Spinning terror to fuel racism

Tony Iltis writes that governments, with the connivance of the main-stream media, are Spinning terror to fuel racism.

The endless summits held by Western leaders to counter “extremism”, such as the February 18 Washington summit, not only target Islamist extremism and ignore its Islamophobic counterpart, they deal with it only as a security issue in an Islamophobic framework.

Understandably, given their own role in fuelling it, the Western media generally ignores Islamophobic violence, such as the epidemic of vandalism and arson attacks on mosques throughout the Western world. When Islamophobic violence is on a scale that cannot be ignored, its ideological content is generally denied.

Even the 2011 killings of 77 people in Norway — the worst terrorist attack in post-war Europe — was treated as the act of a deranged individual despite the perpetrator, Anders Breivik, releasing a long Islamophobic manifesto that referenced several mainstream media commentators and politicians, including then-Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

Of course, the increasingly pervasive Islamophobia in the West legitimises Islamist extremism. The two have a symbiotic relationship. The perpetrators of the January 17 attacks in Paris (who, unlike El-Hussein, were linked to wider terrorist networks) understood this. The Islamophobic response, including several arrests for and criminal investigations of thought crimes (including that of an eight-year-old child), will serve their cause.

Danish PM Thorning-Schmidt has acknowledged that there is “no indication [El-Hussein] was part of a cell,” the December 16 New York Times said.

Islamophobia is part of a broader system of racism against Third World migrants in the West. The NYT reported that before being imprisoned in 2013 for assault, El-Hussein had been involved in urban gang culture and his affiliations were not political or religious. “This was a loser man from the ghetto who is very, very angry at Danish society,” Aydin Soei, a sociologist who knew him told the NYT.

El-Hussein was won to Islamist extremism in jail, as were the perpetrators of the Paris attacks. After the latter, there has been discussion in France about Muslim youth being exposed to extremism in jail. Muslims make up less than 10% of the French population but 70% of prisoners.

The solutions discussed focused on security, such as keeping “known extremists” in isolation. The over-representation of Muslims in French jails (like the over-representation of African-Americans in US jails and Aboriginal people in Australian jails) resulting from discrimination in education, employment and systematic racism by the police and courts, was ignored.

The Western establishment's promotion of Islamaphobia is partly to provide justification for imperial wars. But it also serves domestic agendas. One of these is justifying increasing state powers at the expense of civil liberties.

Another is a way to provide a diversion for governments implementing unpopular policies. This could not have been clearer when Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott released a YouTube video on February 15 drumming up anti-Muslim paranoia and foreshadowing new “tough” measures against Muslims and asylum seekers.

Abbott's attacks on social services and ordinary people's living standards have made his government the most unpopular in Australian history. A week after surviving a leadership spill and promising the beginning of “good government”, his popularity has continued to plummet.

Emphasis Mine

Racism is being manufactured on a daily basis in order to keep the people's anger focussed on anyone but the rich and the governments that serve them.

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Exploitation in the lab

Chris Dillow finds experimental evidence for Exploitation in the lab.

Experimental evidence suggests that Marx was right.

In Capital, Marx describes the selling of labour power thus:

He, who before was the money-owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but — a hiding.

And here's a recent paper by Nikos Nikiforakis, Jorg Oechssler and Anwar Shah:

We have designed a game in which exploitation can result from the hierarchical relationship between players and, in particular, from the fact that the senior worker has the power to coerce a junior worker into exerting high levels of effort. Using a laboratory experiment, we find that senior workers often attempt to exploit junior workers.

This is not an isolated finding: it's consistent with an earlier paper by Ernst Fehr and colleagues.

Emphasis Mine

Exploitation is built into the hierarchy. To remove the exploitation requires removal of the hierarchy, or to make the hierarchy accountable to everyone.

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Grandmothers say ‘Bring our babies home’

Grandmothers say ‘Bring our babies home’.

