Bulletin N° 785

                                                                                                                 

                                                                   

“World War 3 Between America and China”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfgCn7GV0Kc



 

Subject : A Social History of 20th-Century ‘Fight or Flight’ Patterns & the 21st-Century World Capitalist System.

 

 

11 February 2018

Grenoble, France

 

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,

 

I have been asked about Anglophone  news sources for current events and have responded to individual queries by sending the following CEIMSA link which I used regularly as a research tool for undergraduate classes in American Studies at Grenoble U.

 

http://www.ceimsa.org/liens.html

 

My interest in the role played by intellectuals in times of imperialist conflicts has taken me to the history of pre-Nazi Germany and the biographical histories written by Fritz Stern (1926-2016), the godson of Fritz Haber and former member of the Editorial and Executive Committees of The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein at Princeton University. In the introduction of his book, Einstein’s German World (1999), Stern alerts his readers to what he perceived as a “German lesson of the twentieth century – for all of us.” We are about to read about the “evils that the passivity of decent citizens can bring about.”(p.10)

 

The book represents an unusual mélange of intellectual and social history, surprisingly uncritical of the global forces of capitalism which were so important in reducing Germany on two separate occasions to a pathological state of nationalism and militarism in the first half of the 20th Century. This complete disregard for critical economic analysis brings Stern to focus on human failures as the cause of the German imperialist experiments. Rather than reflecting Christopher Hill’s essentially democratic socialist premise from the study of  English social history: “All but for the grace of god, there go I!” (in The World Turned Upside Down), Stern concludes quite logically from his premise of liberal individualism that: “formal unification [in 1989] gave Germany that rarest of opportunities, a second chance: this time to become the preeminent power of Europe in a peaceful fashion.”(Einstein’s German World, p.10)

 

In his biographical sketch of Max Planck, Stern writes that during a talk at his university on August 3, 1914, Plank warned: “We do not know what tomorrow will bring. We sense only that almost at once something great and terrifying faces our people, that our homes and lives will be at stake, and the honor, perhaps the survival, of the father land. But we can also see and feel in the frightful gravity of the situation that all the moral and physical powers of the country are begin fused into a single whole, bursting to heaven in a flame of sacred rage.”(44)

 

   The great German scientists, who only days and weeks before were extolled around the world, heard the harsh accusations

made against Germany and decided to respond in its defense. The result as the ‘Manifesto of the 93’, which denied German

responsibility for the outbreak of the war, defended the breach of Belgium’s neutrality, dismissed as fabrications the alleged

atrocities committed by German troops, and proclaimed the identity of German militarism with German culture. The manifesto

was signed by Planck and Harnack, Fritz Haber and Paul Ehrlich, and other leading figures. The effect abroad was disastrous.

For years to come, the manifesto remained a moral pawn in the hands of the enemy.

  Planck experienced the war's horrible fury - and slowly a kind of chasm developedbetween his public and private life. His speeches retained their harsh tone, but his true aim was to moderate the hatred on all sides.(45)

 

In an article for the Chicago magazine, In These Times, Stern wrote in October 2005 that, “The rise of National Socialism proved politics and religion don’t mix”; this was another lesson he drew from 20th-century German history.

 

 

The 23 items below include both descriptive and analytical essays exposing the dark side of imperialist expansion in our contemporary world. Readers will find that once again we are confronted with what German intellectuals described as a “fight or flight” situation, in which they all too often chose flight, until it was too late and they were overcome by events, sometimes finding themselves collaborating with the most destructive forces.

 

 

Sincerely,

Francis Feeley

 

Professor emeritus of American Studies

University Grenoble-Alpes

Director of Research

University of Paris-Nanterre

Center for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements

The University of California-San Diego

http://www.ceimsa.org/

 

 

 

a.

National Public Radio

Dow Plunges 1,175,

The Biggest Point Drop In History

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/05/583325123/stocks-extend-losses-with-dow-dropping-more-than-300-points-at-the-open

February 5, 2018 10:16 AM

 

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b.

