After characterizing the suspect in the Boston bombings as possessing “weapons of mass destruction”, the assault on logic by our political leadership dropped more deeply into the moral cesspool from which it derives its theory, practice and language. Continue reading
During the twentieth century near collapse of capitalism—the Great Depression—relatively enlightened forces of wealth initiated programs to prevent total breakdown and possible revolution. Among these was the origin in America of what already existed in Europe: a proposal to help elders from entering the poorhouse when they were no longer able to work. Known as “Social Security” it became one of the most popular of the New Deal programs of the FDR administration. Continue reading
After the tenth anniversary of the destruction of Iraq passed with the usual historic distortion and pieties from established power about the waste and rationalizations about why we had to do it, America’s bipartisan war party has even more loudly revived the same lies and logic perversion used to get support for that slaughter. Continue reading
Many still swallow the preposterous notion that the 1% and their finances are too big to fail while the 99% and their lives are too small to succeed. That’s always been the rationale of class division, whether between royalty and serfs, masters and slaves or at present between corporate capital and the rest of humanity. Continue reading
People demanding governmental change are not united in focusing on the political economics at the root of most global problems but they are moving in that direction. This shows that many can understand the situation, however strange it may seem. But that understanding does not transmit to much of what passes for global leadership. Continue reading
The Virgin birth. The Chosen people. The Resurrection of the dead. The Free Market. Which of those is unsupported by material evidence but exists by virtue of practice based on fervent, coerced, or simply uncritical belief and is thus subject to failure at any moment when the belief is shaken to its roots by experienced reality? All of them. Continue reading
As America develops newer deadly weapons to threaten more nations with its inspired movement for humanitarian democracy through rape and murder, our economy is supposedly headed for what an ad campaign has branded “the financial cliff.” Continue reading
The most expensive election campaign in American history ended with more good than bad results, given the choices allowed. Voters defeated the possibility of cancer, but were unable to cure the polio we still suffer. A reactionary effort to take us further back than we have already gone was mostly unsuccessful. But the advances made were smaller than some wishful thinkers suppose. We need radical change in substance and got nothing more than stylistic moderation in form. Continue reading
We are nearing the end of the billion dollar assault on consciousness that protects corporate power from the threat of democracy. It’s called the presidential race, or—in hysterical-get-out-the-vote fashion—the most important election since The Creation, or 911, or the last election. Continue reading
Plutarch wrote, “For at the very delivery of their money, they immediately ask it back, taking it up at the same moment they lay it down; and they let out that again to interest which they take for the use of what they have before lent.” Continue reading
The Virgin birth. The Chosen People. The resurrection of the dead. The free market. Continue reading
As Republicans stride in the direction of hardcore fascism and Democrats mince toward a soft-core police state, America endures a campaign with no substance allowed to interfere with corporate capital’s electoral show. Unless the Green Party attracts citizen attention by adhering to the substance of democratic ideals that contrast with the political pimping of the major parties, the people will face endless television mudslinging battles between political pornographers trying to entice them to vote for a lesser evil. As usual. Continue reading
An employee who had worked at Amalgamated Security Systems for twenty-five years and was slated to receive his pension in two weeks was accused of murdering his boss when he was threatened with being fired. Continue reading
The robber baron and the rock and roll poet expressed sentiments about the same social reality from radically different perspectives. Profit and Loss capitalism has enabled many recipients of crumbs from the banquet tables of the rich to enjoy the applied label of middle class given them by consciousness controllers in politics and media. But present realities find the religion, sex, TV and other consumer products less available to cloud minds and fill bodies under the delusion of equality and the cruel reality spoken of by the robber baron. That reality needs to be confronted by a united class and no longer tolerated by a divided humanity, now more so than ever. Continue reading
The social disease that is capital’s political economics has become more dangerous as global demands for real democracy and an end to majority servitude puts ruling regimes in a near frenzy. Power of the few over the many has never been more threatened than at the present moment and rulers are moved to even more crazed behavior than usual. It’s as if rats on a sinking ship were all suffering terminal illness but were armed with nuclear weapons and convinced that rodents were superior to all other life forms and must survive for the ship to remain afloat. Humanity needs to be more critical and militant than ever before because the dangers we face are more serious than ever before. Continue reading
Millions of global citizens agree with the young Spanish woman and the older American intellectual quoted above, most obviously many in Egypt and Wisconsin. Though the popular uprisings in that nation and that state are hopeful signs of democracy in the making, resort to the electoral process only proves the truth of their words. That process is owned and controlled by the entrenched state power of financial interests and until money is taken out of the supposedly democratic electoral process, it is indeed ultimately worthless. Continue reading
The unemployment rate in the USA is down to just over 8%. This is evidence that we are in a recovery from a recession. But that rate is actually higher than it was when this particular recession began. Continue reading
We hear and read that the economy is rebounding—again—and this during a multi-billion dollar presidential campaign. Gee. Threats of more foreign wars are also unrelated to politics, nor are the signs of mental and physical breakdowns in our military which shouldn’t worry anyone now that the economy is rebounding. Again. Unfortunately, the corporate perspective from which everything is looking so good still rules our consciousness but among many subjects of the system, critical thinking is advancing. Though sometimes very slowly, as when decent people are swept up in emotional tsunamis by a manipulation device called social media. Continue reading
