Bulletin N° 776
The
American Empire’s Descent Into Dystopia
(1h15mins.)
Subject : Moving the goal post: a ‘revolution’ for more jobs and a higher minimum
wage, by way of War?
7 December 2017
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and
Friends of CEIMSA,
It's
counterintuitive to think that small victories can lead to great defeats, and
yet it is an incontrovertible fact that the global concentration of wealth and power
has created a veritable tsunami that
threatens the much celebrated victories of single-issue social movements, such
as those advocating civil rights, the anti-war policies, & women’s rights,
as well as those of the labor movement, and the student movement. The war
parties in the United States and their international allies are bankrolled by
financial interests and military/police industries and various corporations,
including the media, all of whom enjoy great leverage over American society and
over foreign governments, as well.
The 21 items below
will remind CEIMSA readers of the massively destructive effect that capitalist
expansion must impose on societies around the world. Any collaboration with
such destruction is contemptible, and at no time in our history has the axiom
rung more true:
“If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.”
The
international plutocrats, who govern capitalist growth today, wish to
immortalize themselves into a permanently organized oligarchy, on a scale such
as the world has never seen. These owners of capital have at their disposal not
only enormous sums of wealth and concentrated political power, but more
recently access to high technology which would facilitate their movement toward
monopoly control of society. What remains problematic, however, is the labor
force necessary to accomplish their rise to absolute power over society. Will
their strategies of systematically impoverishing society be enough to secure a
compliant work force in order to implement their agenda, or will there be a
revolt against this looming dehumanization of the world’s population and the
eventual replacement of our zombie-like dependency on the owners of capital by
something new . . . more just; more egalitarian?
This
vision has been around for a long time, but never has it been more urgent to integrate
it into our daily reality!
Sincerely,
Francis Feeley
Professor emeritus of American Studies
University Grenoble-Alpes
Director of Research
University of Paris-Nanterre
Center for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social
Movements
The University of California-San Diego
a.
Yemen: Today’s Guernica
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48315.htm
By Cesar Chelala
On the market day of April 26, 1937, at the bequest
of General Francisco Franco, a bombing of the Basque town of Guernica took
place. It was carried out by Spain’s nationalistic government allies, the Nazi
German Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione
Legionaria. The attack, under the code name Operation Rügen,
in which hundreds of people died, became a rallying cry against the brutal
killing of innocent civilians. 80 years later, however, an even more criminal
action is carried out against Yemeni civilians mainly by Saudi Arabia, with the
complicity of the United States.
b.
Should NATO Answer For Libya's Slave
Trade?
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20594:Should-NATO-Answer-for-Libya%27s-Slave-Trade%3F
c.
Media Erase
NATO Role in Bringing
Slave
Markets to Libya
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48307.htm
by Ben Norton
Twenty-first century slave markets. Human beings sold for a few hundred dollars.
Massive protests throughout the world.
The American and British media have awakened to the
grim reality in Libya, where African refugees are for sale in open-air slave
markets. Yet a crucial detail in this scandal has been downplayed or even
ignored in many corporate media reports: the role of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization in bringing slavery to the North African nation.
In March 2011, NATO launched a war in Libya expressly
aimed at toppling the government of longtime leader Muammar Qadhafi.
The US and its allies flew some 26,000 sorties
over Libya and launched hundreds of cruise missiles, destroying the
government’s ability to resist rebel forces.
US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, along with their European counterparts, insisted the military
intervention was being carried out for humanitarian reasons. But political
scientist Micah Zenko (Foreign
Policy, 3/22/16) used NATO’s own materials to show how “the Libyan
intervention was about regime change from the very start.”
d.
America's
Monetary Imperialism
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48335.htm
by Michael Hudson
In
theory, the global financial system is supposed to help every country gain. Mainstream
teaching of international finance, trade and “foreign aid” (defined simply as
any government credit) depicts an almost utopian system uplifting all
countries, not stripping their assets and imposing austerity. The reality since
World War I is that the United States has taken the lead in shaping the
international financial system to promote gains for its own bankers, farm
exporters, its oil and gas sector, and buyers of foreign resources – and most
of all, to collect on debts owed to it.