Is the Stock Market Rigged?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48762.htm

by Paul Craig Roberts, Dave Kranzler, and Michael Hudson

 

On February 6 PCR asked if the Plunge Protection Team had stepped in and prevented a stock market correction by purchasing equity index futures. Sure enough, the daily exchange volume chart shows an increase in futures activity on February 2 with sharp increases on Feb. 5th and 6th. Those are the days when the stock market averages were experiencing large point drops. So, ask yourself, would you purchase equity futures while experiencing cumultive stock market drops? One can understand shorting a dropping market, but not buying futures.

 

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c.

The New York Times

The Era of Easy Money Is Ending, and the World Is Bracing for Shocks

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/business/stocks-bonds-markets-central-banks.html?emc=edit_th_180207&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=30100672

by Peter S. Goodman

 

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d.

Image result for Zmag

Stock Markets Implode Worldwide

What’s Next?

https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/stock-markets-implode-worldwide-whats-next/

by Jack Rasmus

 

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e.

The Nation

 

People Are Panicking About the Stock Market—But It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

https://www.thenation.com/article/people-are-panicking-about-the-stock-market-but-it-doesnt-have-to-be-this-way/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%2002062018&utm_term=daily

 

Remember pensions?

by Helaine Olen

 

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f.

Trump & the Fed

https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/trump-the-fed/

by Jack Rasmus

 

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g.

The Fights Within the US Ruling Elite

https://zcomm.org/zvideo/the-fights-within-the-us-ruling-elite/

by Doug Henwood and Gregory Wilpert

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h.

US sanctions, baffled Russians, hot air and history

https://thesaker.is/us-sanctions-baffled-russians-hot-air-and-history/

 

The Saker

 

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i.

Worst Case Economics

http://dollarsandsense.org/blog/2018/01/worst-case-economics.html

by Frank Ackerman

 

Frank Ackerman is principal economist at Synapse Energy Economics in Cambridge, Mass., and the author of Worst Case Economics: Extreme Events in Climate and Finance (Anthem Press, 2017). He spoke to Triple Crisis co-editor Alejandro Reuss in late December 2017 about the main themes in the book.

 

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j.

Surveillance Capitalism

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48768.htm

by Tucker Carlson

How Google Is Tracking You
Google uses information for "surveillance capitalism" - selling advertisements for stuff based on your activities, locations and characteristics.

 

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k.

China’s latest move in the graveyard of empires

http://thesaker.is/chinas-latest-move-in-the-graveyard-of-empires/

by Pepe Escobar

 

Beijing’s strategic priority is to prevent ETIM fighters exiled in Afghanistan crossing the Wakhan Corridor to carry out operations in Xinjiang

The latest plot twist in the endless historical saga of Afghanistan as a graveyard of empires has thrown up an intriguing new chapter. For the past two months, Beijing and Kabul have been discussing the possibility of setting up a military base alongside Afghanistan’s border with China. “We are going to build it [the base] and the Chinese government has committed to help financially, provide equipment and train Afghan soldiers,” Mohammad Radmanesh, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, admitted to the AFP.

 

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l.

Hour of the Furnaces: Imperial Finance and the Colonization

of Daily Life

https://www.viewpointmag.com/2018/02/01/hour-furnaces-imperial-finance-colonization-daily-life/

by Morgan Adamson

 

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m.

Transnational Capital

and Transnational Labor

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2017/1117tabb.html

An Interview with William K. Tabb

 

William K. Tabb is an economist and author of The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time (2012), Economic Governance in the Age of Globalization (2004), and The Amoral Elephant: Globalization and the Struggle for Social Justice in the Twenty-First Century (2001). He spoke with Dollars & Sense in July 2017 on the global economic crisis, its causes and consequences; the transnational capitalist class and neoliberal globalization; and the prospects for resistance and alternatives to capitalism now and in the future.

 

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n.

Syria - U.S. May Have Arranged "Self Defense" Attack On Syrian Government Forces

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48754.htm

by Moon Of Alabama

Last night the illegal U.S. occupation force in north-east Syria attacked a group of Syrian government aligned troops and their Russian support. The incident happened north-east of Deir Ezzor city on the east side of the Euphrates. The U.S. claims that it killed some 100 Syrian soldiers that were allegedly attacking its proxy forces in an attempt to recover oil fields.

