Tom Eley
WSWS

US corporations took in $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, breaking records going back 60 years, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. It was the seventh consecutive quarter of profit growth at “some of the fastest rates in history” according to the New York Times.

If any more proof were needed, the third quarter profit record exposes the lie promoted by Democrats and Republicans alike that only the “free market” and private businesses can reverse the nation’s 9.6 percent unemployment rate. The corporations and banks are sitting on a cash horde in the trillions of dollars. This money is not being used to hire workers, but to line the pockets of the executives and top shareholders.

The profit bonanza that lasted from July through September eclipsed the old record of $1.655 trillion established in the third quarter of 2006—just as the money-mad speculation of the financial elite was hurtling the US and world economy toward the precipice of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

The resulting financial crisis, which erupted in the autumn of 2008, threatened a total collapse of the global financial system. In response, the governments of the world, led by the US, used the disaster to hand over tens of trillions in public wealth to the very finance houses that triggered the crisis. This process continues, as demonstrated by the International Monetary Fund/European Union-dictated rescue of the Irish banks this week.

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Eric Blair
Activist Post

When most of us think about "lame duck" Congressional sessions we think of a "do-nothing" government. However, this so-called lame duck session appears to be a time where legislation that has the most restrictions to individual rights is being rammed through.

It seems the members of government who have been recently voted out of office are vying for corporate jobs by pushing such legislation as the Food Safety Modernization Act and the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) which are now on the fast track to becoming law. Both of these laws reek of tyranny for the citizens and a means of corporate consolidation for the big boys.

It seems whenever a piece of legislation has the word "safety" in it we can expect to lose our right to make our own decisions. For example, consumer protection groups pushed hard for the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in 2008 after large numbers of Chinese-made toys and other products proved to have dangerously unhealthy toxins.

Consequently, the bill was passed with 407 Ayes, 0 Nays in the House. Only later did the public find out that the bill did more to regulate, tax, and impose fines on neighborhood garage sales than it did to stop dangerous Chinese imports. Clearly, the bill is used to clamp down on an individual's right to sell their used items without governmental oversight. In other words, the corporate-government will not allow any form of black market to threaten their cartel control of consumerism.

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Stephen Lendman

A fire at the UN building in Gaza City after Israeli strikes (Photograph:
Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty)

On October 18, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights offered an "Alternative Report" response to Israel's submission, sent to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR).

Submitting to the UN, Aharon Leshno Yaar, Israel's Permanent Representative to Geneva said "Israel was proud of its long-lasting recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family," omitting to explain he means only Jews, no others, especially Muslims. State belligerence for over six decades proves it. PCHR reviewed recent facts, documenting them in its report. Previous articles discussed them it detail, but they bear repeating. By so doing, peace and self-determination for a beleaguered people may come sooner.

Israeli Violations of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)

PCHR addressed each article, detailing Israel's noncompliance, presenting indisputable, convincing evidence. In its July 9, 2004 "Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory," the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that:

"In the exercise of the powers available to it on this basis, Israel is bound by (ICESCR provisions)." Throughout its history, however, Israel has grievously violated all international laws, committing crimes of war and against humanity repeatedly, the latter virtually daily in the Territories.

After its 2005 disengagement, Israel claims Gaza was no longer occupied. Therefore, it no longer had ICESCR or other treaty obligations. False on both counts, the ICJ stating that:

"the State's obligations under the Covenant apply to all territories and populations under its effective control."

Israel has controlled Gaza since 1967, today under a medieval siege, little changed after Israel's bogus June easing. The UN Security Council, General Assembly, Special Rapporteur (for Palestine), and the ICRC all said Israel has control. Therefore, it's bound by all international law provisions.

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Robert Bows

TSA fascist groping the crotch of an elderly man

"Of course we will have fascism in America but we will call it democracy!" ~ Huey Long

"Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them." ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

"Fascism ought to more properly be called corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power." ~ Benito Mussolini

The American brand of fascism

There are as many varieties of fascism as there are examples, beginning with Germany (Hitler) and Italy (Mussolini) during the period leading up to and including WWII, followed by Cuba (Batista), Spain (Franco), Paraguay (Stroessner), Nicaragua (Somoza), and Chile (Pinochet), et al.

The brand of fascism currently practiced in the United States by European and North American financiers and bankers-who control a major portion of the world's money supply, as well as the dominant military and intelligence apparatuses-has commonalities with many of its predecessors as well as a few important differences.

Commonalities include: control over the state by unelected persons ("the hidden government," as Teddy Roosevelt called them) or persons whose election is predetermined (through control of the currency, media, and voting process); use of intelligence and security forces to suppress opposition; abrogation of constitutional guarantees and international legal conventions; the justification of torture; and false flag events used to justify imperialism, to name a few.

As so eloquently expressed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials following World War II, we must hold such behavior accountable:

If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.

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Stephen Lendman

Last March, North Korea was falsely blamed for sinking a South Korean ship, a topic an earlier article addressed, accessed through THIS link.

Seoul said there's "no other plausible explanation....The evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that (a) torpedo was fired by a North Korean submarine," even though none was detected in the area.

At the time, evidence suggested a false flag, manufactured to blame the North. The incident occurred near Baengnyeong Island opposite North Korea. US Navy Seals and four US ships were conducting joint exercises in the area. The torpedo used was German, not North Korean as claimed. Germany sells none to Pyongyang. Yet it was blamed for what it didn't do, what apparently was Pentagon-manufactured mischief.

What now? According to US media reports, North Korea incited the gravest incident since the Korean War armistice. For example, on November 23, New York Times writer Mark McDonald headlined, "Crisis Status in South Korea After North Shells Island," saying:

"The South Korean military went to "crisis status" on Tuesday (11/23) and threatened military strikes after the North fired dozens of shells at a South Korean island, killing two of the South's soldiers and setting off an exchange of fire in one the most serious clashes between the two sides in decades."

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