HRC, Covert Action, and Democracy: Comments on NYT Article

This article clearly shows that the ruling class really hates it when its secret plans become public and the American people learn about what they are doing. Since it is impossible to have a real democracy without a fully informed and educated people HRC's attitude towards reporters and her penchant for secrecy shows that she is at heart an autocrat who prefers to keep us in the dark about her plans and what she would really be up to once elected. In her "secret" talks she admits that a no-fly zone would wreak carnage among civilians because we would have to bomb civilians in the process of taking out anti-aircraft positions yet she thinks it might be worth it (publicly she is horrified over Russia bombing civilians in order to take out jihadist occupation forces in Aleppo). Think of the "it's worth it" comment of her husband's secretary of state Albright when told our actions in Iraq killed 500,000 children. The Left should have no illusions about HRC, the fake democracy of political illiterates bred in this country, or the vileness of US imperialism and its militarized foreign policy. The election is rigged! It's rigged so that whoever wins it will be a servant of the monopoly capitalist ruling class and that the workers and the 90% will get scraps to try and keep them quite. With all that said, we are still stuck with HRC because, although it's hard to believe, with all her faults there is actually a worse alternative looming in the darkness -- the orange monstrosity whose name need not be mentioned -- HRC's campaign has the unintended consequence of raising people's democratic expectations and involving millions of young people with still unspoiled idealism who will be the future activists fighting for the progressive and eventually socialist agenda which alone can make this the country that truly embraces the Novus ordo seclorum dreamed of by the most enlightened of our founding fathers and mothers.

http://nyti.ms/2eaMzdz

ELECTION 2016 Who Will Win? Latest Polls Senate Forecast Get the Podcast Primary Results Hillary Clinton Liked Covert Action if It Stayed Covert, Transcript Shows By DAVID E. SANGER OCT. 16, 2016 Hillary Clinton longs for the days when Americans knew how to execute a covert action abroad and not spill the details to reporters. Addressing a Goldman Sachs event in 2013, in one of the speeches that WikiLeaks published on Saturday, Mrs. Clinton gave a tough-minded, realpolitik answer to the question of how to handle a problem like Syria. If the best chance of success was to act secretly inside that country, she made clear, she had no problem doing that. She went on to say — as her audience already knew because of revelations in the news media — that as secretary of state she had advocated secretly arming the Syrian opposition and moving forcefully to counter the Russians, who at that point were supporting President Bashar al-Assad but had not yet fully entered the conflict. “My view was you intervene as covertly as is possible for Americans to intervene,” she said in answer to a question from Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which paid Mrs. Clinton about $225,000 a speech to give what felt like an insider’s view of the making of American foreign policy,

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/us/politics/hillary-clinton-was-open-to-covert-action-abroad-hacked-transcript-shows.html Page 1 of 4

Hillary Clinton Liked Covert Action if It Stayed Covert, Transcript Shows - The New York Times 10/17/16, 4:27 PM

months after she left office.

But she quickly acknowledged that “we used to be much better at this than we are now.”

“Now, you know, everybody can’t help themselves,” she added, and officials go out to “tell their friendly reporters and somebody else: ‘Look what we’re doing, and I want credit for it.’”

The three hacked speeches from 2013 that WikiLeaks published, most likely with Russian government assistance, help explain how Mrs. Clinton approaches some of the world’s knottiest problems. They are a reminder of the cold-eyed way she often assesses her most vexing opponents when the television cameras are not on.

By the time she left office that year, she had met and assessed two of the three world leaders who were determined most prominently to challenge the United States: President Xi Jinping of China, whom she clearly admires; President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whom she clearly detests (and who has returned the sentiment this election); and Kim Jong-un of North Korea, whose determination to build a nuclear weapon and missiles that could “reach Hawaii and the West Coast, theoretically” poses a risk “we cannot abide,” she said.

At moments in the speeches, Mrs. Clinton was cleareyed about how difficult it would be to execute some of the actions she advocated, including a no-fly zone over parts of Syria.

“To have a no-fly zone, you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas,” she said. “So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk — you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians. So all of a sudden this intervention that people talk about so glibly becomes an American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians.”

Her assessment of the risk came before she was formally running for president. But two years later, in a television interview in October 2015, she

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/us/politics/hillary-clinton-was-open-to-covert-action-abroad-hacked-transcript-shows.html Page 2 of 4

Hillary Clinton Liked Covert Action if It Stayed Covert, Transcript Shows - The New York Times 10/17/16, 4:27 PM

sounded willing to take that risk. “I personally would be advocating now for a no- fly zone and humanitarian corridors to stop the carnage on the ground and from the air, to try to provide some way to take stock of what’s happening, to try to stem the flow of refugees,” she said.

Her successor as secretary of state, John Kerry, tried last month to open those humanitarian corridors, but the effort collapsed in a dispute with Russia. A push to get it restarted during a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Saturday between Mr. Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, also failed.

