politics for the 99%

Published on Intrepid Report, by Wayne Madsen Report WMR, May 6, 2014.

President Obama reversed the largely “benign neglect” of his predecessor toward the wave of progressive governments coming to power in Latin America and, at some time during his administration, he signed a classified presidential Finding” to do whatever is necessary to oust left-leaning governments in the Western Hemisphere and replace them with docile, pro-American ones.   Continue Reading…

Published on Pambazuka News, by Patrick Bond, May 1, 2014.

Nigeria’s ‘rebased’ GDP now beats South Africa’s in theory – but how does this measure up against the country’s actual wealth? Patrick Bond examines some of the biggest fallacies of the neoliberal investment prospects of the 2000s – BRICS, MINT (countries) and CIVETS, and why citizens are rising up in spite of the hype.  Continue Reading…

Published on truthout.org, by Douglas Jamiel, May 4, 2014.

The historical cost of building our postal network, its unique characteristics and efficiency, the nefarious efforts to privatize and cripple it, and the economic and personal costs of losing it are considered … //

… Since the 1970s, the right has patiently tried to wrest control of the US Postal Service from the government using a three-step strategy characterized by:    Continue Reading…

Published on Global Research.ca, by Andrew J. Santos, May 3, 2014.

The revelation concerning a secretive airborne surveillance test in Compton, CA is disturbing. The Los Angeles County Sheriff Department via “Persistent Surveillance Systems”, spied on residents in Compton, CA for nine days in 2012.[1]   Continue Reading…

Published on Spiegel Online International, by SUSANNE AMANN, FRANK DOHMEN, JÖRG KRAMER, PAUL MIDDELHOFF AND BARBARA SCHMID, April 30. 2014.

As Moscow continues to escalate the situation in Ukraine, public and political pressure is turning against German companies who do business with Russia. The countries’ economic ties make disengagement next to impossible.
Clemens Tönnies usually says what he thinks. When, on a February morning, he climbed into a private jet with his wife Margit to fly to the Olympic Games in Sochi, he described his views on Russia to a reporter with Sport Bild magazine: It has “bothered him, how negatively this country has been portrayed … // Continue Reading…

Published on Axis of Logic, by Alex Park/Mother Jones, April 28, 2014.

(Editorial comment: The French title of Jean Ziegler’s latest book translates literally as ‘Mass Destruction – the Geopolitics of Hunger’. When I translated the article by Édouard MARET (Hunger can be overcome, according to Jean Ziegler), the title in English as it is now, was already posted. His last few books had not found a publisher or a translator into English, which I have guessed may be due to titles like ‘The Empire of Shame’ and ‘Hatred of the West’, concepts hard to face in the western world. Those two, and others, are magnificent books that give us the inside view of what is going on in the world with more or less planned and calculated starvation of the poor and the takeover of the entire world by the Corporate giants).   Continue Reading…

Published on Russia Today RT, by Nadezhda Kevorkova, April 28, 2014:

The Americans never intended to help us build our country. Now Kabul is asking them not to leave Afghanistan so that the Taliban will not attack them,” a Pashtun from Kabul in his Moscow shop muses.
“Just imagine: we had 44 countries invading Afghanistan with modern weapons, satellite monitoring, tanks and missiles. The Taliban has an army of less than 20,000. We have 400,000 Afghan troops and 200,000 Americans with the most advanced weaponry. How is it possible that they can’t prevail over the Taliban?” he says. Continue Reading…

Published on Global Research.ca, by Prof. John McMurtry, April 26, 2014.

• Yet Russia gets all the blame for “brute force” in reclaiming Crimea – although 96% of a voluntary turnout of 82% voted to rejoin its traditional mother country. While denounced as “violation of international law”, the Crimea referendum choice expresses the “self-determination” of a society guaranteed under Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. Ukraine’s coup government, in contrast, has prohibited any referendum on its rule – especially the Eastern regions where popular uprisings with no mass deaths or beatings (as in the Kiev coup) call for self-determination against illegal rule from Kiev.   Continue Reading…

Watch this video, 13.09 min, uploaded by The Real News, April 26, 2014 … and more videos in autoplay.

