31 May 2016

Brexit "beneficial" to trade: committee

The Blog


According to a British Parliamentary committee report, leaving the European Union could actually put Britain at certain economic advantages.


Various media have pointed out the battle of often inaccurate "claims and counter-claims made by both the leave and remain sides", as Treasury Select Committee Chairman Andrew Tyrie MP termed them.

The video below from 38 Degrees shows the endless trading of truths, half-truths and exaggerations by the two campaigns over the future of Britain and the EU.


Tyrie acknowledged, "the Committee confined itself to looking at economic costs and benefits. But this is only part of the story. For some, other issues are more important. As the founder of Leave.eu put it, for him: "this isn't about pounds and pence, it's about democracy"."

The "In" campaign tends to prey on economic fears. Head of Labour's "In" campaign Alan Johnson MP stated, "The economic evidence isn’t so much piling up as becoming a landslide: leaving Europe would hurt Britain’s economy." Anti-democratic war criminal Tony Blair said just holding the EU membership referendum itself is an "enormous economic problem".

However, there are actually strong arguments that leaving Europe would be economically wise and put Britain on a path to restoring its much-depleted international influence and wealth.

Britain outside the EU could enjoy what Tyrie called "potential beneficial opportunities". As the report stated, "high-quality trade agreements with countries like China, India and the United States" may become increasingly possible to sign after the United Kingdom is no longer constrained by EU regulations and dedication to the European market.

It is certain that there would be a major international realignment if Britain was outside the European Union. Whether Britain will become closer to the American regime or be pushed further away from it towards friendlier relations with emerging economies such as China is not clear.


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US regime "corporate rule" to continue

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With the final contest for the seat of United States President likely to be fought out between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the outcome will only be more continuous "corporate rule" by a hideous regime driven by endless greed.


This is the picture drawn by Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) writer Kevin Carson. Immanuel Wallerstein holds a similar position on electoral politics, viewing it as unavailing as any means of transforming the world-system.

Other political writers similarly diagnose the US "democratic" political system to be fake, much as its press freedom is a fraud and any meaningful criticisms of the regime's barbarism and war crimes are continuously redacted from newspaper and television by government cronies. The revolving door between all US corporations, "NGOs" and government departments makes them essentially fronts for the regime in Washington.

As concluded by Carson at the end of a clever analysis authored on 28 May:
...on all the issues most fundamental to keeping us from having [human-friendly economy of small-scale]  — the transportation subsidies, “intellectual property,” the global Empire and permanent warfare state — the two parties are almost indistinguishable. I don’t know — one party may give us a form of corporate rule that’s somewhat more bearable than the other. But either way it will be corporate rule, without a doubt.
Predicting none other than a continuation of endless war and the subsidizing of greedy corporations by the US regime no matter who wins the White House, Carson states of the Democratic and Republican parties respectively, "American politics isn’t divided between a Party of Working People and a Party of Big Business. It’s always been divided between two Parties of Business that serve two somewhat different but overlapping segments of the capitalist class."


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27 May 2016

Intellectual property, secrecy, and death

The Blog


Known for likening the use of patents to exploitation, murder and terrorism, C4SS writer Kevin Carson points out that Monsanto is hiding behind intellectual property to conceal its responsibility for deaths. Desperate to prevent consumers knowing about deadly ingredients in its herbicides, the company needs secrecy.


Most opponents of Monsanto's Roundup chemical product believe glyphosate is carcinogenic - a claim refuted in various scientific studies. The scientific community believes glyphosate is safe, although this says nothing for the safety of Roundup itself, which still accompanies a high rate of cancer among workers.

As reasoned by Kevin Carson at the Center for a Stateless Society website:
legally, Monsanto is required to make public only the active ingredient — glyphosate — itself. In fact the “inert ingredients” are all trade secrets, legally protected by so-called “intellectual property.”
Carson also writes, "the existence of legally protected trade secrets is a weapon against the health and welfare of the public, depriving them of any knowledge of the nature of toxic chemicals they may be exposed to". He compares this with the behavior of companies and governments surrounding shale gas production, writing that in this industry various proprietary ingredients are "also kept secret from the potentially affected public by “intellectual property.”"