We march to mark seven years since then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an “apology” to the Stolen Generations of the 20th century, an apology loaded with the worst hypocrisy, given the crescendo of forced child removals that took place under the watch of his government.

There are currently more than 15,000 Aboriginal children in so-called “out of home care”. The majority of these removals are for alleged “neglect” — the exact rationale provided for tens of thousands of 20th century removals. It is a term used to denigrate Aboriginal culture and the love and care provided by Aboriginal families and communities. It is a term that masks the systematic neglect of governments that enforce conditions of extreme poverty and social trauma on our communities. It is a term used to justify a continuing project of forced assimilation.

We march to demand recognition of the continuing sovereignty of our nations and our fundamental right to determine our own future — we have been camping with the National Freedom Movement at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy for the last three weeks and support their manifesto.

We demand Aboriginal control of Aboriginal child welfare and a massive transfer of resources into Aboriginal hands to deal with unacceptable social conditions. We demand an end to the removals and a moratorium on the use of police armed with guns, batons and pepper spray to take children.

…

We demand the full domestic implementation of the 1948 Genocide Convention into Australian law by repealing section 268.121 and 268.122 of the International Criminal Court (Consequential Amendments) Act 2002, in order to enable a challenge to the destruction of our religion, culture, bloodlines and communities by forced child removal and creating conditions of life set to destroy the group in whole or in part.

Emphasis Mine

The invisible genocide. We trained to avert our eyes. We are educated to see the Aborigines as less than human. In this miasma of racism, we refuse to see this geonocide because the press keeps telling us that white people are civilised, and that the non-whites are the barbarians with their strange religions, beliefs, and cultures.

How can one stop absorbing this racism through what we read, listen to, and warch? The first step is to admit that it is happening. Denial of racism is its strongest support.

It is always easy to see racism in others. It is extremely painful to reflect upon our own prejudices and practices, for we consider ourselves to be good people.

But, we must do this daily. From that reflection comes a plan of action. The plan will be flawed as will be shown by experience, and mistakes will be made. Then further reflection is needed. But we will have learned as we hobble along the rocky path out of racism.

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Aboriginal people driven from their land

Emma Murphy writes that Aboriginal people driven from their land.

Driving Aboriginal people off their land will rob them of their areas of wealth and expertise: their connection to, and knowledge of, country, maintenance of their languages, cultures and oral histories.

Aboriginal people living on their homelands are also often at the forefront of struggles to protect country from extractive industries: this is the case around the world. In the NT, Indigenous leaders are focusing on environmental struggles, as the NT government seems intent on digging up and selling some of the most ecologically significant parts of the continent.

Clans at Borroloola and across the Roper region are gearing up for a fight against fracking on their country. And leaders of the Muckaty campaign, with their supporters across the country, had a big win last year when the federal government withdrew plans to store radioactive waste on their country.

The strong grandmothers leading the current fight against Aboriginal child removals need our respect and support, as do the many Aboriginal activists around the country who have taken the baton, rekindled the fires of resistance and kicked off 2015 by taking the fight to Canberra.

While there are many issues being raised by these activists, there are also many ideological threads that join them together. They are struggling for the right to assert and control that which is theirs, and that which white Australia has tried so long to take from them, whether it is their children, their land, their language or their identity.

While Tony Abbott’s “Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs” title becomes more of a joke as his inaction continues, Aboriginal people themselves are increasingly taking matters into their own hands and setting the agenda.

Emphasis Mine

Here racism is being used in the service of the mining and fracking industries. With Aborigines out of the way, the miners and frackers have free reign.

It doesn't matter that people's lives are devastated as along the All Ordinaries stock index continues to rise and the profits keep rolling in.

In supporting the Aborigines to live in dignity and with respect, we become more human. We need to learn to see beyond the myopia of Capitalism, and see the human community within the ecosystem.

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Respect for Religion

Ted Rall questions why there is Respect for Religion, but not for political beliefs or tastes.

Cultural norms are that religion must be respected while other beliefs, cultural and political, receive no such deference.

