Global
It is all about the oil. Whatever else one hears about Venezuela, it is all about the oil. That is what one needs to know first about why the U.S. Empire has Venezuela under siege. It is about the oil.
When President Trump says, "Venezuela is a mess; Venezuela is a mess, we will see what happens”, it is all about the oil. When the U.S. Empire imposes sanctions on Venezuela, it is all about the oil. When the mainstream corporate media (i.e. Fake News) cries crocodile tears about democracy, human rights and political prisoners in Venezuela, it is about the oil. When the U.S. calls into session emergency meeting of the United Nations and the Organization of American States, it is about oil.
Venezuela has the largest known reserve of oil in the world, and Venezuela controls its own oil, not international corporations; and it uses its oil for the benefit of its people. The U.S. Empire instead wants to control that oil and it wants the profits from the oil to go to U.S. oil corporations, especially ExxonMobil. Everything else one hears now about Venezuela is prologue or epilogue. The main plot is about the oil.
Ominous developments in three states this summer – Oregon, Texas, New Jersey, and one city – Chicago, provide a glimpse into the Pentagon’s new playbook to recruit soldiers from high schools across the country. In brief, the military has been engaged in a robust lobbying campaign to lower academic standards to make it easier to recruit youth.
New recruits have long been required to hold a high school diploma or a GED certificate. This requirement is a major impediment to finding enough soldiers to meet annual targets, but even when struggling students barely manage to graduate, the Pentagon has developed a plan to marshal more of them into the military.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- After the U.S. sold weapons to Thailand worth $1
billion during the past decade, this year's $261 million in U.S. arms
deals will strengthen the current coup-installed military government
against political opponents and Islamist separatists, symbolizing
President Trump's unconcern for human rights, according to analysts
and dissidents.
"Please understand, the government does not throw state money into
just buying military hardware and weapons as some people claim," coup
leader Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said on July 11 defending the
armed forces' expansion and increased spending.
Buddhist-majority Thailand purchased weapons from the U.S., China,
South Korea, Russia Ukraine, Israel, Sweden, Italy and elsewhere
during the past 10 years under military and civilian governments.
Purchases include tanks, helicopters, armored vehicles, patrol
vessels, submarines, combat aircraft and other armaments.
"Thailand has no real national security enemies. Internal security
Candidates say campaigns are about articulating programs, issues and priorities. But people vote for candidates based on how that person makes them feel. Consciously or unconsciously, elections are about giving voice to values.
Voters are moral proxies who want to know that a candidate or elected official truly cares about them — that they are authentic — more than they care about what they know.
President Donald Trump and his administration are expressing moral values that have no market value. The Golden Rule has both moral and market value. Trump wouldn’t want done to him what he’s doing to the majority of the American people.
Trump’s values express reverse gratification. The powerful are suppressing the weak; the rich are exploiting the poor; the elephant is crushing the gnat.
Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions disavows the Voting Rights Act. He has a history of politicizing it by frivolously charging blacks with voter fraud, and has withdrawn Justice Department support from a voting rights case involving racial discrimination. That’s an expression of this administration’s values.
Los Angeles, July 16, 2017 – The Los Angeles Workers Center and Hollywood Progressive co-present the revolutionary classic Storm Over Asia.
Unlike most Bolshevik silent movies that take place in the European parts of the Soviet Union, V.I. Pudovkin’s 1928 Storm Over Asia is set in Mongolia, where it was shot on location, along with filming in Siberia. The sprawling saga occurs during the Russian Civil War and depicts a forerunner of Third World liberation movements, as Asians fight Western imperialists. This far out Far East classic has the epic sweep of future big screen extravaganzas with casts of thousands, and is arguably a Soviet Spartacus or Braveheart.
Special to the FreePress
Editor's Note: Thanks to a secret satirical recording device implanted into Donald Trump's hair, an actual fake transcript has emerged from the fake president's recent meeting with his actual owner, Vladimir Putin. Reader discretion is advised:
TRUMP: Well, Putie, I think we can talk frankly now. There will be no recording of this part of our conversation.
PUTIN (chuckling): Right, Donald. I would never record anything between us without letting you know first. At the KGB we made it a strict policy to honor the privacy of all citizens, Russian, American, Chechnyan and, of course, Siberian, where so many of our great patriots are still so happy to do volunteer labor.
TRUMP: Well first I must thank you for putting me in the White House. I could never have stolen the 2016 election without you.
