Prof. Richard D. Wolff On The Four Reasons Capitalism Is Imploding

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccq9lqyGpY0&ab_channel=act.tv

RICHARD WOLFF: THE DECLINING EMPIRE WITH CHRIS HEDGES

By Richard D. Wolff, Democracy at Work.

September 4, 2020
| RESISTANCE REPORT

https://popularresistance.org/richard-wolff-the-declining-empire-with-chris-hedges/




Economic Update is a @Democracy At Work production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads. Please consider supporting our work. Now more than ever, sharing Prof. Wolff’s message is critical.

On this week’s Economic Update, Prof. Wolff discusses the following: Denmark’s new taxes on banks and rich people to help workers doing dangerous jobs; West Virginia AG sues Walmart and CVS for complicity in opioid scandal; and US State Department urges universities to sell shares in Chinese corporations. On the second half of the show, Prof. Wolff interviews author and journalist Chris Hedges on signs of the declining US empire.

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THE STAGE IS SET FOR A VENEZUELA OCTOBER SURPRISE

By Leo Flores, Popular Resistance.

September 4, 2020

https://popularresistance.org/the-stage-is-set-for-a-venezuela-october-surprise/


The hybrid war against Venezuela is intensifying as the U.S. presidential campaign is heating up. The Trump administration and its Venezuelan and international allies have set the stage for an October surprise, a possible attack by the United States or one of its proxies designed to boost President Trump’s reelection. The attacks on Venezuela are coming from multiple dimensions, including overt military pressure, economic pressure, covert operations, and disinformation campaigns. All of these are elements of a hybrid war that has sought to overthrow the government of President Nicolás Maduro over the past years, and each element has seen new developments over the past few weeks, just as Venezuela is battling a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Overt Military Pressure

The US naval deployment to Venezuela’s maritime border is about to begin its fifth month of operations in the area. Even the few Democrats in Congress willing to criticize Trump’s Venezuela policy have said nothing about this deployment, perhaps because it is entirely normal for the United States to threaten war on a country and then dock its Navy right outside. The silence from Democrats is unfortunate, as this could easily have been used as an example of the Pentagon’s wastefulness. Deploying a massive “counter-narcotics” operation to the Caribbean, when 84% of the cocaine in the US transits through the Pacific, could be low-hanging fruit in the debate to cut military spending.

In Colombia, President Iván Duque met with National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and Head of U.S. Southern Command Craig Faller on August 18, where they announced the Colombia Growth Initiative, a multi-billion dollar plan that O’Brien says is “focused on rural development, infrastructure expansion, security, and the rule of law,” though the announcement was short on details. Two days after the visit with US officials, Duque baselessly accused Venezuela of trying to acquire medium and long-range missiles from Iran. Both Iran and Venezuela denied the allegations.

On August 27, a Colombian court authorized a US military unit to restart its “advising mission” after previously suspending such cooperation in light of a constitutional challenge with regards to the deployment of foreign troops on Colombian soil. This unit, a Special Forces Assistance Brigade, is designed to “build a professional military force.” It’s worth noting that in his tell-all book, former National Security Advisor John Bolton claims to have learned in February 2019 that Colombia’s “troops simply weren’t ready for conventional conflict with Maduro’s armed forces.”

Venezuela’s southern neighbor, Brazil, is also involved in the escalation. The Brazilian Air Force is holding military exercises between August 17 and September 4. The exercises, which were reported as training for non-conventional combat against insurgent or paramilitary forces, include Black Hawk helicopters and fighter jets.

Brazil and Colombia cooperate closely on military matters with the United States. In a July event in Miami, President Trump was introduced to Brigadier General Juan Carlos Correa of Colombia and Major General David of Brazil by Admiral Faller, who said the men “work for [him].” Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva expressed alarm that his country’s military “may be used for actions incompatible with constitutional principles of non-intervention and self-determination of peoples.”
Economic Pressure

On the economic front, the United States seized two tankers of fuel purchased by Venezuela on August 14. This brazen act of piracy didn’t get much attention in the mainstream media, but is part of the strategy to suffocate Venezuela’s economy, which is facing gasoline shortages due to the difficulty in importing necessary chemical additives and spare parts for refineries. Now, the Trump administration is considering ending a sanctions exemption of diesel-for-crude swaps that oil companies Reliance, Repsoil and Eni have been carrying out with Venezuela. Sanctions on diesel would have widespread impacts on Venezuela agriculture, transportation, health and energy industries. Trucks used for shipping food and buses that transport people both depend on diesel fuel. Hospitals throughout the country rely on backup diesel generators to weather erratic electricity supplies. In western Venezuela, diesel is commonly used in power plants for local electricity generation.

The diesel exemption is set to end in early November, and the Trump administration has told the companies to wind down such swaps, prompting criticism from prominent members of Venezuela’s opposition, including economist Francisco Rodríguez, who characterized it as a “clearly electoral measure” that “will cost lives.” Sanctions are becoming one of the main drivers of division within the opposition, as more and more opposition figures have begun to criticize them for not leading to regime change and for punishing ordinary Venezuelans.
Covert Operations And Criminal Disorder

Although we may never know the extent of U.S. involvement in the August 2018 assassination attempt on President Maduro, the March 2019 cyberattack on Venezuela’s power grid, or the May 2020 attempted incursion by two ex-Green Berets and other mercenaries, it would be disingenuous to think that U.S. intelligence agencies and special forces are sitting idle. In Venezuela, there’s growing concern that several crimes over the past weeks are part of a plot to sow chaos.