Each
time this global system has broken down over the past century, the major
destabilizing force has been American over-reach and the drive by its bankers
and bondholders for short-term gains. The dollar-centered financial system is
leaving more industrial as well as Third World countries debt-strapped. Its
three institutional pillars – the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank
and World Trade Organization – have imposed monetary, fiscal and financial
dependency, most recently by the post-Soviet Baltics,
Greece and the rest of southern Europe. The resulting strains are now reaching
the point where they are breaking apart the arrangements put in place after
World War II.
e.
From the Caucasus to the Balkans,
China’s Silk Roads are Rising
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48328.htm
by Pepe
Escobar
The
19th Chinese Communist Party Congress made it clear that the New Silk Roads –
aka, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – launched by President Xi Jinping just four years ago, provides the concept around
which all Chinese foreign policy is to revolve for the foreseeable future. Up until the symbolic 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of
China, in 2049, in fact.
Virtually
every nook and cranny of the Chinese administration is invested in making the
BRI Grand Strategy a success: economic actors, financial players, state-owned
enterprises (SOEs), the private sector, the diplomatic machine, think tanks,
and – of course – the media, are all on board.
It’s
under this long-term framework that sundry BRI projects should be examined. And
their reach, let’s be clear, involves most of Eurasia – including everything
from the Central Asian steppes to the Caucasus and the Western Balkans.
f.
U.S.
Empire’s ‘Irrevocable’ Decline
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48317.htm
(Video)
by Chris
Hedges, Alfred McCoy
Alfred McCoy, Harrington Professor of History at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, explains the decline of the United States as a global power and
the rise of the Chinese empire."The American Empire could collapse almost
overnight"
"If it comes to a military crunch," the historian tells the journalist, "we could lose."
g.
Can't You See
War On The Horizon?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-01/paul-craig-roberts-cant-you-see-war-horizon
by
Paul Craig Roberts
According
to news
reports in the British press, Russian President Vladimir Putin has
instructed Russia’s industries to prepare themselves to be able to make a quick
switch to war production. Clearly, the Russian government would not make such
an announcement unless it was convinced that
the prospect of war with the West was real.
h.
Daniel Ellsberg Reveals He was a Nuclear War Planner,
Warns of Nuclear Winter & Global Starvation
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/12/6/doomsday_machine_daniel_ellsberg_reveals_he
i.
Progress Report on the US-Russian War
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48332.htm
by The Saker
I
am often asked if the US and Russia will go to war with each other. I always
reply that they are already at war. Not a war like
WWII, but a war nonetheless. This war is, at least for the time being, roughly
80% informational, 15% economic and 5% kinetic. But in political terms the
outcome for the loser of this war will be no less dramatic than the outcome of
WWII was for Germany: the losing country will not survive it, at least not in
its present shape: either Russia will become a US colony again or the AngloZionist Empire will collapse.
In
my very first column for the Unz review entitled “A Tale of Two
World Orders” I described the kind of multipolar
international system regulated by the rule of law Russia, China and their
allies and friends (whether overt or covert) worldwide are trying to build and
how dramatically different it was from the single World Hegemony and AngloZionist attempted to establish worldwide (and almost
successfully imposed upon our suffering planet!). In a way, the US
imperial leaders are right, Russia does represent an existential threat,
not for the United States as a country or for its people, but for the AngloZionist Empire, just as the latter represents an
existential threat to Russia. Furthermore, Russia represents a fundamental civilizational challenge to what is normally called the
“West” as she openly rejects its post-Christian (and, I would add, also
viscerally anti-Islamic) values. This is why both sides are making an immense
effort at prevailing in this struggle.
j.
US government
could 'lose perspective' & move towards war
Oliver Stone
https://www.rt.com/document/5a24608dfc7e933a248b4567/amp/411835-oliver-stone-us-war-risk
RAs
Russia continues to be accused of US election meddling and President Putin is
portrayed as a villain by the MSM, filmmaker Oliver Stone told RT there's more
to the story - and that he fears the US could lose its self-control and do
something dangerous.
Stone
- who extensively interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin for “The Putin Interviews,” which aired
on US cable network Showtime in June - spoke to RT's Sophie Shevardnadze about
Moscow, Washington, and the relationship between the two powers.
k.
"Manufacturing
Consent" 25 Years Later
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&Itemid=74&jumival=9977
Edward S. Herman (co-author
with Noam Chomsky of "Manufacturing Consent'): All the problems of the
propaganda media model we talked about in the book have grown worse; new media
like Real News show potential but need funding for more investigative
journalism
l.
