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The British Labour Party no longer represents the working class. Under UK prime minister Tony Blair, the Labour Party became a vassal of the One Percent. The result has been a rebellion in the ranks and the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, a principled Labourite intent on representing the people, a no-no in Western “democracies.”

Corbyn is too real for the Labour Party Blairites, who hope to be rewarded with similar nest eggs as Blair for representing the capitalist One Percent. So what is the corrupted Labour Party doing to prevent Corbyn’s election?

The answer is that it is denying the vote to Corbyn supporters. You can read the story here:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/britains-labour-party-purge-is-underway-preventing-supporters-from-voting-for-jeremy-corbyn/5471194

The illegal Egyptian military dictatorship that overthrew on Washington’s orders the first democratically elected government in Egyptian history has issued an edict prohibiting journalists from contradicting the military dictatorship. In brief, the dictatorship installed by Washington has outlawed facts.

Washington rejected the government that the Egyptian people elected, because it appeared that the democratically elected government would have a foreign policy that was at least partially independent of Washington’s. Remember, according to the neocons who, together with Israel, control US foreign policy, countries with independent foreign policies, such as Iran, Russia, and China, are America’s “greatest threats.”

The Egyptian military thugs, following Washington’s orders, have more or less eliminated all of the leadership of the political party that was democratically elected. The party was called the Muslim Brotherhood. In the presstitute Western media, the political party was described more or less as al Qaeda, and how are the ignorant, brainwashed, and propagandized Americans to know any difference? Certainly neither “their” government nor the presstitute media will ever tell them.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Assange and Democracy’s Future

August 19, 2015

Assange and Democracy’s Future

Democracy rests on citizens getting real facts and applying rational analysis. The ability of governments, including the U.S. government, to suppress facts and thus manage perceptions represents the opposite, a power over the people that WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange threatened, says Norman Solomon.

Three years after Ecuador’s government granted political asylum to Julian Assange in its small ground-floor London embassy, the founder of WikiLeaks is still there — beyond the reach of the government whose vice president, Joe Biden, has labeled him “a digital terrorist.”

The Obama administration wants Assange in a U.S. prison, so that the only mouse he might ever see would be scurrying across the floor of a solitary-confinement cell.

Above and beyond Assange’s personal freedom, what’s at stake includes the impunity of the United States and its allies to relegate transparency to a mythical concept, with democracy more rhetoric than reality. From the Vietnam War era to today — from aerial bombing and torture to ecological disasters and financial scams moving billions of dollars into private pockets — the high-up secrecy hiding key realities from the public has done vast damage. No wonder economic and political elites despise WikiLeaks for its disclosures.

During the last five years, since the release of the infamous “Collateral Murder” video, the world has changed in major ways for democratic possibilities, with WikiLeaks as a catalyst. It’s sadly appropriate that Assange is so deplored and reviled by so many in the upper reaches of governments, huge corporations and mass media. For such powerful entities, truly informative leaks to the public are plagues that should be eradicated as much as possible.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

America’s Biggest Lie – Dictatorship Or Democracy?

August 7, 2015

America’s Biggest Lie – Dictatorship Or Democracy?

The Deceit About Being A ‘Republic’ Versus A ‘Democracy’

One of my recent articles at several sites, “Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy” generated many reader-comments (such as here) saying things like, “The US has always been a republic. There are no true democracies in the modern world.” This will be my response to all who expressed that view:

You miss the point that Carter made, and that I there documented to be true, which is no semantic issue (“democracy” versus “republic”), but which instead concerns the basic lie about what the United States of America really is now:

Is this a representative democracy, such as its Founders intended and such as it was famous and honored throughout the world for being, until at least around 1980?

Or, is it instead a nation that’s ruled by a tiny elite, an aristocracy, which in this country consists of its 500 or so billionaires, who buy the politicians whom ‘we’ ‘elect’?

Is the U.S. now, basically, a fraud? Is it a dictatorship, instead of a democracy? Is it some kind of aristocracy, which controls the government here?

