Michael Parenti: Capitalism's Apocalypse- Why the plutocrats can't save anyone, not even themselves

 

https://youtu.be/hMUVVBSAZQs?si=_WpSsATPS-CTQ2e6

In this talk Michael Parenti discusses how capitalism is incompatible with democracy and human survival. Recorded at NoneSuch Space, Oakland, CA on 8/23/2008 by Martin Spencer Davies for TUC radio. .

RIP Michael Parenti

Why The European Union Will Fail

 

https://youtu.be/FOvOT_coD30?si=swPe-tJ9XqaJaXya

Reason2Resist - 3 ene 2025

The EU has fallen into an accelerating decline. Its financialized economy suffers from stagflation, its political elite has become increasingly authoritarian, and its proxy war in Ukraine has become a debacle of epic proportions.

Despite all this, can the European Union be saved?

In a conversation with Dimitri Lascaris, Professor Lapavitsas argues that the EU is irredeemable. To recover and sustain their prosperity, European states must reclaim their national sovereignty, democratize their economies and, under the direction of the state, make the massive investments that are necessary to improve their productivity.

★

Neo-feudalism: G7 supports BlackRock buying up world's infrastructure, to make rich even richer

 

https://youtu.be/88VU1JjmEps?si=gc-yUDl8YpO9pM_o

Geopolitical Economy Report – Ben Norton 15/07/2024

Western governments invited billionaire BlackRock CEO Larry Fink to the G7 summit in Italy to speak about "public-private partnerships" and why oligarchs should buy up global infrastructure (to compete with China's state-led Belt and Road Initiative). Ben Norton discusses how capitalism is becoming so extremely monopolized and unequal that it is devolving into neo-feudalism.

(One correction: At 26 : 17, I meant to say "over 90%", as the chart shows on screen.)

How Wall Street buys US elections: Blackstone funds Trump, BlackRock backs Biden: • How Wall Street buys US elections: Bl...

Topics

0:00 Global inequality

0:56 G7 summit in Italy

1:57 BlackRock CEO invited to G7 summit

2:32 What is BlackRock?

4:45 PGI: US' corporate alternative to China's Belt & Road

7:50 (Clip) BlackRock CEO Larry Fink speaks at G7 summit

8:44 Wall Street vulture funds

10:51 BlackRock buys up infrastructure

14:40 BlackRock buys Malaysia's airports

15:34 BlackRock veterans run Biden's Treasury

16:00 Blackstone CEO funds Trump campaign

17:53 Investment companies buy up houses

18:40 BlackRock runs world's largest Bitcoin fund

19:58 Privatization of infrastructure

23:34 WEF: "You'll own nothing. And you'll be happy"

25:56 Home ownership under socialism vs. capitalism

26:17 Correction: over 90%* (I misspoke)

26:21 Home ownership under socialism vs. capitalism

28:38 World Economic Forum

29:33 Return on capital exceeds economic growth

31:20 Outro

★

Michael Parenti: The Corporate War Against Democracy

 

https://youtu.be/V_PNyYPR46E?si=X-8d5JWaYWbt9rgu

Get Ready! The Tsunami Of Layoffs Is Coming

 

Who's really guilty of war crimes in Ukraine?

 

We are ruled by predators — Steve Grumbine

 

Billionaires Are Not Morally Qualified To Shape Human Civilization

 

Caitlin's Newsletter – 31/10/2021

Human civilization is being engineered in myriad ways by an unfathomably wealthy class who are so emotionally and psychologically stunted that they refuse to end world hunger despite having the ability to easily do so.

The United Nations has estimated that world hunger could be ended for an additional expenditure of $30 billion a year, with other estimates considerably lower. The other day Elon Musk became the first person ever to attain a net worth of over $300 billion. A year ago his net worth was $115 billion. According to Inequality.org, America's billionaires have a combined net worth of $5.1 trillion, which is a 70 percent increase from their combined net worth of under $3 trillion at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

So we're talking about a class which could easily put a complete halt to human beings dying of starvation on this planet by simply putting some of their vast fortunes toward making sure everyone gets enough to eat. But they don't. This same class influences the policies, laws, and large-scale behavior of our species more than any other.

To get a sense of how insane this is, imagine if you had seen a video clip of me calmly watching a child drown to death in a swimming pool and doing nothing to help. After watching such footage, would it ever in a million years occur to you that I am someone who should be in charge of the entire world?