In this analysis, libertarian "free market" advocates such as Ronald Bailey at Reason who defend Monsanto's freedom from the apparent cruelties of consumer rights, labeling and transparency are acting hypocritically. While supposedly triumphing individual rights, such libertarians are effectively cheer-leading the state while it crucifies individuals, blindfolding them and refusing them any right to know what is harming their health.

Carson writes such immoral rules do not constitute a "libertarian legal order", where, "given the prevalence of cancer like non-Hodgkin lymphoma among agricultural workers exposed to Roundup, there would long ago have been lawsuits in which Monsanto was compelled to disclose the full list of ingredients in Roundup".

Whether or not glyphosate is the danger, Roundup and the quantities it is used in should be suspected for as long as the apparent connection to cancer still exists.


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Memorial Day for the military's victims

The Blog


Writing ahead of Memorial Day in the US, Garrison Center director Thomas Knapp asked Americans to think about the victims of the US government's violence too.


Noting that modern states "murdered more than 260 million human beings in the 20th century alone", the author reminds us to remember not only people who died for governments but the far vaster number killed by them for dumb reasons.

Noting the terror inspired by the US military around the world now, Knapp concluded in his post:
We occasionally see a flag-draped coffin, or encounter an amputee on the street, but our concerns with, for example, terrorism, simply aren’t in the same league as the reasonable fears of those around the world living with American planes and drones constantly overhead or American troops on their streetcorners. 
This Memorial Day, let’s set aside a moment to think about them.
The 260 million figure offered by Knapp excludes soldiers killed in action in the wars of the 20th Century, and is six times greater than the number of dead troops in those wars. It includes victims of genocides committed around the world by untenable regimes.

In the current century, the greatest civilian losses in wars are caused directly by the US government and its allies in the Middle East and other poor regions. The greatest example now is the war in Syria, waged by the US government as part of its strategy to overthrow foreign governments and replace them with "friendly" regimes.


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24 May 2016

US Empire fears defeat in star wars?

The Blog


According to a recent Stratfor analysis, US generals are getting worried again. This time, about American space dominance in the face of increased anti-satellite capabilities in development by China and Russia.


As always, America sees threats everywhere and gaps in its attempts to manage the entire planet as a single perfect battlefield. The analysis states, "Increased competition in space is reviving fears of a war there, one with devastating consequences".

 Included in the report is an acknowledgement that the increasingly unstable American empire is getting ready for pesky Russian or Chinese rebel attacks by planning to build ultimate battle stations in orbit:
Overall, the United States is getting far more serious about the threat of space warfare. Investment in new technologies is increasing, and the organizational architecture to deal with such a contingency is being put in place. In the race between shield and sword, however, there is no guarantee that offensive ASAT capabilities will not have the advantage, potentially denying critical access to space during a catastrophic celestial war.
Going beyond the Star Wars references, this story has a serious side, with grave implications for US global military dominance as it suffers from the inevitable decline of empire.

Stratfor's analysis admits that the US is more dependent on vulnerable satellites than other powers because of the global remit of its foreign policy (driven by US belief that the country must dominate the world). The US is only interested in military technology it can project globally to maintain its own power and threaten others, and has comparatively no interest in fortifying its own borders against threats or ensuring the regime's own survival.

Such mistaken priorities put the US at a disadvantage to Russia and China when trying to confront those countries at their borders. While US armies will depend on a flimsy chain of defenseless satellites to learn about Russian and Chinese forces, Russia and China will only need to depend on hardened ground-based radar systems deep inside their own territory in the event of war.