That’s not a semantic issue, at all. America’s first political party was called the “Democratic Republican Party,” but could as well have been called the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, because those two terms are essentially synonymous in any nation that has a large population, in which the public elect representatives to represent them, instead of directly vote on the policies that the government is to pursue — to place into its law, and to enforce by its duly authorized police or otherwise, and to adjudicate by democratically appointed judges and/or juries.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Suicide of the American Left

August 6, 2015

The Suicide of the American Left

Regular readers of this blog know that I generally avoid partisan politics in the essays posted here. There are several reasons for that unpopular habit, but the most important of them is that we don’t actually have partisan politics in today’s America, except in a purely nominal sense. It’s true that politicians by and large group themselves into one of two parties, which make a great show of their rivalry on a narrow range of issues. Get past the handful of culture-war hot buttons that give them their favorite opportunities for grandstanding, though, and you’ll find an ironclad consensus, especially on those issues that have the most to say about the future of the United States and the world.

It’s popular on the disaffected fringes of both parties to insist that the consensus in question comes solely from the other side; dissident Democrats claim that Democratic politicians have basically adopted the GOP platform, while disgruntled Republicans claim that their politicians have capitulated to the Democratic agenda. Neither of these claims, as it happens, are true. Back when the two parties still stood for something, for example, Democrats in Congress could be counted on to back organized labor and family farmers against their corporate adversaries and to fight attempts on the part of bankers to get back into the speculation business, while their opposite numbers in the GOP were ferocious in their opposition to military adventurism overseas and government expansion at home.

Nowadays? The Democrats long ago threw their former core constituencies under the bus and ditched the Depression-era legislation that stopped kleptocratic bankers from running the economy into the ground, while the Republicans decided that they’d never met a foreign entanglement or a government handout they didn’t like—unless, of course, the latter benefited the poor.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We are all Greece

July 31, 2015

We are all Greece

The cast of heroes and villains in Greece’s ongoing battle to save its economy varies depending on who’s telling the story. One simplified narrative depicts the German people as rich and callous overlords inflicting hardship on the downtrodden Greeks. The austerity measures they insist upon are essentially meant to punish the Greeks for spending too much on social programs for the sick and elderly.

In an opposing storyline, the Greeks have only themselves to blame: they lived beyond their means, evaded taxation, were generally corrupt, and irresponsibly piled up debts they simply could not repay. In this scenario the Germans are like parental figures administering discipline on the immature Greeks.

Neither of these narratives is accurate or helpful; rather than providing real insight, they merely serve to heighten nationalistic and xenophobic impulses in both countries. In order to make sense of what’s going on, we need to go behind the scenes to look more broadly at the underpinnings of the crisis.

It is widely assumed that the European Union was formed in order to prevent conflict. This notion can be traced to the aftermath of the Second World War, when well-intentioned statesmen promoted the notion that economic integration was a path to peace and harmony. And until this day many idealists support the EU for this reason. However, for many in my network – particularly in Scandinavia – it was clear from the beginning that the EU was primarily about big business.

Before countries were linked together into an economic union, Europe’s many regions were home to a great variety of cultures, languages and customs. But the Union erodes this rich diversity, which was born of human adaptation to different climates and ecological realities. The many borders, currencies, and differing regulations made trade difficult for big business, while the diversity of languages and cultural traditions put limits on mass marketing.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Would Somebody Please Bring Freedom & Democracy To America

July 29, 2015

Would Somebody Please Bring Freedom & Democracy To America

Clearly, the language of freedom is no longer the common tongue spoken by the citizenry and their government. With the government having shifted into a language of force, “we the people” have been reduced to suspects in a surveillance state, criminals in a police state, and enemy combatants in a military empire. — John W. Whitehead

Drivers, Beware: The Costly, Deadly Dangers of Traffic Stops in the American Police State

“The Fourth Amendment was designed to stand between us and arbitrary governmental authority. For all practical purposes, that shield has been shattered, leaving our liberty and personal integrity subject to the whim of every cop on the beat, trooper on the highway and jail official. The framers would be appalled.”—Herman Schwartz, The Nation

Trying to predict the outcome of any encounter with the police is a bit like playing Russian roulette: most of the time you will emerge relatively unscathed, although decidedly poorer and less secure about your rights, but there’s always the chance that an encounter will turn deadly.

