Why Socialism isn't Allowed to Work - The Philippines 1940’s and 1950’s

More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Read these when I was a kid, saw the movie today. Read it again and it was better as a kid. But you know, I'm sure it would still be quite enjoyable to any young minds who would happen upon it today. 

I actually remember a few of the stories from this one, and I liked the stories in this book better than the first. They're just a bit longer and more ominous and less jump scary.

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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Read these when I was a kid, saw the movie today. Read it again and it was better as a kid. But you know, I'm sure it would still be quite enjoyable to any young minds who would happen upon it today.

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Why Socialism isn't Allowed to Work- Greece 1947-1950's

Understanding Marxism review

Understanding Marxism by Richard D. Wolff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Could not think of a better way to introduce someone into a critical analysis of capitalism and why we can and should do better as a species, and that's not even getting into climate catastrophe or the threat of nuclear war.

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Why Socialism Isn't Allowed to Work- Italy 1948

Jefferey Epstein

Video

Jefferey Epstein, teacher turned banker turned billionaire with a taste for young girls was found dead in his cell at the  HIGH SECURITY Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City . Epstein was one suicide watch after his previous suicide attempt 3 weeks ago, but was taken OFF suicide watch 12 days before his death on august 11th.
 President Donald Trump has retweeted conspiracies suggesting Bill and Hilary Clinton are responsible for his death. Found in Epstein’s flight logs were numerous mentions of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

 Trump has been quoted as saying: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life."

While Bill Clinton himself was on Epstein’s flight logs at least 26 times.

Current and former presidents aside, many powerful and wealthy people have been implicated in Epstein’s crimes.

On June 30, 2008, after Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge (one of two) of procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. While most convicted sex offenders in Florida are sent to state prison, Epstein was instead housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade and, according to the sheriff's Office, was after 3 and a half months allowed to leave the jail on "work release" for up to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. This contravened the sheriff's own policies requiring a maximum remaining sentence of 10 months and making sex offenders ineligible for the privilege. He was allowed to come and go outside of specified release hours. 

American officials across the political spectrum have demanded answers and investigations into Epstein's death.

Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr Saturday afternoon demanding the Department of Justice investigate Jeffrey Epstein's apparent suicide in jail. Sasse also called for those who allowed Epstein's death to occur under their watch to be fired.

“We need answers. Lots of them,” Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, tweeted.

 If nothing else, his life, death, crimes and unanswered questions are a perfect example of how wealthy powerful elites live in a different criminal justice system than the working class. 

Why Socialism isn't allowed to work- China 1945-1960's

Happy 4th of July, its a totally normal holiday.

That vague sense you have when you get off work every day that you have been ripped off, it's true, it's valid and it's real. You will never be paid what you produce or what the amount your labor produces. That difference in what you get paid versus the profits you helped make is your unpaid labor.


This is the nature of the system we live in. It doesn't matter if some employers are nicer than others, sometimes your boss may actually be a genuinely caring person. It does not matter.


One of the inherent contradictions of capitalism is that workers will never be treated fairly as long as they're answering to a private employer.


Happy Fourth of July, let's celebrate all of the young people who threw their lives away at the behest of a few rich people so they could get just a little bit richer.


I thought I was done but then I sneezed and I was like no, there's more to be said.


The Independence that today supposedly celebrates is a myth that's drilled into us the moment we enter school. Independence from what? British tyranny? Only to be replaced by American tyranny? What is that? Bullshit. It's that steaming pile of feces that Jeff Goldblum Marveled at in Jurassic Park.


The American revolution actually coincides perfectly with two things that happened, to put it simply the British were moving to limit Westward colonial expansion, to keep their promise to the natives, and they were also trying to abolish slavery, like most of the world had done, it's for these two reasons the American revolution even happened at all, to expand Westward on native land while at the same time continuing to expand slave ownership. The wealthy land speculators that make up our founding fathers at the time were rather honest in letters to each other that we just didn't happen to learn about in school.


But it's even more sinister than I've made it seem thus far, there was one more thing that weighed on the American ruling class, growing coalitions of slaves, natives and poor whites scared the hell out of the early founders. So a decision was made to include poor whites into the elite, in rhetoric only of course. But this solidified their power over the masses, with the working class completely fractured and pitted against one another, the capitalist's and they're so called property rights, which included people, were secure.


