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The Corruption of Science | An International Issue

October 1, 2021

The Corruption of Science | An International Issue

Censorship of scientists and the manipulation, distortion, and suppression of scientific information are a threat to science.
Editor’s note: Last week, Mexico’s chief prosecutor requested arrest warrants for 31 scientists, researchers and academics formerly employed by Conacyt on corruption charges — or, as Dr. Toledo might say, diversion of public funds that did not benefit the country. The scientific community has responded with outrage in this developing story that exemplifies Dr. Toledo’s thesis, published in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada on Aug. 24.

We are living at the pinnacle or crest of corruption in the world — the use and abuse of political and economic power, knowledge or hierarchical position. The list includes businessmen, tycoons, bankers, public employees, presidents and prime ministers, kings, princes and princesses, priests, bishops and archbishops, diplomats, rectors, sports people, art and science and a long et cetera. This phenomenon coincides with the highest concentration of wealth in history represented by the profits of automobile, oil, coal, nuclear, mining, food, pharmaceutical, chemical, agrochemical, biotechnological, cement, tourism, metallurgical and telecommunications corporations, arms and weapons manufacturers, and all the rest.

To achieve this, corporate power put the scientific and technical knowledge of each branch at its service. This meant the creation of an army of specialized researchers capable of efficiently addressing segments of knowledge without questioning either the ethical implications or risks for humanity or the planetary environment. This technoscience with obedient researchers was achieved by the imposition of a dogma:

all scientific and technical knowledge is morally good, since there is only one Science, immaculate and at the service of development, peace and humanity.

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

The Two Faces Of The US Empire

January 16, 2021

The Two Faces Of The US Empire

The Biden/Harris inauguration event is going to be a star-studded celebration spanning an unprecedented five days, a giddy orgy of excitement at a murderous oligarchic empire having a new face behind the front desk after promising wealthy donors that nothing will fundamentally change.

This comes at a time when Americans are now reporting that they trust corporations more than they trust their own government or media, when pundits are gleefully proclaiming in The New York Times that “CEOs have become the fourth branch of government” as they pressure the entire political system to smoothly install Biden, when the leading contender for the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division is an Obama holdover who went from the administration to working for both Amazon and Google, and when Americans are being paced into accepting an increasing amount of authoritarian changes for their own good.

And this manic celebration and increasing brazenness of corporate power are of course overlaid atop an unceasing river of human blood as the globe-spanning empire continues to smash any nation which disobeys it into compliance so as to ensure lasting uncontested planetary hegemony.

But hey, at least they voted out fascism.

The US empire is ugly and creepy. The more you look at it, the uglier and creepier it gets. That’s why so much effort goes into keeping the public from looking at it directly.

The US empire has two faces, one rooted in the west coast and the other in the east. The first face, which sprouts up from Hollywood, presents a grinning plastic smile to the world depicting how fun and wonderful and righteous America is and how all its systems are working completely fine. The second face, which sprouts up from DC, Arlington and Langley, is wild-eyed and covered in blood.

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

 

When Corporate Power Is Your Real Government, Corporate Media Is State Media

July 31, 2020

When Corporate Power Is Your Real Government, Corporate Media Is State Media

The New York Times published an astonishingly horrible article the other day titled “Latin America Is Facing a ‘Decline of Democracy’ Under the Pandemic” accusing governments like Venezuela and Nicaragua of exploiting Covid-19 to quash opposition and oppress democracy.

The article sources its jarringly propagandistic claims in multiple US government-funded narrative management operations like the Wilson Center and the National Endowment for Democracy-sponsored Freedom House, the extensively plutocrat-funded Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the United States Naval Academy.

The crown jewel of this piece of State Department stenography reads as follows:

“Adding to these challenges, democracy in Latin America has also lost a champion in the United States, which had played an important role in promoting democracy after the end of the Cold War by financing good governance programs and calling out authoritarian abuses.”

Whoa, nelly.

The fact that America’s most widely regarded newspaper feels perfectly comfortable making such a spectacularly in-your-face lie on behalf of the US government tells you everything you need to know about what the mass media in America really are and what they do.

The United States has never at any time been a champion of democracy in Latin America, before or since the Cold War. It has intervened hundreds of times in the continent’s affairs throughout history with everything from murderous corporate colonialism to deadly CIA regime change operations to overt military invasions. It is currently trying to orchestrate a coup in Venezuela after failing to stage one during the Bush administration, it’s pushing regime change in Nicaragua, and The New York Times itself admitted this year that it was wrong to promote the false US government narrative of electoral shenanigans in Bolivia’s presidential race last year, a narrative which facilitated a bloody fascist coup.