I'm going to guess no. I'm going to guess that, in the unlikely event that you ever decided anyone should rule the world, after watching me let a child drown I'd rank somewhere near the very bottom of possible candidates.

Now imagine if instead of letting one child drown, it was millions.

That's how absolutely insane it is that we allow this class to shape our civilization.

And we most certainly do allow them to shape our civilization.

Take Bill Gates. He spends a fortune on narrative control ranging from immense contributions to The Guardian to tens of billions of dollars in grants, and he's committed hundreds of millions of dollars to shady political influence groups as well. He's been influencing Covid policies around the world, from intervening against the waiving of vaccine patent restrictions to facilitating the worldwide rollout of digital vaccine passports; he's been giving countless media interviews about Covid-19 and vaccines despite having no medical degree or indeed any qualifications at all apart from a net worth of $136 billion. This is after falsely pledging to give his immense fortune away over a decade ago; his net worth has more than doubled in that time.

Jeff Bezos has been a contractor with the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, and experts have claimed that Amazon is trying to control the underlying infrastructure of the economy. As sole owner of The Washington Post he ensures that a hugely influential news outlet will always be staffed by people who will help manufacture consent for the status quo upon which his empire is built, and his grand vision for humanity involves shipping us offworld to breed in giant rotating space cylinders.

Billionaires Reid Hoffman and George Soros have teamed up on a narrative control operation called Good Information Inc. with the stated goal of countering misinformation and disinformation in the news media, and the unstated goal of elevating empire-authorized narratives about what's happening in the world and undermining unauthorized narratives.

The World Economic Forum has laid out an agenda for giant corporations to move beyond their unofficial and unacknowledged role as unelected rulers of our world and become open partners in the governance of world affairs alongside our official elected governments, with more power than ever before.

There are almost infinite examples I could highlight, but I think my point is clear. Billionaires and billionaire corporations own our media, influence our thinking, manipulate our economies, interfere in our politics, determine the fate of our ecosystem, and shape our world. And they are the very least qualified among us to be doing so.

Nobody who chooses day after day to let millions of people die of starvation has any business making decisions which affect other people, much less decisions which affect everyone. The fact that the billionaire class and its lackeys make this depraved decision day in and day out permanently disqualifies them from any legitimate claim to having the empathy and compassion that would be required for such a job. They are too narcissistic and dysfunctional to be permitted to have any power or influence whatsoever, much less the ungodly amount they wield today.

Billionaires should not exist. They should have their power and wealth taken from them, and the steering wheel of humanity should be given to the ordinary people who are infinitely more qualified to navigate us through the rough waters ahead for our species.

★

Michael Parenti – Almost the entire world is capitalist, and almost the entire world is poor

 

London's Dirty Russian Money

 

USA: Our "Manifest Destiny" is Endless War & Murder

US CENCOM Admits Afghan "Revenge" Drone Strike Killed Only Civilians,

 Including 7 Children

"ASESINATO POR CONTROL REMOTO"

The domination of the empires of the Anglosphere is declining, with a great deal of resentment from its primary actors: USA and the UK

 

After 100 years of humiliation under colonisation, China is asserting its rightful place in the world. The domination of the empires of the Anglosphere is declining, with a great deal of resentment from its primary actors – USA and the UK. The remainder of the Anglosphere is playing ‘lapdog’ to these empires, fawning over their leaders and going to war at their behest, regardless of cost.

Central to the panic from western countries is the emergence of more strident – and more absurd – propaganda to misdirect the attention of the public from their own decaying economies. Capitalism has failed, the worship of the market as some kind of deity has been shown to be a religious delusion and the inherent flaws of democracy and liberty have been exposed.

This blog attempts to expose the rise of western propaganda, but at the same time illustrate how it has become a symptom of a failing western social and political system.

Heaven's Other Mandate

Why Jeff Bezos’ Space Dream is Humanity's Nightmare — George Monbiot

 

Richard Wolff on Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Workers

"An important biological species is at risk of disappearing due to the rapid and progressive elimination of its natural habitat: Humankind"

 

Fidel Castro Ruz - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 12, 1992

An important biological species is at risk of disappearing due to the rapid and progressive elimination of its natural habitat: Humankind. We are becoming aware of this problem when it is almost too late to prevent it. It must be said that consumer societies are chiefly responsible for this appalling environmental destruction.

They were born from the former colonial metropoli. They are the offspring of imperial policies which, in turn, engendered the backwardness and poverty that have become the scourge for the vast majority of humankind.