The odds weren’t in Walter L. Scott’s favor. Reportedly pulled over for a broken taillight, Scott—unarmed—ran away from the police officer, who pursued and shot him from behind, first with a Taser, then with a gun. Scott was struck five times, “three times in the back, once in the upper buttocks and once in the ear — with at least one bullet entering his heart.”

Samuel Dubose, also unarmed, was pulled over for a missing front license plate. He was reportedly shot in the head after a brief struggle in which his car began rolling forward.

Levar Jones was stopped for a seatbelt offense, just as he was getting out of his car to enter a convenience store. Directed to show his license, Jones leaned into his car to get his wallet, only to be shot four times by the “fearful” officer. Jones was also unarmed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Democracy Hitting theFossil Fuels too Hard?

July 21, 2015

Is Democracy Hitting the Fossil Fuels too Hard?

Stick that in your democracy and smoke it?

Over the past few weeks the notion of democracy has been getting its fair share of attention in the media, and quite rightfully so; Greece had a referendum on whether or not it was going to accept new terms for another round of bailout funds in exchange for the prolongment of austerity measures and the continuation of its debt peonage.

That this was a welcome occurrence is thanks to the short shrift that the term “democracy” has been getting the past few years, and I’m not just talking about neoliberals claiming to bring “democracy” to Middle East countries and such. What I’m talking about is how the term “democratization” has been continually added willy-nilly to just about every new technology that comes along: there’s been the democratization of cell phones, of high-speed Internet access, of automobiles, and much more. So rather than “democratization” implying the beneficence of freedom upon a people, it now generally means the accessibility and wide adoption of the latest consumer gimmick by the masses.

Democracy, however, did not start out as a device for unfettered consumption, but rather implied a government assembled by the people through freely elected representatives. So it was therefore a welcome relief to hear Greece’s prime ministerstating the other day after the recent referendum that “Today we celebrate the victory of democracy. We proved even in the most difficult circumstances that democracy won’t be blackmailed,” for that was in fact an exercise in democracy.

Nonetheless, with some commentators going so far as to claim that we are seeing an “epic battle for the future of European democracy,” one could be forgiven for thinking that the Greek crisis has spurred on what might be called “democracy at the crossroads.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fighting over democracy

July 21, 2015

Fighting over democracy

One of the problems of political science, and social science generally, is that it is hard to prove a hypothesis. A sceptic can always say that there were particular circumstances that affected the outcome. We only get to play our history once.

But the recent events in Brussels in which the ‘Institutions’ settled with Greece have, without any doubt, vindicated the work of the late political scientist Peter Mair. His book Ruling The Void, assembled after his sudden death by his lifelong friend and colleague Francis Mulhern, argued that we were watching a long secular decline in party political engagement, and secondly that our political institutions were being shaped so that they had the appearance of being democratic, but none of the structure. His critical case was the European Union; it looked as if had the right institutions in place, but it was not designed to permit opposition or the expression of representative democracy.

Removing opposition

Here’s one of the key passages from his book:

The behaviour and preferences of citizens constitute virtually no formal constraint on, or mandate for, the relevant policy makers. Decisions can be taken by political elites with more or less a free hand. … Despite the seeming availability of channels of access, the scope for meaningful input and hence for effective electoral accountability is exceptionally limited. It is in this sense that Europe seems to have been constructed as a protected sphere, safe from the demands of voters and their representatives. (pp 108-109)

Whatever failings Syriza has had in its “negotiations” with the EU, and whatever the particularities of the Greek history and situation, it has shown clearly that the EU as constituted is not willing to entertain any form of oppositional view that does not accept the broad principles of both austerity and neoliberalism/neomercantilism, even when this is both bad politics and bad economics.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Death of Democracy in a Byzantine Labyrinth