So when people say this country was founded on slavery and genocide, they aren't being edgy or rebellious, they're being truthful because if we don't understand this then there is no hope of changing the very fucked up foundations on top of which our society stands.


For example, we abolished slavery in the 1860's right? Yes, unless you're a prisoner. Read the thirteenth amendment. Then we wonder why they give nonviolent drug offenders time in double digits. The entire drug war was a reaction to civil rights and the new left, a Nixon administration aide said as much in the early 90s. This is what slavery evolved into because the entire premise of this country is predicted on cheap, if possible, slave labor.


Why have our jobs been shipped to China and Mexico, devastating what are now cold the industrialized towns, you know the ones in the rust belt that went over to Trump after voting for Obama twice in a row. Because the capitalists wanted to make more profits and American workers cost too much for them so they went with near or total slave labor overseas and abroad.


why are we bombing 9 countries and why are the military defense contractors making so much money off of it? This answer is actually to fold they make money selling the bombs to the government but they also serve a purpose to try and stamp out any kind of ambitions of a better life in the world's poor people- see the war in Vietnam for example.


When you trace back all of the problems in today's world with a common root of it all is profit-making by a small tiny minority of people who are taking all of the wealth, this is what capitalism is.


A better world is possible the world in which workers's democratically decide what to do with their labor and production process and that is the kind of world that the United States has been hell-bent on destroying since before it was even a country.


I really wish I knew the stuff when I was growing up, it would have made the world makes so much more sense instead of the complete drivel that we are spoon-fed.

Review: The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America

The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Grandin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The book can be summarized as followed: Because America has always been expanding, it has uniquely led us to where we are now. America is predicated on expansion and cheap labor. Because this continent was devoid of peoples with the means to defend themselves (comparatively) that led to a constant stream of expansion that diffused class and tensions and social injustice(s). When the expansion came to an end, the bad juju it was channeling outward now spills like water on a flat surface, spreading everywhere. The border has been militarized and often the obsession of nativist grievances be they from lost wars or gains in civil rights. The choice before us is clear, barbarism or socialism, or at least social democracy.

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White Supremacy

White Supremacy 

The rise of white nationalist attacks is becoming impossible to ignore. There is something that needs to be noted about white nationalism, white supremacy and all those who follow the basic premises of this ideology: this large umbrella of ideas is a pro capitalist ideology which is precisely why it’s growth is largely going uncontested by the federal government here in the United States. I can’t and won’t speak about how other governments around the world are dealing with or not dealing with white supremacy because I don’t know and its not my place. My place is here, the good ol’ US of A. 

Okay, so let's back track for a moment. What does it mean to be white? It’s not skin color, there are plenty people of fair skin who aren’t considered white. A really good example to illustrate this point is Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian activist who looks white as hell, technically speaking. 

So, if she isn’t considered white… then who exactly is white? I don’t really know. Irish people were not considered white when they first came to the United States. If you really dig into this stuff, as I have, you’ll see that the founding fathers (like the Nazis) only considered people of North European descent to be sufficiently white, so Italians, Eastern Europeans, people who aren’t of that Anglo-Saxon descent but still have white skin, sorry. 

Skin color is not enough to be considered white. Sometimes even northern Europeans (Irish) aren’t even white! This is kind of weird, isn’t it? When we take all of the facts into account one thing becomes clear: Whiteness is based on exclusion. If you got it, oh baby you got it! If you don’t, well, that’s unfortunate. Go fuck yourself. One more thing I want to note about whiteness, is that once it becomes mixed with any other race, it ceases to be white. For example, look at this handsome fellow: 

Obama is half white. Only one of his parents is black. But no one ever mentions that. So when we take that into account as well, we see what Whiteness is, a non racialized race. You see, my dear chum, my precious audience, you wonderful person wasting your time reading this, Whiteness was a concept made by colonial Europeans, probably, at least in part, to separate themselves from the black and brown and asian people they were raping and exploiting and pillaging and killing. 