With only 20 percent of the world’s population, they consume two-thirds of all metals and three-fourths of the energy produced worldwide. They have poisoned the seas and the rivers. They have polluted the air. They have weakened and perforated the ozone layer. They have saturated the atmosphere with gases, altering climatic conditions with the catastrophic effects we are already beginning to suffer.

The forests are disappearing. The deserts are expanding. Billions of tons of fertile soil are washed every year into the sea. Numerous species are becoming extinct. Population pressures and poverty lead to desperate efforts to survive, even at the expense of nature. Third World countries, yesterday’s colonies and today nations, exploited and plundered by an unjust international economic order, cannot be blamed for all this.

The solution cannot be to prevent the development of those who need it the most. Because today, everything that contributes to underdevelopment and poverty is a flagrant violation of the environment.

As a result, tens of millions of men, women and children die every year in the Third World, more than in each of the two world wars.

Unequal trade, protectionism and the foreign debt assault the ecological balance and promote the destruction of the environment. If we want to save humanity from this self-destruction, there must be a better distribution of the wealth and technologies available on the planet. Less luxury and less waste in a few countries so there is less poverty and hunger in much of the world.

Stop transferring to the Third World lifestyles and consumer habits that ruin the environment. Make human life more rational. Adopt a just international economic order. Use science to achieve sustainable development without pollution. Pay the ecological debt, not foreign debt. Eradicate hunger and not humanity.

Now that the supposed threat of communism has disappeared and there is no more pretext to wage cold wars or continue the arms race and military spending, what then is preventing the immediate use of resources to promote Third World development and combating the ecological destruction threatening the planet?

Enough of selfishness. Enough of schemes of domination. Enough of insensitivity, irresponsibility and deceit. Tomorrow will be too late to do what we should have done a long time ago.

●

CHINA. Zhengzhou floods: Heavy flooding hits central China, affecting tens of millions

Devastating Floods Ravage Germany, Belgium | Experts Warn of 'Climatic Catastrophe'

USA: La criminal pobreza del país más rico del mundo

No veremos estas imágenes en las grandes cadenas de televisión, tan dadas a lamerle el ano a la podrida oligarquía que las alimenta. Lo que muestran estos vídeos no sucede en Venezuela, ni en Cuba, ni en China, ni en la Corea comunista, ni en Iran, sucede en el país que presume de ser el más rico, poderoso y democrático del mundo. ¿Es esto lo que Estados Unidos quiere imponer al mundo a sangre y fuego, en nombre de la libertad y de la democracia? Me pregunto si, para esas políticas y políticos españoles que escupen venenosas consignas electorales, tales como “libertad o socialismo” o “libertad o comunismo”, este que muestran los vídeos es el modélico sistema al que creen que hay que entregarse. Pregunta retórica, claro.

 Kensington Ave, Filadelfia, USA (10/03/2021)

"En este país [USA] siempre ha habido racismo y violencia institucional. Los documentos fundacionales dicen que todos los hombres son creados iguales. Documentos que se escribieron por hombres que poseían miles de esclavos. La ilusión de que hay justicia en Estados Unidos existe para evitar que la gente luche por ella, para hacerla pasiva mediante la fe en el sistema." Jason Flores-Williams, abogado de inmigrantes mexicanos.

Comunidad sin hogar de Skid Row en el centro de Los Ángeles, USA (01/02/2021)

BIENVENIDOS A HOLLYWOOD

No es Hong-Kong, es USA

Amazon Workers Hold Nationwide Strikes As COVID-19 Sweeps Warehouses

Fired Amazon employee Chris Smalls says workers will protest until they feel protected, while Amazon-owned Whole Foods is ranking stores 

where employees are most likely to unionize.

Taxpayers Funded 'COVID-19 Research', And Big Pharma Profited

It's definitely just a coincidence that one of Trump's coronavirus task force members is a former lobbyist for Gilead Sciences, the company that won orphan drug status for its COVID-19 treatment.

As usual throughout its history, US government lies AGAIN

The City of London Corporation — Richard Werner

                                              Activar subtítulos en español ↑

The City of London, the Corporation that runs it.

This is our subject: a secret state within a state, with deleterious effects on democracy, politics and economics in London, the country, and the world, for the City is joint headquarters with Wall Street of global finance capital. 
In short, 'Secret City' isn't just a film for Londoners - especially in these times of crisis, the role of the City concerns everyone everywhere.

The Square Mile