In the talks at Goldman Sachs, Mrs. Clinton was often more analytic than prescriptive, describing her perceptions of individual leaders and the domestic politics and foreign threats they face. In that regard, her approach is quite different from that of Donald J. Trump.

In two interviews on foreign policy with The New York Times, one in March and another in July, Mr. Trump moved directly to his plans of action: bombing the Islamic State and taking oil, for example, or withdrawing troops from Europe and Asia if allies do not pay their share. While Mr. Trump often talks in terms of striking deals, Mrs. Clinton talks in the more traditional terms of alliance-building.

When she became secretary in 2009, she posed a question about China to an Australian leader: “How do you deal toughly with your banker?” In the Goldman transcript, she suggested that she had answered her own question when sparring with the Chinese over its claims in the South China Sea.

“I made the point at one point in the argument that, you know, you can call it whatever you want to call it,” she said. “You don’t have a claim to all of it. I said, by that argument, you know, the United States should claim all of the Pacific. We liberated it, we defended it. We have as much claim to all of the Pacific. And we could call it the American Sea, and it could go from the West Coast of California all the way to the Philippines.”

“And, you know, my counterpart sat up very straight and goes, ‘Well, you can’t do that.’”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/us/politics/hillary-clinton-was-open-to-covert-action-abroad-hacked-transcript-shows.html Page 3 of 4

Hillary Clinton Liked Covert Action if It Stayed Covert, Transcript Shows - The New York Times 10/17/16, 4:27 PM

Mrs. Clinton segued into an evaluation of Mr. Xi, the Chinese leader, who she noted had consolidated power in a way his predecessor never did, but had quickly traveled to places like Russia and Africa to assuage “doubts about Chinese practices.”

“So he’s someone who you at least have the impression is a more worldly, somewhat more experienced politician,” she said.

Mr. Xi has since become more aggressive in the South China Sea, and it is unclear how forcefully Mrs. Clinton, if she became president, would confront him over his claims. She acknowledged at one point that the administration had gotten distracted from its “pivot” to Asia.

In North Korea, the situation has worsened much more drastically. She summarized the Chinese message to the North Koreans this way: “We don’t care if you occasionally shoot off a missile. That’s good. That upsets the Americans and causes them heartburn, but you can’t keep going down a path that is unpredictable.”

That, of course, is exactly the path they have gone down.

Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter.

A version of this article appears in print on October 17, 2016, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Clinton Liked Covert Action if It Stayed Covert, Hacked Transcript Shows.

Ridiculous New York Times Article Contra Putin!

The NYT is getting more and more ridiculous and jingoistic -- here is the reason Putin is a problem: "Mr. Putin has reveled in his new role as the great disrupter of American plans around the globe." The President of Russia's main role isn't looking out for Russia but disrupting "American plans around the globe." We do have plans for the globe: it's our globe after all: we feel towards it the same way the Romans felt about Mare Nostrum ('our sea' i.e., the Mediterranian). This whole "news" article is based on MIND READING -- what Putin "relishes," what he is "content with," what "his goals are," what "encourages him," etc. So far we have only objective behavior to really go by, not all this mind reading and what we see is how he reacts to American global plans: We want to overthrow the Syrian government and he says "Nyet." We supported the overthrow of the elected goverment of Ukraine and want that country run by an anti-Russian faction we support; he says 'Nyet!" We want to militarize eastern Europe and build up NATO's offensive abilities ; he says "Nyet!" We want to relace Russian influence and economic relations in the former parts of the old USSR and get them to join our anti-Russian coalition; he says "Nyet!" We want to isolate the Palestinians and get the UN to be totally pro-Israel; he says "Nyet!" We want the UN to support our continuing economic blockade of Cuba; he says "Nyet!" We want Russia to keep its nose out of our business and global plans and take a backseat to our leadership; he says "Nyet!" It is pretty obvious that Putin is a dangerous and ruthless dictator and threat to the FREE WORLD (AKA the U.S. and its satellites and puppets).

What Is Russia Up To

Assad and the New york Times

Thomas Riggins

6 mins · 

The New York Times

 · 

This is a New York Times editorial posing as a news report. The point isn't if Assad is a good guy or a bad guy -- the war isn't about him it's about who will control the Middle East and its resources. The U.S., NATO and their allies (just as dictatorial as Assad or worse) [this Western desire to control of area dates back to the Roman Empire and the Crusades] or indigenous forces trying to wrest back control from the Western powers and their puppet allies. This NYT article i...

See More

His Position Still Secure, Bashar al-Assad Smiles as Syria Burns

Though Mr. Assad’s standing has been diminished, he is able to present himself as the leader his nation needs to get through a war for which he denies any responsibility.