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The answer is that religion can be seen as “opiate of the people”, while political beliefs and tastes show independent thinking which are dangerous to the control exerted by the ruling class.

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Watching the Same Movie About American War for 75 Year

Peter Van Buren writes that we have been Watching the Same Movie About American War for 75 Years.

In propaganda terms, think of this as controlling the narrative. One version of events dominates all others and creates a reality others can only scramble to refute. The exceptions do, however, reveal much about what we don’t normally see of the true nature of American war. They are uncomfortable for any of us to watch, as well as for military recruiters, parents sending a child off to war, and politicians trolling for public support for the next crusade.

War is not a two-hour-and-12-minute hard-on. War is what happens when the rules break down and, as fear displaces reason, nothing too terrible is a surprise. The real secret of war for those who experience it isn't the visceral knowledge that people can be filthy and horrible, but that you, too, can be filthy and horrible. You don't see much of that on the big screen.

The Long Con

Of course, there are elements of “nothing new” here. The Romans undoubtedly had their version of war porn that involved mocking the Gauls as sub-humans. Yet in twenty-first-century America, where wars are undeclared and Washington dependent on volunteers for its new foreign legion, the need to keep the public engaged and filled with fear over our enemies is perhaps more acute than ever.

So here’s a question: if the core propaganda messages the U.S. government promoted during World War II are nearly identical to those pushed out today about the Islamic State, and if Hollywood’s war films, themselves a particularly high-class form of propaganda, have promoted the same false images of Americans in conflict from 1941 to the present day, what does that tell us? Is it that our varied enemies across nearly three-quarters of a century of conflict are always unbelievably alike, or is it that when America needs a villain, it always goes to the same script?

Emphasis Mine

The propaganda for racism follows a similar script. No matter who is being persecuted: Jews, Arabs, Irish, Poles, Africans, Aborigines, etc.

Power needs an enemy—either within the state or without. The ruling class does not want the anger of the oppressed directed against them. This is why the rulers always deflect the anger elsewhere.

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NSA Hacks Into SIM Card Makers Giving US and UK Criminals Access to Millions of Cell Phones

Mike Shedlock writes that NSA Hacks Into SIM Card Makers Giving US and UK Criminals Access to Millions of Cell Phones.

I have a simple question: Why is it a crime for someone to hack into Sony, Target, weather stations, etc., but not a crime for the NSA to hack into phone SIM card producers then steal every master key?

In my opinion, all of these hacks are illegal, and the NSA officials who authorized the hack I describe below belong in prison.

…

The only way to stop this sh*t is to press charges, find the NSA guilty and send those responsible to prison.

Since Obama is unwilling to do what's necessary, and given Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton won't either, if you are outraged by this, I suggest voting for Rand Paul, the one person who has taken a stand on these issues.

In the meantime, act as if someone is listening to every conversation you make.

I go one step further given my outspoken nature on these issues. I act as if my entire house is bugged and the NSA is monitoring everything I do.

Emphasis Mine

Why is anyone surprised at the blatant criminality of the premier Capitalist state? Illegal wars, invasions, murders, coups, kidnappings, drug dealing, torture, spying, eavesdropping, etc.

And who gets prosecuted? The people who expose these abuses: Snowden, Assange, Manning, etc.

We are supposed to be outraged by the lies told by Brian Williams, but not by the continual lying from our governments on their crimes.

How much longer can this sick society survive?

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The US hates Venezuela's independence

John Pilger writes that The US hates Venezuela's independence.

The remarkable change in fortunes for millions of people in Latin America is at the heart of U.S. hostility. The U.S. has been the undeclared enemy of social progress in Latin America for two centuries. It doesn't matter who has been in the White House: Barack Obama or Teddy Roosevelt; the U.S. will not tolerate countries with governments and cultures that put the needs of their own people first and refuse to promote or succumb to U.S. demands and pressures.

