MARK TAYLOR—In politics, reciprocity has been scorched away. Watch the Breaking Points interview (fourth clip below) with Jim Zogby as he describes what things are like now inside the Democratic Party. The only role members of the party are expected to play is to be good little boys and girls, send in money and show up to vote for the candidates those in power have so considerately put in place. Your role, your voice mean nothing.
CAPITALIST SICKNESS
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EDITOR—ERIC ZUESSE provides a thorough backdrop for the Trump policy choices, one worse than the next, all of them certifiable 100% swamp creatures, noxious imperial figures trading in fake patriotism that should have been retired a long time ago. ||| ACTIVE MEASURES editors examine some of the people already nominated and being considered for key posts in Trump’s cabinet. |||. THE GRAYZONE Max Blumenthal and Wyatt Reed discuss the shocking psy-op that ensued in Amsterdam, where Israeli football hooligans instigated violence, then played victims of a pogrom, then Anya Parampil joins to discuss Trump’s re-election and the sordid history of his top foreign policy picks. So we go from sneaky and utterly hypocritical liberal totalitarianism to batshit corrupt war hawks and fascistoid chauvinists. ||| RBN’s Nick Cruse comments on the pathetic choices hitherto made by Trump, confirming the man’s severe lack of historical depth and opportunism. ||| DUE DISSIDENCE team provides a rich discussion on the Trump incoming cabinet and what that portends for a nation batered by division, insoluble problems and stunning misleadership.
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EDITORS—Former British diplomat Alastair Crooke examines the kind of foreign policy to be embraced by Donald Trump, especially in the Middle East, where his notorious hyper allegiance to the Zionist entity is liable to cause further tragedies and possibly an expansion of the war well beyond the region’s core borders. In West Asia, Trump may prove far less flexible than in Ukraine, but in both areas the heavy Neocon imprint will be felt on all parties, leaving little room for actual diplomacy.
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ERIC ZUESSE—Because I am and always have been a progressive, I’ve always been strongly opposed to the post-Abraham-Lincoln Republican Party, which has always represented ONLY America’s wealthiest, against everybody else; but, as an investigative historian I have also come to recognize that ever since 25 July 1945, the Democratic Party — just like the Republican Party — is LIKEWISE representing ONLY the billionaires, who are united in placing as their #1 priority the creation and universal expansion of the U.S. empire, which started on that date and has been expanding ever since, though nowadays there is no other empire on this planet, and though the hundreds of trillions of U.S. dollars that have been spent on this imperial expansion (by means of subversions, sanctions, coups, and outright military invasions) have benefitted ONLY that richest 1% of the richest 1% of Americans.
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• The Function of the Compatible Left Seen in Its Attacks on the Venezuelan Revolution
13 minutes readSTANSFIELD SMITH—“Compatible left” was a term used by the CIA to describe those on the left it has deemed compatible with maintaining imperialist world rule. This left has dominated the US left since the end of World War II, in large part a result of government operations repressing the communist or anti-imperialist left. Historically, this compatible left that the CIA worked to cultivate rejects actually existing socialism and formed a “third camp” or “plague on both houses” left between capitalist and socialist countries. Providing a “respectable” alternative to the anti-imperialists, it used its progressive flavor to lure in radical youth, activists, workers, and intellectuals.
The CIA is correctly seen as a ruthless organization that overthrows democratic governments considered a threat to US domination. But this overlooks the CIA’s “gentler” work: underwriting and encouraging a compatible left, one which looks to the Democratic Party for political leadership. The CIA has secretly funded and managed a wide range of these groups and individuals.