Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“At some point capitalism lost the ability to give us new things that we need and started giving us new things we don’t need, and now it’s giving us new things we never needed and don’t even really want. Nobody needs all this generative AI crap. We were doing fine with online search functions and the ability to write and make art for ourselves. Only the most shallow and vapid of individuals find any appeal in the idea of talking to a chatbot like a companion, consuming ‘art’ generated by a computer program, or letting the technology of some plutocratic megacorporation do their thinking, researching and expressing for them.” [editor’s note: At least AI can probably write better poetry than Johnstone – TLK] (10/26/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Lipton Matthews
“Lawrence Mead’s Political Breakdown (2025) is not a book of partisan skirmishing or quick diagnoses. It is instead a cultural meditation on why the United States, a society that once seemed uniquely dynamic, confident, and cohesive, now struggles to maintain the very norms that powered its rise. For Mead, the story of American decline is not simply about inequality, polarization, or stagnant wages, though these are real enough. It is about the erosion of the ethic of individualism that once held the society together. The United States — unlike many other nations — thrived because it demanded that its citizens take responsibility for themselves. … The problem today, Mead insists, is that these norms no longer command the same authority. What was once a shared cultural foundation has fractured, and the resulting void has left Americans unable to sustain progress or govern themselves effectively.” (10/27/25)
Source: Common Dreams
Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies
“On October 4th, 2025, in an interview with Axios, President Donal Trump stressed that one of the main goals behind his Gaza plan was to restore Israel’s international standing. ‘Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world,’ Trump said. ‘Now I am gonna get all that support back.’ Under Trump’ s plan, a supposed ceasefire took effect on October 10th. But Israel only withdrew from less than half of the Gaza strip, and killed at least 93 people in the next two weeks, after killing at least that many per day for the previous two years. Israel has only allowed 15% of the humanitarian aid called for in the plan to enter Gaza, and has kept the critical Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza closed.” (10/27/25)
“The Trump administration’s apparent pivot toward the Western Hemisphere — most vividly displayed in the massive military buildup and maritime strikes around Latin America — represents a rare moment of strategic clarity in contemporary U.S. foreign policy, even if the specific bellicose actions getting attention are misguided. Whether intentional or not, this reorientation aligns with basic geopolitical logic that should have guided U.S. policy all along. The Western Hemisphere, after all, is where America’s genuine strategic interests lie. This isn’t jingoism or imperial nostalgia — it’s simple geography and economics.” [editor’s note: The simple geography extends to a brownstone in New York and a private island; the economics to their wealthy owner; both those things, added to Donald Trump’s desire to distract from his long, close, personal relationship with that owner, the late Jeffrey Epstein, they explain the entire theatrical production – TLK] (10/27/25)
“There are still two months left in 2025 but unless something intergalactically stupid happens soon, the collapse of First Brands Group Holdings will take home the prize of 2025’s most embarrassing moment of the year for Wall Street. First Brands, an owner of 24 auto-supply companies, including Fram oil filters, Anco windshield wipers, Autolite spark plugs, and Centric brakes, managed to create a financial disaster that might exceed $10 billion in losses. Major players in commercial bank lending, private credit lending, investment banking, fund management, credit insurance and public accounting have taken a bite of the rotten apple.” (10/27/25)
“In the past few weeks, the US military has killed around thirty people in cold blood. The murders occurred on boats traveling in waters on both sides of Latin America and were undertaken without any warning to the crews on the boats. The rulers in Washington DC claim that those in the boats were involved in drug smuggling; they make this claim without showing any proof …. The former president of the Philippines Jose Duterte is currently in prison in the Hague after being charged with being an ‘indirect co-perpetrator’ in the murders of hundreds of alleged drug dealers by Philippine military and law enforcement during his time in office. If we apply this same reasoning to the aforementioned murders by the US military, then Donald Trump, Marc Rubio, Pete Hegseth and others should be arrested on similar charges.” (10/27/25)
“Big Pharma is panicking. The Trump administration’s probe into international pharmaceutical pricing and its executive order to reduce the cost of drugs by up to 80 percent come as both President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. urge Americans to put fitness and lifestyle ahead of popping pills. Big Pharma is responsible for setting the price of drugs. So, in order to maintain this power, it’s no wonder the industry has promised to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure here in the U.S. It also pledged to provide financial assistance to millions of patients who have been ‘failed by a broken health insurance system’ and to launch a new consumer-focused website that allows Americans to buy drugs directly from manufacturers.” (10/27/25)
“If you love walking, Stockholm was built just for you. Spread across 14 islands linked by bridges, the city brims with waterfront promenades, ferries gliding through inlets, the whir of bicycle wheels, and pedestrians spilling into lively café-lined squares. Not long ago, traffic clogged the bridges between the city’s neighborhoods. Despite a world-class public transit system and a relatively small population, Stockholm’s congestion rivaled that of London and Paris. For decades, city leaders proposed fixes, but nothing stuck until 2002, when Sweden’s parliament approved congestion pricing. The idea was simple: Charge a small fee for vehicles entering and exiting the city center to reduce traffic, improve accessibility, and clean the air.” (for publication 11/25)
“The West likes to inflate the cost of Russian weapons as a way to suggest Moscow is in a financial bind and manipulate the narrative of a looming Ukraine victory — while also masking real inefficiencies in the U.S. defense industry. By assuming Russian weapons have input costs similar to U.S. systems or conflating export prices with Russia’s internal costs, Western estimates produce misleading figures. These inflated costs bolster the narrative that the strain on Moscow is tremendous, while downplaying the increasing challenges for Ukraine and NATO to effectively counter Russia’s relatively inexpensive missiles and drones.” (10/27/25)