A reformist social democracy with a capitalist base — such as Venezuela — is not excused by the rulers of the world. What is inexcusable is Venezuela's political independence; only complete deference is acceptable. The 'survival' of Chavista Venezuela is a testament to the support of ordinary Venezuelans for their elected government — that was clear to me when I was last there.

Venezuela's weakness is that the political 'opposition' — those I would call the 'East Caracas Mob' — represent powerful interests who have been allowed to retain critical economic power. Only when that power is diminished will Venezuela shake off the constant menace of foreign-backed, often criminal subversion. No society should have to deal with that, year in, year out.

Emphasis Mine

This is the core problem of dual power. Until the Venezuelan people take control of the economy, the threat of a counter-revolution is always present.

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Radical objects: MaThoko’s post box and the LGBT movement in South Africa

John Marnell writes about Radical objects: MaThoko’s post box and the LGBT movement in South Africa.

For some young comrades, the liberation struggle was inseparable from the fight for sexual rights, and a new push for sexual equality began to emerge from within the anti-apartheid struggle. Before the late 1980s, the "gay lib" movement was white, male dominated and largely middle class. It also attempted to position itself as apolitical, as separate from the fight against institutionalised racism. This shifted with the imprisonment of Simon Nkoli, one of 22 activists detained in September 1984 after a protest in Sebokeng. Accused of treason, a charge that carried the death penalty, Nkoli and his comrades found themselves at the centre of one of the longest trials in South Africa’s history.

Nkoli had been involved in the 1976 Soweto uprising and over the next few years had become increasingly involved with the Congress of South African Students (an anti-apartheid student organisation established in the wake of the uprising). Although Nkoli’s sexuality had been known to some in the student movement, few of his co-accused in the treason trial were aware. In jail he refused to remain silent and took the bold step of coming out, a move that sparked heated debate among the group. Despite initial calls for Nkoli to be tried separately, the comrades eventually accepted his argument that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is as morally unjust as racism.

For many of Nkoli’s co-accused — and indeed most people in the struggle — this was their first time being confronted with the question of homosexuality. Nkoli was steadfast in his position, and his self-affirmation as a proud black gay man helped bring the issue of sexuality to the attention of the liberation movements. It was a turning point for LGBT activism, not only because it placed sexuality on the agenda but also because it explicitly linked homophobia to other forms of injustice.

Emphasis Mine

It is humbling for revolutionaries to learn that they can be oppressors in other areas of their lives: anti-racists can be sexist and homophobic.

The important lesson is to mindful and attentive of other people's experiences.

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Walking Back the American Twenty-First Century?

Tom Engelhardt wonders if the USA is Walking Back the American Twenty-First Century?.

Since 2013, the Pentagon has transferred for free more than 600 mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs, worth at least half a million dollars each and previously used in U.S. war zones, to various “qualified law enforcement agencies.” Police departments in rural areas like Walsh County, North Dakota (pop. 11,000) now have their own MRAPs, as does the campus police department at Ohio State University.  It hardly matters that these monster vehicles have few uses in a country where neither ambushes nor roadside bombs are a part of everyday life.

Post-Ferguson, a few scattered departments have actually moved to turn these useless vehicles back in.  It's clear, however, that police forces “kitted out with Marine-issue camouflage and military-grade body armor, toting short-barreled assault rifles, and rolling around in armored vehicles” — that is, almost indistinguishable from soldiers — are now the future of American policing and there’s no walking that back.  Since Ferguson, President Obama has essentially refused to do so and Congress certainly won’t.  Despite a small uproar over the pile of military equipment being transferred to the police, there is no indication that the flow will be stanched.

When it comes to all this militarized equipment, as the president has emphasized (and the task force he appointed to look into these matters will undoubtedly reemphasize), “reform” is mainly going to be focused on “better training” in how to use it.  In other words, reform will prove to be a code word for further militarization.  And don’t count on anyone returning those 94,000 machine guns either in a country that seems to be in some kind of domesticarms race and in which toddlers now regularly find their parents’ loaded guns and wound or kill them.