Theres actually a deep mythology to all of this that was rampant among the founding fathers and wealthy whites world wide, and it goes something like this:

What we currently know as Anglo-Saxons started somewhere in Iran and moved west, conquering everything, from there to northern Europe, from northern Europe to Great Britain from Great Britain to the New world, from the new world to Hawaii, from there to the Philippines, and from there, Theodore Roosevelt said that the Japanese were white enough, they could be honorary whites and they could move into China and Asia. The overarching idea is just moving and conquering west until a complete circle is made around the globe. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the idea time for Anglo-Saxons was from the 8th century before they were poisoned and muddied up by other races, for some reason, a totally not racist reason, Jefferson thought this time period was when anglo-saxons “had the best laws.” This is a dominant ideology that runs very deep in our culture and history. Funnily enough Benjamin Franklin said that the Germans were "too swarthy" to be considered Anglo-Saxons. 

White supremacy is as American as the constitution, apple pie and Apple. Our treatment of native Americans and blacks and Chinese people actually inspired Hitler. He wrote about that in Mein Kampf. There was a 20,000 person Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden just 7 months before WWII broke out in 1939! Imagine the amount of people in the country that were sympathetic to these views, if 20,000 showed up to an actual, factual Nazi rally.  

So we’re clear, that racism and the idea of a mythical superior white race is deeply embedded in our society, the founding fathers were all about white supremacy, they were into that shit, hardcore. So much so, that the American revolution, was really a kind of counter revolution against poor whites, blacks, and native Americans whom against the propertied class were fearing a wide scale coalition emerging from those groups, if they were united.

They dealt with this largely by expanding west and directing the socioeconomic problems and anger to the idea of “free land.” Which is a nice way of saying “don’t do anything about wealth inequality by expanding democracy, just move west, kill some natives and take some slaves with you so you can one day hope to be as rich as us, you peasant swine.” 

But I think I’ve made my point, there is a very real historical context to white supremacism today. White supremacy has been a very useful tool for the wealthy, propertied class of the U.S. to use against working class white's best interest by pitting them against native Americans and enslaved blacks. These things run through all the way to today. The idea of whiteness has expanded to pretty much include anyone with white skin and European descent. (sorry Albino Africans, your day will come). And the key thing about this “expanded whiteness” is that it’s totally inline with the development and growth of capitalism, it is almost exactly like the American dream; a false promise of “Hey! You can get rich too! Just work harder you lazy fuck!” That idea has been fed to working class whites for some odd 400 years now in this country. 

So now, the chickens are coming home to roost, play video games, whatever chickens do, and it’s taking the shape of mass shootings, acts of terror, and Pepe the frog memes. Why?

This question doesn’t have a simple answer, But I do have a list of answers: 

1. Modern day white supremacy and it’s many acts of terror are what we can call “blowback” from the various wars the U.S. has started since WWII.
2. White supremacists have been organizing these lone wolf type attacks since the birth of the Internet. These groups want their movement to look like it's just a bunch of people with nothing in common so as to mask their overarching goal of a white ethnic state because the federal government just isn't genocidal enough for them. 
3. As the new deal fell into disarray from a concentrated counterattack from the business community and labor got smashed on every front, it created the material conditions for people to ask “why is my shit fucked?” For some people, they actually get the answer to that right, for a lot of white people, they’re raised in very racist environments that either explicitly or implicitly reinforce white supremacy. 
4. As we discussed in the beginning, capital is perfectly fine and willing and able to pit people against each other so that capital can continue to accumulate (the rich run out the back while they tell the white worker that the slave is after their wife or whatever nonsense).
5. Because the “white working class” is caught in an illusion (the American Dream) they largely* can’t or won’t turn to radical politics to solve their “why is my shit fucked?” problem. And this is exactly what the capitalist class wants. 
6. Pepe Frog memes and any piece of pop-culture that white nationalists use to spread their ideology often start as a "joke" until it isn't a joke. "Ironic racism," the idea of saying horribly racist stuff ironically because of course we don't really believe that....right? So we can say it as a joke, haha... but really, the jews are controlling the world. It's a tactic of wedging your ideas into the public conversation (whether its on reddit, facebook, 4chan etc) and it is actually really effective. 

