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Our Stupid Species

In short:  Our species was not “born” stupid, but started to become so late in our   history.  It then started on a downward course, and will “soon” go extinct.[1]

We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.[2]

Preface

January, 2025, was a busy month for me![3]  First, on January 6, I celebrated my 85th birthday—on what has come to be called Insurrection …

A Return to Basics: Rasmus, the “Neoliberal” Turn, and Exploitation

Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: ‘Abolition of the wage system!’ Karl Marx, Value, Price, and Profit
Today, the point that Marx made in his 1865 address to the First International Working Men’s Association is largely lost on the trade unions and even with many self-styled Marxists. The distinction between the goal of “a fair day’s wage” and the goal of eliminating exploitation– the wage system embedded in capitalism– is lost before a common, but unfocused revulsion to the exploding growth …

The Development of New Technology

How is this development of new technology being carried out?

Good German

How does our great nation send billions in weaponry to a country that is committing the worst genocide of the 21st century? The slaughter of civilians is beyond any description. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been bombed, burned, and starved to death. Tens of thousands more have been crushed beyond recognition under mountains of twisted concrete and ash. The children who have survived are almost unrecognizable in their rags and wasted bodies. They carry empty pots, looking for food and water amid the massive rubble. Amid the charnel house that is now Gaza.

Should I mention our two party, one …

The Hijacking of Palestine

How Zionism Forged an Apartheid State from River to Sea by Thomas Suárez

A Review

Much has been written in the alternative press over the past year about the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians and its other war crimes in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, etc. This has often been viewed within the historical context of the self-declared Zionist Israeli state’s founding in 1948 up to the present day. But far less has been said about the Zionist’s racial-nationalist-settler-colonialist movement’s history of terrorism to seize Palestine and kill and drive the Palestinians into exile that goes back for …

Lies Too Big To Fail: The Culture of Grift

“Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, (The New Idol)
At present, according to recent polling, 52 percent of the US citizenry approve of Donald Trump’s performance in office, this is, even as Trump pulls from his bloated ass Joseph Goebbels’ grade lies e.g., Diversity hires are responsible for the recent aviation tragedy over the Potomac River. Hyperbole? The insidious declaration is right out of the Nazi era playbook. For example, the Nazi “stabbed in the back by international and internal parasitic Jews” lie, promulgated by …

Dallaire Continues to Justify Kagame’s Crimes

Romeo Dallaire has greatly enabled the “Butcher of Africa’s Great Lakes” region. The Canadian general’s fairy tale has repeatedly justified Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame who has once again unleashed horrible violence in Congo.

Two months ago a man in front of me at Salon du livre de Montréal asked Dallaire if his “opinion of Rwanda has changed since the M23 movement emerged in the Congo?” The retired general’s response to this question about a Kigali spurred force, which has recently killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands in capturing the Congolese city of Goma, was extreme Kagame propaganda. He said: “No …

War Is Making Us Poor

The Book

After World War 2, the US set its sights on becoming the dominant superpower. As a benevolent dictator — an enlightened hegemon — it would spread peace and prosperity across the globe. Its first objective was to defeat what it perceived as the #1 threat to the economic and political system it represented, which was capitalism and democracy, that being communism.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the US decided to leverage its new positioning as the world’s most militarily and economically powerful nation into becoming a full-blown empire. This was …

False Savior: Jimmy Carter

A pious Sunday school teacher confessing to lust in his heart but swearing never to lie, he came to Washington to reestablish public faith in government just when popular disgust at monstrous U.S. crimes in Indochina had reached unprecedented heights. The big business agenda during his term in office (1977-1981) was to roll back the welfare state, break the power of unions, fan the flames of the Cold War to increase military spending, engineer tax breaks for wealthy corporate interests, and repeal government regulation of business. While portraying himself as a peanut-farming populist, Carter delivered the …

How may I help you, today?

The human condition in the age of high technology and instant communication.

