The Digger

The move by House Democrats to kill the Green New Deal, while thoroughly predictable, illustrates this political conundrum at work. The  rich control  the American political system and they are rich in large measure because they have been able to force the environmental consequences of industrial production onto everyone but themselves. Environmental resolution is about rebalancing social power. Environmental destruction is in this sense an aspect of class warfare. Source:  Democrats Killed the Green New Deal , by Rob Urie

Bernie Sanders, we hear, is interested in running for President in 2020. Bernie has once again shot himself in the foot before the starter’s gun goes off. Sanders best known Trump-like statement was calling Venezuelan revolutionary President Hugo Chavez  “a dead communist dictator.” Now Sanders, while bucking the establishment on regime change in Venezuela, remains woefully uninformed about neoliberalism’s effects on a global level, and therefore cannot be taken seriously as an agent of radical change. Sanders released a statement on Venezuela that had nothing of substance in relationship to the 1%, neoliberalism, neocolonialism or any of the driving forces of a clear political crisis in the country. Instead, Sanders merely echoed right-wing talking points on Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, and then, almost as an aside, said the U.S. intervening in Latin America, well, it ends badly. And perhaps, one could argue, that a non-intervention response, no matter how you get th...

The Yellow Vests movement has faced shocking police violence. And it’s not just from a few bad apples: it’s part of President Macron’s strategy to silence protest. Since November 17 the  gilets jaunes  movement has been spreading across France. Protesters from all around the country are demanding fairer taxes, wealth redistribution, and more direct democracy, with demonstrations in multiple cities every Saturday. According to polls, the movement is supported by a majority of the population. So far, the government’s response to all this has essentially been repressive,  More than  1,700 people have been injured , of which at least eighty-two are  seriously  hurt, and ten fatalities have been confirmed since the beginning of the movement. (A constantly updated list can be found  here ). The deaths mainly owed to road accidents, where angry drivers, blocked in their cars, drove over protesters. But one was caused by the use of po...

In  a blog post,   Twitter said it removed 1,196 accounts located in Venezuela  which it deemed to  "appear to be engaged in a state-backed influence campaign targeting domestic audiences."  The company also removed another 764 accounts, but said  "we are unable to definitively tie the accounts located in Venezuela to information operations of a foreign government against another country." The purge was part of a crackdown on "foreign information operations",  which also serves as a resource for researchers hoping to investigate these operations. In the post, Twitter announced that it was adding five new sets of account sets to its archive of foreign influence campaigns. Twitter has removed 764 accounts located in Venezuela. We are unable to definitively tie the accounts located in Venezuela to information operations of a foreign government against another country.  However,  Additionally, we have removed 1,196 accounts located in...

ITALY broke ranks with the EU on Thursday night, declaring that it “does not recognise the self-proclaimed president Juan Guaido” in Venezuela. The declaration came after the European Parliament voted to recognise Mr Guaido, an MP of the Popular Will party who declared himself president of Venezuela on January 23 despite not having participated in any election. Italy’s Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Manlio di Stefano of the Five Star movement, said Rome was “totally against” a group of countries “determining the internal policies” of a sovereign state: “This is called the principle of non-intervention and is enshrined by the United Nations.” After the United States recognised Mr Guaido as president instead of Venezuela’s elected leader Nicolas Maduro, a range of Latin American and EU countries followed suit, although the UN security council declined to endorse his claim on Thursday. Venezuela’s legitimate government continues to be recognised by a majority of coun...

Excerpt: The Neocons who Trump has appointed are accomplishing what seemed unthinkable not long ago: Driving China and Russia together – the great nightmare of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They also are driving Germany and other European countries into the Eurasian orbit, the “Heartland” nightmare of Halford Mackinder a century ago. The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world’s largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet. Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines “democracy” to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, purs...

Since it's day one of Black History Month, thought I'd post this essay by W.E.B Dubois.  Change a few names and it could have been written today.  Why I Won't Vote By W.E.B. Dubois, The Nation, 20 October 1956 On October 20, 1956, W. E. B. Du Bois delivers this eloquent indictment of US politics while explaining to Nation readers why he won't vote in the upcoming Presidential election. Du Bois condemns both Democrats and Republicans for their indifferent positions on the influence of corporate wealth, racial inequality, arms proliferation and unaffordable health care. Since I was twenty-one in 1889, I have in theory followed the voting plan strongly advocated by Sidney Lens in The Nation of August 4, i.e., voting for a third party even when its chances were hopeless, if the main parties were unsatisfactory; or, in absence of a third choice, voting for the lesser of two evils. My action, however, had to be limited by the candidates' attitude toward Negroes....