United Kingdom

It’s Never Been More Important To Ask What’s Wrong With Work

The capitalist class regards us all as nothing more than thieving scroungers, ever ready to skive if we are given half a chance. And it is not the payment of benefits that really irks the rich – it is the refusal to put our human capital – our minds and bodies – into their service that enrages them. How dare we not work to fatten their wallets.

Corbyn And The End Of Time – The ‘Crisis Of Democracy’

On and on, the establishment press has attacked an obviously authentic representative of Labour values as the ultimate threat to Labour values. On and on, the alleged concern has been to save the Labour party from itself, to protect its electability, to defend democracy. Much of this ‘concern’ has been expressed by sworn enemies of the Labour party.

Refugees Welcome Here!

Successive British governments have spent billions on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, plus on covert intervention in Syria. The outcome has been destruction of infrastructure across the Middle East, the growth of terrorism in the region, and the displacement of millions.

Corbyn and challenges to political power

By the time politicians reach Westminster, they do not need to be recruited to a cabal. They have simply proven over a long period that they have a strong ideological fit with the institutions that govern us. If not, their careers would have stalled much earlier, in the lower rungs of these institutions, or they would have “dropped out”. The same processes select those who fill top posts in the media and other influential “professions”.

The Russian army is beginning to engage in Syria

A profound and significant change has just occurred in the Levant – the Russian army has begun to engage against terrorism in Syria. Although Russia has been absent from the international scene since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and although it is moving with care, it has just created a Russo-Syrian Commission, has begun supplying weapons, sharing intelligence, and sending advisers. All of this is more or less coordinated with the White House.

Western complicity in Yemen genocide met with media silence

What is happening in Yemen is truly a heinous crime against humanity committed by Western governments. It is an unspeakable crime. And that is why the Western media will not dare talk about it. The Western media are obliged to ignore, obfuscate and distort the shocking truth of what their governments are committing in Yemen.

This makes the Western media just as complicit in the appalling criminality.

‘Bullying’ – BBC Political Editor’s Bizarre Term For The Public Resisting The Establishment

[W]hen a senior journalist complains of ‘intimidation and bullying’ by the public, making comparison’s to ‘Vladimir Putin’s Russia’, the mind really boggles at the distortion of reality. Those were claims made by Robinson, the BBC’s outgoing political editor, using an appearance at the Edinburgh international book festival to settle a few scores.

Brave (miserable) new normal world

The era of central banks printing electronic cash in a QE free-for-all – cheap money directly boosting “market volatility” – may not be over, yet. Let’s see what happens this Thursday, when a symposium of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, will be examining what to do about “market volatility”.

Central banks absolutely love to drive up stock market prices for the benefit of the 0.0001 percent. So expect more delusion ahead. But be sure everything that’s solid melts into air. Including the neoliberal dream.

The Douma Market Attack: a Fabricated Pretext for Intervention?

It’s not about the dead, nor is it even really about Assad. It is about destroying Syria and achieving geopolitical objectives which have been thus far unattainable due to the stubborn resolve of Damascus and its military. Ultimately, this war is about remaking the Middle East, no matter how many bodies it takes. Sadly, the dead of Douma are little more than tinder to those desperate to set Syria and the region ablaze.

Propaganda, Intelligence and MH-17

If the U.S. government’s hope was that the combination of Kerry’s hasty judgment and the DNI’s supportive “Government Assessment” would pin the P.R. blame for MH-17 on Putin and Russia, the gambit clearly worked. The U.S. had imposed serious economic sanctions on Russia the day before the shoot-down – but the Europeans were hesitant. Yet, in the MH-17 aftermath, both U.S. and European media were filled with outrage against Putin for supposedly murdering 298 innocents.