July 21, 2015

The Death of Democracy in a Byzantine Labyrinth

The project of European Union, and its single currency experiment, were politically an attempt to unite fractious nations in order to put an end to a history of horribly destructive conflict. Economically, the goals were to scale up governance in Europe, to transition from the national to the transnational level in order to wield more power as a larger trading block. As such it was very much in line with the global trend of the last thirty years towards scaling up almost everything. However, as we have observed before, such expansions are inherently fragile and self-limiting:

This in-built need to expand, sometimes to the scale of an imperium in the search for new territory, means that the process is grounded in ponzi dynamics. Expansion stops when no new territories can be subsumed, and contraction will follow as the society consumes its internal natural capital….

….A foundational ingredient in determining effective organizational scale is trust – the glue holding societies together. At small scale, trust is personal, and group acceptance is limited to those who are known well enough to be trusted. For societies to scale up, trust must transcend the personal and be grounded instead in an institutional framework governing interactions between individuals, between the people and different polities, between different layers of governance (municipal, provincial, regional, national), and between states on the international stage.

This institutional framework takes time to scale up and relies on public trust for its political legitimacy. That trust depends on the general perception that the function of the governing institutions serves the public good, and that the rules are sufficiently transparent and predictably applied to all. This is the definition of the rule of law. Of course the ideal does not exist, but better and worse approximations do at each scale in question.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Concentrated Wealth + Widespread Stupidity = End Of Democracy

July 20, 2015

Concentrated Wealth + Widespread Stupidity = End Of Democracy

Today’s America is not a democracy:

“Dark Money Groups Are Funded By Dark Money Groups That Fund Dark Money Groups That Fund…”

That terrific investigative news report by Paul Blumenthal at Huffington Post, on 9 November 2013,penetrated beyond what the U.S. oligarchy — or more traditionally called aristocracy — requires its dark-money groups to disclose to the Federal Election Commission; and so Blumenthal researched also into what dark-money groups are required to report to the IRS (America’s tax-authorities).

This way, Blumenthal was able to discover, for example, that a “dark-money shell game allowed the Wisconsin Club for Growth to influence the elections with both its own ads and those of seemingly unrelated conservative groups with different public agendas. … The trail of cash moving from dark money nonprofit to dark money nonprofit can be traced, in part, through public records of the groups contributing it,” but only by accessing both FEC and IRS public records. And, even then, the picture was incomplete, because the 5-Republican bare majority, on the infamous pro-aristocracy 2010 U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United decision, by five traitors to the U.S. Constitution (which all judges are sworn to protect), prohibits public access to a complete picture of how (like in that Wisconsin election) a few psychopathic billionaires, plus millions of faith-driven fools they sucker with myth-affirming lies, can destroy government of the people, by the people, for the people, and turn it instead into government of the people, by the aristocracy, for the aristocracy. Blumenthal also showed the same billionaires+suckers system replacing democracy in other states. (Today’s Greece is a more extreme case of the same thing. Perhaps what’s today in Greece will betomorrow in America.)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Agency to Enslave Greeks Is Established

July 18, 2015

Agency to Enslave Greeks Is Established

Late on Thursday, July 16th, German Economic News headlined “Greece: Debt Restructuring Through the Back Door,” and reported that, “The majority of Greece’s national debt is to be moved in the next three years gradually to the euro bailout fund ESM [European Stability Mechanism], so that the IMF will continue to remain as a lender. The euro zone countries will thereby provide Athens a longer grace period [a temporary postponement of payments, while the 18% annual interest-rate soars Greece’s debt even higher], and longer repayment periods.”

The super-secretive European Stability Mechanism was set up in 2012, in order to handle Greece’s anticipated virtual receivership, which it now will do.

