Socialism or Barbarism

"Socialism or barbarism" -- what does that mean? Authoritarian regimes will ultimately control all aspects of the political life of a country either with the velvet or the iron fist depending on the consciousness of the population of the country. Orban in Hungary is trying to be as controlling as the previous Communist government so the question for Hungary isn't will there be "democracy" but which class will control the levers of power. Previously the working class was in power and the bourgeoisie felt oppressed and the petty bourgeoisie was split. The leaders of the working class were unable to maintain their class hegemony and lost power and the bourgeoisie felt oppressed and the petty bourgeoisie was split. The leaders of the working class were unable to maintain their class hegemony and lost power to the bourgeois forces. Now the bourgeoisie is in power and the working class feels oppressed and the petty bourgeoisie is again split. Each class will try to control the courts, media, education and civil society so it is never a case of "democracy" versus "authoritarianism" but, if you are a hard-nosed realist it's "capitalist authoritarianism" versus "working-class authoritarianism" or, if you prefer, "bourgeois democracy*" versus "socialist democracy." Both class types share a limited amount of their power with the other class depending on the historical circumstances of the country involved but ultimately the working-class can exist without the capitalist class but the capitalist class cannot exist without the working-class. We all know which class is now controlling most of the world and that there is only one major world power where the working class is in power -- as Marxists we are, as it were, the super-ego of the working-class and are working for its ultimate victory over the capitalists. Marx and Engels thought the working class would ultimately win this class struggle but they also warned it could end with "the common ruin of the contending classes". That would be the triumph of barbarism; either socialism will eventually triumph or capitalism will destroy civilization as we know it (it is well on the way of doing so).

* In extremis the capitalists will dispense with the pretense of "democracy."

NYTIMES.COM

In Eastern Europe, U.S. Officials Talk Deals, Not Erosion of Democracy

Promoting weapons sales and isolation of Iran, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence did not speak out on the illiberal direction of some allies.

Conflict and Climate Change

"The conflict in Syria is one example." Bernie Sanders was ridiculed for pointing this out. Syria: Climate Change = Drought = food shortage = mass migrations to cities = economic dislocation = government has difficulty coping = US-backed opposition takes opportunity to revolt = government begins to put down revolt = US & allies fund revolt prolonging it = Russia sides with government = revolt fails (Putin the reincarnation of Hitler blamed) = US keeps conflict alive = millions killed and dispossessed = $$$$ made by US & allies arms manufactures who control corrupted governments. This story to be continued as climate change worsens and those who profit from it refuse to take action. The science of all this is explained in the attached article.

SCIENCEDAILY.COM

Climate change increases potential for conflict and violence

Images of extensive flooding or fire-ravaged communities help us see how climate change is accelerating the severity of natural disasters.…

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The Special Council and the Witch Hunt?"

“Yet Mr. Weissmann’s cryptic comments suggest that the special counsel’s investigation — which Mr. Trump has sought to dismiss as a witch hunt and which the acting attorney general, Matthew G. Whitaker, has said will wrap up soon — is still pursuing the central question of whether there was some kind of deal between Russia and the Trump campaign.” — in other words, after all this time, the investigation is still at sea regarding the “central question” which is exactly what one expects to find in a witch hunt — all hunt and no witch. The rest of the article is just innuendo, speculation, and cold war posturing over the annexation of the Crimea where Russia behaved with more concern for democratic forms that did Israel annexing a chunk of Syria or the NATO de facto annexing part of Serbia to set up a rump state, and fussing about Russian interference in our election which is nothing in comparison to our interference in Russia’s elections and internal affairs and those of other countries (i.e., Venezuela). Whatever monkeyshines Manafort and Kilimnik may have been up to is their responsibility but the attempt to turn this into a federal case smells like a political operation to thwart any attempts to improve relations with Russia and thus justify a reduction in the already inflated and wasted military spending the Pentagon, military contractors, and the CIA, etc., thrive on and seek to justify.

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NYTIMES.COM

In Closed Hearing, a Clue About ‘the Heart’ of Mueller’s Russia Inquiry

Prosecutors for the special counsel suggested plans discussed by Trump associates to address Russia’s conflict with Ukraine and the resulting sanctions remained at the center of the investigation.

Impeachment and the Supreme Court

The problem is not having a Supreme Court, but having one that could go against the will of the majority of the American people on vital democratic rights. For example, Trump, as well as Bush Jr., got to the presidency by flukes and they did not represent the choice of the American people. Trump especially represents a very conservative to ultra-right minority and has already appointed two Supreme Court justices who represent views out of sync with the general population and approach constitutional questions from an extremely undemocratic interpretive stance based on their personal political ideologies, this also applies to others on the court but more so to the so-called conservatives who reflect the minority sentiments of the population. Congress has the power to impeach a Supreme Court justice and should not be afraid to use this power to protect the democratic rights of the American people if it is determined a justice is violating his/her oath to defend the Constitution or that he/she lied or dissembled to Congress during confirmation hearings in order to be confirmed. There is prima facie evidence that Justice Thomas, for example, may have been guilty of lying to Congress about the Anita Hill affair and there is no reason a newly elected Congress cannot reopen hearings to determine if a previous Congress was lied to. Justices are not sacrosanct and the democratic rights of the American people are too valuable to be held hostage by a cabal of Justices operating to further the interests of a political party or partisan minority against the general will of the people.