Emphasis Mine

Back in 2005, I made an observation in 4GW and Police Work, that:

I have come to the conclusion that Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) is simply police work. Third Generation Warfare (3GW) aimed to convince people who owned assets to obey your orders. 4GW aims to do the same with people who have no assets. In other words, normal everyday police work.

Maybe the police are worried about what nearly happened on Palm Island back in November 2005.

So Lex was organising a protest against the inadequate Coroner's report. There was anger at the blatant lies and cover-up of violence against Aborigines.

As the protest got out of control with the Police station and Sergeant's residence being burnt down, the police were barricaded inside their barracks, the green zone of Palm Island. They thought they were about to be massacred by the islanders. At point, a truce is negotiated (p.68):

But Lex Wotton, who had been trying to jemmy open the gate's padlock, now ordered the crowd to stop throwing rocks. They did so. 'You've won! You've won! [Senior Sergeant Roger] Whyte called. He negotiated for sixty minutes' grace, sixty minutes to get off the island. The Torres Strait Islander cop, Bert Tabaui, heard Wotton yell, 'We'll give you an hour to get off the island, then we'll kill you!'

The police managed to retreat to the hospital (p.69)

Lex faced the police. He was still angry, but the anger was now controlled. 'Time's up! he called to the cops. 'All I wanted was for you to get off the island!'

Emphasis Mine

However, the women objected to this demand. They wanted police protection against the men. (p.69) The police said they could not leave because [t]hey had no transportation Lex arranged for two cars to made available for their escape, but the police were fearful of an ambush on the way to the airport. (p.70)

The confrontation ends with the timely arrival of the airborne (p.71):

The thunder of helicopters filled the smoke-clouded sky. Extra police had now arrived and still more were coming. Inspector Richardson came outside and told Lex. 'We are not leaving this island. We are the police. You are the ones causing the problem...we are not going anywhere! No way in Australia!'

Lex Wotton froze. He turned around and faced the crowd. The revolution had failed. His idea that the police would leave the island had been biblical in ambition and naivete, a declaration of war that he had no chance of winning. His actions would draw national attention to Cameron Doomadgee's death, but at that moment he knew he would soon be the one inside a jail cell.

'The party's over,' he called, 'we'll all go home!' Then he turned around to the police. 'You can come around later and pick me up.'

Emphasis Mine

The occupier is not easily dislodged from his conquests. No dissent is allowed.

However, in case, the resolve of the occupier is weakened by the crackdown and the relative leniency of Lex's sentence. Future oppression is assured but it could be one foot on the throat too many.

Chloe Hooper: The Tall Man (3)
Page references are to The Tall Man by Chloe Hooper

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Coup plot thwarted in Venezuela

Coup plot thwarted in Venezuela.

Maduro explained that a video of masked military officials speaking out against the government had been recorded, which was set to be released after the planned assassination was carried out.

Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez stated via his Twitter account that the armed forces remain loyal to the constitutional government.

“The Bolivarian National Armed Forces remain resolute in their democratic beliefs and reject coup schemes that threaten the peace of the republic,” said Padrino.

According to Maduro, one of the suspects was already under surveillance and had been suspected of plotting against the government during last year's violent demonstrations, but was not charged. Nevertheless, he continued plotting against the democratically-elected government.

The four-stage plan involved creating an economic assault on the country, creating an international debate around a supposed humanitarian crisis, a political coup involving officials who would turn on the government, and finally a military coup that would lead to the installation of the transitional program.

Emphasis Mine

The continued support of the Venezuelan Armed Forces is vital for the survival of the Bolivarian Revolution. Despite American money and influence, they remain loyal to their ideals.

This also shows that the Capitalists are eagar to use military power to overthrow a democracy when they see their policies being thwarted. This is often cast as ‘What we really need is a benign dictatorship’.

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State governments share blame for (Not) Closing the Gap

Sharlene Leroy-Dyer writes that State governments share blame for (Not) Closing the Gap.

Impending state government plans to cut essential services to remote Aboriginal communities will, on the contrary, widen the gap.