As I reported on July 16th, the treaty that in 2012 established the ESM, as being the ultimate lending-fund, for what the EU now officially considers to be a permanent economic crisis in Europe — of Greece and other member-nations that are experiencing “severe financing problems” — establishes the ESM as being so secretive, that a precondition of employment there is “Professional secrecy,” which will apply “even after their duties have ceased” (i.e., they’ve retired). In other words: the goal is that the public will never be able to know anything that goes on there, except what the top management issue in their speeches and press releases (if any). Furthermore, the ESM is above and beyond any democratic process, and is immune to any nation’s laws. Everyone in its employ “shall be immune from legal proceedings with respect to acts performed by them in their official capacity and shall enjoy inviolability in respect of their official papers and documents.” (That’s necessary in order to ensure that no information can ever be released by the employees — only the ESM’s public statements will be.) There will be no democratic accountability, whatsoever.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Curse Of The Euro: Money Corrupted, Democracy Busted

July 18, 2015

The Curse Of The Euro: Money Corrupted, Democracy Busted

The preposterous Gong Show in Brussels over the weekend was the financial “Ben Tre” moment for the Euro and ECB. That is, it was the moment when the Germans—–imitating the American military on that ghastly morning in February 1968——set fire to the Eurozone in order to save it.

Some day history will judge good riddance……..but that get’s ahead of the story.

According to an American soldier’s first hand recollection of the Vietnam event, it was a Major Booris who infamously told reporter Peter Arnett, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”.

After the massacre of Greek democracy in the wee hours Monday morning, Angela Merkel said the same thing—even if her language was a tad less graphic:

It reflects the basic principles which we’ve followed in rescuing the euro. It now hinges on step-by-step implementation of what we agreed tonight.”

Now no one in their right mind could think that lending another $96 billion to an utterly bankrupt country makes any sense whatsoever. After all, the Greek economy has shrunk by 30% since 2008 and is wreathing under what is objectively a $400 billion public debt already in place today.

That figure follows from the fact that on top of Greece’s acknowledged $360 billion of general government debt there’s at least another $25 billion loan embedded in the ELA advances to the Greek banking system. The latter is deeply insolvent, meaning that some considerable portion of the $100 billion ELA currently outstanding is not an advance against good collateral in any plausible banking sense of the word, but merely a backdoor fiscal transfer from the ECB to keep Greece’s financial shipwreck afloat.

Likewise, as I demonstrated Friday, given the even deeper deep hole into which the Greek economy has tumbled during the last six months, the fiscal targets extracted from Greece under this weekend’s demarche are utterly ridiculous. Indeed, even if the targeted primary surpluses of 1,2,3 and 3.5% of GDP are miraculously reached through 2018, upwards of $15 billion of budget deficits after interest accruals would be incurred anyway, and a lot more than that if there are material budget shortfalls, which is a virtual certainty.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Banker Occupied Greece: Requiem for a Failed State

July 17, 2015

Banker Occupied Greece: Requiem for a Failed State

It’s all over but the obituary. Rubber-stamp Greek parliamentarians overwhelming approved transforming the nation into a banker run colony – by a 229 – 64 vote. Six lawmakers abstained.

Coalition partner Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos and likeminded party members voted “yes” after rhetorically rejecting Troika terms.

The vast majority of bailout funding goes to pay bankers and other creditors – nothing for economic recovery and growth. The price is deeper punishing austerity, greater poverty and unemployment than already, and far more human misery ahead with no end in sight.

Only 32 of SYRIZA’s 149 parliamentarians voted “no” – including banished Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, Finance Ministry Secretary General Manos Manousakis, Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafanzanis, Deputy Labor Minister Dimitris Stratoulis and ousted Speaker Zoe Konstantopoulou.

She called the bailout proposal “social genocide.” Other austerity opponents denounced it as “a new Versailles Treaty.”

Sovereign Greece no longer exists. Troika bandits own its soul. Democracy’s denouement became official in its birthplace.

Meanwhile, police clashed violently with thousands of anti-austerity protesters outside parliament demanding promised relief – social justice, not sellout.