US satellite weakness is an additional component of the overall overstretching that is putting US forces on such weak footing against Russia and China in its hopes of "containment" of emerging powers, despite America's vastly greater defense spending. As long as the United States attempts to occupy the entire planet, its forces will be spread too thin to engage Russia or China in any effective way. US military dominance will hang by a thread of dependence on fragile technologies, such as its exposed satellites.


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Tech leads to anti-statism: 2015 at TED

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A fascinating TED talk recently re-posted by the Center for a Stateless Society relates weakening governments with accelerating social change and popular liberation by technology.


Originally from 2015, the TED talk by William Gillis equates the state with control, and control with building perfect defenses and security measures. All of these become impossible because the spectrum of disobedience, disruption and vandalism by people increases through technology and popular access to it (just ask hackers).

"The more means by which people can act the easier attack becomes and the harder defense becomes" the speaker argued. Using a Star Wars (image courtesy) reference that would be enjoyed by fans of the sci-fi series, Gillis states, "It’s a simple matter of complexity. The attacker only needs to choose one line of attack, the defender needs to secure against all of them. This isn’t just true of small thermal exhaust ports, it’s true in our software ecosystems today and any other system with many dimensions of movement."

The thermal exhaust port is a weakness in the Empire's deadly Death Star battle station featured in Star Wars. In the film, rebel hero Luke Skywalker destroys the planet-killing weapon by firing a proton torpedo through the thermal exhaust port, causing a chain reaction that destroys the Death Star.

Edward Snowden could perhaps be likened to Luke Skywalker, one man able to bring the colossal machine of tyranny down by being in the right place, at the right time, with the right technologies. Advanced technology, Gillis believes, adds concrete facts to support a form of anarchism and super individualism that previously had only been possible in theory.

In his conclusion, Gillis identified the idea of a stateless society with the posthuman society predicted by transhumanism, stating "transhumanism represents yet another arm of anarchism: a focus on expanding freedom in physical terms and a critique of timid retreat to some stultifying “human nature.""

According to Gillis and others at Human Iterations, we need a "social singularity" thinking about a post-state society filled with superempowered individuals equipped with the ultimate personal technologies, who no longer need governments to take care of themselves. It is hard to deny such a conclusion, as "The arc of human history is an arc bent by our creativity and inquiry towards more options, more ways of existing and acting."


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20 May 2016

"Obama should celebrate" US atrocities

The Blog


While President Obama's planned Japan visit was reported, C4SS writer Kevin Carson wrote to remind us the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 was nothing but a act of murder directed intentionally at civilians.


Carson's article counters an earlier article, relating to a prospective visit by President Obama to Japan. Writing on 14 May, the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby had suggested Obama should actually tell the Japanese people he is glad about the nuclear bombing of their people as it allowed Japan to be "free" and enjoy "friendship" with the United States.

While the 1945 nuclear terrorism against Japanese civilians is praised by Jacoby for transforming Japan into what the US sees as a puppet state at only the cost of immolated women and children, Carson provides a rather different picture for you to consider. Rejecting Jacoby's view that other intensive bombing attacks on civilians in different countries were also justified to end the war, Carson writes that all "Attempts to terrorize a country into surrender through wholesale murder of its civilian population [are] a crime against humanity — no exceptions."

Carson's article concludes that the US decision to destroy cities was an act of utter barbarity, and finds little parallel anywhere except in primitive genocides committed thousands of years ago:
In fact, there’s no moral difference between Truman’s order of the massacre of the civilian population of two cities amounting to hundreds of thousands of people, and the massacres of civilian populations with which the Assyrians similarly terrorized enemies into surrendering over two thousand years ago. 
Deliberately killing civilians is murder. It’s that simple.
As of this post's creation, Obama is not expected to either apologize for or seek to justify the US regime's extensive and horrific war crimes from 1945 to present when he visits the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.


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Would a world government create war?

The Blog


Any "world government" created out of the current international system would be faced with civil war instantly, an article posted to Aral Bereux's site Dystopian News noted.