This is one of the richest countries in the world and yet many of my people, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this land, live in worse than Third World conditions with an average life expectancy gap of more than 10 years.

Liberal-National and Labor governments alike have chronically failed to deliver real land rights and the urgently needed strong measures to redress more than two centuries of violent racism and dispossession.

The latest Closing The Gap Report is a huge fail as it shows little progress in closing the shameful gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Australia on health, literacy and education and Aboriginal unemployment and underemployment has steadily got worse since 2008. Yet the few programs to create jobs for Aboriginal people have been cut back.

Emphasis Mine

Destroying a person's self-identity through racism, state violence, cultural annihlation, and learned helplessness destroys their ability to live a healthy life no matter how much money is thrown at a problem.

To really solve this problem requires all non-indigineous Australians to confront their racist attitudes towards Aborigines, and begin to redress the wrongs inflicted on them.

This requires that we acknowledge the racist basis for Capitalism and the invasion of Australia.

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IMF actions worsen Ebola crisis

Jerome Duval writes that IMF actions worsen Ebola crisis.

Obviously, this claim should be extended to all poor countries, misnamed as “developing”, where 85% of the world’s population lives. Their public debt (about $1.8 trillion) represents only 1% of global debt. Relief will not affect the global economic balance; the only thing needed is the political will.

It is good to raise the fiscal deficit when the health and lives of people are in danger.

It is not we who say this, but contradicting the usual conservative ideology of the IMF, its director Christine Lagarde said it and acknowledged that the IMF does not say it often.

But we should not have to wait for great humanitarian crises such as that caused by Ebola for people to see the clear need to increase the deficit in order to fund social services. Also, international law requires that compliance with basic human need is a priority compared to the bleeding of resources to pay the debt.

The IMF, which inhumanely ignores serious human needs, must disappear; those responsible for its decisions should be brought to justice for their actions. The devastating IMF policies have damaged too many people through neoliberal debt programs to be allowed to continue with impunity.

Emphasis Mine

The IMF is not the problem. It is merely an institution that implements the policies of the Capitalists.

Abolishing the IMF will not solve the problem: but its abolition will weaken the Capitalists’ ability to implement their policies.

At this time is history, blunting the harshness of Capitalism as SYRIZA is doing in Greece is the best we can hope for. At least, until the working class awakens to its historic mission to bury Capitalism once and for all.

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‘What we really need is a benign dictatorship’

Viv Miley writes that Tom Elliott said that ‘What we really need is a benign dictatorship’.

Elliott is not your ordinary right-wing mouthpiece with a Herald Sun column — he has ruling class pedigree. As well as being a columnist and radio presenter on 3AW, Elliot was a former investment banker and is the son of (in)famous Australian businessman and former Liberal Party president John Elliott.

Elliott's comments should be met with alarm, because they reflect an attitude among the ruling class that if parliamentary democracy isn't working — meaning parliament is not making decisions that benefit them — then democracy can be easily removed.

There is an element of truth in what Elliott is saying. There is a fundamental problem with our political system. But things won't be any better under a Labor government because it is beholden to the same corporate interests as the Liberal party. It may not be as vicious as Tony Abbott’s government in carrying out cuts, but its track record shows Labor is just as willing to inflict cuts and austerity measures on those who can least afford it.

Australia does need a different political system, but not Elliott's benign dictatorship. It needs a system that increases democracy and decision making in favour of the majority of society, the 99%.

Emphasis Mine

In other words, democracy works when the Capitalists have their way. This is why the UK, USA, and Australia have two or three major parties—these parties can be trusted to implement pro-Capitalist policies.

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Israel Top Court denies justice to Family of Slain Activist Rachel Corrie

Sarah Lazare writes that Israel Top Court denies justice to Family of Slain Activist Rachel Corrie.

The family of Rachel Corrie—the 23-year-old U.S. activist crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer while nonviolently protesting a home demolition in Palestine 12 years ago—was denied justice by Israel’s top court on Thursday.

