Revolutionary News

Alexander Dugin's Fourth Political Theory has just (2013) been translated into Greek, published by Esoptron (Έσοπτρον), a mainstream Greek publisher. English and German translations have also been published recently (2012) by Arktos, the current incarnation of the publisher previously noted in this blog (post here) under its former name, Integral Tradition Publishing.

All these books are available on Amazon, which makes it possible to see what other authors some of Dugin's readers are buying. Unsurprisingly, one finds Julius Evola, Alain de Benoist, and Guillaume Faye. There is also a new addition, Markus Willinger, whose Generation Identity: A Declaration of War against the 68ers is also published by Arktos. Willinger is a young (born 1992) Austrian, a reader of Evola and de Benoist and Faye, whose book contains forty short chapters on topics such as identity, loneliness, religion, ecology, death, sexuality, ethnopluralism, and the Zeitgeist. Chapter 41 is his "declaration of war." Another book that Dugin's Amazon US readers are buying is Jack Donovan's exploration of masculinity, The Way of Men. But then a lot of people are buying Donovan at present.

Michael Snyder
Activist Post

The death of the middle class in America has become so painfully obvious that now even the New York Times is doing stories about it.  Millions of middle class jobs have disappeared, incomes are steadily decreasing, the rate of homeownership has declined for eight years in a row and U.S. consumers have accumulated record-setting levels of debt. Being independent is at the heart of what it means to be "middle class", and unfortunately the percentage of Americans that are able to take care of themselves without government assistance continues to decline.

In fact, the percentage of Americans that are receiving government assistance is now at an all-time record high. This is not a good thing. Sadly, the number of people on food stamps has increased by nearly 50 percent while Barack Obama has been in the White House, and at this point nearly half the entire country gets money from the government each month.

Anyone that tries to tell you that the middle class is going to be "okay" simply has no idea what they are talking about. The following are 28 signs that the middle class is heading toward extinction...

#1 You don't have to ask major U.S. corporations if the middle class is dying.  This fact is showing up plain as day in their sales numbers.  The following is from a recent New York Times article entitled "The Middle Class Is Steadily Eroding. Just Ask the Business World"...

In Manhattan, the upscale clothing retailer Barneys will replace the bankrupt discounter Loehmann’s, whose Chelsea store closes in a few weeks. Across the country, Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants are struggling, while fine-dining chains like Capital Grille are thriving. And at General Electric, the increase in demand for high-end dishwashers and refrigerators dwarfs sales growth of mass-market models.

As politicians and pundits in Washington continue to spar over whether economic inequality is in fact deepening, in corporate America there really is no debate at all. The post-recession reality is that the customer base for businesses that appeal to the middle class is shrinking as the top tier pulls even further away.

#2 Some of the largest retailers in the United States that once thrived by serving the middle class are now steadily dying.  Sears and J.C. Penney are both on the verge of bankruptcy, and now we have learned that Radio Shack may be shutting down another 500 stores this year.

#3 Real disposable income in the United States just experienced the largest year over year drop that we have seen since 1974.

#4 Median household income in the United States has fallen for five years in a row.

#5 The rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for eight years in a row.

#6 In 2008, 53 percent of all Americans considered themselves to be "middle class".  In 2014, only 44 percent of all Americans consider themselves to be "middle class".

#7 In 2008, 25 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket considered themselves to be "lower class".  In 2014, an astounding 49 percent of them do.

#8 Incredibly, 56 percent of all Americans now have "subprime credit".

#9 Total consumer credit has risen by a whopping 22 percent over the past three years.

#10 The average credit card debt in the United States is $15,279.

#11 The average student loan debt in the United States is $32,250.

#12 The average mortgage debt in the United States is $149,925.

#13 Overall, U.S. consumers are $11,360,000,000,000 in debt.

#14 The U.S. national debt is currently sitting at $17,263,040,455,036.20, and it is being reported that is has grown by $6.666 trillion during the Obama years so far.  Most of the burden of servicing that debt is going to fall on the middle class (if the middle class is able to survive that long).

#15 According to the Congressional Budget Office, interest payments on the national debt will nearly quadruple over the next ten years.

#16 Back in 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance.  Today, only 54.9 percent of all Americans are covered by employment-based health insurance.

