spiritual perception of reality. Because of the spiritual perception of reality they understood that life was about responsibility. It wasn’t about the abstraction of freedom—it was about responsibility.
    —John Trudell, What It Means To Be A Human Being (2001)

May we all continually awaken to and be renewed by recognition of our participation in and partaking of life at this unique time of Koyaanisqatsi.

For the Earth, the children, and all that follow us here,
I remain, sincerely yours,

Dave


Hidden History Center is a project of the Museum of Hidden History, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and presentation of little-known history. We depend on your tax-deductible contributions to continue our work.

Dave Ratcliffe
editor and publisher
rat haus reality press
Roslindale, MA 02131
https://ratical.org/rhrPress.html
Assistant Director Museum of Hidden History
https://hiddenhistorycenter.org/MoHH
Archivist, Board member Committee for Nuclear Responsibility
https://ratical.org/radiation/CNR/
facebook twitter
Unsubscribe | Manage your subscription
Add your postal address here!
MailPoet

Clueless or Just Plain Stupid?

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

The title of this article refers to the relatively new chairman, Jerome Powell, of the Federal Reserve who expressed surprise at the failure for wages to rise in this period of supposedly low unemployment and corporate tax cuts. Likewise, this mystery affects a lot of Radford's friend in the economics profession. 

He writes that there is no mystery. Those, in the upper-middle class, who work in high places serve their capitalist masters. To do this, they frequently encounter contradictions between capitalist theory and reality. To psychologically handle these contradictions, they must, in order to serve their masters and earn high salaries and numerous perks,  engage in self-deceptions consciously or unconsciously.

... reality has become inconvenient. It contradicts what our elite prefers to believe.

So rather than waste time tearing their hair out over Trump’s manifest ignorance and disregard for democracy, perhaps my friends all ought to be pondering their own role in transferring power to the unelected elite that is currently enriching itself and starving the masses of a prosperous and secure future.

As Social Security and Medicare Go Bankrupt, US Gives $10.5 Million a DAY to Israel

Click here to access article by Rachel Blevins from Activist Post. 

The article includes other immoral and criminal spending on nefarious activities beyond support for Israel such as the never-ending wars in the Middle East. But such reckless spending at the expense of taking care of our elderly citizens omits our contribution to NATO and military support for many countries near Russia in order to intimidate the Russian government, the numerous US military bases strewn all over the world, the CIA which has a history of overthrowing governments on behalf of the Empire's corporations, the numerous "aid" programs designed to corrupt foreign governments and their officials and to support fake non-political NGOs which prepare the groundwork among foreign citizens to undermine their governments. This list doesn't include the domestic uses to surveil its citizens, subsidies and tax breaks to corporations, and on and on. 

These sad facts provide proof that the Empire's trans-national capitalist class is really concerned about the precarious nature of its control over the world and not the welfare of its citizens. That is precisely why they must deceive their citizens into believing that they are concerned about humanitarian issues.

A current example of the latter is the ubiquitous coverage they give in their corporate media of the separation of children from their parents under the government's immigration policies. This is not new, but it has been increasing under the Trump administration. Meanwhile they give military support to the feudal regime in Saudi Arabia which results in the starvation of the people, especially the children, of Yemen--but you won't see this covered in corporate media. 

The Deep State (the informal, behind the official scenes capitalist board of directors of the US-led Empire), which is smarting from their defeat in the last presidential election of their candidate Hillary Clinton, are using their news and information media to discredit Trump in every way they can to prepare citizens for his removal from office. The Deep State is not accustomed to losing, but in recent years they have been losing everywhere. Sooner or later the American people--not only the elderly--will suffer catastrophic consequences from these policies and their failure to overthrow this capitalist regime and establish a social system that is truly their own.

A Call to Bring Julian Assange Home

Click here to access article by John Pilger from ConsortiumNews.

The Australian government has an obligation to free Julian Assange, John Pilger told a rally in Sydney on June 16 [their time, but our time on Sunday, the 17th], marking Assange’s six years’ confinement in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

 Also, for a description of this event, read this piece from World Socialist Web Site.