Despite the obvious danger and historical lessons to be learned from this, the actual owners (of the means of production, the capitalist class) of the country do not really care, so long as the status quo is upheld, ie extreme wealth concentrated into a few hands. 

This entire post could be summarized with: White supremacy is getting worse because capital is sucking more and more wealth from the working class, making a large section of them turn desperate and looking for answers, usually on the internet, it's 2019. And because white supremacy as an ideology doesn’t threaten capitalism, nay, it reinforces it. Nothing too serious will be done about it. Similarly, the wealthy Germans and other foreign capitalists (American, British, French, etc) were all fine and dandy doing business with the Nazi’s despite their clear disdain for all of the "lesser races" because it was good business. 

Unlike, say, the Black Panthers for instance. They weren’t going to fight capitalism with their own black capitalism, they were going to fight it with socialism. They did, and they were brutally repressed and jailed and killed. The head of the FBI at the time, Hoover, even said “The, Black Panther party represents the greatest threat among the black extremist groups to the internal security of the United States” and that is true. If your idea of America is (in my view, accurately) a small number of extremely wealthy people exploiting everyone else for the sake of profit. 

This is why it’s important to understand the distinction between White Nationalism and other forms of nationalism that are a response to white supremacy, like Black nationalism for example. Black nationalism doesn’t call for the extermination of whites, even in its most extreme variants, its an all black state free from white skinned individuals. Most of the groups that were promoting and talking about black nationalism were and are about black unification against racism. Some of these forms of nationalism actually did make a call to “fight capitalism with black capitalism.” And guess what? These forms of black nationalism were largely accepted by the American Ruling Class. Groups and people that made this critical analysis of capitalism, the mode of production being the root of oppressed people’s oppression, those are that the people that were killed and silenced.  

Racism was born out of capitalism to ensure its own survival. That continues to be its main role to this day. That is why even now, white supremacy isn't being taken seriously by most of the federal government. The federal government's main purpose, especially the various law enforcement agencies from local all the way to federal level, is to maintain capitalism, even if that means embracing white nationalism. 

Review: The Conquest of Bread

The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Although this book was written in 1892, many concepts and "truisms" ring true to this day. How production is kept artificially low so as to keep high prices, what reorganizing production for human need rather than profit might look like and so on. Peter, using the information he had in his time did a brilliant job of dismantling conservative and right wing talking points. For example, he calculated how much work people from that era would need to do to survive and live comfortably. Not surprisingly this turned out to be way lower than simply working for capitalists and enriching them (5 hours vs 12-14 hours). All in all, a great book for anyone curious about Anarchism and what it really means to start doing things based off human need instead of profits.

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A True Story of the Future by Jacobin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lots of focus on electoral politics and the hurdles left wing candidates will face, but also what they could do once in office. I think most of the articles we're pretty interesting, I think this is also the first time I've read a magazine cover to cover. So, there's that.

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Review: The Ghost of Karl Marx

The Ghost of Karl Marx by Ronan de Calan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jeez, even in a kid's book, Marx work is a bit dense (for kids I mean). That being said, a wonderful introduction into radical thinking that we will all need to practice if we wish to build a better world. Read it to your kids, give it to your "sleeping" coworkers, and wake them, for the time is nigh and revolution is in the air.

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Review: Marx's Capital: An Illustrated Introduction

Marx's Capital: An Illustrated Introduction by David N. Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A lovely summary of Capital that is exactly what people in our dumbed down society need. All of the major points of Capital are covered, and while even this version can get a bit dense when describing surplus value and variable capital for example, on the whole it's a very straightforward no nonsense accessible intro into what is the by far and away the most comprehensive critique of capitalism that exists. I seriously think we need to make this particular companion to Capital required reading among the fast food joints, restaurants, retail places and any other major service job industries that make up the bulk of jobs in the U.S. I think we could have a lot of worker cohesion... consider getting this if you work in a major chain store like WalMart or McDonalds, and share it with your coworkers, form unions, and unite!