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

Neoliberalism: Free Market Fundamentalism or Corporate Power?

January 11, 2019

Neoliberalism: Free Market Fundamentalism or Corporate Power?

Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair

I’ve been hearing about neoliberalism for a long time now and never could make much sense of it. It turns out the story we tell about neoliberalism is as contradictory as neoliberalism itself. Two currents within the critique of neoliberalism offer different analyses of the current economy and suggest different strategies for dealing with the gross exploitation, wealth inequality, climate destruction and dictatorial governance of the modern corporate order.

These opposing currents are not just different schools of thought represented by divergent thinkers. Rather they appear as contradictions within the critiques of neoliberalism leveled by some of the most influential writers on the subject. These different interpretations are often the result of focus. Look at neoliberal doctrine and intellectuals and the free market comes to the fore. Look at the history and practice of the largest corporations and the most powerful political actors and corporate power takes center stage.

The most influential strain of thought places “free market fundamentalism” (FMF) at the center of a critical analysis of neoliberalism. The term was coined by Nobel Prize winner and former chief economist of the World Bank itself –Joseph Stigliz. FMF is usually how neoliberalism is understood by progressives and conservatives alike. In this view, an unregulated free market is the culprit and the oft cited formula — de-regulation, austerity, privatization, tax cuts — is the means used to undermine the public commons.

David Harvey’s, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, is perhaps the single most influential book and the author begins with the free market. Harvey sets it up like this:

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

A Couple of Thoughts on 2019

January 1, 2019

A Couple of Thoughts on 2019

The story of the 21st century is debt is soaring while earned income is stagnating for the bottom 95%.

Best wishes to all my readers and correspondents for a safe, healthy and productive 2019. Thank you, longstanding supporters, for renewing your financial support at the new year without any pathetic begging on my part. (The pathetic begging will commence shortly.)

While I don’t have any predictions for 2019 (why look any dumber than I have to?), I do have a couple of thoughts on the economy, markets, globalization, etc. Here are a few of the key issues confronting humanity:

1. The war being waged by Corporate Power (Globalization / Open Borders) to eradicate democracy and the power of nation-states to control their own destiny. Democracy ceases to exist in a corporate-controlled globalized system of governance; the sole structure that enables a citizen to have political and economic agency is the nation-state.

Try voting for a U.N. resolution or E.U. regulation. Sorry, pal, there are no elections or representation of the rabble in globalized governance. Globalization destroys democracy and the agency of the citizenry. That’s its goal.

Global corporations seek to destroy any and all barriers to their power and profits, and globalization / tax havens / Open Borders are the means to co-opt, marginalize and neuter nation-states and the political and economic agency of the citizenry. The net result of Corporate Power controlling the machinery of governance is neofeudalism.

2. Energy and capital flows. The status quo holds that energy flows don’t matter very much because energy represents a shrinking percentage of economic activity. In other words, capital is what matters, not energy, because capital can always buy whatever it wants.

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

Wait a Minute–Who’s Fascist?

March 16, 2016

Wait a Minute–Who’s Fascist?

The core belief of the Establishment is the central state should run everything.

If you’re an Establishment insider, the mainstream media will give you plenty of column inches and airtime to label Donald Trump a “dangerous” fascist: for example, Democratic insider Robert Reich’s fear-mongering frenzy Donald Trump is a 21st century American fascist, in which Reich conveniently overlooks constitutional limits on any president, “fascist” or not.

In effect, Reich is announcing the Constitution is dead and powerless to limit the President. Well, if that’s the problem, then why not attack the real problem, which is the Imperial Presidency? Why not? Reich served an Imperial President as a loyal lackey, that’s why–and he remains an energetic supporter of the central state and its bread-and-circuses institutionalized serfdom.

If you’re an Establishment insider, you’ll get ample opportunities in the corporate media to label Bernie Sanders a “dangerous” socialist. You don’t even have to be a member of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” (a staple of the Clintons’ attack strategy)–any insider can get airtime to label Sanders as “dangerous”–either because he’s socialist, or because he’s not radical enough. Any attack will do, and you’ll get plenty of opportunity to flesh out any attack, no matter how biased or nonsensical.

It is of course classic Orwellian Doublespeak to label any threat to one’s power “fascist,” and to laud one’s corrupt and venal allies as “freedom fighters,” but the Establishment’s panicked reliance on accusations of fascism is new and yes, dangerous. So let’s step back and ask–precisely who’s the fascist here?

It turns out that the definition of fascism widely attributed to Mussolini– “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power”–has no provenance: researchers cannot find this quote in any original source material.

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

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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