The rejection is the latest stage in the family’s decade-long legal battle to hold Israel liable for Corrie’s death, on charges that the military either killed her deliberately or was negligent.

Corrie, who hailed from Olympia, Washington, had been volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement for two months in Gaza when she was run over and killed by Israeli forces near the Rafah crossing in 2003. Her death sparked international outrage at Israeli human rights abuses, as well as accolades for Corrie’s life and legacy.

Since her killing, Corrie’s parents—Cindy and Craig—have continued their daughter’s work for global justice.

However, they have so far not seen justice in Israel’s courts.

Emphasis Mine

US citizens who protest against the brutal policies of US allies, cannot expect support from the US government.

In contrast, the US military invaded Grenada when the rumour went around that the US students there were in danger.

US lives matter when US interests are at stake.

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'States Consider Increasing Taxes on Poor, Cutting Them on Affluent'

Mark Thoma excerpts from 'States Consider Increasing Taxes on Poor, Cutting Them on Affluent'.

A number of Republican-led states are considering tax changes that, in many cases, would have the effect of cutting taxes on the rich and raising them on the poor.

Conservatives are known for hating taxes but particularly hate income taxes, which they say have a greater dampening effect on growth. Of the 10 or so Republican governors who have proposed tax increases, virtually all have called for increases in consumption taxes, which hit the poor and middle class harder than the rich.

Emphasis Mine

The ruling class looks after its own.

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US 76, EU 6

Kenneth Thomas writes that the number of $100 million incentive packages offered in each place beginning in 2010 is US 76, EU 6.

Because of the lack of a framework in the United States, state and local governments spend almost $50 billion per year just to attract investment, and up to a further $20 billion in subsidies not even requiring investment, according to my estimates. This is more than enough to rehire every state and local employee who lost their job since the recession. All other things equal, subsidies make the economy less productive, and these subsidies transfer money from average taxpayers to the far richer subsidy recipients. In other words, they slow economic growth and contribute to economic inequality.

Emphasis Mine

In other words, Socialism for the rich, and Capitalism for the poor.

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On Brian Williams: How Liars Express Our Values

Ted Rall writes On Brian Williams: How Liars Express Our Values.

You can tell a lot about a society’s values from its lies.

After World War II, Germany abandoned its old values of obedience, conformity, militarism and most recently, Nazism. When veterans of the SS were asked about their military service in the form of that most famous question “what did you do during the war, daddy?” they lied about it. They either claimed that they hadn’t served at all, or that they had served in the regular army, or if there was no way to deny having been in the SS, said they had been nowhere near any atrocities or death camps.

Postwar Germany’s liars projected positive values: anti-militarism, anti-fascism, pacifism, principled opposition to violence.

Here in the United States, our liars lie about the exact opposite things — and their lies reveal an awful set of societal values.

Emphasis Mine

The ideological superstructure in the USA promotes militarism as do all imperialist states. Military power is essential to maintaining supremancy and hegemony.

It is interesting to note that a former imperialist state, Germany, is using economic power instead. The current battle with Greece will reveal the limits of this type of power.

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Keystone XL, Cold War 2.0, and the GOP Vision for 2016

Michael T. Klare examines the connection between Keystone XL, Cold War 2.0, and the GOP Vision for 2016.

By accelerating the exploitation of fossil fuels across the continent, reducing governmental oversight of drilling operations in all three countries, and building more cross-border pipelines like the Keystone XL, Christie explained, all three countries would be guaranteed dramatic economic growth.  “In North America, we have resources waiting to be tapped,” he assured business leaders in Mexico City.  “What is required is the vision to maximize our growth, the political will to unlock our potential, and the understanding that working together on strategic priorities… is the path to a better life.”