There is a factual separation of areas south-west of the Euphrates under Syrian government control and north-east of the Euphrates under U.S. occupation. But several locations around Manbij, Raqqa and Deir Ezzor contradict that and are under control of the respective other side. The U.S. claims that a "de-confliction line" along the Euphrates is agreed upon. The Syrian government says that no such agreement exists.

An small area across the Euphrates north-east of Deir Ezzor had been taken by Syrian government forces months ago. It is near some oilfields which the U.S. wants to keep away from the Syrian government.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/deirezzormapoil-s.jpg

"The U.S. wants to keep Syria weak and poor," says Prof. Joshua Landis. According to Landis the U.S. is keeping the north-east of Syria under occupation to deny Syria access to its oil and its best agricultural land. It wants to turn Syria into a swamp for Russia and Iran to the benefit of mostly Israel.

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o.

NYC Taxi Driver Kills Himself at City Hall

After Condemning Uber & Politicians for Financial Ruin

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/2/7/nyc_taxi_driver_kills_himself_at

 

New York City taxi drivers held a vigil on Tuesday to honor livery car driver Douglas Schifter, who killed himself in front of City Hall Monday morning after writing a long Facebook post condemning local politicians and Wall Street-backed apps like Uber for pushing him into financial ruin. He wrote, “I worked 100-120 consecutive hours almost every week for the past fourteen plus years. When the industry started in 1981, I averaged 40-50 hours. I cannot survive any longer with working 120 hours! I am not a Slave and I refuse to be one. … There seems to be a strong bias by the Mayor and Governor in favor of Uber. A Company that is a known liar, cheat and thief.” Over the past five years, the number of for-hire cars has more than doubled in the city, largely thanks to Uber. But the soaring number of cars has resulted in a financial crisis for many longtime taxi drivers who now struggle to get customers. We speak to Bhairavi Desai, executive director and co-founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents over 19,000 taxi drivers in New York City.

 

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p.

What Is U.S. Workers’ Share of National Income?

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2017/1117macewan.html

by Arthur MacEwan

Dear Dr. Dollar:

 

How well do U.S workers fare in relation to workers in other countries when you compare workers’ shares of national income?

 

Not so well. That’s the answer that we can readily obtain from what is now well known about income inequality in the United States and other countries. Among high-income countries, the United States is one of the most unequal, if not the most unequal. Under these circumstances, it is pretty clear that workers are getting a smaller share of national income in this country than in most other high-income countries. We do, in addition, have some other information that helps in answering this question. The International Labour Organization provides data on “labor’s share” of national income for several countries. These data are shown in Table 1 for 2013. (More recent data were not available.) The United States does not do so well, falling about in the middle of the countries shown in Table 1.

 

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q.

John William’s Shadow Government Statistics

Analysis Behind and Beyond Government Economic Reporting

 

Alternate Unemployment Charts

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

 

+

 

Daily Job Cuts. Com

http://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

 

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r.

Dollars and Sense logo

 

Trump and National Neoliberalism, Revisited

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2018/0118breger-bush.html

BY SASHA BREGER-BUSH

 

About ten years ago, political theorist Sheldon Wolin published Democracy Incorporated, diagnosing American democracy with a potentially fatal corporate disease. Referring to the specter of “inverted totalitarianism,” Wolin writes in his preface:

“Primarily it represents the political coming of age of corporate power and the political demobilization of the citizenry. Unlike the classic forms of totalitarianism [e.g. Germany, Italy], which openly boasted of their intentions to force their societies into preconceived totality, inverted totalitarianism is not expressly conceptualized as an ideology or objectified in public policy. Typically it is furthered by power-holders and citizens who often seem unaware of the deeper consequences of their actions or inactions. There is a certain heedlessness, an inability to take seriously the extent to which a pattern of consequences may take shape without having been preconceived. Wolin paints a picture of a gradual process of change in which many different actors, some wealthy and powerful and others not, unwittingly push the country’s politics, bit by bit in piecemeal fashion, towards an undemocratic, corporate-controlled end. Many of these actors may have good intentions. Many of them may see themselves as champions of the people. Many of them may actually speak out against the very interests that they in other ways empower.”

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s.