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A quick reaction from Storming the wall: climate change, migration and Homeland security

An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security, the name of the report by peter Swartz and Doug Randall for the Pentagon in 2003:

"the United States and Australia are likely to build defensive fortresses around their country is because they have the resources and reserves to achieve self-sufficiency. With diverse growing climates, wealth, technology and an abundance of resources the United States can likely survive shortened growing cycles and harsh weather conditions without catastrophic losses. Borders will be strengthened around the country to hold back unwanted starving immigrants from the Caribbean islands (an especially severe problem) Mexico and South America."

since that report the United States has doubled its number of armed patrol agents. And it has added over 650 miles of walls and barriers along the US Mexico border. Furthermore this trend is worldwide, at the time of the Berlin Wall falling in 1988 there was a 16 border fences on the planet, today there are over 70 and the number has sharply increased after 9/11.

So this is where the ruling class is at, this is how they're dealing with climate change they're not having a green New Deal, they're laying the foundations for a fascistic 1984 type dystopian Society that has militarized borders and police to deal with refugees from climate catastrophes.

This is why it is imperative on leftists everywhere especially those of us in first World societies to put forward, educate agitate and organize alternative solutions, like a green New deal to this gross expansion of power by the ruling class in the government and private sector. It's quite literally socialism or barbarism.

Bad News from Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting by Alan Macleod
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

an absolute must read especially given the current state of affairs in Venezuela and the US ratcheting up it's coup attempt.

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Narrative of the life of frederick douglass an american slave by Ferederick douglass
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Knowing that slavery is wrong, and reading a first hand account of it are two very different things. This is the first time I've read what slavery was like in the first person and at times my eyes became misty just picturing the utter horror of what Fred went through. The fact that this was going on not even 170 years ago, as a totally normal and accepted thing... Well it certainly explains how racism has been passed down through generations, this kind of thing doesn't just go away because the practice of chattel slavery stops. Right after the civil war, the klan appeared all over the south to persecute recently freed slaves and in many cases the klan members were a part of the local police! This is the history of the southern states and as a person who has grown up and live in a southern state, I'm disgusted and appalled that humans treated their fellow human this way. If you ever hear someone say that slavery was just 170 years ago and it has no bearing on present day life, have them read this book.

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Review: Fighting Fascism: How to Struggle and How to Win

Fighting Fascism: How to Struggle and How to Win by Clara Zetkin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is incredible how relevant this text is today nearly 100 years later in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession. Zetkin had an all hands on deck approach to combating fascism from organizing labor to disseminating propaganda to leaning on parliament with as many people that could be mustered. As an American in the year 2019 living under the Trump regime in a declining empire, I found this book really, almost eerily insightful, I think you will too.

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Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance by Bernie Sanders
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's always refreshing to read the writing of someone from the political class who is grounded in reality. The title of the book is a little misleading, it really should have been titled what Bernie Sanders has been doing since the 2016 election. Which is pretty much the entire book, if you've watched a stump speech of his from the 2016 campaign you get an idea of what he has been up to in this book. All that being said it's definitely still worth your time and it might be a good gift for someone who is just Awakening in to the political process.

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Just noticed there was an option to link my goodreads account and my blogger account. This is happening.

Worker Cooperatives and Revolution: History and Possibilities in the United States by Chris Wright
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A wonderfully detailed breakdown of work coop's, what they are, their history, and how they will be essential in moving toward a post capitalist society. Also a nice balance of real world praxis and theory with a lovely revision of Marxism which I think makes sense, its pretty much what most modern lefties think about Marxism, that it less of a state seizing vanguard party (using both meanings of the word party there, heh) and more of a "do all the above" approach. Worker Coop's need to be active politically and show solidarity with every an any leftwing movement. Chris' logic is sound, read this book, grow your brain wrinkles.

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The Attacks on Bernie Are getting absurd, they will only get absurder

Okay, I didn't know absurder was actually a word.

But it seems like the major outlets are cranking out the Bernie is sexist, Bernie already won because his policies are now mainstream so there's no need for him to run! Bernie is this! Bernie is that! He's too old but Biden isn't!

It's seriously insane if you don't exist inside the establishment bubbles. These attacks don't even make any sense. Lets break them down one by one:

Bernie is sexist.  Says the New York Times. Okay they didn't actually say that but they heavily implied it, the headline and photo they used set the tone of the article. But we're talking about a guy who has been arrested multiple times and at least once that I know of for chaining himself to black women.

Debunked! 

