

Friday, September 18, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, Sept. 18, 2020

Notably, the “solutions” offered to many of the health-care institutions that have been hacked have come from government-promoted yet opaque groups that are deeply tied to US and allied intelligence agencies as well as Silicon Valley. These “volunteer groups,” such as “the CTI League” and “the Cyber Alliance to Defend Our Healthcare,” offer their services for free but, notably, gain access to the patient data they are tasked with guarding. Are such groups, given their deep ties to Silicon Valley and intelligence agencies, helping acquire even more data to satisfy the Silicon Valley and national-security state’s endless hunger for more and more data?
  • The Library of Alexandria is on Fire featuring James Corbett of The Corbett Report. (Note: It is obvious that most of human knowledge has been either transferred onto the internet or nowadays accessed only on the internet. But this presents special important problems if the gateways to access this information are "owned" and/or controlled by powerful privately owned entities. Under capitalism these entities are corporations. After his introduction by Richard Gage, founder and president of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Corbett develops an important argument that under the internet corporations, owners of search engines and social media which provide access to information (like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) can "burn", or make hard to find, or alter completely (Tower of Babel), information. He uses the burning of the Alexandria Library in 48 BC by Roman troops as a metaphor for the censorship of knowledge that powerful capitalist ruling classes of today do not like (the persecution of Julian Assange is a prime example of a supplier of forbidden information). He cites a number of examples of this growing trend by internet corporations, and offers sound advice to others on how to preserve real information under existing conditions.)

Thursday, September 17, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020

  • Is There A Flu Shot / COVID Link? – Questions For Corbett featuring Canadian James Corbett (who lives in Japan) from his website. (Note: This post was inspired by a personal experience that I had last November. I received the flu shot in early November and I came down with the flu a day or two later. This was a shocking experience for me because it was unprecedented of getting flu shots in the last 30 years. If I came done with flu, it was always in the spring of the following year. I am otherwise a very healthy 84 year old (83 last year), and haven't come down with covid-19, but I've wondered about this strange happening ever since. This post offers some correlations and research studies that suggests there may be a link between getting flu shots and covid-19 illness.)   

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020

It looks like Raevsky (and PCR--Paul Craig Roberts) has fallen for the chaos strategy (see my first post on September 4). I think the dominant section of the ruling class is using the strategy to stir-up more chaos, but they have no intention of following through with their threats. Let me explain. 
The capitalist ruling class, or the dominant section of it which now consists of big financiers, deeply resents this upstart as president, but they value their acquisition of wealth more. Their wealth depends on corporate profits so that the latter can pay back the loans that financiers (via The Fed) have so generously supplied them with. This more realistic scenario needs stability, and chaos following the election cannot ensure that. Thus, they will accept the election results even though Trump is the winner--unless they have gone stark raving mad, which is unlikely--but this result is looking more doubtful as we approach the November elections. During the first four years of his administration the dominant section of the ruling class demonstrated that they can work with Trump to accomplish many of their goals.
Of course, for ordinary people the choice is, and has always been under capitalist rule, between the lesser of two evils. Why choose? Simply withhold your vote entirely from either presidential candidate and all of the candidates sponsored by the two parties. The only real solution is revolution!
  • Unipolar Spin: Why Imperial Leftists Vilify Russia’s Social Democracy by Joaquin Flores from Strategic Culture Foundutation. (Note: There is one glaring typographical error in this essay: the phrase "only to hand it to Moscow for now particular reason." should read "only to hand it to Moscow for no particular reason.")  My reaction: I don't agree with all of his arguments blaming anarchists and pseudo-leftists for the misinformation about Russia, but I totally agree with his description of Russia, the influence of money that has corrupted journalists over the years, and the CIA's infiltration and subsequent control of media corporations. The CIA left journalists with two choices: either you parrot our line and you enjoy a comfortable standard of living (including financing a family) or you earn substandard wages (and not having the resources to raise a family) working for an alternative and independent media organization. This is a very challenging choice to make!

Unfortunately, I didn't finish all of the approximately 50 websites I peruse each morning, but this selection is all I have the energy and time for.