The Coming War on Lebanon
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48336.htm
by Timothy Alexander Guzman
Israel,
Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Prepare for a Long-Planned Middle East War
Washington’s
plan to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has
ultimately failed. Now Lebanon seems to be in the cross-hairs with tensions
between Israel and Hezbollah on the same level that led to the 2006 Lebanon
war. There is also the possibility that a new offensive against Syria that
might take place as Washington maintains its troop levels in the devastated
country caused by ISIS and other terrorists groups they supported. Various
reports suggests that the Pentagon may reveal that
there are close to 2,000 U.S. troops stationed in Syria even though ISIS has
been defeated. So why is Washington staying in Syria? Will there be another
attempt to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
in the near future? Most likely, yes. Adding the Trump administration’s
continued hostilities towards Iran, the drumbeats of a new war in the Middle
East is loud and clear. Israel, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have one main
objective at the moment and that is to destabilize Lebanon and attempt to
defeat Hezbollah before they prepare for another offensive in Syria to remove
Assad from power. Before they declare an all-out war on Iran, they must
neutralize their allies, Hezbollah and Syria which is by far an extremely
difficult task to accomplish.
m.
Fighting Israel's Wars
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48309.htm
How the United States military has become Zionized
by Philip Giraldi
There has been a
report that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking into foreign lobbying
in Washington while another story relates how his team is investigating the alleged
contact of a Donald Trump associate with a Hungarian. Both are part of the
ongoing investigation into Russiagate. Unless I am
wrong, which happens occasionally, Hungary is a member of the European Union
and also of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It has relatively
free elections and its government changes as a result.
An Arab Nightmare
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48360.htm
by Robert Fisk
n.
Roger Waters
Confronts the Occupation of
the Canadian Mind
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20449:Roger-Waters-Confronts-the-Occupation-of-the-Canadian-Mind
Rock Musician and
Palestinian Rights Advocate Roger Waters discusses his recent concert tour in
Canada
o.
U.S. Hits The Hypocrisy Ball Out Of The Park
State Department
Condemns* Designation Of Media As Foreign Agents
(*only applies to
Russia)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48306.htm
by
Moon Of Alabama
It remarked that "legislation that allows .. to label media outlets as
'foreign agents' ... presents yet another
threat to free media". It noted that "freedom of
expression—including speech and media ... is a universal human rights
obligation".
The remark came after the U.S. Department of Justice
required the Russian outlet RT America to register as a 'foreign agent' under the Foreign
Agent Registration Act (FARA). RT registered as ordered on November 13.
. . .
The whole issue started with the notable liar James
Clapper under the Obama administration. He and
other 'intelligence' people found that RT was too truthful in its reporting to be allowed to
inform the U.S. public. Publication of criticism of the U.S. government based
on verifiable facts is seen as an unfriendly act which must be punished.
Congress and the U.S. Justice Department under the
Trump administration followed up on that. FARA is originally NOT directed
against foreign media. The Trump Justice Department circumvented the spirit of
the law to apply it to RT.
p.
Obama’s Crimes are Revealed Under Trump
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48326.htm
by Margaret Kimberley
“The war against Yemen began
in 2015, with a stamp of approval and military assistance from the Obama
administration.”
Barack
Obama was not the lesser evil president. He was always the more effective evil.
The ruling classes were in desperate need of a new and attractive face to
complete their ugly agenda. George W. Bush and the Republicans were reviled and
thus no longer capable of bringing imperialist plots to fruition. They were bad
for the brand and were shown the door for use at a later date.
Obama
certainly didn’t disappoint his patrons. He claimed that America was
exceptional and indispensable and that no other nation had rights that it need respect. He succeeded in making some neo-con dreams
come true as he tried to bring the Project for a New American Century to
reality. He destroyed Libya, supported a coup against an elected government in
Ukraine and attempted regime change in Syria too.
Blood
was shed and lives were upended all over the world under the Obama doctrine of
American rights to global hegemony. But the corporate media and most Democrats
said nothing. Now that Trump is in office the evil doing that Obama began is
suddenly brought to light.
q.
r.