Okay, next: Bernie doesn't need to run because everyone already adopted his policies. This is one is especially shallow. Its thinner than gift wrap with an eating disorder. To believe this argument, you have to also believe that Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, and everyone (first time I've used my own page as a source, boy that feels good)  that isn't Elizabeth Warren are better than their actual voting records and campaign finance records suggest. Everyone that the mainstream is encouraging, Biden, Beto, Harris, Booker, and so on, everyone that isn't Bernie or Warren, simply ask yourself why the New York Times or CNN or MSNBC is supporting those candidates. Because they will play ball with the democratic donors. That's it. Its not complicated. Sanders and to a lesser extent Warren threaten the power structure that has made so many people so undeservedly rich and powerful and they would prefer that a democratic socialist with a wonderful haircut doesn't stop that gravy train. 

Debunked! 

I haven't seen a Bernie is too old article in a while, but trust me its going to happen. The people writing these articles are so far up their own ass (or bubble, whichever floats your goat) they can't see that Bernie is by far the most popular politician in the country (because of his policies) with the most name recognition. If you want to understand why the media is doing this, read Manufacturing Consent. The mainstream media are not watch dogs to power, they're lap dogs. 

If there is one argument for why Bernie shouldn't run that actually makes sense, its because Warren has already thrown her hat in the race and it will split the progressive vote. Other than that, its all hogwash. 

Being a Rogue Nation has drawbacks, increasing number of countries looking to drop the Dollar.

Today I actually just want to focus on one article from popularresistance.org.

TOP 5 COUNTRIES OPTING TO DITCH US DOLLAR & THE REASONS BEHIND THEIR MOVE

I'm not going to go into the list of countries or their motives. But what I want to do is highlight why this is a huge deal, for quite literally everyone alive. But first, to understand that, we must first understand the nature of the dollar as the worlds currency.

You see, when a man loves a woman, and both have 10 minutes left on their respective lunch breaks...

I mean, when a country loves oil and they have the worlds largest most powerful military with the good ol' "if we can't rule the world, no one can!" nuclear arsenal as the ultimate fallback plan... it leads to one nation having an untold empire with vast amounts of wealth and power.

Enter: the petrodollar. What is a petrodollar you might ask? Well, even if you didn't ask, and I know you didn't because thats a pumpkin spice latte in your hand and I know that shit is too good to be drinking and pay attention to what some jerk-wad on the internet thinks.

But anyway, the petrodollar is simply put: any U.S. dollar that is used to pay oil exporting countries in exchange for oil.

The U.S. history with Saudi Arabia goes back about a century but it doesn't look like what it does today until after WWII when U.S. planners  called the oil in the region “a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history”. 

In the 1970's the relationship between the two governments (read: ruling classes) became even more intertwined when President "not a crook" Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. 

Essentially, the dollar is hinged on global oil trade. As I pointed out above, many nations are doing what they can to circumvent this. I don't really know how the U.S. will react to this, my guess is with unnecessary force and war.  The only thing that is certain is that the world order is shifting and its largely due to U.S. actions since it took the imperial mantle in 1945.

Nancy Pelosi enacting paygo, telling people who give a damn to fuck themselves.

In case you weren't aware, Nancy Pelosi, in her infinite wisdom has said and is now following through with her plan to institute "paygo" which is the practice of the government not spending more money than it takes in. Which means no big government deficit spending for programs that would help the vast majority of Americans. It's an outdated notion that flies in the face of modern monetary theory as well as anyone looking to use the powers of congress for good instead of greed. This is a move intended to stifle the left once again. It would be near impossible to get medicare for all, or college for all, or most importantly a green new deal. I mean, if it were me in congress I would say okay, but we're cutting the military budget by however much we need to fund a green new deal, medicare for all and so on. 

But taking even a cent from the military industrial complex is a big no-no. Unbelievably, the generals want even more money because they want to be able to "counter Russia and China" They need every last copper coin to kill people who make the equivalent of 200 copper coins a day. There was some writer dude who wrote a book that explained why empires wage war... if only I could...

