CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM

MARGARET KIMBERLEY—The Biden administration has invoked the Defense Production Act to increase the supply and now allows formula from foreign countries to be imported. They are making quite a show of their late in the day response to a situation that should have been addressed sooner. But the stop gaps to resolve a temporary crisis should not allow a bigger problem to go unmentioned. Capitalism is the problem. Transportation Secretary and onetime presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg admitted as much even as he tried to defend the failed state. “But let’s be very clear. This is a capitalist country. The government does not make baby formula, nor should it. Companies make formula.”

The intensely neoconservative U.S. President Joe Biden is leading the world into a World War III against both Russia and China, but despite the U.S. spending annually around half of the entire planet’s military expenditures (not only in its ‘Defense’ Department but in its Treasury Department and other Government agencies), America is actually inferior to both Russia and China regarding leading-edge geostrategically crucial technologies of both nuclear and laser weapons, and is getting farther behind each year, because for both Russia and China their own national sovereignty is what their enemy, the U.S. Government, aims to conquer, whereas no one poses a threat to the U.S. Government’s continuing rule over its own people (it becomes increasingly a police-state).

RON RIDENOUR—Finland began following the rest of the West with neo-liberalism deregulations and cutbacks in the 1980s, but has not gone as far as the others yet. One of its hallmarks is education. See Michael Moore’s most recent film (2016), “Where to invade next”. It is an excellent and entertaining source for values in which the US is contrasted to several countries. Finland tops the world for the best education, the best results for its elementary school students, who also rank among the happiest. Its secret: no homework, more time to be young, to play, to relax. Students are motivated to learn in a disciplined way for the 20 hours they attend classes.

Bruce Gagnon discusses the danger of Sweden and Finland joining NATO; the $40B gift to Ukraine is almost as large as Russia’s entire military budget of about $60B. And, we compared the US economy to the Russian economy: a “Tale of Two Countries.”

Abortive head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Orwellian “Disinformation Governance Board” Nina Jankowicz recently sat in for a fawning interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes who expressed heartfelt sympathy for the brutal online criticism Jankowicz faced from critics of this new Ministry of Truth. Jankowicz said she abhorred the online bullying and reported the death threats she received to the authorities, yet still described the harassment as “childish.” Jimmy and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald discuss Hayes’ performance as on-air therapist to an individual who was going to head up a major new Homeland Security department.