#17 More Americans than ever find themselves forced to turn to the government for help with health care.  At this point, 82.4 million Americans live in a home where at least one person is enrolled in the Medicaid program.

#18 There are 46.5 million Americans that are living in poverty, and the poverty rate in America has been at 15 percent or above for 3 consecutive years.  That is the first time that has happened since 1965.

#19 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the number of Americans on food stamps has gone from 32 million to 47 million.

#20 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the percentage of working age Americans that are actually working has declined from 60.6 percent to 58.6 percent.

#21 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the average duration of unemployment in the United States has risen from 19.8 weeks to 37.1 weeks.

#22 Middle-wage jobs accounted for 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession, but they have accounted for only 22 percent of the jobs created since then.

#23 It is hard to believe, but an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year in wages.

#24 Approximately one out of every four part-time workers in America is living below the poverty line.

#25 According to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49.2 percent of all Americans are receiving benefits from at least one government program each month.

#26 The U.S. government has spent an astounding 3.7 trillion dollars on welfare programs over the past five years.

#27 Only 35 percent of all Americans say that they are better off financially than they were a year ago.

#28 Only 19 percent of all Americans believe that the job market is better than it was a year ago.
As if the middle class didn't have enough to deal with, now here comes Obamacare.

As I have written about previously, Obamacare is going to mean higher taxes and much higher health insurance premiums for middle class Americans.

Not only that, but millions of hard working Americans are going to end up losing their jobs or having their hours cut back thanks to Obamacare.  For example, a fry cook named Darnell Summers recently told Barack Obama directly that he and his fellow workers "were broken down to part time to avoid paying health insurance"...

And the Congressional Budget Office now says that Obamacare could result in the loss of 2.3 million full-time jobs by 2021.

Several million people will reduce their hours on the job or leave the workforce entirely because of incentives built into President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.

That would mean job losses equal to 2.3 million full-time jobs by 2021, in large part because people would opt to keep their income low to stay eligible for federal health care subsidies or Medicaid, the agency said. It had estimated previously that the law would lead to 800,000 fewer jobs by that year.

But even if we got rid of Obamacare tomorrow that would not solve the problems of the middle class.
The middle class has been shrinking for a very long time, and something dramatic desperately needs to be done.

The numbers that I shared above simply cannot convey the level of suffering that is going on out there on the streets of America today.  That is why I also like to share personal stories when I can.

Below, I have posted an excerpt from an open letter to Barack Obama that a woman with a Master's degree and 30 years of work experience recently submitted to the Huffington Post.  What this formerly middle class lady is having to endure because of this horrible economy is absolutely tragic...

Dear Mr. President,

I write to you today because I have nowhere else to turn. I lost my full time job in September 2012. I have only been able to find part-time employment -- 16 hours each week at $12 per hour -- but I don't work that every week. For the month of December, my net pay was $365. My husband and I now live in an RV at a campground because of my job loss. Our monthly rent is $455 and that doesn't include utilities. We were given this 27-ft. 1983 RV when I lost my job.

This is America today. We have no running water; we use a hose to fill jugs. We have no shower but the campground does. We have a toilet but it only works when the sewer line doesn't freeze -- if it freezes, we use the campground's restrooms. At night, in my bed, when it's cold out, my blanket can freeze to the wall of the RV. We don't have a stove or an oven, just a microwave, so regular-food cooking is out. Recently we found a small toaster oven on sale so we can bake a little now because eating only microwaved food just wasn't working for us. We don't have a refrigerator, just an icebox (a block of ice cost about $1.89). It keeps things relatively cold. If it's freezing outside, we just put things on the picnic table.

You can read the rest of her incredibly heartbreaking letter right here.

This is not the America that I remember.

What in the world is happening to us?

This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse.  Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.

Unrest has spread beyond Sweden’s capital Stockholm, with the protesters setting ablaze vehicles and buildings in two other Swedish towns.

Police said that the protesters set a school and several cars ablaze in the town of Oerebro, 160 kilometers west of the capital on Friday.

An empty building was also set on fire in the town of Sodertalje just outside Stockholm.

Meanwhile, cars have been torched in several immigrant-dominated suburbs on the sixth consecutive night of violence in the capital, forcing police to ask for reinforcements from Gothenburg and Malmoe.