Far from Benign: The US Aid Industrial Complex

The US aid program began in earnest in the early stages of the Cold War, with an intention to beat off the contenders from the Soviet bloc in the postcolonial world. President Harry S. Truman proposed, in his 1949 inaugural address, “a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas.” In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, enabling him to issue the executive order that created the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

In 1962, the …

Did Marx Have Anything Good to Say About Capitalism?

Those who assume that Karl Marx emphasized only the negative characteristics of capitalism such as alienation, crisis, and exploitation are mistaken. Indeed, throughout his intellectual career – in philosophic, journalistic, historical, and economic writings – Marx stressed the creative and progressive features of capital. His social theory makes no sense unless essential duality is retained.

For Marx, capitalism is inventive and advanced with respect to the past (pre-capitalist societies), the present (capitalism itself), and the future (post-capitalist society). First, capitalism has “revolutionizing properties” that transform all social, economic, and political relations, thus creating conditions for consolidation and universal development.

Second, capitalism …

Defending Truth

What will a fact check reveal about this unsourced Twain quotation?

The Demise of USAID: Few Regrets in Latin America

“Take your money with you,” said Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, when told about Trump’s plans to cut aid to Latin America, “it’s poison.”

USAID (US Agency for International Development) spends around $2 billion annually in Latin America, which is only 5% of its global budget. The temporarily closed-down agency’s future looks bleak, while reactions to its money being cut have been wide-ranging. Only a few were as strong as Petro’s and many condemned the move. For example, WOLA (the Washington Office on Latin America), a leading “liberal” think tank which routinely runs cover for Washington’s regime-change efforts, …

“Quantitative Easing with Chinese Characteristics”

How to Fund an Economic Miracle

China went from one of the poorest countries in the world to global economic powerhouse in a mere four decades. Currently featured in the news is DeepSeek, the free, open source A.I. built by innovative Chinese entrepreneurs which just pricked the massive U.S. A.I. bubble.

Even more impressive, however, is the infrastructure China has built, including 26,000 miles of high speed rail, the world’s largest hydroelectric power station, the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world, 100,000 miles of expressway, the world’s first commercial magnetic levitation train, the world’s largest urban metro network, seven of the world’s 10 busiest ports, and solar …

Exposing Albion’s Rot: Why I Write About Political Corruption

Has the world lost its last thread of sanity? Mass media drowns us daily with never-ending cycles of calamities, from cataclysmic global events to political quagmires. These scandals are nothing new, some more egregious than others, but all spark outrage across the political spectrum. It’s tempting to dust off that old protest sign. Sadly, it’s still relevant.

Writers like me craft sociopolitical fiction to explore and process society’s critical issues with the hope that change will follow. But hope implies a futuristic expectation. What can I as a writer do to bring these injustices to light and engage readers who might …

“No specific signals” from US on Resuming Dialogue – Moscow

Washington has yet to take steps to re-establish contacts with Russia, including on Ukraine, Vassily Nebenzia has said

Brainwashing Is Not a Form of Personal Hygiene

Nor is being brainwashed a guarantee of personal bliss, though it’s becoming apparent that there are many who swear by it.

It’s like reverence for innocence. Well, yes, kids sure are sweet, unsullied, open, positive, vibrant, curious. They wear their innocence well and we all envy their abandon. But we’re protecting them. So we bear all the risks and potential for endangerment. They play. We watch the playground to make sure there are no perverts, rabid dogs, snipers, or kidnappers.

As adults, it’s a different story. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ and ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you’ work …

MLK Day Turned into BMS Day

Priscilla Chan, her husband Mark Zuckerberg of Meta/Facebook, Lauren Sanchez, her fiance Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet/Google, and Elon Musk of Space X in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, for the 60th Presidential Inauguration. IMAGE/AP/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, Poo/The Hill

Nothing can be more diametric and tragic than an unfolding fascist, joined by some of the world’s most richest men, being sworn-in for the second time on January 20, 2025 on the official Martin Luther King Jr. …

Strategy and Tactics for the Burgeoning Resistance

The wide mix of acts of resistance over the past week have made it clear that there is and will be widespread resistance to the Trump/MAGA regressive, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and pro-billionaire plans, There have been actions in the streets in DC and all over the country. Congressional Democrats are speaking up, filibustering and organizing town meetings. Numerous creative social media postings have helped to keep up people’s morale. Rachel Maddow on MSNBC five nights a week is playing an important role as have other TV/podcast/written reports and commentaries. And there have been a number of federal court filings, …

Cutting the Ghost Budget: Elon Musk versus the Pentagon

The rampaging antics of a querulous, sociopathic tech oligarch as he busies himself identifying which government departments to raid, trim, if not abolish altogether, understandably concerns those in the business of government.  And there is much to be concerned about with Elon Musk’s merrily psychotic scything as chief of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), notably in terms of security access to payment and data systems.