At first glance, Christie’s blueprint for his North American energy renaissance seems to be a familiar enough amalgam of common Republican tropes: support for that Keystone XL pipeline slated to bring Canadian tar sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast, along with unbridled energy production everywhere; opposition to excessive governmental regulation; free trade… well, you know the mantra.  But don’t be fooled.  Something far grander — and more sinister — is being proposed.  It’s nothing less than a plan to convert Canada and Mexico into energy colonies of the United States, while creating a North American power bloc capable of aggressively taking on Russia, China, and other foreign challengers.

This outlook — call it North Americanism — is hardly unique to Christie.  It pervades the thinking of top Republican leaders and puts their otherwise almost inexplicably ardent support of Keystone XL in a new light.  As most analysts now concede, that pipeline will do little to generate long-term jobs or promote U.S. energy independence. (Much of the tar sands oil it’s designed to carry will be refined in the U.S., but exported elsewhere).  In fact, with oil prices plunging globally, it looks ever more like a white elephant of a project, yet it remains the Republican majority’s top legislative priority.  The reason: it is the concrete manifestation of Christie-style North American energy integration, and for that reason is considered sacred by Republican proponents of North Americanism.  “This is not about sending ‘your oil’ across ‘our land,’” Christie insisted in Calgary.  “It’s about maximizing the benefits of North America’s natural resources for everybody.”

While North American energy integration may, in part, appeal to Republicans for the way it would enrich major U.S. oil companies, pipeline firms, and some energy-industry workers — the “everybody” in Christie’s remarks — its real allure lies in the way they believe it will buttress the more hawkish and militarized foreign policy that so many in the GOP now favor.  By boosting fossil fuel production in North America, Keystone’s backers claim, the U.S. will be less dependent on imports from the Middle East and so in a stronger position to combat Russia, Iran, ISIS, and other foreign challengers.

Authorization for Keystone XL and related energy infrastructure is important “not just for economic development, not just for jobs and growth,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas declared in January, “but also for the enormous geopolitical advantages that it will present to the United States [by strengthening] our hands against those who would be enemies of America.”

Brace yourself. This combination of fossil fuel optimization and North American solidarity against a potentially hostile world is destined to become the core of the Republican economic and national security platforms in the 2016 presidential election.  It will similarly govern action in Congress over the next two years.  So, if you want to understand the dynamics of contemporary American politics, it’s crucial to grasp the new Republican vision of an energy-saturated North America.

Emphasis Mine

So, while human life is threatened with extinction through run-away climate chaneg, the Capitalist system can think only of retaining its world-wide dominance through the control of oil, coal, and natural gas. All of these contribute to the growing climate catastrophe.

The ruling class would rather destroy humanity than reliquinsh power. Every day, the situation becomes direr.

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Senator Inhofe Sponsors Ukraine Military Weapons Bill Based on Images of Russian Soldiers in Georgia in 2008

Mike Shedlock writes that Senator Inhofe Sponsors Ukraine Military Weapons Bill Based on Images of Russian Soldiers in Georgia in 2008.

According to Ukraine and NATO, there are 5,000 Russian troops swarming Ukraine with more coming in every day.

Thus one might expect Senator Inhofe to have a basket of images to use as justification for US warmongering.

Instead, it turns out the pictures were fake. They show Russian troops in Georgia in 2008.

Emphasis Mine

Georgia, Ukraine, whatever. All these foreign countries look the same to American politicians.

The US government regularly uses lies to justify its acts of aggression:

• Gulf of Tonkin incident
• The Incubator Babies incident during the first Iraq War
• The WMD in the second Iraq War

An the ideological superstructure is instrumental in these lies by not questioning them, and by promoting them. All of this is done in the name of independent thought. You are allowed only to think thoughts that are politically correct at the time. You may have to change them at a moment's notice:

On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns — after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces — at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.

There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy. Winston was taking part in a demonstration in one of the central London squares at the moment when it happened. It was night, and the white faces and the scarlet banners were luridly floodlit. The square was packed with several thousand people, including a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the Spies. On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker’s hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.

Nineteen Eighty-four, by George Orwell, Chapter 9

Emphasis Mine

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