Russia and China made up for their shameful conduct in the Libyan tragedy by vetoing the UN ploy to invade Syria, temporarily muffling those war drums. But the crazed drumbeat about Iran continues even though cooler heads argue against military action. This while they impose punishing sanctions on Iran in order to avoid diminished funds for Obama in an election year when American Jewish money is vital for the purchase of American Christian votes. Continue reading
America has finally developed a movement for social change that seems conscious of political economic divisions that transcend race, sex or other very serious but sometimes overstressed problems. That movement offers the only solution to the inequality which grows more glaring and unjust. Calls for the 99% to take control from the 1% at the top of the financial pyramid are threatening to that ruling minority, its agents from the upper levels of the 99%, and the totally misinformed from the bottom. Continue reading
The celebration of Martin Luther King day hopefully reminded us that his dream of a better world involved not only racial justice but “the masterfully cooperative venture of persons in which they realize the solidarity of the human family by assuming responsibility for one another.” Continue reading
As the Occupy Wall Street movement spread across the nation, mistakes and setbacks occurred which are minimal when compared to its success in calling attention to the private domination of America’s wealth by the upper 1% as a major cause of our social problems. Agents of that minority are feverishly at work, whether directly on the payroll or simply acting according to anti-social programming that teaches individualism, selfish egoism and the divisive identity politics that reduce the 99% to splintered minorities and assure continued domination by the richest 1%. Continue reading
What began in Tunisia and was dubbed an Arab Spring has spread to the rest of the world, seemingly for different reasons in different places but slowly becoming one vast movement toward democracy and the political economic transformation necessary for humanity’s survival. Continue reading
Whenever murmurs among the people indicate growing awareness that they are paying an exorbitant price in order to enrich a tiny minority, the terrified cry of “class war” is raised by the poor huddled masses of billionaires, millionaires and their corporate servants in politics and media. This contradicts the fictional notion that there are no classes in American society, that we are all “middle class” and, oh, a few unfortunates are poor but that’s only temporary. As soon as their investments pay off, they, too, will arrive at the exalted status of “middle.” That would be right after the Easter bunny delivers chocolate covered Tooth Fairies to all the little boys and girls. Continue reading
The breakdown of global economics dominated by capital is more apparent with each local crisis. Even Israel has seen Jewish citizens demonstrating against the inequality of what they think is their own economy, just as all over the world people are rising up against injustice seen as unique to their nations. Continue reading
When major media echoed Obama’s “winding down” military operations in Afghanistan it merely repeated Vietnam era lies . As that war became so costly that it could only be continued at bargain rates, the USA removed some of its troops and turned the major killing responsibility over to the Vietnamese. “Changing the color of the bodies” enabled mind managers to proclaim that hostilities were “winding down.” They actually continued for several more years until defeat was so imminent we were forced out before cracking the nation’s social and financial structure. Continue reading
America seemed to achieve a great victory when Obama was elected president, both overcoming its wretched racist history and sending a positive message to humanity. But if Malcolm were alive, he might point out that an African-American running the plantation for his masters does not change anything but the skin tone of the person serving those masters. Continue reading
Having sent one of its most lethal drone weapons to Libya in the person of Senator McCain, the U.S. more firmly established its murderous bias in a civil war it has promoted and possibly helped organize. Continue reading
The globalization process that began in the 15th century brought incredible material gains, spreading the advance of something called civilization. But a great majority suffered even while it seemed the world was developing to the ultimate benefit of all people. That process has peaked and is now descending so fast that it isn’t only threatening those who have paid for the material comforts enjoyed by a minority, the world is moving on a disastrous path under a privately controlled market force that menaces all humanity. Continue reading
The rationale for our latest foreign murder campaign is the ridiculous notion that because Muammar al-Gaddafi is an undemocratic semi-tyrant we have the right to interfere in the affairs of a nation which may very well soon be run by a full tyrant if and when Gaddafi is replaced. And then only by having the rebels assisted from outside Libya, if they hadn’t already been organized from outside Libya. Clearly, some Libyans hate his guts, but some love him, and as for those who hate him, how odd is it that a leader is hated by some of his people? Continue reading
When Israel slaughtered innocent Gazans our corporate controllers maintained relative silence, but cries of horror are regularly expressed at the violence in Libya. A disastrous No-Fly Zone would only increase the bloodshed, but even if it is avoided one thing seems clear, much of American leadership, its political opposition and sectors of the population are living in a No Brain Zone, sinking from normally appalling ignorance to an even more threatening near imbecility. Continue reading
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Everybody must get . . . straight!
Posted on May 23, 2013 by Frank Scott
The global condition can at any time be likened to the situation on the sinking Titanic with its crew re-arranging deck chairs and throw pillows as the ship continues to submerge. This analogy may not quite fit the present status of the global center, the USA. Here, the situation at a mental health crisis center under a full moon while suffering a shortage of powerful tranquilizers might seem pleasant by comparison. As always under profit and loss economics, increasing numbers face growing hardship bordering on absolute disaster while some enjoy ever more lavish splendor with their servant class living in relative if temporary comfort. Continue reading →