The United States and Britain have warned their citizens in Sweden to stay away from the affected areas.

The protests in Sweden began on May 19, six days after police shot dead a 69-year-old man, who had locked himself in an apartment in Husby, a poor district in western Stockholm.

Rights activists and local residents say the incident sparked anger among youths in the district, who claim the government discriminates against them.

The riots in one of Europe’s richest capitals have shocked a country that prides itself on a reputation for social justice, fueling a debate about how Sweden is coping with both youth unemployment and an influx of immigrants.

YH/HN

When President Obama delivered a major speech on America's drone program and the ongoing existence of the Guantanamo prison, the majority of those most affected by the latter - the prisoners themselves - were, ironically, unable to hear his speech.
Until six weeks ago, the majority of prisoners were spending most of their time communally, in Camp Six of the prison, where they were able to watch TV and would have seen President Obama's speech. Six weeks ago, however, after an early morning raid, the majority of the prisoners were moved to solitary cells, where they have remained ever since - as punishment for embarking on a prison-wide hunger strike, now in its fourth month.
Yesterday, Navy Captain Robert Durand, a spokesman for the Guantánamo prison, told Reuters that the prisoners "follow all coverage of Guantánamo closely," although he conceded that only "about two dozen had unrestricted access to television in communal settings."
The irony is lost on the military - and appears to be lost on the Obama administration too. The men's decision not to eat - and to risk starving themselves to death - was initially prompted by guards manhandling the prisoners' copies of the Qur'an, but it soon tapped into a deeper despair about their indefinite detention.
President Obama promised to close Guantánamo within a year when he took office in January 2009, but met opposition from Congress, which prevented him from closing the prison by bringing prisoners to a facility on the US mainland, and also prevented him from bringing any of the men to the US to face trials.
Throughout 2009, an inter-agency task force appointed by the President reviewed all the prisoners' cases, and recommended that, of the 166 men still held, 86 should be released. However, in January 2010, following a failed bomb plot, hatched in Yemen, to blow up a plane bound for Detroit, the President himself imposed a ban on releasing any cleared Yemenis, even though 56 of the 86 prisoners cleared for release are Yemenis.
In the last two years, Congress has imposed further restrictions, in successive versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), preventing the release of prisoners if there is a single claim that anyone previously transferred to their home country has “subsequently engaged in any terrorist activity,” and also preventing the release of prisoners to any other country unless the Secretary of Defense issues a certificate to ensure that any freed prisoner "cannot engage or re-engage in any terrorist activity.” 
The ban imposed by President Obama unjustly condemned the Yemenis to indefinite detention on the basis of their nationality alone, while the restrictions imposed by Congress partly echoed that, whilst also making the unreasonable demand that no one should be freed from a prison if there was a possibility that they might one day engage in acts of terrorism against their former jailers.

US President Barack Obama listens as a protester shouts during a speech about his administration's drone and counterterrorism policies, as well as the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, May 23, 2013 (AFP Photo / Saul Loeb)

To add insult to injury, judges in the court of appeals in Washington D.C., a deeply conservative court charged with reviewing the men's hard-won habeas corpus petitions, which were granted by the Supreme Court in 2008, were upset that, between 2008 and 2010, dozens of prisoners had their habeas corpus petitions granted by the lower courts, leading to their release. The court rewrote the rules, insisting that any information presented as evidence by the government should be treated as accurate unless it could be proved otherwise. Since then no habeas petitions have been granted, and, despite appeals from the prisoners, the Supreme Court has refused to get involved.
Abandoned by all three branches of the US government, the prisoners' hunger strike was a desperate way of trying to get the world to notice them and to remember them, and it worked. In the last few months, the world's media has woken up to the horrors of Guantánamo, and the President has been bombarded with criticism - from senior lawmakers, including Sen. Carl Levin, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, as well as from the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the European Parliament. Critical editorials have graced the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, op-eds written by prisoners have appeared in the New York Times and the Observer, and nearly a million people have signed petitions calling for the release of prisoners and the closure of the prison.

So what now?
On Thursday President Obama delivered a series of promises in response to the criticism directed at him. These appear to show the way forward - and to bring hope to the men at Guantánamo for the first time since 2009 - but they will need close monitoring, and relentless pressure, to make sure they lead to meaningful action.
Firstly, the President said, “I am appointing a new, senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries.”
Secondly, he said, “I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case basis.”
Thirdly, he said, “To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries.”