NYTIMES.COM|BY BEN HUBBARD

The Real Hillary

 Hillary Clinton is an enemy of the working people of this country and is a major representive and supporter of U.S. imperialism. It is a responsibility and duty of a progressive party to expose her for what she is and not mislead working people into supporting her for the wrong reasons. It is one thing to explain the class nature of this election and the need to both defeat Trump and lay the foundations for a broad based progressive movement and that voting for HRC is, or may be, a necessary tactic for working people and would be progressives, it is another to portray HRC as some sort of positive political force and feminist champion fighting for the working people and minorities -- her policies are inimical to us, the Cubans, the people of Venuzuela, and the working masses in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas (not to mention the Russians and Chinese) -- and are especially hostile to the Palestinians and those who support their rights and she supports every tyrannical and dictatorial government and movement in the Third World that oppresses these peoples. To represent her in any other way is a betrayal of all of oppressed humanity and it is only because of the threat of an openly racist Trump administration that any decent person can consider voting for her and her wretched record of half hearted support for liberal center-right Democratic Party domestic positions. It may not be PC to emphasize this until after the election (or to ignore it either if it comes up), but all socialists and progressives should certainly know and internalize these truths and not subconsciously or consciously fall for the Big Lie that HRC is a “progressive, humane” person and not the incarnation of US imperialism and the policies it has practiced since it inherited the role of the major  enemy of socialism and communism and defender of the capitalist world order forfeited by the Third Reich after its defeat in the Second World  War.

Is It Time For A Revolution?

Revolution comes when the productive forces come into fatal conflict with the relations of production -- well -- that is what the vast majority of the wealth going to the 1% while millions are living in poverty means -- the productive forces are capable of taking care of all of us but the regime of global inequality has highjacked the relations of production to benefit a few. The revolutionary situation is here but the Marxists have not recognized it and are not directing it; instead Trump and the ultra-right are trying to ride to power on the general discontent being bred by the inequity regime while we have been misled into supporting HRC, a major representative of that regime -- we should have tried to magnify and grow the Bernie or Bust (even without Bernie) movement into a Third party challenge and wrecked the Democratic Party as Trump has wrecked the Republican -- out of the general ruin resulting from the smash up of the two party system (think of how the Higgs particle was discovered) we could have rallied the masses to a new party that would fight inequality, isolate the Trump discontents, and win over the working people and the unions to the new dispensation. But it looks like our actual course has been to strengthen the forces of reaction and inequality a la the HRC controlled Democratic Party while day dreaming about a Bernie faction within the monopoly capitalist DP coming to power, or worse to have paved the way for a Trump victory by not breaking with the DP and putting forth an independent Bernie based political coalition (maybe allied with the Greens). We have a revolutionary situation, the productive forces and the relations of production are in a screaming contradiction we can all hear -- not only politically but Nature itself is being pulled apart and destroyed by this contradiction -- let's not muddle along with the lesser of two evils two party system and allow Fascism to seize the day, our day if we would only open our eyes and see the Sun. Maybe this is just an ultra-left mental breakdown: I'll take two shots of Stolichnaya and see what's up with Trump today -- maybe BHO and HRC are responsible for Zika. Things might look better in the morning.

NY Times reports U.S. has "Strong Concerns" over Russian air strikes on U.S. mercenaries in Syria

U.S. Tells Russia of ‘Strong Concerns’ About Strikes on Syrian Rebels - The New York Times

Like it or not the Syrian government is the internationally recognized legal govenment of that nation and is a fellow member of the UN with the United States (the UN was founded so that member states would not attack one another). It is outrageous that the U.S. is funding mercenaries trying to overthrow that government. The civil war would have long been over and peace restored if the U.S., Saudi Arabia and their allies were not funding the so-called rebels and keeping the war going as an excuse to feed money into our own military industrial complex. ISIS exists as a by product of U.S. and its puppet NATO's interference in the Middle East.

If the U.S. is serious in ridding the world of the baleful influence of ISIS it will call off the dogs of war it is funding in Syria and join with Russia to knock out ISIS and the NUSRA FRONT and other anti-Syrian govenment jihadists posing as "moderate" Islamists. The U.S. and Russia can then work with the Syrian government and the United Nations to rebuild that ravaged nation and help the millions of displaced and immigrant families to return to their homes. The major threat to the peace of the world, as everyone except Americans seem to know, is the U.S. drive to maintain world military supremacy and political hegemony over all other nations. 

All the conflicts going on in the Middle East (Including Israel/Palestine), the Korean peninsula, the South China Sea, Africa, and Central and South America, and our own streets for that matter, stem from this insatiable drive for economic domination backed by military threats and interventions. That fact we are about to elect HRC who is a firm believer in all of the above including a conflict with Russia over a no fly zone in Syria will put the American people at odds with the people of the world at large. We are digging our own graves if we can't create a political movement to counteract the imperialist dreams of our ruling class.

Thomas Riggins

The French Labor Movement and Marxism

[Cf. NYT article after comment]

"The Communist Party and Mr. Martinez share a view of class struggle and unending worker exploitation, according to several experts on French unions." I can't help but think that if we had the level of class consciousness of the French we would not have to choose between HRC and Trump, and Sanders ( whose views have been likened to those of an Eisenhower era liberal Republican) would have been a shoo-in.

["I'm no more socialist than Eisenhower" -- Bernie Sanders, Time Magazine 11-15- 2015 online] Do we even have a Left left?