Hypothesizing that humans are still slaves to their violent instincts and territorial behavior, a short post to the site puts forward a gloomy assessment of what might happen if a powerful organization tried to make humanity clean its act up and unite under a single authority.

Unstable states faced with disintegration are suggested as examples of what would immediately happen to a world government attempting to secure its authority and legitimacy in the same fashion as existing governments.




Asking the question, "Do You Want to Live in a Stateless World?", however, could be beside the point. Most political scientists agree that states are now confused, stressed by supranational influences, and failing to provide security (and jobs) for their subjects on the greatest scale seen in modern history.

Books such as Wallerstein's Utopistics show the reason for the apparent tragedy of state erosion is not a conspiracy or because a group of people "want" it to happen, but because the historical social system (international capitalism regulated and enforced by nation-states) is at the end of its lifespan and faced with economic contradictions, migration, and new technologies.


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17 May 2016

Mont Order-related research available

The Blog


Research into the writings of Jean-Paul Marat in 1774  and their possible reapplication in the modern world has been made available at Dissident Voice and other websites and pages of the Mont Order society.


Quoting Marat's 1774 book The Chains of Slavery at length, the L'Ordre essay relates strongly the origins of the Mont Order's legendary name in the chaos of the French Revolution. As such, it is an attempt to guide the Order and keep its overall philosophy in concert with its origins and associations.

 Some conspiracy theorists believe the Mont Order and the Montagnards who created the French Republic and executed Louis XVI before apparently disappearing into the chaos are one and the same.

Theories aside, the L'Ordre essay is an authentic Mont Order document at the Dissident Voice publication, and does express great interest in the revolutionary rhetoric responsible for inspiring the French Revolution. It calls for this to be reapplied in the modern world, with western democracies having gone astray and failed to accomplish what the French and American Revolutions hoped to do.

Jean-Paul Marat was a French physician, journalist and key influence on the "Mountain", who became a martyr of then-new liberal nationalist ideas following his assassination in 1793. Marat lived with a debilitating skin disease, often in exile and hiding in sewers to escape persecution during his political life, while he ran the dissident newspaper The People's Friend.

In its conclusion, the Mont Order essay asks the Order's members to emulate Marat. "Being strongly related to the Mont Order association's own name and hopes, Marat is an ideal role model", L'Ordre argues. Dissidents should therefore be encouraged to be powerful, awe-inspiring individuals who "act bravely against the unproven government and international system" and in Marat's words, "bring the ax to their root" when it comes to dealing with injustices.

Notable differences between the Mont Order and the French Revolutionary thinkers include a lack of interest in patriotic nationalism, with this being archaic in a high-tech modern environment with everyone connected through the internet.


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GOP's stupid "third party" backup plan

The Blog


Authored on May 14, a short analysis at the Garrison Center responds to the US Republican Party elite's last-ditch effort to escape Donald Trump's triumph over them by funding a new independent candidate.


The short article questions, ostensibly from the GOP's point of view, whether such a move would suit their goals. "The draft effort’s reputed short list includes Ohio governor John Kasich and US Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE)", the piece notes.

Such a plan is a "very bad idea" if the Republicans want any chance of winning the actual election, author Thomas Knapp states. To put it shortly, "Two well-funded, ably promoted Republican candidates on the same ballots means a Democratic win". GOP elites, meanwhile, are so concerned with their own infighting that they may be unable to focus on actually winning the White House. They are worried to see Trump "displacing them in their role as Pied Pipers", Knapp writes.

Another possible reason for a Republican "third party" backup plan stated by Knapp might be to avoid real third parties such as the Libertarians or constitutionalists experiencing a boom in membership, in the wake of alienation of GOP supporters caused by Trump.

In conclusion, the post points out how artificial such a third candidate would be if the GOP elite chooses to back him as an alternative to Trump, and "A fake third party campaign won’t save the GOP".


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13 May 2016

UK drone strike legality questioned

The Blog


A UK Parliamentary committee report published on 9 May 2016 calls for more "accountability" in extrajudicial executions conducted by the human rights-abusing British regime overseas.