There is no way to confirm that theory, but it is not far-fetched. Military analyst Frank G. Hoffman states that hybrid war can “incorporate a range of different modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder [emphasis added].” An example of this occurred during the weekend of the May incursion, when there was an outbreak of gang violence in Petare, Venezuela’s largest slum. One of the captured mercenaries later alleged that the Drug Enforcement Agency had “paid for gunfire” to act as a smokescreen for the incursion.

The current concern is a series of crimes that began on August 8th with the disappearance of an iconic revolutionary leader. This was followed by the August 20th death of well-known leftist artist under mysterious circumstances and the August 21st murder by police of two leftist communciations workers. Authorities continue to investigate all three cases; in the latter, eight police officers and a district attorney have been charged for the murder and attempted coverup. Attorney General Tarek Saab called the nine people charged “infiltrators” who had entered the police force to engage in crime. Regardless of whether these events are connected to a plot to generate criminal disorder, they are certainly causing psychological harm to the Venezuelan people.


Pictures of gang members holding bazookas released on social media after police confrontations.

In addition to these crimes, there have been recurrent violent confrontations between the police and well-armed criminal groups. On August 25, a gang equipped with AR-15s, AK-103s and FN-MAG machine guns ambushed a police arms depot. Above, the picture on the left is allegedly of one of the gang’s founders holding a bazooka during the confrontation. Attacks on barracks or arms depots linked to coup plots have occurred several times since 2017, resulting in the theft of assault rifles, heavy weapons, grenades and other explosives that end up in the hands of criminals.
Social Media Shutdowns

Tech giants appear to be joining in on the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign. In March, just as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning in Venezuela, Twitter suspended 40 accounts belonging to officials, state institutions, journalists and influencers, including those of the Health Ministry and Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who was in charge of the Covid-19 response. Most, but not all, of those accounts were recovered, but Twitter gave no explanation for its actions.

On August 19, Twitter restricted the account of Venezuela Analysis, one of the most important websites for English-language news about the country. As The Grayzone’s Ben Norton notes, these are accounts that “conflict with Washington’s pro-war narrative.” Their suspensions represent an escalation in the media dimension of the hybrid war. On August 21, Google blocked or erased three YouTube and Gmail accounts belonging to Venezuelan state television outlet VTV, preventing Venezuelans from accessing live news and 68,000 videos VTV had uploaded since 2011.
Disinformation Campaigns And Covid-19

The timing of these shutdowns is curious, occurring just as a major disinformation campaign about Venezuela’s Covid-19 response is underway. The New York Times and other media outlets have published stories about the plight of returning Venezuelan migrants and the allegedly extreme measures taken by the Venezuelan government to fight the pandemic.

Missing from these articles is the fact that Venezuela has received 130,000 returning migrants since the pandemic began. Venezuela may be the only country in the world that is receiving such vast numbers of people during the pandemic, as most countries have closed their borders and returning home has been difficult for people all over the world. Of those returning Venezuelans, 90,000 have entered through official channels, where they are immediately tested for Covid-19. Most are then sent to a Comprehensive Social Care Point (PASI) to comply with quarantine protocols. At the PASIs, migrants receive food, medical care and personal hygiene products as they wait 2-3 weeks to ensure they are not infected with the coronavirus (positive tests can extend their stays).

The other 40,000 migrants returned to the country through unofficial routes, skipping health and immigration controls. In late May, Venezuela began experiencing rapid growth in Covid-19 cases after controlling the pandemic for two months. Much of this growth was attributed to migrants who did not heed the health warnings; at one point, 80% of Venezuela’s new cases were imported from abroad. In mid-June, the numbers flipped and community transmissions surged rapidly.

There are good reasons for migrants to avoid official entry points, including dismal conditions on the Colombian side of the border and long waits to enter given the limit on the number of people who can cross the border daily. However, many of the migrants have been victims of fake news. Telesur’s Madelein García interviewed a returning Venezuelan who was told in Colombia that Venezuelans were injecting migrants with Covid-19 because doctors were being paid by case numbers, as well as lies about migrants not being fed and being locked in cages in PASIs.

Although there are reports in social media of poor conditions in certain PASIs, they appear to be the exception, rather than the rule. A United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report noted the differences between the over 200 PASIs, with those in universities and hotels having better infrastructure than those in grade schools and gymnasiums, some of which require “greater support to strengthen their capacity to offer services.” The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have visited PASIs and are contributing aid to the migrants temporarily quarantined in them. Government and local officials routinely inspect PASIs, and Venezuelan media have reported from them. The PASIs have been much maligned in the media without any context of the vastness of the program or the challenge of fighting off a pandemic for a country economically suffocated by sanctions.

The mainstream media narrative around Covid-19 and Venezuela’s migrants is being used to present the country as being in need of humanitarian intervention. Indeed, the Trump administration and think tanks like the Center for Strategic & International Studies, which put out a report titled “Venezuela: Pandemic and Foreign Intervention in a Collapsing Narcostate,” have been attempting to turn Venezuela’s Covid-19 response into an issue of regional security. The Atlantic Council, considered to be NATO’s think tank in Washington, held an event on August 13 with Admiral Faller in which he declared that the Maduro government is an urgent threat to democracy, economic stability and the Covid-19 response.



Yet as seen in the graph above, it’s ludicrous to claim that Venezuela is a Covid-19 threat. The country is doing significantly better than its neighbors in controlling both the spread of the disease and the number of casualties. Venezuela has experienced 358 total Covid-19 deaths, a rate of 13 deaths per million population (Argentina is the next lowest in South America, with 180 deaths per million). After a surge in cases from July through mid-August, the curve of new cases looks like it is flattening, although it is still too soon to tell. Venezuela has been able to weather the storm thanks to its policy choices and timely aid from Cuba, China, Russia, the European Union, the ICRC and UN agencies.
Conclusion

Of course, military action against Venezuela would impede, if not destroy, its capacity to deal with the pandemic, which would lead to increased infections in Brazil, Colombia and other nations if there’s a wave of war refugees. Yet these concerns seem secondary to Venezuela hawks, who view a second Trump administration or a Biden administration as less likely to deliver regime change than a pre-electoral attack.

According to sources that spoke to La Política Online, Senator Marco Rubio has been advising the Trump administration that military action against Venezuela would “ensure Florida’s Electoral College votes in November.” It should be noted that these allegations have not been independently verified and Senator Rubio has not commented on them. However, President Trump’s hawkish Venezuela policy is based around winning Florida and many of the events detailed above have been put into motion to give the president the military option he’s been threatening since August 2017. The stage is set for a disastrous October surprise, especially if Trump’s chances for re-election look dim.

PORTLAND PROTEST KILLING SUSPECT ACTED IN SELF DEFENSE, MURDERED DURING ARREST

By Vice News.

September 4, 2020

https://popularresistance.org/portland-protest-killing-suspect-acted-in-self-defense-murdered-arrest/


NOTE: This should be a warning to all leftists. The right wing shooter in Kenosha was allowed to walk freely past police after murdering two people and injuring another and had his extradition to Wisconsin delayed to get his legal affairs in order after turning himself in. The leftist, Michael Reinoehl, who says he shot a member of a right wing group in self defense during the Trump caravan where Trump supporters were attacking police violence protesters, was murdered when the police went to arrest him. Could this be a retaliation murder by police?

NPR describes what happened to Reinoehl at an apartment in Olympia, Washington:

“The Olympian newspaper said Reinoehl was spotted as he left an apartment and that law enforcement officers from three different jurisdictions had fired at him.

Thurston County Sheriff’s Lt. Ray Brady, speaking at a Thursday night news briefing, said the encounter occurred at about 7:30 p.m. local time. He said Reinoehl ran to a station wagon parked outside the apartment complex and that officers trying to stop him opened fire.

Finding that the station wagon was boxed in by law enforcement vehicles, Reinoehl sprinted from the car as he produced a gun, at which time officers fired again, Brady said.

Two witnesses told The Olympian that they saw two SUVs pull up and that a man got out of the car and began firing a weapon. They said they heard 40 to 50 shots and that officers returned fire and hit the man.

Four officers fired their weapons, according to Brady. They’re from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, Lakewood Police Department and the Washington State Department of Corrections, all assigned to the fugitive task force acting in their role as U.S. marshals, he said.”
“I Could Have Sat There And Watched Them Kill A Friend Of Mine Of Color. But I Wasn’t Going To Do That.”

Ever since a member of the right-wing “Patriot Prayer” group was shot and killed during a violent rally in downtown Portland August 29, the police investigation has reportedly focused on 48-year-old Michael Forest Reinoehl, an Army veteran and father of two who has provided what he called “security” at Black Lives Matter protests.

The Wall Steet Journal reported earlier that Reinoehl was a person of interest in the killing of Aaron “Jay” Danielson, who was taking part in a massive pro-Trump caravan that began in Clackamas earlier in the day.

In a conversation with freelance journalist Donovan Farley shared with VICE News, Reinoehl said he believed he and a friend were about to be stabbed, and that he acted in self defense. VICE News has not independently verified details of his story.

Shortly after VICE News reported this conversation, Reinoehl was killed in an encounter with officers when the federal fugitive task force attempted to arrest him according to The New York Times.






“You know, lots of lawyers suggest that I shouldn’t even be saying anything, but I feel it’s important that the world at least gets a little bit of what’s really going on,” Reinoehl said. “I had no choice. I mean, I, I had a choice. I could have sat there and watched them kill a friend of mine of color. But I wasn’t going to do that.”

Portland has been a flashpoint for protests since the 2016 election, but after the death of George Floyd in May, protests have gotten messier and increasingly dangerous. In August, a right-wing protester was arrested for firing into a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters. Proud Boy Alan Swinney brandished a gun and pointed it at protesters, and a group of reportedly left-aligned protesters were seen on video dragging a truck driver out of his vehicle and beating him up.

The killing of Danielson is the first linked to an antifacist protester in recent years. It happened one week after 17-year-old pro-Trump protester Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly shot three protesters at a march in Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing two. Rittenhouse’s lawyer is claiming he acted in self defense.

Reinoehl had been a nightly presence at Black Lives Matter protests in Portland for months. In early July, he was arrested for carrying a loaded handgun at a protest and resisting arrest. The WSJ reports that the case remains open. Later that month, he was shot in the arm while attempting to wrestle a gun away from a right-wing protester during a skirmish.

Reinoehl said he became aware of the pro-Trump truck parade when he saw what he described as “hundreds of trucks with flags on them,” while driving around Portland earlier in the day with his teenage son.

“I notified my friends of what I had seen and finished what I was doing with my son, got home and then received a phone call that it might be a good idea to come down there,” he said. “Security may be needed not knowing what that would entail. I had no idea what I was getting into.”

“I’m seeing all these vehicles with hatred, people in the backs of the trucks yelling and screaming and swinging bats and sticks at protesters that are just standing there yelling at them,” he said.

At 8:45 p.m., Reinoehl said he went to the aid of a friend surrounded by trucks laden with armed pro-Trump protesters. “I saw someone that is a dear and close friend of mine in the movement by himself basically confronting all these vehicles,” Reinhoel told Farley. “And so I let him know that I’m here, parked my vehicle and joined up with him, found myself in the intersection in front of the food trucks surrounded by trucks and cars that had weapons.”

Reindoehl stressed that people participating in the pro-Trump caravan were heavily armed in those trucks, and that they carried “not just paintball guns,” as reported in the press.

He found himself in a confrontation with a man who he says threatened him and another protester with a knife. “Had I stepped forward, he would have maced or stabbed me,” Reinoehl said.

Bystander video from multiple angles show a man who resembles Reinoehl and appears to have the same neck tattoo fire two shots at Danielson and then walk away. “I was confident that I did not hit anyone innocent and I made my exit,” he said.

Since the shooting, Reinoehl said he’s gone into hiding, and moved his children to a safe place after shots were fired into his house just hours after the incident. “They’re out hunting me,” he said. “There’s nightly posts of the hunt and where they’re going to be hunting. They made a post saying the deer are going to feel lucky this year because it’s open season on Michael right now.”

He had not turned himself in, he said, because he believed right-wing protesters were collaborating with police, who will not protect him or his family.

He said at the time of the confrontation and the shooting, there were no police present to help. “There was definitely nobody in sight, no police officer, nobody at all that could intervene. It was a free-for-all. And the police were letting it happen,” he said.

Two weeks later, he said, he had no regrets about his actions. “If the life of anybody I care about is in danger, and there’s something I can do to prevent it … I think that any good human being would do the same thing,” he said.

Reinoehl said he’s spoken to attorneys who say “I’ve got a viable case for self defense and protection because there’s a definite threat to my life.”

On Thursday, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said the investigation into the incident is still in early stages. “We don’t even have all the facts yet. We haven’t been able to speak to all of the witnesses. We haven’t been able to process all of the video that’s come from local businesses,” he told KOIN 6 News.

“I feel that they’re trying to, you know, put other charges on me. They’ll find another way to keep me in,” Reinoehl said when asked why he didn’t tell his story to the police. “Honestly, I hate to say it, but I see a civil war right around the corner,” he said. “That that shot felt like the beginning of a war.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsDWXx5tYfk&feature=emb_logo

MASS SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM REVEALED BY SNOWDEN WAS ILLEGAL

By Raphael Satter, Reuters.

September 4, 2020



https://popularresistance.org/mass-surveillance-program-revealed-by-snowden-was-illegal/

An Appeals Court Said The Warrantless Telephone Dragnet That Secretly Collected Millions Of Americans’ Records Violated The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Seven years after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans’ telephone records, an appeals court has found the program was unlawful — and that the U.S. intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were not telling the truth.

In a ruling handed down on Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the warrantless telephone dragnet that secretly collected millions of Americans’ telephone records violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and may well have been unconstitutional.

Snowden, who fled to Russia in the aftermath of the 2013 disclosures and still faces U.S. espionage charges, said on Twitter that the ruling was a vindication of his decision to go public with evidence of the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping operation.

“I never imagined that I would live to see our courts condemn the NSA’s activities as unlawful and in the same ruling credit me for exposing them,” Snowden said in a message posted to Twitter.

Evidence that the NSA was secretly building a vast database of U.S. telephone records – the who, the how, the when, and the where of millions of mobile calls – was the first and arguably the most explosive of the Snowden revelations published by the Guardian newspaper in 2013.

Up until that moment, top intelligence officials publicly insisted the NSA never knowingly collected information on Americans at all. After the program’s exposure, U.S. officials fell back on the argument that the spying had played a crucial role in fighting domestic extremism, citing in particular the case of four San Diego residents who were accused of providing aid to religious fanatics in Somalia.

U.S. officials insisted that the four — Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud, Mohamed Mohamud, and Issa Doreh — were convicted in 2013 thanks to the NSA’s telephone record spying, but the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday that those claims were “inconsistent with the contents of the classified record.”

The ruling will not affect the convictions of Moalin and his fellow defendants; the court ruled the illegal surveillance did not taint the evidence introduced at their trial. Nevertheless, watchdog groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped bring the case to appeal, welcomed the judges’ verdict on the NSA’s spy program.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for our privacy rights,” the ACLU said in a statement, saying it “makes plain that the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records violated the Constitution.”

GERMANY: EXTREME RIGHT MARCHES UNDER ANTI-LOCKDOWN BANNER

By Hans-Gerd Öfinger, Der Funke.

September 4, 2020

https://popularresistance.org/germany-extreme-right-marches-under-anti-lockdown-banner/

The large Berlin demonstration and rally against the federal government’s corona policy on August 29 was a moral victory for the right and neo-Nazis. Pictures of fascists occupying the stairs to the Reichstag building with the Reichsflag (symbol of the empire overthrown by the revolution in 1918 and the Nazi dictatorship 1933-45) are circulating around the world and trigger alarms, especially among anti-fascists.

Such symbolic images also serve to weld the right scene together. After all, more members of the extreme right are likely to have marched through the federal capital unified and unmolested on this day than in recent years. The list of prominent fascists and racists who were right in the thick of it in Berlin, mentioned in many other critical articles about the demo, reads like a current “Who’s who” of the extreme right in Germany.

The large event, registered and organized by the organization “lateral thinking 711”, offered the fascists and racists from AfD, NPD, identities, anti-Semites, Reich citizens and Co. a welcome backdrop to “swim like a fish in water” and to become an integral part of one to stage a supposed “popular movement” against a “Corona dictatorship” supposedly originating from the federal government. For years these circles have tried – more or less without resounding success – to ingratiate themselves with movements and moods and to take advantage of them. For example, when they unsuccessfully tried to copy the shape of the French yellow vests movement last year. But now they could find a stronger echo than before. You benefit from the fact that the Stuttgart software entrepreneur Michael Ballweg, Founder and leader of “Quer Think 711” claims that his movement is “neither left nor right”, but broad and colorful. At the same time he expressly allows cadres of the extreme right to march along.

The AfD, which is in a deep crisis, smells morning air again. Many members and elected officials from their ranks also marched in Berlin. Several attentive observers reported that active members of the AfD youth association Junge Alternative were also involved in the storming of the Reichstag stairs, which took place in the afternoon away from the big rally. Speculations that several informants from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution played a leading role in this action are making the rounds.
Conspiracy Theories And The “Fight Against Totalitarianism”?

But what does this movement actually want and what are its prospects? Anyone looking for a self-image and political program on the website of the lateral thinking initiative will not find it there. The common denominator of the movement is evidently the vague claim to defend freedom, democracy and the Basic Law against an impending “Corona dictatorship”. This is based on the view that the corona virus would actually be a completely harmless cold and that a conspiracy by governments and billionaires like Microsoft founder Bill Gates stirs up fear to establish a dictatorship. The key witness was the “star speaker” Robert Kennedy, a nephew of the former US President John F. Kennedy and a supporter of the “anti-vaccination movement” in the USA. He claimed in his speech “That people like Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci have been planning this pandemic for decades that they have now brought upon us”. His uncle had “strengthened the front against totalitarianism” in West Berlin in 1963 and in this sense, Berlin is again “the front against totalitarianism” with this demonstration, according to the anti-communist Kennedy.

One who proudly produced a selfie with Kennedy on the sidelines of the rally and who also had a say in Berlin was the journalist and publicist Ralph T. Niemeyer. A few years ago he joined the SPD from DIE LINKE and describes himself as a “Marxist” and “anti-fascist”. Niemeyer tried to represent the left wing of the “lateral thinking” demo. In a YouTube video before the demo, he resigned himself to the fact that the AfD and the fascist Björn Höcke had also called for participation. “I find it difficult to imagine that a Höcke would also call for a demonstration. I will not walk side by side with him. I will not greet him. But we cannot determine who will come to a demo. What we can do is express our opinion clearly and make it clear that the majority thinks liberally and democratically, ”said Niemeyer, who plays the role of an alibi in order to bind people who classify themselves as“ left ”.

That such a wide mixture of people of different attitudes and class affiliations, neo-Nazis, religious sectarians, esoterics, anti-vaccination opponents, corona-belittlers, aging hippies, selfish party animals, shooter tourists, small business owners, people in precarious jobs, single parents and parents with large families overwhelmed by the lockdown, desperate petty bourgeoisie and “ordinary bourgeois” from the neighborhood could be welded together to form a unified and stable mass movement, is extremely unlikely. There is simply no cement of a clear program and a clear class orientation.
Capitalism And Corona

Anyone who soberly remembers the first weeks and months of 2020 cannot understand Kennedy’s statements of a pandemic planned for years by Gates and Co. as a pretext for the cold-blooded establishment of a dictatorship according to a master plan. The spread of the corona virus has a lot to do with the destruction of wild animal habitats and capitalist factory farming. The fact is that Western governments, Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) and experts such as the head of the Robert Koch Institute played down the virus as a purely Chinese problem for weeks. At least ten valuable weeks passed during which it might have been possible to take drastic measures to largely stop the spread, especially from the hotspots, to business travelers and tourists.

But for profit reasons, the Italian capitalists were just as reluctant to cease operations as the mountain railway operators in Ischgl, Austria. It was the spontaneous strike movement of workers worried about their health in Italian factories, which forced a production stop under the motto “We are not slaughter cattle”. This movement was also echoed in France, Spain and elsewhere. For weeks, the rulers looked more like driven people and amateurs who could not find enough face and nose protective masks and disinfectants and who, after weeks of inactivity, did not want to expose themselves to the accusation of not taking effective measures against the pandemic and thus frivolously jeopardizing people’s lives to put. A democratic planned economy within the framework of a socialist Europe would have helped the affected hotspots, such as the Bergamo region, in solidarity in the crucial weeks and mobilized all resources for this. But the federal government and the EU refused to show solidarity with Italy.

Citizens and cadres in the state apparatus are certainly using the corona restrictions as an excuse to put the working class on the defensive, undermine democratic rights and protective provisions and to reinforce the redistribution of wealth from the bottom up. Strikes, rallies and demonstrations must go on. Trade unions and left-wing organizations themselves have to ensure that hygiene regulations are adhered to.

However, the pandemic was and is only the accelerator of a capitalist economic crisis that emerged last autumn. If not only millions of workers, but also small business owners and self-employed people fear for their livelihood, it is not the “Corona regime” that is to blame, but real capitalism. The displacement of small shops and dumps by large chains and corporations has been in full swing for many years. Every crisis also calls on speculators and crisis profiteers who want to bump into the crisis. In contrast, many losers fall by the wayside who lose their jobs and livelihoods, are pushed out of their daily grind and despair over it.
Deeper Grievances: Even Before Corona, The World Was Not Okay

The pandemic has brought everything to the surface that was already there in this class society: injustice, inequality, contradictions, scandals and grievances in all areas of society, especially in health and education. Homeless people who have no home found it difficult to heed the official advice “Stay at home” in the spring. The inequality of educational opportunities is increasing dramatically. Children without a PC, WLAN and parents helping with their homework fall behind. A new no-future generation is growing up.

It is also a matter of class, who is at higher risk and how infected people are treated. So in spring everything was set in motion to fly in poorly-paid harvest workers. The pandemic has revealed the misery of contract workers in German slaughterhouses and the conditions in the accommodations. Textile workers in Bangla Desh were forced to work despite the risk of infection. In the US, millions of people have no health insurance, and in Africa, many millions are effectively cut off from all medical care. The fact that Germany has so far got off relatively lightly with “only” 9,300 corona deaths should not obscure the fact that other countries (Brazil, USA, Spain) are already far more catastrophic.

The corona pandemic has ushered in a turning point and in view of the global capitalism crisis that has now begun, massive shocks are imminent. Every comparison limps, but also the plague, which dragged down millions of people, accelerated the decline of feudalism in the late Middle Ages. The crisis is increasingly affecting all areas of life and undermining the standard of living, the quality of life, the natural basis of life and the cohesion of society. No regime, no government is really stable. The capitalist system based on private profit cannot offer the mass of the population a secure future. Discomfort grows and is not always expressed in a progressive way, especially when no progressive alternative is offered. Such times always call random figures on the scene,
Class Against Class – Fill The Vacuum, Start The Offensive!

The fact that the supposed “lateral thinkers” with their dream of a “people’s movement” can now put themselves in the limelight and curry favor with Nazis is primarily due to a vacuum. Millions of people are gripped by existential fears and great unease and are looking for answers, explanations and a strong movement that changes the situation in their favor. That would be the hour for the unions, the LEFT and their base. You have a responsibility to guide the working class and mass of the population. They must not act as the extended arm of the federal government, the state apparatus and the capitalist class and must be the most consistent defenders of social and democratic rights.

The question of which class should pay for the crisis and the attempted crisis management will arise with all its might in the months and years to come. Actually, everything is seething. Every day we receive reports of defensive battles against layoffs and plant closures. The crisis gets straight to the point in the privatized and broken down health care system as well as in the education system. Not only Bill Gates is expropriated, but all large corporations for which hospitals, pharmaceuticals, research and diseases are profitable businesses. More and more people, especially in big cities, are afraid of an affordable roof over their head because social housing has been cut to the ground and greedy speculators and real estate sharks are dominating the housing sector.

The ongoing collective bargaining rounds for the public service and local public transport companies must be the starting point for broad resistance. Instead of isolating defensive battles, we have to bundle and concentrate all our strengths. The DGB, as the umbrella organization of eight major trade unions, has to mobilize employees from all sectors, members of all trade unions, young people from schools and universities and precariously employed migrant workers from slaughterhouses, construction and agriculture to joint rallies nationwide in all districts and large cities. Workers fighting for their jobs must be actively supported with regular visits and solidarity committees and torn from their isolation. The upcoming worldwide action day of the Fridays for Future movement,

We are currently benefiting from the fact that, according to the RTL / ntv trend barometer from the beginning of August, 91 percent of the German citizens surveyed and even 94 percent of the 18 to 29-year-olds have no understanding for the anti-corona protests and only nine percent of the general population are “understanding “Would have shown. “While the supporters of almost all parties oppose the protests with a large majority, 59 percent of AfD supporters welcome the demonstrations,” the report said. Even if this should correspond to the current mood, we must not feel safe forever, that the support for the corona measures will always be as broad as it is at present – especially if the Chancellor suggested tightening of the corona measures in the winter months and the existential fears and psychological problems of many people increase. The discontent will grow and express itself. Unions and LINKE have the task of picking up on these moods – with a clear program that tackles and solves the real, tangible problems.

We need a socialist program all the more urgently and must explain with catchy, understandable slogans that the command centers of the economy, banks, and large corporations must be transferred to the public sector and placed under the control of the employees and managed transparently. This creates the basis for ensuring that everyone can have a largely carefree life without fear of old age, illness, unemployment, displacement, environmental disasters, paternalism and discrimination. If you want to create a world worth living in, you have to defeat capitalism. If we fight in this sense, build up a strong social antithesis and explain the positive vision and advantages of a socialist democracy in concrete terms, then we need not be afraid of random figures around the “lateral thinkers”.
Corona Deniers And Right-Wingers Team Up For Protest.

By Imanuel Marcus, Berlin Spectator.

In Berlin, thousands of people joined a protest against the government’s Corona rules on Saturday. They denied the existence of the Coronavirus. Many protesters came to the German capital from other parts of the country, including the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, which is hundreds of miles away.
‘Day Of Freedom’

According to police, 3,000 people were part of the protest that started at 10:30 a.m. CEDT. More people joined later, including many followers of the movement ‘Querdenken 711’. They were celebrating “the end of Corona” on what they called a “day of freedom”. Up to 17,000 participants were on the street in the early afternoon.

Those Corona deniers were joined by far-right extremists, including famous figures like Nikolai Nerling. He is a former primary school teacher from Berlin who was fired for spreading extremist and antisemitic propaganda. For instance, he kept on claiming there was a “global Zionist-Jewish conspiracy” against the rest of the world.
Udo Voigt Takes Part

Udo Voigt was at the protest as well. He used to be the chairman of the NPD, a small party the manifesto of which is close to what Hitler’s NSDAP stood for, according to political scientists, historians and Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. Because he glorified National Socialism, Voigt has a criminal record. The charge was incitement.

It is not the first time Nazis and other antisemitic haters join protests of Corona deniers. During the first phase of the ongoing pandemic, this happened at several rallies at Berlin’s Rosa Luxemburg Square and elsewhere.
Aggressive Participants

Some of the participants of today’s protest were aggressive. Two men with a sign saying “Against forced vaccinations, against Bill Gates, the WHO and George Soros” accused The Berlin Spectator’s reporter of being “left-wing” and of wearing a mask “for no reason”. Another protester told him the mask was “unnecessary and ridiculous” because there was no virus.

Police asked the participants at the rally to keep their distance to each other and wear masks, but nobody did. The Police Department’s request was spread via loudspeakers and Twitter. After 2:00 p.m., the police threatened to end the protest and to disperse the crowds because the Corona rules were not followed. Then, the organizers officially ended it. For the same reason, a criminal complaint was filed against them.

US’ THEFT OF SYRIAN OIL HAS VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH MONEY

By Steven Chovanec, Mintpress News.

September 4, 2020




https://popularresistance.org/us-theft-of-syrian-oil-has-very-little-to-do-with-money/

To Capture And Subdue.

Years of US support to Al-Qaeda and ISIS and efforts to effect regime change in the country have culminated in the theft of Syria’s oil, but is that really America’s coup de gras in Syria?

Near the end of July, one of the most important recent developments in U.S. foreign policy was quietly disclosed during a U.S. Senate hearing. Not surprisingly, hardly anybody talked about it and most are still completely unaware that it happened.

Answering questions from Senator Lindsey Graham, Secretary of State Pompeo confirmed that the State Department had awarded an American company, Delta Crescent Energy, with a contract to begin extracting oil in northeast Syria. The area is nominally controlled by the Kurds, yet their military force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), was formed under U.S. auspices and relies on an American military presence to secure its territory. That military presence will now be charged with protecting an American firm from the government of the country that it is operating within.

Pompeo confirmed that the plans for implanting the firm into the U.S.-held territory are “now in implementation” and that they could potentially be “very powerful.” This is quite a momentous event given its nature as a blatant example of neocolonial extraction, or, as Stephen Kinzer puts it writing for the Boston Globe, “This is a vivid throwback to earlier imperial eras, when conquerors felt free to loot the resources of any territory they could capture and subdue.”

Indeed, the history of how the U.S. came to be in a position to “capture and subdue” these resources is a sordid, yet informative tale that by itself arguably even rivals other such colonial adventures.
To Capture And Subdue

When a legitimate protest movement developed organically in Syria in early 2011, the U.S. saw an opportunity to destabilize, and potentially overthrow, the government of a country that had long pushed back against its efforts for greater control in the region.

Syria had maintained itself outside of the orbit of U.S. influence and had frustratingly prevented American corporations from penetrating its economy to access its markets and resources.

As the foremost academic expert on Middle East affairs, Christopher Davidson, wrote in his seminal work, “Shadow Wars, The Secret Struggle for the Middle East,” discussing both Syria and Libya’s strategic importance, “the fact remained that these two regimes, sitting astride vast natural resources and in command of key ports, rivers, and borders, were still significant obstacles that had long frustrated the ambitions of Western governments and their constituent corporations to gain greater access.”

“With Syria,” Davidson wrote, “having long proven antagonistic to Western interests… a golden opportunity had presented itself in 2011 to oust [this] administration once and for all under the pretext of humanitarian and even democratic causes.”

The U.S., therefore, began organizing and overseeing a militarization of the uprising early on, and soon co-opted the movement along with allied states Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. Writing at the end of 2011, Columbia University’s Joseph Massad explained how there was no longer any doubt that “the Syrian popular struggle for democracy [has] already been hijacked,” given that “the Arab League and imperial powers have taken over and assumed the leadership of their struggle.”

Soon, through the sponsoring of extremist elements, the insurgency was dominated by Salafists of the al-Qaeda variety.

According to the DIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by 2013 “there was no viable ‘moderate’ opposition to Assad” and “the U.S. was arming extremists.” Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed that “although many in the American intelligence community were aware that the Syrian opposition was dominated by extremists,” still “the CIA-sponsored weapons kept coming.”

When ISIS split off from al-Qaeda and formed its own Caliphate, the U.S. continued pumping money and weapons into the insurgency, even though it was known that this aid was going into the hands of ISIS and other jihadists. U.S. allies directly supported ISIS.

U.S. officials admitted that they saw the rise of ISIS as a beneficial development that could help pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to give in to America’s demands.

Leaked audio of then-Secretary of State John Kerry revealed that “we were watching… and we know that this [ISIS] was growing… We saw that Daesh was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened. We thought, however, we could probably manage — that Assad would then negotiate.” As ISIS was bearing down on the capital city of Damascus, the U.S. was pressing Assad to step down to a U.S.-approved government.

Then, however, Russia intervened with its air force to prevent an ISIS takeover of the country and shifted the balance of forces against the jihadist group. ISIS’ viability as a tool to pressure the government was spent.
The Arsonist And The Firefighter

So, a new strategy was implemented: instead of allowing Russia and Syria to take back the territories that ISIS captured throughout the war, the U.S. would use the ISIS threat as an excuse to take those territories before they were able to. Like an arsonist who comes to put out the fire, the U.S. would now charge itself with the task of stamping out the Islamist scourge and thereby legitimize its own seizure of Syrian land. The U.S. partnered with the Kurdish militias who acted as their “boots on the ground” in this endeavor and supported them with airstrikes.

The strategy of how these areas were taken was very specific. It was designed primarily to allow ISIS to escape and redirect itself back into the fight against Syria and Russia. This was done through leaving “an escape route for militants” or through deals that were made where ISIS voluntarily agreed to cede its territory. The militants were then able to escape and go wreak havoc against America’s enemies in Syria.

Interestingly, in terms of the oil fields now being handed off to an American corporation, the U.S. barely even fought ISIS to gain control over them; ISIS simply handed them over.

Syria and Russia were quickly closing in on the then-ISIS controlled oilfields, so the U.S. oversaw a deal between the Kurds and ISIS to give up control of the city. According to veteran Middle East war correspondent Elijah Magnier, “U.S.-backed forces advanced in north-eastern areas under ISIS control, with little or no military engagement: ISIS pulled out from more than 28 villages and oil and gas fields east of the Euphrates River, surrendering these to the Kurdish-U.S. forces following an understanding these reached with the terrorist group.”

Sources quoted by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that ISIS preferred seeing the fields in the hands of the U.S. and the Kurds rather than the Syrian government.

The rationale behind this occupation was best described by Syria expert Joshua Landis, who wrote that the areas of northern Syria under control of the Kurds are the U.S.’ “main instrument in gaining leverage” over the government. By “denying Damascus access to North Syria” and “controlling half of Syria’s energy resources” “the U.S. will be able to keep Syria poor and under-resources.” So, by “promoting Kurdish nationalism in Syria” the U.S. “hopes to deny Iran and Russia the fruits of their victory,” while “keeping Damascus weak and divided,” this serving “no purpose other than to stop trade” and to “beggar Assad and keep Syria divided, weak and poor.”

Or, in the words of Jim Jeffrey, the Trump administrations special representative for Syria who is charged with overseeing U.S. policy, the intent is to “make life as miserable as possible for that flopping cadaver of a regime and let the Russians and Iranians, who made this mess, get out of it.”
Anchoring American Troops In Syria

This is the history by which an American firm was able to secure a contract to extract oil in Syria. And while the actual resources gained will not be of much value (Syria has only 0.1% of the world’s oil reserves), the presence of an American company will likely serve as a justification to maintain a U.S. military presence in the region. “It is a fiendishly clever maneuver aimed at anchoring American troops in Syria for a long time,” Stephen Kinzer explains, one that will aid the policymakers who hold “the view that the United States must remain militarily dominant in the Middle East.”

This analysis corroborates the extensive scholarship of people like Mason Gaffney, professor of economics emeritus at the University of California, who, writing in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, sums up his thesis that throughout its history “U.S. military spending has been largely devoted to protecting the overseas assets of multinational corporations that are based in the United States… The U.S. military provides its services by supporting compliant political leaders in developing countries and by punishing or deposing regimes that threaten the interests of U.S.-based corporations.”

In essence, by protecting this “global ‘sprawl’ of extractive companies” the U.S. Department of Defense “provides a giant subsidy to companies operating overseas,” one that is paid for by the taxpayer, not the corporate beneficiaries. It is hard to estimate the exact amount of money the U.S. has invested into the Syria effort, though it likely is near the trillion dollar figure. The U.S. taxpayer doesn’t get anything out of that, but companies that are awarded oil contracts do.

What is perhaps most important about this lesson however is that this is just a singular example of a common occurrence that happens all over the world. A primary function of U.S. foreign policy is to “make the world safe for American businesses,” and the upwards of a thousand military bases the U.S. has stationed across the globe are set up to help protect those corporate investments. While this history is unique to Syria, similar kinds of histories are responsible for U.S. corporation’s extractive activities in other global arenas.

So, next time you see headlines about Exxon being in some kind of legal dispute with, say, Venezuela, ask yourself how was it that those companies became involved with the resources of that part of the world? More often than not, the answer will be similar to how this U.S. company got involved in Syria.

Given all of this, it perhaps might seem to be too mild of a critique to simply say that this Syria enterprise harkens back to older imperial eras where conquerors simply took what they wished: the sophistication of colonialism has indeed improved by leaps and bounds since then.