MOON OF ALABAMA—The King of Saudi Arabia derives legitimacy from his title as “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques” in Mecca and Medina. The King of Jordan springs from the thousand year old great Hashemite dynasty. He heads the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf (Foundation) and is the custodian of the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. This responsibility is the only prominent function left for the Hashemite family. It is the source of King Abdullah’s legitimacy. The changes in Saudi Arabia’s policy towards Israel and the Zionist ‘peace plan’ the Trump administration develops create a new situation for Jordan. It is put under immense economic pressure to agree to these plans.
Daily Archives
June 7, 2018
DANNY HAIPHONG—Russia-gate is another myth of American exceptionalism made for and by the American oligarchy. It follows a long history of the American oligarchy’s need to create an “enemy” to vanquish as proof of its racial and economic superiority. Russian meddling in the 2016 elections has not been proven and will never be proven. The mental gymnastics that the US ruling class has performed to prove their own lie are truly astounding to watch. We have heard everything from Russian President Vladimir Putin conspiring with WikiLeaks and Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton to Trump benefitting from $100,000 worth in supposedly Russian purchased advertisements on social media to promote efforts of Black Lives Matter activists and white nationalists alike. It seems that with each passing day, examples of Russian meddling in US politics become only more absurd and detached from reality.
JON JETER—According to the New Republic and several other sources, it was Jarrett who extinguished Obama’s occasional populist impulse, like a firefighter hosing down a small fire. When Obama proclaimed in late 2009 that “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers” — Jarrett coaxed his political team, led by former Washington advisor David Axelrod, to tone down the inflammatory rhetoric. Said Axelrod in an email to the New Republic: “Valerie viewed Wall Street and the business community as a constituency and was generally uncomfortable with expressions of chastisement toward Wall Street.”
Imperialism and Apocalypse: An Interview with Gerald Horne
16 minutes readGERALD HORNE—”Establishing settler colonialism based on the illicit expropriation of the land of indigenes, accompanied by their enslavement and the accompanying enslavement of illicitly procured Africans perforce must be perpetrated by massive violence, which inexorably engenders a ceaseless cycle of vengeance. Of course, the settlers with their religious zeal felt the land and labor improperly obtained was mandated by the “Almighty,” and those victimized stoutly disagreed, and—arguably—this resultant cycle has yet to be extirpated altogether…”
BRUCE DIXON—Without parties all we have are activists, responsible to nobody except their own consciences. That doesn’t lead to contending for power, it leads to “activist-ism” if there can be such a word. Parties are the instruments of collective will with which we shape the world around us. Revolutionary parties are not limited to running campaigns, either. In a better world than the one we have, we might expect actually existing labor unions to take the lead in pulling together a party of the working class that might offer a serious challenge to the established order. But with union density hovering optimistically around seven or eight percent, that doesn’t seem likely.