The report originates with the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and, although not condemning the state assassinations of British subjects without trial, makes a number of requests for the Government to explain itself.

 Questioning the legality of UK drone assassinations, such as the one that killed Reyaad Khan on 21 August 2015, the report requested to know "the legal basis on which [Britain] provides any help which facilitates the use of lethal force outside of armed conflict by the US, or any other country which takes the same or a similar view to the US... with regard to the use of lethal force".

Regarding accountability, the report stated as follows:
There must also be a mechanism for effective independent investigation capable of leading to accountability... Independent scrutiny is a means of ensuring that decision-makers keep to the relevant standards; is a safeguard against the danger of mission creep, when broad powers are exercised in ever wider circumstances; and gives the public the confidence that it is necessary to entrust such exceptional powers to ministers.
With the so-called "war on terror" still a menace to human rights, many people still do not realize that the British regime, obeying the orders of the American regime, has carte blanche to kill anyone without trial if they are perceived or even mistakenly identified as a threat to the regime.


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US-Pakistan military deals unreliable

The Blog


In an analysis at the Pakistan-based Voice of East magazine, one author focuses on the way US military contracts enable the US to exploit Pakistan and treat it as a junior strategic partner. This has been contributing to "shaky Pak-US relations".


Most of America's allies around the world are treated with contempt by the US leadership, which considers them as puppets whose interests can be sacrificed to deal damage to US geo-strategic rivals. Pakistan is no exception to this rule, as the author states.

Addressing a recent deal for Pakistan to obtain newly modernized US F-16 fighter jets, Shahzad Masood Roomi writes, "This history of the US exploitation of Pakistan through military aid tells us that even if PAF pays the entire cost of these 8 aircraft now, there is no guarantee that these aircraft will ever reach Pakistan." According to the author, Pakistan has always historically suffered from political "strings which the Americans always attached with such military deals."


One area of continued concern to the US regime, which is proud of its technological and military monopolies across the world, would be Pakistan's nuclear deterrent. The US is also still determined to prevent Pakistan finding any common ground with Iran, including joint oil pipelines. As with much of its relations around the world, the US will continue to feel threatened by other countries (even its allies) becoming more self-sufficient or well-armed.

The author's recommendation is for Pakistan to "revamp its entire foreign policy", re-balancing economic and politics in order to achieve equal relations between states. If successful, Pakistan would no longer need tolerate having the US regime's "strategic interests served at the cost of ours".


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10 May 2016

Millennials hate capitalism and greed

The Blog


In a May 1st article appearing at the Center for a Stateless Society website, anti-statist writer Kevin Carson explains why Millennials tend to respond positively to the term "socialism" in poll results. Capitalism gets a much more negative reaction.


This is especially relevant now as people wonder why the "democratic socialist" Bernie Sanders was able to go toe-to-toe with corporate backed Hillary Clinton for Democratic Party nomination as President of the United States. It happened despite many Americans (likely older generations) despising anything called "socialism" and assuming it to be solely the work of North Korea or Joseph Stalin.

Carson explained that the Millennial generation is distressed by the greed and oppression brought about by modern corporate capitalism. Many young people are familiar with the ideas of academics who try to explain just how disfiguring and tyrannical current capitalism is. Rampant capitalism is is actually coercing even the capitalists' favorite bogeyman - the regulatory state - just for its own profit.

Alluding to sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein's theory (read all our coverage of Wallerstein) of the expansion of capitalism across the world, Carson writes that Millennials have got it right if they associate capitalism with greed and power rather than freedom:
Historical capitalism began five or six centuries ago, not with free markets, but with the conquest of the free towns by the absolute states and the mass expropriation of peasants from their traditional rights to the land by the landed oligarchy, and continued with the colonial conquest of most of the world outside Europe. Since then capital has continued to rely heavily on the state to socialize its operating costs, erect barriers to competition, and enforce illegitimate title to all the land and natural resources engrossed in previous centuries. This history of conquest, robbery and enslavement is in the basic genetic code of contemporary corporate capitalism.
Some writers have tried to explain away Millennials' positive views of socialism with the condescending assertion they are "confused" about dictionary definitions. Carson dismissed this assertion as "dumb" and devoid of any comprehension of history.