Pentagon Unveils Strategy For Military Confrontation

With Russia And China

http://truepublica.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Screen-Shot-2018-01-22-at-04.50.49.png

http://truepublica.org.uk/united-states/pentagon-unveils-strategy-military-confrontation-russia-china/

 

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t.

Imperialism on Trial

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48760.htm

by George Galloway and Eva Bartlett

Writers and activists convene in Derry, Ireland

George Galloway‘s speech was a detailed, animated, history lesson of Imperialist crimes, threats and lies, past and present.

Posted February 08, 2018

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u.

Analysis of AP news reports on Palestinianss and Israelis killed in 2018.  View this email in your browser

https://default.salsalabs.org/3c79a80d-77b3-49ae-ba6c-2c701d918ca6/275e2b9b-21cd-4f1a-bc94-66dd32506ef9.png

What every American needs to know about Israel-Palestine

Dear Francis,

If Americans Knew staff writer Kathryn Shihadah and I have just completed an in-depth examination of the Associated Press reporting on Palestinian and Israeli deaths in 2018.

Among other things, we discovered that reports on Israeli deaths averaged 551 words in length, while reports on Palestinian deaths averaged 181 words in length. We found that significant information was often omitted, that deaths among the two populations were treated far differently, and that the word "occupation" was never used.

We hope you'll read and share:

Associated Press Double Standard in Israel-Palestine Reporting

https://default.salsalabs.org/3c79a80d-77b3-49ae-ba6c-2c701d918ca6/a672dfdb-7538-43ed-bfe7-2c0cefaa7abf.jpg

By Kathryn Shinadah and Alison Weir

More than half the world’s population reads Associated Press content every day.

But a study of news reports so far in 2018 indicates that this trusted news source has been presenting the deaths of Israelis at the hands of Palestinians, and of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis, in two completely different ways.

This pattern may be a factor in how readers perceive the players in this decades-old issue. It is also, quite likely, a factor in how editors all over the U.S., who read AP stories daily, view the conflict...

So far in 2018, eleven Palestinians have been killed and two Israelis.

(Since December 4th, when President Trump announced that the US would recognize Israel as “the capital of Israel,” overturning decades of US policy, 27 Palestinians and 9 Israelis have died.)

In AP’s 2018 news reports, Palestinian deaths have been reported in far shorter news articles than Israeli deaths, averaging 181 words in length vs. 551.

In addition to the number of words, AP’s choice of words, context, and which facts to report and which to omit appears to tell two totally different kinds of stories for Israelis and Palestinians. 

 

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v.

A boy who threw stones at IDF jeeps suffered the

punishment of execution by a soldier; it was the third time in recent weeks that soldiers aimed at stone-throwers’ heads.

https://israelpalestinenews.org/like-safari-israeli-troops-jeeps-hunt-palestinian-teen-shoot-head/

by Gideon Levy and Alex Levac, Ha’aretz

 

The killing field of young Laith Abu Naim is an empty lot in the remote village of Al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah. Someone once planned to build a house here, but got no further than iron rods and a retaining wall. The boy ran for his life between the rods, pursued by two armored Israel Defense Forces jeeps. The chase ended when the door of one of the vehicles opened and a soldier aimed his rifle straight at Laith’s forehead from a range of 20 meters. He fired one bullet, killing the teen – the same way an animal is hunted down and bagged on a safari.

 

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w.

Dollars and Sense logo

 

Top Eleven Dollars & Sense Charts and

Graphs of 2016

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2016/1216topeleven.html

 

We’re getting to the end of the year, and you know what that means. ’Tis the season for Top Ten lists! Here at Dollars & Sense, we try to tell the most important stories about economic life, in the United States and around the world, in a number of different ways. And one of those ways is charts and graphs.

Here we have compiled our favorite graphs from the past year of Dollars & Sense. They’re not in rank order, so it’s not a countdown to the #1 Greatest Graph of the Year. Rather, we think that, together, these charts and graphs present a compelling picture of current economic issues. (This year our graph-rich articles focused mostly on the United States, but we covered plenty of places outside the U.S., including the Spanish left, Brexit in historical context, the crisis of European social democracy (here and here), and the so-called “emerging economies.”) And again, for the third year in a row, we invoke the spirit of Nigel Tufnel and cranked it up to eleven.