Links:

28.4.2014 Updated Link: Football ultras clash with anti-govt protesters in eastern Ukraine, at least 14 injured (PHOTOS, VIDEO), on Russia Today RT, April 27, 2014;

India losing water war, on dna India, by R.N. Bhaskar and S. Balakrishnan, April 27, 2014;

Hot statistics: Spanish exodus, Polish government finance ‘miracle’, more deflation in Ireland, Greek trade, on RWER, by merijnknibbe, April 26, 2014.

Published on transform, by Elisabeth Gauthier, April 23, 2014.

The abstention levels of 39% were a record high for municipal elections. They were particularly high in areas most affected by the crisis; in metropolitan communes; among the young; workers; and voters of the Front de Gauche (Left Front) and of the FN (National Front). In addition, almost 3 million potential voters were not registered to vote.  Continue Reading…

Published on The Market Oracle.co.uk, by Raul I. Meijer, April@3, 2014.

A lot of words are being spent again these days on deflation and the QE measures that are supposed to “cure” it. Paul Krugman, who when it comes to stimulus is a hammer seeing nails only, now has it in for Sweden’s central bank, which he labels monetary sadists for not opening the spigots. But it’s all a hugely deceptive false flag; it’s not an issue of whether you launch QE or not. There’s a third, and much more valid, way of looking at this.  Continue Reading…

• 2,700 more Muzaffarnagar riots victims apply for relief, on The Indian Express, April 23, 2014;
• India / Uttar Pradesh: KILLING FIELDS OF MUZAFFARNAGAR, 47.34 min, uploaded on YouTube by Gobal Menon, Feb 22, 2014 (in local language, subtitles in english): 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots is the worst communal violence in India in the last decade …;
• 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots on en.wikipedia, The clashes between the Hindu and Muslim communities in Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh, India in August – September 2013, resulted in at least 49 deaths and injured 93 and left more than 50,000 displaced.[5][6][7][8] By 17 September, the curfew was lifted from all riot affected areas and the army was also withdrawn[9] …;
• Muzaffarnagar: Post Riot Assessment – Report, by Citizens’s Inquiry Team, not dated, 20 pdf-pages;

See also:

India / Gujarat: The Unholy War, uploaded on YouTube by Gopal Menon, April 19 + 22, 2014:

• Part 1, Development, 59.24 min,
• Part 2, in search of Justice, 69.48 min:

Narendra Modi has made tall claims about good governance in Gujarat. His vibrant Gujarat campaign claims that the state is the most developed state in the country. Is it true? All the social indicators prove otherwise. All the public services have been privatised …;
find this also on the Website of Countercurrents.org.

Published on Washington’s Blog, by Charles Hugh Smith, April 23, 2014.

Before an empire collapses, it first erodes from within. The collapse may appear sudden, but the processes of internal rot hollowed out the resilience, resolve, purpose and vitality of the empire long before its final implosion.
What are these processes of internal rot? Here are a few of the most pervasive and destructive forces of internal corrosion:   Continue Reading…

… the United States’ desperate solutions for not sinking alone – Published on GEAB N°84, April 17, 2014.

In the present confrontation between Russia and the West over the Ukrainian crisis, the image of the Cold War inevitably comes to mind and the media are obviously fond of it. However, contrary to what it gives us to understand, it’s not Russia that seeks the return of an iron curtain but really the US. An iron curtain separating the old powers and emerging nations; the world before and the world afterwards; debtors and creditors. And this in the crazy hope of preserving the American way of life and the US’ influence over “its” camp in the absence of being able to impose it on the whole world. In other words, go down with as many companions as possible to give the impression of not sinking.   Continue Reading…

The case for Aggressive War against George W. Bush and his Administration – Published on Global Research.ca, by Inder Comar, April 21, 2014.

… At the Nuremberg Trials, American chief prosecutor and associate justice of the US Supreme Court Robert H. Jackson focused his prosecution on the planning and execution of the various wars committed by the Third Reich. Jackson aimed to show that German leaders committed “crimes against peace,” and specifically, that they “planned, prepared, initiated wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances.”   Continue Reading…

Published on Real-World Economics Review Blog, by Peter Radford, April 18, 2014.