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Labour's anti-State of Israel scandal

The Blog


The L'Ordre blog based at Beliefnet comments on the recent so-called anti-Semitism scandal creating controversy in British politics.


This anti-Semitism scandal relates to comments by Labour Party members about Israel, and the view that Israel is responsible for conflict in the Middle East. Not tolerating this view, some MPs within the Opposition are responding with vicious rhetoric against anyone - including all British Muslims - who consider Israel guilty of war crimes in the Middle East.

From the blog on Saturday:
To ban boycotts and stifle criticism of Israel in Britain’s democracy... would be against diversity... and will destabilize British society, even creating escalating violence in coming decades. It is also likely that the Muslim population will then grow in even greater isolation from politics, while believers in “democracy” shrink, during such a period. Faith in democracy will be lost, and, once censored and prohibited from the democratic Opposition, youths will be more likely to choose the path of violence rather than debate.
Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/lordre/2016/05/cracks-in-british-society-due-to-israel-or-muslims.html#Gca07CAUijpLO2PE.99
The post notes the views of Security Studies scholars that countering extremism depends more on making people feel included and making the political process work rather than excluding, ostracizing and banning minorities for their feelings about political issues. In view of this, the idea that extremism is to be countered by suspensions, bans and other crackdowns on anti-Israel views in the Labour Party is "the worst move ever".

In fact, the post argues for opposite measures to be taken, compared with what the Labour Party seems to be doing now. "Allow the minorities to find expression, give them a greater platform in Britain and a role in governing the country", the blog says.


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6 May 2016

Govt can make you unlock your phone

The Blog


Noting the arrival of "biometric" authentication methods on smartphones, Garrison Center Director Thomas L. Knapp argues it "comes with a cost".


The focus here is on using one's fingerprint to unlock one's phone. Considering rulings in Virginia and California that you can be "forced to put your finger on the phone to unlock it", the technology is being used as an excuse for US authorities to violate the Constitution in new ways.

As explained by Knapp, "Giving the police access to your phone is no different than telling them about every call you made". This goes against the strong components of the law that prevent you from "testifying against yourself, which you cannot constitutionally be required to do."

The state is normally limited in when and how it can coerce individuals to incriminate themselves. For example, "If the door is locked, they can break it down, but you don’t have to unlock it for them. If they find your hidden compartment full of evidence, they find it. But you don’t have to show them where it is, or even tell them that it exists."

What will you do about the increasing use of biometric data, when you know you can be coerced to unlock your property using it? For now, Knapp advises you need to "secure your phone with a long and complex pass code, not with your fingerprint."


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Mont Order society letting everyone join

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The Mont Order society, despite being called a "secret society" often, is letting everyone join it.


Recently announced over Facebook is a fairly large group called the "Friends of the Mont Order", the same term used by various actual members of the group. In a matter of hours, it had over 400 people signed up to it.

So if you ever wanted to be part of a mysterious and arcane order, now's your chance. Influence the world... or at least influence a group that is influencing the world:

Friends of the Mont Order (Facebook)

One Beliefnet blog commented, "It joins as part of a broader tapestry of groups, movements and contact circles who know of the Mont Order and are sharing its messages of global enlightenment and progress every day."

The main purpose of the Facebook group is to bring people together to talk about the "intersection of technology and politics", one of the areas of interest mentioned in the Order's code.


Info on the Mont Order

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3 May 2016

'Nuclear terror' magnet isn't Pakistan

The Blog


In Europe, the US and the west in general, many professed experts would say Pakistan is the weakest link when it comes to nuclear security, and the most likely target of terrorists trying to obtain a nuclear weapon.