Thomas Riggins

Commitment to Class Conflict Drives Leader of French Labor Unrest

By ADAM NOSSITERJUNE 18, 2016 NEW YORK TIMES online

PARIS — All up and down the boulevard, store windows were smashed — at a Starbucks, a supermarket, a handbag store. Young men clambered on top of bus shelters. Even a children’s hospital was attacked. The police brought out tear gas and a rarely used water cannon.

Even for a country used to unruly labor protests, the violence on the streets of Paris on Tuesday was a shock. But days later, the man behind the antigovernment protests that have rippled across France was barely apologetic. If anything, he promised more.

Philippe Martinez, the mustachioed boss of one of France’s biggest labor unions, the General Confederation of Labor, known as C.G.T., has mobilized tens of thousands of workers and sent them coursing through the streets of French cities for weeks.

This past week, it was Paris’s turn. Mr. Martinez — 55, stocky, pugnacious and combative — ordered over 600 buses to ferry union protesters from the provinces to a march here, which drew tens of thousands of demonstrators on Tuesday.

The protests are aimed at stopping a government push for a new labor law that would make it slightly easier to hire and fire workers. But they are also part of a struggle between competing visions for France’s future, experts on French unions say.

For unions, the government’s proposed labor law is another step by President François Hollande to move France to the center in order to address the challenges of a global economy. Mr. Martinez, those familiar with him and his union say, has a different vision, shaped by decades of close ties between his union and the French Communist Party, of which he was a longtime member.

The Communist Party and Mr. Martinez share a view of class struggle and unending worker exploitation, according to several experts on French unions. Mr. Martinez, a Renault car factory worker, declined to be interviewed.

“He agrees that class struggle is the watchword of history, and that workers are necessarily in combat against bosses,” said René Mouriaux, a leading historian of the French union movement. In Mr. Martinez’s view, he added, between bosses and workers “there can be compromises, but no definitive agreements.”

Three weeks ago, Mr. Martinez’s workers went on strike to block the printing of France’s national newspapers for a day after newspapers refused to publish a commentary he had written. The Communist newspaper L’Humanité was the only one to print it.

“Philippe Martinez, the man who wants to bring France to its knees,” read a recent headline in the right-leaning newspaper Le Figaro. An article in the left-center newspaper Le Monde called him “the Lider Maximo of the protest movement.”

On Friday, Mr. Martinez angrily denied that the protest had been connected to the violence at the march through Paris, which left the Boulevard du Montparnasse, a main artery of the city’s Left Bank, looking like a war zone.

“The hooligans are there to discredit our movement,” he told journalists in the courtyard of the Labor Ministry, vowing to continue the marches until the government gives up its labor law.

But despite Mr. Martinez’s belated disavowals, violence, including serious injuries, has been a constant feature of his union’s protests over the past few months.

Paris’s police prefect has released photos of union members ripping up paving stones to be used as projectiles. Mr. Martinez said they had simply been defending themselves.

Philippe Martinez, center, the head of the General Confederation of Labor, at a protest against a proposed labor law last month in Paris. Credit Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Shocked by the smashed windows at the children’s hospital, Mr. Hollande said a ban on future demonstrations was possible, provoking outrage among some members his own Socialist Party.

“There’s no reason for us now to back down from our days of mobilization,” Mr. Martinez told reporters on Friday after a fruitless meeting with the labor minister to end the standoff. “For three months, the government has been counting on us to lose steam. It’s been a bad bet.”

Mr. Hollande’s government is equally unlikely to back down. It is pinning its hopes of denting France’s chronically high unemployment on a law that would only slightly relax negotiating conditions between workers and management.

The change is considered mild by most economists, but has been deemed hopelessly pro-capitalist by Mr. Martinez’s union and even by members of Mr. Hollande’s party.

Months of protests have weakened the proposed law, and it no longer includes a mechanism to cap payouts to fired workers. The law would also define more precisely how companies could lay off workers — currently an arduous process in a country where workers are highly protected.

But the part of the proposal that most infuriates C.G.T. and a few other unions would allow labor agreements negotiated by individual companies — over such issues as hours worked, paid holidays and bonuses — to take precedence over agreements negotiated at the occupational sector level.

That change would weaken the power of unions such as C.G.T., and it has made Mr. Martinez see red. “You’ve got to respect the hierarchy of norms,” he told reporters on Friday, while leaving the door slightly open to possible exceptions.

Yet with each new burst of violence in the streets, the government is increasingly dismissive of Mr. Martinez and his motives. Some government officials say that the violence will backfire and put the French on the side of the labor law, and that Mr. Martinez is using the violence to shore up his base.

If so, the union leader is doing a good job. France has among the lowest rates of unionization in Europe, and C.G.T., which represents train workers, metalworkers, public sector workers, miners and others, has been losing members for years. Between 1975 and 1993, it lost nearly two-thirds of its members, and now stands at about 686,000.