NYTIMES.COM

In Surprise Abortion Vote, John Roberts Avoids ‘Jolt to the Legal System’

The chief justice, a student of legal rules governing precedent, balances guarding his court’s legitimacy against his generally conservative impulses.

Green New Deal

The resolution "focuses on the tenets of a progressive policy platform as much as it does on climate change. It is both a framework for a cleaner-energy future and a plan for a large-scale mobilization that would rival in scale and scope the progressive New Deal policies ushered in under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression. One of its goals is “to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth”." This is the first step now in a major effort to heal both the planet and our wretched social conditions; it involves a massive reform within the confines of the existing capitalist mode of production and the Republican retaliatory counterattack will be a media Blitzkrieg of red-baiting anti-socialist hysteria against the progressive agenda which, after all, is trying to save their system from a self-destructive Götterdämmerung! The struggle for a "Green New Deal" will reveal the structural inability of capitalism to subordinate the profit motive in the interests of humanity and finally force the masses of working people to embrace socialism.

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THEGUARDIAN.COM

Green New Deal: Ocasio-Cortez unveils bold plan to fight climate change

Blueprint for a carbon-neutral economy has been embraced by prominent Democrats and evokes FDR’s famous legacy

What is Racism? The UN definition of 1965 tells us.

This article is a case study of the behavior of racist governments and anyone who thinks that the UN rescinded its designation of Zionism as racism for any other reason than the pressure applied by the US government (itself an example of institutional racism) is sadly mistaken. ["The UN General Assembly based its 1975 anti-Zionist resolution on the UN’s own definition of racial discrimination, adopted in 1965. According to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, racial discrimination is “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.” "-- Counterpunch, November 5, 2003 "Zionism as Racist Ideology" by BILL CHRISTISON - KATHLEEN CHRISTISON]

Just as a matter of logic, as long as the word "any" is in the Convention how can Zionism escape inclusion in the definition of racial discrimination? Can anyone honestly say that Palestinians and Israeli Arabs have "equal footing" with Jewish citizens of Israel? US democracy is also racist as it does not treat minority people and the poor on an "equal footing" with the privileged white majority. We will never be rid of racism, if we are to be honest, until we have a society in which the principle of from each according to his/her ability to each according to his/her needs is actually practiced.

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NYTIMES.COM

As West Bank Violence Surges, Israel Is Silent on Attacks by Jews

Israel’s government has been reluctant to condemn attacks by Jewish settlers, wary of alienating the movement’s supporters in an election year.

Columbus Brings Christian Civilization to the New World

"The implications of the study go beyond climate science and also contribute to research in geography and history, Maslin [co-author of the study] said, noting that deaths of indigenous Americans directly contributed to the success of the European economy." The mass genocide [continuing in the Amazon to this day] of native Americans (56 million) is the foundation on which our present-day Capitalist (especially its American form) system rests. "Make America Great Again" is the outgrowth of the worst forms of this genocide which also produced modern forms of slavery, colonialism, and the warfare state the US has become with its pseudo-democracy and disdain for the peoples of the Third World whom it indiscriminately kills on a daily basis to feed its arms industry and thirst for world hegemony.

CNN.COM

European colonizers killed so many Native Americans that it changed the global climate

University College London researchers estimate that settlers killed 56 million indigenous people, causing farmland to be reforested. That increase in vegetation resulted in a massive decrease in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Is RT reliable versus US Main Stream Media?

Is RT reliable? It reflects the point of view of the Russian "Establishment' [RE] in the same way as the US media reflects the point of view of the US "Establishment" [USE]. On the issue of Venezuela, the RE supports non-intervention as it sees no way that it could benefit from the downfall of the present government. The USE wants to get rid of the present government because it sees many benefits to itself in regards to the direct exploitation of natural resources in the country.So, if there is a scale of 0 to 100, 0 being no benefit and 100 being fabulously great riches and power now at your disposal whether you trust the reporting of RT or the US media will be determined by where on that scale you find yourself (or you might think you would find yourself) plus your own value system when it's working. Since I find myself at 0 on the scale and I don't believe in war and killing people by my government just because the people who run it find themselves at 100 on the scale, I find RT, on this issue, more reliable than the mass media in the US. Most people are influenced by the mass media e.g., most Germans in 1938 supported their government's worldview on foreign issues, as do most Americans today (even with an idiosyncratic and perhaps mentally unstable president upsetting the bipartisan consensus) and that's why RT's slogan "QUESTION MORE" is better than that of the New York Times which implies it has done your thinking for you since it gives you "ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT."

RT.COM

‘Direct nexus between US sanctions & death’ – UN rapporteur slams ‘economic war’ on VenezuelaThe US is waging “economic war” against Venezuela and engaging in a coordinated effort to “demonize” President Nicolas Maduro, believes UN rapporteur to Venezuela and expert on international law Alfred de Zayas.