Established on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration via executive order, the new department is charged with implementing “the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency …

Imagine: Truth on the News

What would be said? What would happen when it was back to the news as distraction?

Ethnic Cleansing or Genocide?

[A] coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

— Raphael Lemkin describes genocide1Raphael Lemkin, “Genocide.” In Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation — Analysis of Government — Proposals for Redress (Washington, …

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Cutthroat Diplomacy in the Trump Era

Many people who never liked Donald Trump are predictably outraged by many of his actual and potential foreign policy changes. These include new tariffs on goods from countries with which the US had, until the current administration, enjoyed free trade or Most Favored Nation status, including Mexico, Canada, and the European Union. In addition, he announced imposition or intended imposition of increased sanctions against Iran, Russia and potentially other nations. He also ordered the suspension of all foreign aid except to Israel and Egypt. (The order is currently blocked in federal court.) But his most outrageous proposals are undoubtedly to …

Genocide and Real Estate

Congo: Do We Trace Genocide to Human Hatred or Corporate Profit?

Rwanda has broken international law with the visible presence of Rwandan troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo alongside Rwanda’s covert M-23 militia. M-23 is reported to have captured Goma (again) and the civilians are in a state of emergency. This is familiar because M-23 previously took over the city in 2012 but had to withdraw because it wasn’t equipped to administer the city of two million. As the M-23 rebels and their allies increase their takeover of the East Congo with reported vows of advancing to the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo …

Mentally Ill or Criminal? Jails Have Become Mental Health Facilities Say Experts


To many, it is an unseen problem. People denied mental health services who end up homeless or incarcerated as criminals. A few year ago, the Kennedy Forum at Chicago’s Palmer House Hilton,  addressed this and other aspects of the lack of a functional community mental health system in the United States.

The Kennedy Forum was founded to enlist business leaders and government agencies in fully implementing the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, which was amended by the Affordable Care Act, to guarantee equal access to medical care and help …

A Thief’s Mentality: Trump, Real Estate and Dreams of Ethnic Cleansing

President Donald J. Trump likes teasing out the unmentionable, and the Israel-Palestinian situation was hardly going to be any different.  With a touch of horror and the grotesque, he offered a solution to the issue of what would happen to Gaza at the conclusion of hostilities.  In a White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared that the United States “take over and own the Gaza Strip”, in the process promising to “create an economic development that will supply an unlimited number of jobs and housing for people of the area.”

The strip, one of the …

The Gaza “War” Was a Lie, as is the Ceasefire

Trump just told you

During Netanyahu’s visit, Trump dropped Washington’s sugar coating of Israel’s 15-month genocidal destruction of Gaza. This was always about ethnic cleansing
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House this week tore the mask off 16 months of gaslighting by western leaders and by the entirety of the western establishment media.

United States President Donald Trump finally dropped Washington’s sugar coating of Israel’s genocidal destruction of Gaza.

This was always, he told us, a slaughter made in the US. In his …

Hasbara’s Foot Soldiers

On 3 February there appeared in the local paper of record, the Sydney Morning Herald (Independent. Always), a number of letters regarding Israel and Gaza. The first opines:

… the more often people hear lies and see troubling incidents like violence and vandalism associated with Jews, the more likely people are to blame Jews for causing those troubles, regardless of the truth.

A sub-editor attached an AP-credited photograph of a devastated Gaza with the caption ‘Destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Gaza’.

Is this seeming carnage a fabricated Hamas photoshop of a functioning Gaza Strip, a propaganda …