Today it is made up of mainly hard-core militants, analysts say. The old-fashioned language of class struggle was much in evidence among the crowds at Tuesday’s march, underscoring how many of France’s contemporary struggles are rooted in both the language and facts of its history.

“I Am in the Class Struggle” was a sticker sported by many protesters. “Work Is a Crime Against Humanity,” read another. “Victory in Chaos,” someone had scrawled on a building. “The Struggle Is About Class Against Class,” read one billboard.

Mr. Martinez moves easily among these views. His father fought in the Spanish Civil War in the International Brigades against the fascists, and his mother was a housekeeper.

C.G.T. was founded in 1895, and its “explicit aim was to bring down the state,” said another historian of French labor, Nick Parsons of Cardiff University in Wales. “It still has that anticapitalist orientation.”

“This is a guy who was brought up in that sort of atmosphere,” Dr. Parsons added. “He’s imbued with that history and culture.”

Mr. Martinez has shown a willingness to compromise in negotiations as a metalworker representative in preceding decades, Dr. Parsons noted. But that side is not evident now, with polls showing that most French people are still opposed to the labor law.

The class struggle continues.

“It shouldn’t be called the ‘law on work,’ but the ‘social dumping law,’” Mr. Martinez yelled during a recent speech at a factory in southern France. “We’re not close to giving up. The stakes are high — for today’s workers, for the young, for our country.”

U.S. Should Ally With Russia To End Fighting in Syria

[Cf. New York Times report after the following comment.]

Like it or not the Syrian government is the internationally recognized legal govenment of that nation and is a fellow member of the UN with the United States (the UN was founded so that member states would not attack one another). It is outrageous that the U.S. is funding mercenaries trying to overthrow that government. The civil war would have long been over and peace restored if the U.S., Saudi Arabia and their allies were not funding the so-called rebels and keeping the war going as an excuse to feed money into our own military industrial complex. ISIS exists as a by product of U.S. and its puppet NATO's interference in the Middle East.
If the U.S. is serious in ridding the world of the baleful influence of ISIS it will call off the dogs of war it is funding in Syria and join with Russia to knock out ISIS and the NUSRA FRONT and other anti-Syrian govenment jihadists posing as "moderate" Islamists. The U.S. and Russia can then work with the Syrian government and the United Nations to rebuild that ravaged nation and help the millions of displaced and immigrant families to return to their homes. The major threat to the peace of the world, as everyone except Americans seem to know, is the U.S. drive to maintain world military supremacy and political hegemony over all other nations. All the conflicts going on in the Middle East (Including Israel/Palestine), the Korean peninsula, the South China Sea, Africa, and Central and South America, and our own streets for that matter, stem from this insatiable drive for economic domination backed by military threats and interventions. That fact we are about to elect HRC who is a firm believer in all of the above including a conflict with Russia over a no fly zone in Syria will put the American people at odds with the people of the world at large. We are digging our own graves if we can't create a political movement to counteract the imperialist dreams of our ruling class.

Thomas Riggins

NEW YORK TIMES

U.S. Tells Russia of ‘Strong Concerns’ About Strikes on Syrian Rebels

By MATTHEW ROSENBERGJUNE 18, 2016

Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, second from the left in the back row, visited the Russian air base in Syria on Saturday. Credit Vadim Savitsky/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, via Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Senior American and Russian defense officials held what the Pentagon described as an “extraordinary” videoconference on Saturday to discuss Russian airstrikes that days earlier hit a garrison manned by Syrian rebels backed by the United States.

The Russian strikes hit Syrian opposition fighters on Thursday at the al-Tanf crossing, which lies on Syria’s border with Iraq. The rebels there are battling the Islamic State, the Pentagon said, and are also supposed to be covered by a partial cease-fire that the United States and Russia brokered in February.

During the videoconference on Saturday, Pentagon officials “expressed strong concerns about the attack” on forces that are fighting the Islamic State, Peter Cook, the Defense Department spokesman, said in a statement.

American officials told the Russians that their strikes had continued even after they were officially informed of allied air support underway for the rebels and that this had “created safety concerns for U.S. and coalition forces,” the statement said.

Though fighting has tapered off in many areas since the cease-fire went into effect in February, there have been fierce clashes in recent weeks in areas of northern Syria where the Islamic State and the Nusra Front are strongest. American officials have accused Russia of failing to stop the forces of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, from violating the cease-fire and attacking rebel groups backed by the United States.

There was no immediate word on how Russian officials responded to the concerns expressed by American officials on Saturday. But the videoconference took place as Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, met with Mr. Assad in Damascus and visited the Russian air base in Syria, The Associated Press reported.

Since the Russian air campaign in Syria began in September, it has helped Mr. Assad’s forces reclaim territory, reversing the fortunes of a regime that at this time last year appeared to be in an increasingly perilous position.

American-backed rebel forces, in contrast, have continued to struggle on the battlefield against both Mr. Assad’s forces and the Islamic State, and more than 50 State Department diplomats recently signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria.