Monday, September 14, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Monday, Sept. 14, 2020

The film, Social Dilemma, a production by Netflix corporation, begins with an opening quote by Sophocles "Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse." and ends with the statement "Let's have a conversation about fixing it.". Nothing in between in the more than 133 minutes of the film addresses the fundamental and critical problem that needs to be "fixed" (or replaced)--capitalism. Various technology experts in the film casually mention that the present technology of social media serves to persuade people to buy products, for ulterior political aims, and to manipulate people to create more profits for the giant technology corporations. But that's it. They obviously cannot connect these effects to the system of capitalism.
Throughout the film we follow the life of a social media addict and his behaviors that are affected by this addiction. But, mostly he does like most addicts do: succumb to his addiction by being distant from his family, inattention at school, and poor self-esteem. The film provides disturbing information that social media corporations like Facebook, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. are causing, and the many adverse effects on mostly young people: increasing suicide rates among young users, poor performance at school, deleterious effects on family cohesion, etc.

The message is clear for the audience of the film: technology is the problem and those who have created it need to fix it. These technologists recommend a few specific fixes such as greater regulation of social media corporations, parents limiting the time allowed for young people to use social media, etc., but nothing related to the underlying system of capitalism.

To be sure, not only social media has caused serious problems, but the whole internet technology as directed by capitalist bosses has caused serious problems. What these technologist-speakers fail to uncover is the man-made system of capitalism that has brought this "curse" to societies, instead the film focuses on the devastating effects of social media on mostly young people, and methods to "fix" them so that they can reduce the harmful effects.
These technologists-speakers are the perfect product of the ruling capitalist class whose control of every institution--education, media, entertainment, etc.--has ensured that they remain oblivious to the underlying system of capitalism that controls the use of social media to promote an increase profits of capitalists and their control of society.

Back in the 1980s technologists were initially fascinated with its promise to enrich people's lives by making access to information more convenient, connecting people instantly to friends and loved ones separated by hundreds of miles, and managing their daily affairs so conveniently. They initially saw this technology as simply "so cool" to be involved with. In the early years, they accomplished much and the future looked promising.

However, the ruling capitalist class began to see that this technology could be harnessed to reap greater profits, provide greater surveillance on potential troublemakers, and enable 24/7 propaganda to ensure that their subjects receive the “right” information about what was happening in the world. They slowly, but deliberately, set about to develop this technology to serve these interests, and Silicon Valley took off. Now that they have introduced artificial intelligence (AI) to radically increase the harmful effects on young people, the effects of social media look frightening. 
Meanwhile, as social media technology developed, the ruling class continued the ongoing indoctrination of capitalist values and discouraged the belief that any other system was even possible. Thus, these former young innovative technologists, like all Americans, remained naively committed to capitalism as they got older. The indoctrination encouraged the belief that no other system was even possible. This film produced by Netflix corporation serves to ensure that these technology "fixers" and the general audience remain in ignorance.
  • America’s “Good” Wars by Alan Johnstone from Dissident Voice. (Although he uses little documentation to back up his history of WWII, he clearly knows his history. I have read widely about WWII and can verify his history of the war. This history is largely unknown to Americans because they have been so subject to the Empire's propaganda about this war, and all the other wars since.)

Sunday, September 13, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, Sept. 13, 2020

The essay barely skims the surface of what is wrong about journalism as practiced in mostly capitalist countries. The author's very treatment of this subject betrays his bias toward capitalism and the capitalist ruling class. His views are summed up in two sentences near the end of the essay: 
... journalists have power, the power and the money of the institution behind them. Assange has no institution behind him. Indeed, the institutions are all against him. A media which used him up has abandoned him.  

This begs the question of what kind of basic "institution [is] behind them" (the critics of Assange, that is, most journalists)? The fundamental institution behind most journalists is capitalism and the morality of capitalism that Margaret Thatcher, a total sociopath, revealed to the embarrassment of her masters in the ruling class:   

...there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.
Constrast this moral code with that of Caitlin Johnstone.

Upper-middle-class people who serve the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire are rewarded for on-the-job behaviors that supports the moral code illustrated by brainwashed Thatcher, but are unemployed if they behave according to Johnstone's moral code. Unfortunately, most journalists conform to their boss's expectations which conform to the ruling class's moral code because they need to protect their well-paid careers to support their families. Thus, all institutions (education, media, and entertained) controlled by capitalists insure their rule by indoctrinating their working classes according to capitalist morality.