I will not pile on any more: the Piketty book is required reading. Enough said.
What strikes me is that his data set is so comprehensive that it ought to end many of those lingering debates within economics. I doubt it will, but it ought to.
I have a few comments I want to make because of his book and the reaction to it.

First:   Continue Reading…

Published on Real-World Economics Review Blog, by Peter Radford, April 16, 2014.

Buried somewhere in the pile of stuff I have accumulated as I think about inequality are these statistics:

• Of all the income generated between 2009 and 2011 in the US 121% went to the top 1% of income earners
• The top 1% owns just over half of all investment assets including 64.4% of all bonds
• And, the bottom 90% incurs 72.5% of all debt

Think through the consequences of these numbers.   Continue Reading…

Videos:

• Who Rules America Today? The Triumph of the Corporate Rich, 43.14 min, uploaded on YouTube by G. William Domhoff, April 7, 2014; (also on Zvideo, April 15, 2014);
• Millichamp lecture Jan 23 William Domhoff, uploaded by Mellichamp UCSB, Feb 13, 2014: part 1, 30.16 min; part 2, 28.26 min;
• Why Does Big Business Love Big Government? (Domhoff, Rothbard, and Evers), 51.47 min, uploaded by Libertarianism.org, Nov 20, 2013: G. William Domhoff is a research professor in psychology and sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of Who Rules America? (1967), Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats: A Study in Ruling-Class Cohesiveness (1974), and other books;   Continue Reading…

Published on NYTimes, by Paul Krugman, April 13, 2014.

Four years ago Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, abruptly canceled America’s biggest and arguably most important infrastructure project, a desperately needed new rail tunnel under the Hudson River. Count me among those who blame his presidential ambitions, and believe that he was trying to curry favor with the government- and public-transit-hating Republican base.   Continue Reading…

Published on Dissident Voice, by Ellen Hodgson Brown, April 13, 2014.

Taxpayers are paying billions of dollars for a swindle pulled off by the world’s biggest banks, using a form of derivative called interest-rate swaps; and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has now joined a chorus of litigants suing over it … //

… The Largest Cartel in World History:   Continue Reading…

Published on Dissident Voice, by Binoy Kampmark, April 12, 2014.

Edward Snowden’s revelations on the voracious appetite of spying on all and sundry by the National Security Agency and allied agencies should not give pause for too much comment, other than to affirm a general premise: activists and non-government groups are to be feared. Non-profits are seen as potential threats, though what to is sometimes unclear. Any government worth its salt should be afraid of its citizens – the latter must make the former accountable; the former must hold to the contractual bargain with citizens.   Continue Reading…

Published on Amnesty International, April 11, 2014;

Somali refugees and asylum-seekers living in Kenya are being trapped in a catch-22 situation by the government’s counter-terrorism crackdown, Amnesty International said as thousands of Somalis continued to be rounded up by security forces in Nairobi.

Registration of Somali refugees in Kenya has been largely halted since December 2011, preventing many who should qualify for refugee status from obtaining papers. Without these they could be returned to Somalia, where they may be at risk of human rights abuses.   Continue Reading…

Is the US or the World Coming to an End? It will be One or the Other – Published on Global Research.ca, by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, April 10, 2014.

2014 is shaping up as a year of reckoning for the United States.

Two pressures are building on the US dollar. One pressure comes from the Federal Reserve’s declining ability to rig the price of gold as Western gold supplies shrivel and market knowledge of the Fed’s illegal price rigging spreads.   Continue Reading…

Published on truthout, by Laura Flanders, April 9, 2014.

Video on GRITtv: Interview With Jessica Gordon Nembhard, 15.28 min, (also on YouTube, uploaded there by GRITtv, April 8, 2014).

Excerpt of Transcript:

… So, tell us some of the stories. Some of the documents in your book go all the way back to slavery times. Continue Reading…

Published on Washington’s Blog, by blog owner, April 8, 2014.

… This is not the first false flag by NATO members. For example:

• The former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and other European countries in the 1950s and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: “You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security” (and see this)(Italy and other European countries subject to the terror campaign had joined NATO before the bombings occurred). And watch this BBC special,    Continue Reading…