Prime Minister Tsipras rubbed salt on the wound he inflicted saying he “does not believe in (the) irrational” capitulation plan he demanded and voted for.

He lied claiming he had no choice. Terms were forced on him, he said. Responsible leadership would have rejected them outright, walked away and stood tall ahead of being welcomed home as a national hero – challenging Troika bandits courageously, saying “no” when it matters most.

Instead he showed he’s like all the rest – pledging one thing, doing another, betraying his constituents in the process, proving he and likeminded SYRIZA officials are pretense populists, more contemptible than right-wing austerity supporters.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Constitution of the EU’s Dictatorship

July 17, 2015

The Constitution of the EU’s Dictatorship

It’s here:

http://www.esm.europa.eu/pdf/ESM Treaty consolidated 13-03-2014.pdf

That’s the treaty establishing (which was originally done in 2012) the ultimate lending-fund for what the EU now officially considers to be a permanent economic crisis in Europe, of member-nations that are experiencing “severe financing problems,” and that are therefore continually ripe for asset-stripping by aristocrats.

It’s called the European Stability Mechanism.

It’s anything but that. Here is what it actually does:

http://corporateeurope.org/economy-finance/2014/06/european-stability-mechanism-esm-no-democracy-bailout-fund

In other words: it establishes the European bureaucracy to serve global aristocrats, so as to help them asset-strip the European populations of corrupt member-nations. These bureaucrats get transferred back-and-forth between this bureaucracy and the big financial institutions (which also are dependent upon the same billionaires), so that these bureaucratic servants of the aristocracy can themselves gradually emerge as aristocrats, basically joining (now becoming principals, no longer merely agents of) the aristocratic financial war stripping the public.

Here are some key provisions of this “Treaty,” or Europe’s (or the EU’s) new constitution:

Article 34. Professional secrecy. The Members or former Members of the Board of Governors and of the Board of Directors and any other persons who work or have worked for or in connection with the ESM shall not disclose information that is subject to professional secrecy. They shall be required, even after their duties have ceased, not to disclose information of the kind covered by the obligation of professional secrecy.

Article 35. Immunities of persons. 1. In the interest of the ESM, the Chairperson of the Board of Governors, Governors, alternate Governors, Directors, alternate Directors, as well as the Managing Director and other staff members shall be immune from legal proceedings with respect to acts performed by them in their official capacity and shall enjoy inviolability in respect of their official papers and documents. …

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Greece: Sound and Fury Signifying Much

July 16, 2015

Greece: Sound and Fury Signifying Much

All of Europe, and insouciant Americans and Canadians as well, are put on notice by Syriza’s surrender to the agents of the One Percent. The message from the collapse of Syriza is that the social welfare system throughout the West will be dismantled.

The Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras has agreed to the One Percent’s looting of the Greek people of the advances in social welfare that the Greeks achieved in the post-World War II 20th century. Pensions and health care for the elderly are on the way out. The One Percent needs the money.

The protected Greek islands, ports, water companies, airports, the entire panoply of national patrimony, is to be sold to the One Percent. At bargain prices, of course, but the subsequent water bills will not be bargains.

This is the third round of austerity imposed on Greece, austerity that has required the complicity of the Greeks’ own governments. The austerity agreements serve as a cover for the looting of the Greek people literally of everything. The IMF is one member of the Troika that is imposing the austerity, despite the fact that the IMF’s economists have said that the austerity measures have proven to be a mistake. The Greek economy has been driven down by the austerity. Therefore, Greece’s indebtedness has increased as a burden. Each round of austerity makes the debt less payable.

But when the One Percent is looting, facts are of no interest. The austerity, that is the looting, has gone forward despite the fact that the IMF’s economists cannot justify it.

Greek democracy has proven itself to be impotent. The looting is going forward despite the vote one week ago by the Greek people rejecting it. So what we observe in Alexis Tsipras is an elected prime minister representing not the Greek people but the One Percent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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