BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS

When you consider Obama’s record after four years in office–a multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street, the continuing “war on terror,” more civil liberties shredded, the Employee Free Choice Act abandoned, deportations on the rise, a deepening assault on public schools–the answer has to be no. The list of broken promises and betrayed hopes goes on and on, outweighing anything that could be described as progress.

CHRIS HEDGES INTERVIEW—This is a rather extraordinary interview for a variety of reasons. For one, Hedges is given space to say what he likes about the topics he is most interested in, chiefly the implosion and extreme toxicity of late-stage capitalism. Apparently, VICE News, which since this interview has become an almost complete propaganda tool for the Deep State, one designed to lure younger viewers wary of the mainstream engines of disinformation (CBS, CNN, NYTimes, Fox, etc.), felt they could not totally control Hedges, and they were right. 

PAUL TREANOR—Libertarianism is part of the Anglo-American liberal tradition in political philosophy. It is a development of classic liberalism, and not a separate category from it. It is specifically associated with the United States, and to a lesser extent with Britain and its former ‘white colonies’ (Canada, Australia, New Zealand). Many libertarian authors know only North American political culture and society. They claim universal application for libertarianism, but it remains culture-bound. For instance, some libertarians argue by quoting the US Constitution – apparently without realising that it only applies in the USA. Most online material on libertarianism contrasts it to ‘liberalism’, but that is also culturally specific.

MARTA HARNECKER—This increase in the prices of necessary goods does harm to the Venezuelan people, but it also works against sectors of the bourgeoisie that produce goods for everyday use. However, to increase popular dissatisfaction they create artificial shortages by not putting these items on shop shelves in a regular and opportune way and in sufficient quantities.

BILL VAN AUKEN—”Bergoglio (the new Pope Francis) was ideologically predisposed to backing the mass political killings unleashed by the junta. In the early 1970s, he was associated with the right-wing Peronist Guardia de Hierro (Iron Guard), whose cadre—together with elements of the Peronist trade union bureaucracy—were employed in the death squads known as the Triple A (Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance), which carried out a campaign of extermination against left-wing opponents of the military before the junta even took power…”