Reuters / Bob Strong

On the first point, it is disappointing that the President has not decided to appoint an official within the White House to deal with Guantánamo, and it is also disappointing that the individual is only to be tasked with "the transfer of detainees to third countries" rather than the closure of the prison. However, it is progress. In January, it was revealed that the previous envoy, Daniel Fried, had been reassigned, and that no one had been appointed to take his place.
What needs to happen now is for this individual to be named as swiftly as possible, and for he or she to begin to transfer the 30 cleared prisoners who are not Yemenis. If Congress remains obstructive, the President and the Secretary of Defense must use a waiver provision that exists in the NDAA, which allows them to bypass Congress if they regard it as being “in the national security interests of the United States.”
On the second point, lifting the ban on releasing Yemenis is crucial, but there now needs to be immediate action to facilitate the men's release. Again, the waiver will be needed if Congress refuses to cooperate, but otherwise there should be no obstacles to the successful release of the 56 men. Prior to President Obama's speech, current and former administration officials told the Wall Street Journal that the transfers to Yemen “would begin slowly, starting with two or three detainees, to ensure Yemen can keep track of the detainees and prevent them from joining militant groups.” The beginning of this process, the official said, “could still be months away.”
The Wall Street Journal also noted that recent steps taken by the Yemeni government “may make it easier for the Pentagon to sign the waiver,” adding, “President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government, which has increased counter-terrorism cooperation with the US, has pledged to monitor the detainees closely and put them through an intensive rehabilitation program.”

Reuters / Bob Strong

The Wall Street Journal also noted that “US and Yemeni officials have held negotiations in recent weeks about restarting the transfers, including promising to share information about former detainees. The Yemeni government has said multiple ministries will monitor the ex-detainees to guard against activities that are potentially threatening to the US and to ensure they receive counselling, job training and other aid to help their reintegration into society.”
On the third point, plans to free the 30 non-Yemeni prisoners cleared for release need to begin immediately, involving the President's new envoy and, if necessary, the waiver mentioned above. The first to be released should be Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, but there are also five Tunisians, a Saudi, four Afghans and others whose release should not be a complicated matter.
The cases of others - including the last three Uighurs (Muslims from China's Xinjiang province), four Syrians, the last Tajik and the last Palestinian - are more complicated, because it is unsafe for them to be repatriated, and new homes need to be found for them. This is also the case with most, if not all of the last five Algerians. The plight of these men is complicated by the fact that the US refuses to resettle any of these men, but it is anticipated that third countries can be found if the Obama administration provides full backing to the President 's new envoy.
There is more that still needs doing, of course. The 80 other prisoners in Guantánamo also need justice, and will not be reassured that the President stated in his speech, "Where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts and military justice system," and specifically referred to some of the 80 men as those "who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks, but who cannot be prosecuted - for example because the evidence against them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law."
46 of the remaining 80 men were consigned to indefinite detention without charge or trial in an executive order issued by the President two years ago, on the basis of the "compromised" evidence mentioned by the President. At the time, these men were promised periodic reviews of their cases, but those have not yet taken place. These need to be initiated, and they need to allow objective analysis of that "compromised" evidence - because that will reveal that much of it is worthless, consisting of false statements made by prisoners subjected to torture or other abuse, or who were bribed with food or the promise of additional "comfort items."
For the others, recommended for trial by the task force, only seven currently face charges in the much-criticized military commissions at Guantánamo, and most of the men in this category should also receive objective reviews of their cases. This is particularly important because judges recently ruled that most of the charges relied upon by the government - providing material support for terrorism, and conspiracy - are not war crimes, and threw out two of the only convictions secured in the military commissions' stumbling history.
Mostly, however, as outlined above, the men at Guantánamo need to see meaningful progress from the President who promised "hope and change" back in 2008, and then failed to deliver it - and for 86 of these men, that means, as soon as possible, that they should be given their freedom, and not just subjected to the fine words that President Obama is so good at delivering, as a substitute for action. 
Andy Worthington for RT
Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, author and filmmaker, who has been researching and writing about Guantánamo since 2006. He is also the co-founder of the "Close Guantánamo" campaign. See his website here.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.