However as explained in a report at the Pakistan-based Voice of East website based on facts covered earlier by the Guardian, Pakistan isn't the location where terrorists would obtain nuclear materials. In fact, Europe is.

Terrorists are frequently recruiting and operating with impunity inside Europe without any clear strategy from the EU or NATO, who instead try to cynically benefit by letting them go to Syria to attack their enemy, Bashar al-Assad's troops.

Only the most recent consequences of this were the Paris and Brussels attacks by the so-called "Islamic" State (Daesh). The atrocities marked the return of the unspeakable terrorism for "democracy" that Europe stupidly still justifies and exports for consumption in Syria as an alternative to Assad's government.

According to facts published at the Guardian, Daesh-associated terrorist Salah Abdeslam possessed sensitive information on a Germany nuclear waste facility. Whether the ultimate intent was to cause nuclear disaster there, obtain data on the locations of fissile material, or construct a "dirty bomb", it is a closer call than anything that has been reported in Pakistan of late.

More consequentially, there was a recent scare in Belgium that resulted in iodine capsules being issued to the population in the hopes of fighting radiation sickness after a "dirty bomb".


However, a "dirty bomb" is considered to be no threat as long as you have a fully functioning suit of skin, according to scientists. The US government, and apparently Belgium too, have failed to note this when telling the media over and over again that terrorists may detonate a "dirty bomb" - probably to justify criminal surveillance and human rights abuses by NATO countries.

The likelihood of a Daesh nuclear attack that would kill one or more people is very unlikely, under any circumstances. Daesh lacks the codes or knowledge to detonate any state's nuclear devices or the rockets to deliver such a weapon on target, and lacks the equipment to safely dismantle and handle nuclear devices. It is unlikely that nuclear waste is stored in areas proximate to significant populated sites, making an attack on nuclear waste sites not very threatening.

Despite that more vulnerabilities exist in their own countries, westerners still consume anti-Pakistan propaganda such as statements from regional nemesis India that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are not secure and could easily be obtained by Daesh.


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Is the politics of job creation mistaken?

The Blog


Rejecting both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump's promises of returning jobs to America's shores, writer Jason Farrell argued at The Radical Relay in March the globalization and automation causing jobs to disappear are too powerful to stop.


Saying both of these politicians are advocating a populist view that is unfortunately "terrible, backward, and misinformed", Farrell wrote they seem to believe America can rewind itself to 1955 with "millions of unskilled laborers with profitable production jobs".

It isn't that the goal of trying to restore purpose and work to those millions who are without either in the United States is bad, however. It is simply that present developments in economics and technology are making the goal far harder to achieve than these politicians will admit. As Farrell writes:
You can’t magically make unskilled labor “worth more” by mandating a $15 wage or pressuring companies to return their labor force to the U.S. Even if those jobs came back, they’d be automated within a few years to save costs and maintain productivity. 
Bernie fans, it’s important that you understand that companies aren’t evil for doing this. To survive in a globalized marketplace they have to compete with companies from around the world with lower labor costs. Everyone has to adjust. 
Trump fans, it’s important you understand that China is not evil for using those jobs to lift their population out of unfathomable poverty. As China’s own productivity and standard of living improve, many of those jobs will likely to be turned over to automation as well.
Unemployment is a crisis separate from economic growth and competition, and an attempt to repair it by mandating higher wages and trying to cut off relations with other productive economies such as China would potentially "plunge us back into a recession and boomerang back against the people you’re trying to help".

In sum, campaign rhetoric aimed at unemployed or low-paid workers contains not a solution to America's economic woes.

Not all is gloomy, however. Farrell also writes that, with the progress towards automation and competition at a truly global level, the right path would be to implement "creative ways to make education and job training more affordable".


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High-ranking psychopaths are pushing for a nuclear war with Russia, seemingly intentionally

If the US leaders wanted to wage a thermonuclear war that would destroy America and the world, we would not be here to talk about it. Presid...

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