Politics Archives - Page 90 of 243

21Mar

By SHOAHNo Comments

Health, Politics, World

A Lesson Coronavirus is About to Teach the World

by JONATHAN COOK Philippe de Champaigne’s Vanitas (c. 1671) If a disease can teach wisdom beyond our understanding of how precarious and precious life is, the coronavirus has offered two lessons. The first is that in a globalised world our lives are so intertwined that the idea of viewing ourselves as islands – whether as individuals, communities, nations, or a uniquely privileged species – should be understood as evidence of false consciousness. In truth, we were always bound together, part of a miraculous web of life on our planet and, beyond it, stardust in an unfathomably large and complex universe. It is only an arrogance cultivated in us by those narcissists who have risen to power through their own destructive egotism that blinded us to the necessary mix of humility...

20Mar

By SHOAHNo Comments

Education, Politics

The Socialist Specter in Present-Day US Politics

by VICTOR WALLIS Photograph Source: Poster Boy – CC BY 2.0 The US political scene is haunted by talk of socialism. The basis for this has been developing now for some years, especially since the financial meltdown of 2008, which many came to see as decisive proof that a capitalist economy does not serve the majority. But how does this new mass perception express itself? On the one hand, there is wide recognition of the grotesque level of inequality, as expressed in the slogan – made popular by the 2011 Occupy movement – of “the 1% vs. the 99%.” But on the other hand, people are bombarded with conflicting definitions of socialism, and uncertainty is rife. The dominant tendency in US political rhetoric is to view socialism not as the dissolution of capitalist class-rela...

20Mar

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Politics

Under Capitalism, Every Plague Has a Silver Lining

by CHARLES PIERSON Photograph Source: Dan Zen – CC BY 2.0 However grave the calamity, someone will see it as a way to make a buck. COVID-19, which the World Health Organization declared as a global pandemic on March 11, is no exception. Forget about human misery. The private sector and the Trump Administration see the coronavirus as an opportunity. Because under capitalism, every plague has a silver lining. Have We Got a Cure for You! Sometimes, the lining is literal silver. The televangelist James Bakker has been hawking a quack nostrum called Optivida Silver Solution containing tiny particles of the precious metal as a cure for the coronavirus. Bakker will sell you a 16 ounce bottle of the stuff for the low, low price of $24.95. The Food and Drug Administration a...

20Mar

By SHOAHNo Comments

Education, Politics, USA

How to Crush a Bankers’ Dictatorship: A Lesson from 1933

By Matthew J.L. Ehret By Matt Ehret for VT Canada Amidst the current hysteria of the covid-19 pandemic, talk of general chaos and economic collapse have taken the forefront of peoples’ minds. Increasingly over recent months, western media has been hit with warnings of “financial Armageddon” and the need for a “global hegemonic synthetic currency” to replace the collapsing US dollar under a new system of green finance. These statements have been made by former and current Bank of England Governors Mark Carney and Mervyn King respectively and should not be ignored as the world sits atop the largest financial bubble in human history reminiscent of the 1929 bubble that was triggered on black Friday in the USA which unleashed a great depression across Europe and America...

14Mar

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Politics, World

Four Reasons Civilization Won’t Decline: It Will Collapse

by CRAIG COLLINS Photograph Source: Studio Incendo – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ As modern civilization’s shelf life expires, more scholars have turned their attention to the decline and fall of civilizations past. Their studies have generated rival explanations of why societies collapse and civilizations die. Meanwhile, a lucrative market has emerged for post-apocalyptic novels, movies, TV shows, and video games for those who enjoy the vicarious thrill of dark, futuristic disaster and mayhem from the comfort of their cozy couch. Of course, surviving the real thing will become a much different story. The latent fear that civilization is living on borrowed time has also spawned a counter-market of “happily ever after” optimists who despe...

4Mar

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Politics, USA

WHERE DID ALL THE MONEY GO? ‘ Video’

HINT: NOT TO YOU https://youtu.be/-8nDMOKN0-I?t=28 THE PRINTING PRESS FOR THE RICH ONLY Remember when Congress gave Wall Street a blank check to bail themselves to the tune of trillions? Where did it all go? Hint: Not to you. We trace where it did go. It’s surprisingly simple. They ran the printing presses all day and night – and gave it to the very rich so they could buy stocks, real estate, wine, race horses – and raise the price of everything to you.

2Mar

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Politics

How We Stay Blind to the Story of Power

by JONATHAN COOK Artwork by Nick Roney If one thing drives me to write, especially these posts, it is the urgent need for us to start understanding power. Power is the force that shapes almost everything about our lives and our deaths. There is no more important issue. Understanding power and overcoming it through that understanding is the only path to liberation we can take as individuals, as societies, and as a species. Which is why it should be simply astonishing that no one in the media, supposedly a free marketplace of ideas, ever directly addresses matters of power – beyond the shadow play of party politics and celebrity scandals. And yet, of course, this lack of interest in analysing and understanding power is not surprising at all. Because the corporate m...

24Feb

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Politics, USA, World

Goodbye to the Internet: Interference by Governments Is Already Here

By Philip M. GIRALDI There is a saying attributed to the French banker Nathan Rothschild that “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.” Conservative opinion in the United States has long suspected that Rothschild was right and there have been frequent calls to audit the Federal Reserve Bank based on the presumption that it has not always acted in support of the actual interests of the American people. That such an assessment is almost certainly correct might be presumed based on the 2008 economic crash in which the government bailed out the banks, which had through their malfeasance caused the disaster, and left individual Americans who had lost everything to face the consequences. Be that as it may, if there were a modern version of the Rothschil...

24Feb

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Politics, USA, World

Countdown to “Full Spectrum Dominance”

By T.J. Coles The US is formally committed to dominating the world by the year 2020. With President Trump’s new Space Directive-4, the production of laser-armed fighter jets as possible precursors to space weapons, and the possibility of nuclear warheads being put into orbit, the clock is ticking… Back in 1997, the now-re-established US Space Command announced its commitment to “full spectrum dominance.” The Vision for 2020 explains that “full spectrum dominance” means military control over land, sea, air, and space (the so-called fourth dimension of warfare) “to protect US interests and investment.” “Protect” means guarantee operational freedom. “US interest and investment” means corporate profits. The glossy brochure explains that, in the past, the ...

22Feb

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Politics

More Real-Time Reflections from Your Friendly South Loop Marxist

by PAUL STREET Nina Simone 1968: “Ain’t got no class, ain’t got no culture, ain’t got no faith, ain’t got no water, ain’t got no money, ain’t got no country…ain’t got no God.” Stirring the Caldron So the demented fascist oligarch Donald Trump took “the Beast” on a Victory Lap around the Daytona 500 track. Fossil fuels were burned with pride as the Trumpenvolk and NASCAR engines roared deep down in Dixie. Frau Melania looks semi-nauseated and couldn’t wait to get back to New York. This was Ferdinand Marcos-type shit. “He’s saluting the base and giving them a story to share with their family and friends,” writes Steve de La Rosa: “He is PT Barnum incarnate stirring the cauldron of White Nationalism.” I bet Trump enjoyed the fiery finish of the Daytona 500 (...