No Doubt

A central premise of conventional media wisdom has collapsed. On Thursday, both the New York Times and Politico published major articles reporting that Bernie Sanders really could win the Democratic presidential nomination. Such acknowledgments will add to the momentum of the Bernie 2020 campaign as the new year begins—but they foreshadow a massive escalation of anti-Sanders misinformation and invective.--NS

No doubt.  Fake leftists, pragmatists and women from 2016 are still out there, attacking Bernie and his supporters at every opportunity. A big bitch among the establishment Dems was Bernie's supposed insulting treatment of the super-delegates. Never mind they were card-carrying Clintonite/Wall Street capitalists.  I'm actually quite shocked that Clinton hasn't, to date, jumped into the fray.  I guess her desperation has finally run its course.

Hopefully.

Bernie or Liz has to win just to restore some sense of stability to the country.  Even Liz is shaky, but at least the women would have their day, finally. I'd be down with that.

Remember the ridiculous lineup of Republicans in '16?  That's what the Democrats look like today. Pete Butthead is the Jeb Bush of his Party. And Joe Biden is as dumb as Rick Perry, so there it is.


TS

Australia is Burning

Australia is on fire.


TS

Can We Talk?

Global finance capital has seized control of the economies of most nation-states. The citizens watch, helplessly, as money and goods are transferred with little regulation across borders. They watch as jobs in manufacturing and the professions are shipped to regions of the global south where most workers are paid a dollar or less an hour and receive no benefits. They watch as the taxes of the rich and corporations are slashed, often to zero. They watch as austerity programs dismantle or privatize utilities and basic social services, jacking up fees to consumers. They watch as chronic unemployment and underemployment devastate workers, especially the young. They watch as wages stagnate or decline, leaving working men and women with unsustainable debts. This economic tyranny lies at the root of the unrest in Hong Kong, India, Chile, France, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon as well as the rise of right-wing demagogues and false prophets such as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.--CH

Like Paul Street and many other left intellectuals, Chris Hedges is convinced that the only way to defeat the malignant cancer (power) of corporate neoliberalism, unleashed on the global populace since the end of World War II, and particularly since Reagan, is an actionable non-violent street mobilization of the masses.  Such movements have arose around the world already in recent months.

Where, wonder Street and Hedges, is the U.S. movement?  The faux "resistance" of mainline Democrats seeking to retake power from Donald Trump and Republicanism doesn't count. Voting itself, in the U.S. construct, cannot be depended on for anything more than a continuation of the ruses of false hope and change.

The age of trickery has to change via massive global protests--from the bottom up.


TS

Army/Navy Game Blues

The ultimate demonstration of U.S. militarism is made annually in the good old game of American football.  And of course, nothing is quite so emblematic of that as the Army v. Navy game.  It is the one game of the year that I, as a football connoisseur, find the most drab, boring, reprehensible, and disgusting spectacle ever invented for the edification of the common man.

There are many reasons why I despise this game, not the least of which it is that it is always ugly. It is ugly in its aesthetics, ugly in its style, and ugly in its blind worship of all things military.  (Well, of course it is, it is the Army/Navy game.)

Packed into the stadium at kickoff, the assembled future brass, and likely sprinkle of "sacrificed" officers--against the multitude of enlisted poor--cheered uproariously for the introduced U.S. near-dictator and fascist POTUS, Donald Trump. (If that doesn't convince you that this game is whacked out, nothing will.)

It causes one to ponder: perhaps former Army history professor Maj. (Ret.) Danny Sjursen should have built an outpost in his classroom and fought off  to the last soldier--Japanese-style--the invading generals who wanted him out now!

But, so much water under the bridges southeast of Normandy in 1944!

Speaking of the pro game (I didn't but you did under your breath). Here is a fantastic piece.  Read it.


TS

Pilger Visits Assange

I set out at dawn. Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh is in the flat hinterland of south east London, a ribbon of walls and wire with no horizon. At what is called the visitors centre, I surrendered my passport, wallet, credit cards, medical cards, money, phone, keys, comb, pen, paper.--JP

Degrading, disgusting, despicable; Assange as Her Majesty's political plaything.


TS