"The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact." -George Orwell, 1984

But back to contemporary American politics (god help us all) Nancy is nearing the end of her life, what does it mater if she doesn't fight for her voting constituents? Who cares if the planet is spiraling into a death cycle as late stage capitalism is stoking the flames of fascism across the globe write large? Not Nancy Pelosi, she'll be free of this mortal coil soon enough. As Pelosi stated very clearly last year when asked if she thinks the Democrats should move towards socialism because more than half of millennials are sick of this hell zone:

"We're capitalist's that's just the way it is." - Nancy Pelosi

As we can see, that really sums up everything wrong with the democratic party. We can't tackle climate change, or health care, or endless war when at the end of the day everything is being done for profit and not for human needs. Its going to take massive amounts of people pressuring the democratic party and their donors with demonstrations and walk outs and strikes if we want to see anything but Mad Max as a future.

We have a few super Stars in congress on our side, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ro Khana, Bernie Sanders, and about ten more blessed souls who we will need in our struggle against the forces of capital. But we're always going to be outnumbered in congress as long as money controls the system, that's why its ultimately going to fall upon us ordinary folk to do anything.

 Call your representative, demand that paygo go the way of the dodo-bird, careening off a cliff into the loving embrace of extinction.

The Media's framing of Fascist Bolsanaro and what we can learn from it

Its no secret that the United States has and does and will continue to meddle in other countries elections and it will do so as long as it is able. So right off the bat, when I say that Brazil's election has the CIA finger prints on it, know that there is historical (hell, even contemporary evidence show that this is the truth. It must also be known before we get into what I want to talk about, that Lula (head of the PT party) is a political prisoner. In fact, he is the worlds "most prominent political prisoner" as Noam Chomsky has rightly pointed out. The circumstances of his arrest and imprisonment make this abundantly clear, click on the links above if you think that the "corruption scandal" has any merit.

Jair Bolsonaro is a fascist. That is a pretty tame assessment of his character and rhetoric, if you don't work for the mainstream media. He has promised to sell off the Amazon forest to the highest bidder (that thing thats going to be extremely important in sucking carbon out of the air, thus averting planetary extinction), has expressed disdain for anyone even remotely marginalized, gays, indigenous people, blacks, you name it, Jair has shat in their faces. I source the hell out of these posts because I don't want people to take my word for anything, click the links if you think anything I say on this page sounds whack, find out for yourself.

So that's the background that today's inauguration has happened, the CIA worked with Brazil's ruling elite to elect and fascist after the head of the worker party (the only person in the country who could have realistically beat Jair in an election)  was imprisoned on completely inane charges.  So surely our free and independent media™ in the West shine a light on all of this so people can make rational and informed assessments on the matter.

Sorry I was laughing so hard, I had to stifle myself before I could continue.

So no, of course that's not how things work. The media is falling over themselves to paint Bolsanaro in the least negative light possible because he's their boy. This is an all to common pattern in United States foreign policy. Crush the left anywhere and everywhere by any means necessary and work with fascists to prevent even mild reforms that benefit the working class.

Here are some headlines today about the inauguration:

Bolsonaro: Brazil 'liberated from socialism' with him in power -Reuters

Bolsonaro sworn in as Brazil's president on wave of conservative enthusiasm- The Guardian 

Right-Wing Populist Jair Bolsonaro Sworn In As President Of Brazil- NPR 

And the one that made my blood boil, that made me want to write about this today. Dare I say, that this NEWS made me OUTRAGED (couldn't resist)

Trump praises Brazil's new President Bolsonaro after he vowed to 'strengthen democracy'- CNBC

Now that's just fucking peachy. Seriously. CNBC just running that headline is infuriating, but more importantly, its predictable. This is how power works. The bottom line here is that Jair is going to play nice with U.S. based multinational corporations (that's a nice way of saying he will gladly let a small number of people completely destroy the country and rape the land and people for the profit of the aforementioned small number of people) so the media sees fit to paint this bastard with the most flattering array of colors that they can muster from their shitty little pallets.

This is why its so goddamn important that we use and support independent media. Corporate media will doom us all into a fiery oblivion if it means they can profit from it.

If you want an accurate picture of want Bolsonaro's inauguration really means for the future of Brazilians and really the world writ large, because of the amazon forest- and I'm going to quote one of my favorite authors: "Imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever."