ANTI-CORPORATISM

FEMI AKOLAFE—o, we are not Russian bots and are not persuaded by Russian propaganda, even though I feel entitled to be swayed by whatever I choose.

It is the 500+ years of unremitting violence and destruction that people of the European Stock have inflicted on the rest of humanity that makes some of us cheer Putin as he struggles to end the hegemonic domination of the World by Westerners.

I am no expert on biology, much less on genetics, so I cannot offer opinions on what exactly makes people of European extraction find it impossible to live and let live. Why do they have an insatiable desire to dominate and control?

RAINER SHEA—As part of its attempts to manage the situation, the imperial state is fueling left-wing pro-imperialist ideology, with its culturally based hostility towards countries like Iran and Russia. The imperialist media and its allies within the left are smearing principled anti-imperialists as “rightists,” seeking to divide the pro-Palestine movement over social issues. This psyop’s larger goal is to proliferate Neoconservativism under a leftist cover, letting the empire target countries for regime change on the basis that they’re “reactionary” and “fascist.” If any organization or state doesn’t conform to American leftism’s cultural sensibilities, it needs to be eliminated; that’s the mindset of this ideology.

BRUCE LERRO—In the 19thcentury when liberalism really took hold as a political ideology, liberals were not interested in democracy, and considered it “mob rule”. Most industrialized countries did not have the right to vote at the end of the 19th century. Back then farmer populist parties and socialist parties took their democracy seriously, bringing economics into it. The result was a “substantive democracy” championed by Charles Merriman and Charles Beard in the 1930s. But the rise of fascism and communism had shaken liberal confidence in the natural sympathy between democracy and capitalism. So in the 1940s Joseph Schumpeter introduced a weakened form of democracy as simply the circulation of elite politicians  that people choose between. The procedural democracy of Robert Dahl of the 1950s involved choosing between these elites through voting. There was nothing about economics.

MARK TAYLOR—The link above confirms what is now Legally possible in the US as earlier reported in the link below posted January 11, 2012 on the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act giving the US Military legal authority to grab American citizens out of their homes or off the street, and lock them up indefinitely in some Gitmo-Gulag based on bureaucratic determination that someone has some vague association with terrorism.

There is no phone call to a lawyer. The Writ of Habeas Corpus, or a day in court, to contest the government allegation is removed. Anyone arrested becomes one of the Disappeared.

EDITOR—Israel has long had a beef with Iran, the only nation in the Gulf capable and willing to stand up to its crimes and provocations. The events of 10/7, which some regard as a false flag designed to allow Israel to carry out a systematic genocide of Palestinians  (with open encouragement and support by the US empire), have also sharpened the conflict with Tehran, triggering a dangerous cycle of Israeli aggressions and Iranian well-measured escalatory responses, which have now put the two nations on the brink of an all-out war. Some analysts suggest that the US, despite its “pro-peace” mask, and using “plausible deniability”, is actually pushing Israel to lead the way in the military conquest of Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran and other parties of the “Axis of Resistance”. The panel is however dubious about the seriousness of Tel-Aviv’s thirst for a major war with Iran, and so is Iran for that matter. Everyone has much to lose in this confrontation, which could easily get out of hand and escalate to WW3 dimensions and complete economic collapse. Israel—despite its bellicosity, born of a sense of impunity given its close connection with the US and Britain—is extremely vulnerable to an Iranian attack on its infrastructure, as Iran could easily destroy its desalination plants, electricity stations and other vital resources. While the US is clearly the main force behind the Palestinians’ genocide and the expansion of Israeli territorial ambitions, the US ruling class, itself pathetically led at this point, and fractured into several factions with different priorities and imperialist approaches, seems unsure about the consequences of a regional and possibly global war with the multipolar alliance.