The memo pressed for American military strikes against Mr. Assad’s government to stop what it said were persistent violations of the cease-fire. American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the violence in Syria, the memo said.

The Saudis and 9/11

A Saudi Imam, 2 Hijackers and Lingering 9/11 Mystery: NEW YORK TIMES

By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE

To some, a classified section of an inquiry into the terrorist attacks points to Saudi involvement, while the country’s foreign minister says, “There is no there there.”

"To some, a classified section of an inquiry into the terrorist attacks points to Saudi involvement, while the country’s foreign minister says, “There is no there there.”"

Well, if there is no there there make public the 28 classified pages -- Snowden where are you? By the way, there is more evidence in this NYT report of Saudi complicity in 9/11 than there was of Iraq's (0 evidence) or Afghanistan's (0 evidence). We invaded Afghanistan because its government refused to "hand over" bin Laden not because it knew about or participated in 9/11. The NYT article makes it clear that Saudi govenment officials fed and housed and aided 2 of the highjackers. The Saudi government also sends money and material to the jihadists in Syria that we are fighting against! Some ally. So why does the US coddle and defend the Saudi's when every finger of suspicion that they were part of the 9/11 attack is pointing at them? Because fighting "terrorism" is just a lot of bunk that the US leaders (Democrat or Republican) feed to a gullible and ignorant American people to hide what is really going on -- namely a fight to control the world's oil and other resources and justification to spend billions, even trillions, of dollars on the military industrial complex -- i.e., the private corporations that the US military has been created to defend (normally referred to as "us"). We are now about to have a great election where "we" will choose one of two puppets of that complex to rule over us. Oops -- actually only one is a puppet -- Trump has upset the applecart, he is not part of the traditional Republican/Democratic military industrial complex -- this is why the Republican leadership is running around like a chicken with its head cut off -- they lost control. Clinton will be the next president: the Republicans have failed to serve their masters but the Democrats have proven their loyal submission to our rulers (they rejected  Sanders overturning their applecart ) and demonstrated that they are still capable of keeping the people's eyes covered with wool. Unfortunately for us Trump represents a crypto-fascist (maybe not so crypto) mass movement, which shows that, with the abominably low educational levels and political consciousness of our people, fascism has a better chance than socialism of coming to power.

Thomas Riggins

Andrew Cuomo's attack on the First Amendment

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Andrew Cuomo’s Anti-Free Speech Move on B.D.S. BY DANIEL SIERADSKI In trying to support Israel, the New York governor is restricting people’s rights.

Authoritarian attacks on the Consitution and Bill of Rights are not the sole preserve of Republicans and Donald Trump and his supporters; Andrew Cuomo, a so-called liberal democrat has launched his own war against freedom of speech and expression by issuing an executive order to use state power against those who advocate boycotting Israel to pressure its government to make peace with the Palestinians and withdraw from the West Bank. This is a massive violation of First Amendment rights and had Donald Trump advocated it the Democrats would be howling in protest about dictatorship (while at the same time praising Israel and condemning the boycott, they would not have ignored the illegality of the use of state power to deny citizens the right to express their opinions nor passed up the opportunity of exposing Trump's antidemocratic tendencies: will they protest against one of their own?)

Thomas Riggins

"The Sanders Campaign and the Next Stage of Socialist Agitation" Remarks

The Sanders campaign and the next stage of socialist agitation

Click on the above for an interesting article from Liberation News. Below are some remarks about this article:

What's right and what's wrong with this analysis? I think it is certainly correct about the class nature of the forces backing HRC (she represents the interests of the 1% more faithfully than either Trump or Cruz could do) but she is also subject to mass forces from the working class and can be pressured to support progressive reforms and allow more space for left wing political action. It is true that Trump is not leading a fascist movement and the capitalist class is rejecting him because they fear he will arouse more popular resistance than is warranted from their point of view. But the article overlooks the fact that with an unpredictable economy, and another depression lurking around the corner, fascist tactics may be needed to forstall the growth of a serious anti-Wall Street mass fight back. The author discounts the new left forces that have manifested themselves within the Democrati Party due to the Sanders movement and thinks the DP is unreformable. He ignores the possibility that a quantitative change in the base of the DP could lead to a qualitative change in its leadership and positions (this is what has happened in the Republican Party driving it far to the right and out of control of its traditional establishment leaders) or that the left of the DP could breakaway and join with millions of progressive independents and form a third viable political party or fuse with the Green Party making it a truly mass party. His call to break with the DP completely and support a microscopically small Marxist grouping in the coming election is politically unrealistic as there are many Congressional and local races that progressive Democats should be supported in so that truly reactionary Republican politicians can be turned out of office; and while HRC is no friend of the working class she is less reactionary domestically than any Republican running against her and advancing the goals of the working class will easier under a DP administration than a RP one. The duty of Marxists is to give critical support (where warrented) pointing out why she is the best of a bad lot and at the same time independently agitate to organize a progressive class conscious opposition within the DP against the neoliberal consensus of the current party leadership. If we do that we can make leftist lingo mean something even the White House (if not the Oval Office).