Empire Files:
Death & Biostitutes - The US Opioid
Crisis
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20626:Empire-Files%3A-Death-%26-Biostitutes---The-US-Opioid-Crisis
With the U.S.
government failing to address the opioid crisis, one
law firm has taken to a massive lawsuit. Head of that case is Mike Papantonio, who tells Abby Martin that he's pushing for
many executives to go to jail
s.
Socialism, Capitalism and Health Care
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48351.htm
by James Petras
The US political and economic
elites have always bragged that capitalism is far superior to socialism in
terms of providing people’s personal welfare. They claim that citizens live
longer, healthier and happier lives under capitalism.
The debate
between the supporters of the US Affordable Care Act or ‘Obamacare’ and its most vehement opponents
under President Trump is not part of any larger system debate since both ‘sides’ base their vision and plans for medical care on private,
for-profit corporate insurance schemes. This source of funding would ‘harness
market forces’ to deliver quality medical care…in a marketplace of ‘free
competition’, in which every American, even the most fragile, cancer-ridden
patient, would be an engaged stakeholder, weighing a huge menu of free choices…
The real
comparison of how these economic systems provide basic health care should be
based on showing which provides the best population outcomes, personal
satisfaction and community security across national boundaries. National health
systems top the chaotic private system in these parameters.
t.
From: "Jim O'Brien via
H-Pad"
Sent: Wednesday, 6 December, 2017
Subject: H-PAD Notes 12/6/17: AHA sessions; links to recent articles of
interest
h-pad@lists.historiansforpeace.org
For those attending the AHA convention in
Washington, DC next month, here are two sessions that may be of
particular interest. Both are on Saturday morning, January 6 at the main
convention hotel, the Marriott Wardman Park.
8:30-10:00: Roundtable: "A
Fateful Misunderstanding: A Discussion of the Film Documentary The Vietnam
War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (Roosevelt
Room 2, Exhibition Level).Participants include Michael Kazin,
Chris Appy, Mark Philip Bradley, Heather Marie Stur, and Carolyn Eisenberg.
10:30-12:00: Historians
for Peace and Democracy (H-PAD) roundtable: "What Should
Historians Do in a Time of Crisis?"
(Roosevelt Room 4, Exhibition Level).
H-PAD's past and future will be part of the discussion.
Links to Recent Articles of Interest
:
"Another Way Trump Will Get Us Killed: To Move US Embassy in
Israel to Jerusalem"
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment blog, posted December 6
"The
Ideologues Who Wrecked Libya"
By Matt Purple, The American
Conservative, posted December 5
"U.S.
Presidents and the Nuclear Taboo"
By William Burr, National Security
Archive, posted December 4
The author, who has a PhD in history, is a senior analyst at the
National Security Archive at George Washington University.
"Let
the Record Show: Negotiations with North Korea Work"
By Catherine Killough,
LobeLog, posted November 29
"Trump's
Demonization of Muslims Echoes a Dark Chapter in German History"
By Richard E. Frankel, History News
Network, posted November 29
The author teaches German history at the
University of Louisiana Lafayette.
"Who
Wants the Iran Deal Canceled?"
By Richard Lachmann,
Michael Schwartz, and Kevin Young, CounterPunch.org, posted November 27
Kevin Young teaches history at the University
of Massachusetts Amherst.
"The
Future of the American Empire"
Interview of Alfred McCoy by Nick Turse, The Nation, posted November 24
Alfred McCoy teaches history at the
University of Wisconsin.
By William J. Astore,
Bracing Views blog, posted November 13
The author, a retired Air Force lieutenant
colonel, taught history for fifteen years in military and civilian schools.
"How
Colonial Violence Came Home: The Ugly Truth of the First World War"
By Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian, posted November 10
"A
Short History of American Empire"
By Jeff Faux, Dissent, Fall 2017
issue
This is a review essay on Stephen Kinzer's book The True Flag:
Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of the American Empire.
________________
Thanks to an anonymous reader for suggesting several of the above
articles. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.
u.
The Coming War on China
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48355.htm
&
Journalist John Pilger on how the world's greatest military power, the US, may well be on the road to war with China.
by John Pilger
A major United States military build-up is under way in Asia and the Pacific with the purpose of confronting China, according to award-winning journalist John Pilger. Nuclear war is no longer unthinkable.
In his film, The Coming War on China, Pilger warns that the world's greatest military power, the US, and the world's second economic power, China, may well be on the road to war.