Thomas Riggins

Obama, Putin and the U.S. Election

Thomas Riggins

Why is  Obama deliberately stirring up old Cold War tensions with Russia by ordering saber rattling by the Pentagon and our puppet military alliance Nato? Professor Steven Cohen, writing in The Nation (2-29-16) says Obama is escalating the tensions with Russia in an unprecedented manner not seen since the days of Nazi Germany. These hostile actions are being basically ignored by the mass media and none of the presidential candidates in either party have addressed them in the debates except indirectly (Sanders and Clinton supporting NATO, Trump mentioning he wants to make a "deal" with Putin).

The issue is Obama's decision to increase by 400% military expenditures and deployments on or near the Russian border by the U.S. and NATO. Such a huge concentration of Western military power on the Russian border has not been seen in modern times -- not even at the height of the Cold War. Cohen says Russia will have to respond by its own build up including the positioning of advanced missiles. Thus the whole of Eastern Europe will become a tinderbox increasing the probability of a regional war or  worse if some minor incident flares up.

This is, I might add, wholly unnecessary and reckless behavior on the part of Obama and his generals (the type of behavior a future President Cruz or Rubio are characterized of being capable of initiating). Why is this coming at the very time Russia is trying to de-escalate tensions with the U.S.?

The Russians have cooperated with the U.S. on the Iran deal and in trying to bring about a truce in Syria (their intervention was provoked by CIA "covert" weapons deals with jihadists against their ally Assad the legally UN recognized government), and in calming down the situation in Ukraine by a cease fire (another intervention initiated by the U.S.- E.U. role in overthrowing the legally elected government in that country and the installation of an ultraright wing antiRussian

regime. 

Cohen says the mass media in the U.S. attributes all these international problems to Russian aggression and to Putin's megalomania ["Putin's Russia"]. So while we play around with farcical political debates and a news media that misinforms rather than informs Obama stealthily builds up the aggressive capabilities of U.S. imperialism and, consciously or unconsciously, further endangers the peace of the world and the future of humanity.

The Left is falling down on the job of warning the working class of the dangers it faces in the coming election. HRC has wrapped herself in the Obama legacy and will no doubt continue the march towards more wars and military adventures that the U.S. has embarked upon ever since Korea. The Republican candidates are no different in this respect. Whoever wins in November the big losers will be the working class and the minorities who will continue to be abused and exploited by the U.S. ruling Establishment. 

The Left has, however, done its duty in one respect. There is a slight possibility the dire consequences enumerated above could be avoided or alleviated and that would be the election of Bernie Sanders as president. This event would open up progressive political action outside of the control of the Establishment and could lead to a democratic renaissance in the U.S. The Left - Progressive movement has solidly backed Sanders (aside from some fringe elements).  Unfortunately, the Left cannot agree on a Plan B. HRC's election would be a victory for the Establishment and there is no Third Party that the Left is willing to unite behind. 

This military build up is part of the profit generating foreign policy of the Military Industrial Complex. It justfies the transfer of billions of dollars in "defense" spending to the private coffers of the 1%.  What are the chances that HRC will adopt a pro peace agenda and come out against the U.S.- NATO build up in Europe? Sanders is also weak on this issue but he can be more easily pressured to change as cutting the military budget frees up money for the progressive changes to reduce income inequality that he favors and he is not beholden to the Establishment. What is to be done?

Hillary Clinton on Cutting Drug Costs (Kick the Poor off Medicare)

Thomas Riggins

Forbes magazine ("the capitalist tool") doesn't  always paint a rosy picture  of capitalism, except (as does The Wall Street Journal) in its editorial and opinion fluff. But capitalists want the actual lowdown on how the system is working and where it's going and Forbes' job is give them the info they need to place their bets.

Working people and progressives can bet the capitalists are not betting on Bernie Sanders, the money bag crowds are betting on Clinton (with few exceptions) all the way. Some of Clinton's ideas are even too pro-capitalist for Forbes!

The magazine recently held a "healthcare summit" as big capital is aware the cost of drugs is getting out of hand and is ultimately unsustainable. They certainly don't want some social democratic president mucking around with their system so they want to control the proposals that will have to be made to make the system work for more people and still allow them to reap ill gotten gains.

Hillary Clinton has two proposals on the table which Forbes doesn't particularly like because while they make modest changes in the health care system they end up giving poor people the short end of the stick and benefit the rich. But that is the very problem that has to be solved! Creating a system that doesn't let people die because they are poor. As usual Clinton's supporters don't really understand whose side she is on, they are the same as Trump supporters in this respect; even some of those on the authentic Left -- Communists and Socialists -- don't understand she represents the interests of monopoly capitalism better than any Republican could.

Well what are her proposals to better the system (she totally rejects the Medicare for all ideas of Sanders)?. Her position is not "Medicare for All" but "Medicaid for More." Medicaid is cheaper and doesn't have all the benefits of Medicare so health care won't cost so much if poor senior citizens who are on Medicare due to their ages are switched over to Medicaid leaving only the wealthier seniors on Medicare. That's right folks, the first would be female U.S. President is a grinch!

Here is how Forbes puts it: "How do we fix pharmaceutical pricing? Hillary Clinton's idea of making drug firms pay a tax if they don't spend enough on R&D probably wouldn't lower prices. And her other idea of making seniors who are eligible for both Medicare (health care for seniors) and Medicaid (the program for the poor) take Medicaid would result in savings, but it could also mean giving rich people better health insurance than poor people." Forbes is being nice in using "could" for "would."

So there it is: Clinton the "progressive," the "realist," proposing the same old same old; let's "solve" our drug pricing problems by tossing the poor under the bus and not bothering the rich. Wake up dupes! We have one chance this year to actually make a change in the system and that's to vote for someone 90% of the political class and the corporate media oppose, the ONLY candidate that actually represents the vast majority of the American people and is not a cat's paw for then wealthy 1%. It's time for all unions and people's movements to turn their backs on their faux progressive leaderships who have sided with Clinton and the 1% and support Bernie Sanders -- your grandchildren will be grateful for having a future. 

Sanders: The Peace Candidate (Maybe)

Thomas Riggins

2 hrs · 

"The U.S. Senator from Vermont has opposed NATO expansion into Eastern Europe" - See more at: http://portside.org/20…/bernie-sanders-2016-peace-candidate…-- Unless I misheard him in the Thursday night debate with HRC he favored the NATO expansion to counter Putin's "aggression.'' In fact there is contradiction between his progressive domestic policies and his reactionary views on international affairs which reflect ideas generally in line with U.S. imperial interests. He is not the dangerous hawk that HRC is but he calls Iran a center of terrorism which it spreads around the world when it is actually Saudi Arabia that is playing that role financed by the U.S.; he says we must oppose the totalitarian communists in China and other such rubbish. He appears to be supportive of the general neoliberal bi-partisan consensus that Russia is now a major threat to the peace of Europe. The Democratic Party, of which he may end up being the presidential nominee (unless the DP leadership has a plan to deadlock the convention and then draft Biden as the compromise nominee) is not friendly to the kind of progressive anti-imperialist foreign policies that socialists favor (and that make any support of HRC problematic) and it would be disastrous to insist that Sanders adopt such views at this time (first things first) since getting Sanders into office is requisite for any possible progressive change (HRC is as much a representative of the reactionary patriarchal Establishment as the ultra-right -- only less open about it as there is no contradiction between rights for women, gays, and minorities, as can be seen by former progressive leaders of the women's rights and civil rights movement now aligning themselves with the pro-imperialist HRC, and the continuance of a vicious capitalist economic system). Agitating for and supporting Sanders is the first duty now of socialists both as an opportunity to educate the masses in a progressive direction and to prepare the way for the eventual elimination of the ultra right in all its manifestations.

Bernie Sanders: The 2016 Peace Candidate

In its statement endorsing Bernie Sanders, Peace Action praised his opposition to both Iraq wars, support of legislation to reduce spending on nuclear weapons, strong backing of the Iran agreement, votes to curb military spending, and championing of…

PORTSIDE.ORG

GIRLS DAMAGED BY CULTURES WITH PREFERANCE FOR BOYS

If a culture with a male preference has devastating effects on girls imagine living in one where parents sexually mutilate them and/or kill them if they get sexually abused! We have a long way to go before the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights is taken seriously by all (any?) of the governments of the world. Seriously, any government in violation of Human Rights should lose its vote in the General Assembly until it corrects or really takes meaningful steps to correct the violation. How about a female General Secretary?

Parental preference for boys damages girls’ self-esteem and happiness

While most studies of parental sex discrimination explore the devastating social and demographic effects of a cultural preference for boys, a new study examines its…

North Korea Launches Satellite U.S. Freaks Out

Thomas Riggins

9 mins · 

NORTH KOREA LAUNCHES SATELLITE U.S. FREAKS OUT

"Although North Korea can learn much about the technology to build ballistic missiles from satellite launches, putting a satellite into orbit does not guarantee an ability to deliver a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea has never tested a ballistic-missile version of its Unha-series rockets. " Buried away in the article is the most important information. All the clamor over the DPKR space progra...

Continue Reading

Texas Republicans Continue the War Against Women in Their State

"It's a public health issue that Texas women struggle to achieve their reproductive goals." Mildly and diplomatically put since this is a study by a Texas state university. The real conclusion of the study is that the women of Texas have no rights to control their own bodies with regard to their reproductive functions except those granted to them by Republican men who run the state government -- and where the Federal government has protected these rights the Texas government will try and abort them. The women of Texas should rise up and cast these men into the toilet bowl of history and flush them away in the next election. Feel the bern.--tr

Study measures impact of removing Planned Parenthood from Texas women's health program

The public defunding of Planned Parenthood in Texas may have led to a decrease in highly effective forms…

SCIENCEDAILY.COM