Tag: Fourth International

[2003] When the CIA financed European Intellectuals

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

To counteract the Soviet influence in Europe, at the end of WWII the United States created a network of pro-American elites. Thus, the CIA financed the Congress for Cultural Freedom in which many European intellectuals participated. Among the most distinguished ones were Raymond Aron and Michel Crozier. Responsible for designing an anti-communist ideology welcomed by the conservative right as well as the socialist and reformist left of Europe during the Cold War, these networks were reactivated by the Bush administration. Today, they are the European sounding board of American conservatives.

When the CIA financed European Intellectuals

Related:

Tom Braden, Real-Life Dad Behind ‘Eight Is Enough’ and ‘Crossfire’ Pundit, Dies

As a CIA official in the early 1950s, Mr. Braden was head of the International Organizations Division, which promoted anti-communism by secretly funding groups including the AFL-CIO and the National Student Association, sending the Boston Symphony Orchestra on a European tour and publishing Encounter magazine. After Ramparts magazine exposed the CIA’s system of funding anti-communist front organizations all over the globe, Mr. Braden defended the program in an article in a 1967 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. He said the secret program was his idea.

Francis Fukuyama and Michael McFaul are salivating over the Wagner Group mutiny!

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Francis Fukuyama, who hasn’t seen a regime change op that he hasn’t liked, and Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia, are salivating over the Wagner Group mutiny!

Did Wagner Group Take Over Military Headquarters? What We Know

Twitter.

Interesting that McFaul mentioned Tilley and Trotsky.

Related:

The Neocons:

The Neocons are not new. They have tried to influence U.S. foreign policy since the 1930’s. They are not conservative. If conservatism means maintaining the status quo, then the Neocons, who advocate broad changes, are just the opposite. Furthermore, if the early pioneers of neoconservatism are those who eventually sought global stability through use of American power and promotion of its values, then the pioneers of neoconservatiam were radical leftists The more prominent devotees were followers of Leon Trotsky:

A Tragedy of Errors

Prigozhin a Tool of the CIA/SBU or Too Big for his Britches?!

Why Biden supports the unionization of the Amazon workforce

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Why Biden supports the unionization of the Amazon workforce

First, the ruling class confronts an unprecedented crisis, which has been enormously intensified by the pandemic. As a result of the refusal of the ruling class to take the necessary measures to save lives, nearly 530,000 people have died from COVID-19 over the past year. The impact of mass death, combined with the disastrous social and economic situation, is having a profoundly radicalizing impact on the consciousness of workers and youth.

…

Second, the international situation is no less concerning to the ruling class, which is determined to maintain its global hegemonic position through the use of military force. The Biden administration is carrying out an increasingly confrontational policy toward Russia and, in particular, China. The logic of this policy leads to war. In the event of a major “great power conflict,” the pro-capitalist unions will be critical in promoting national chauvinism and suppressing the class struggle. War abroad requires a disciplined “labor movement” at home.

…

The strategy Biden is pursuing is known as corporatism—that is, the integration of the government with the corporations and the unions on the basis of a defense of the capitalist system. In 1938, Trotsky drew attention to this tendency when he wrote, in the founding document of the Fourth International, “In periods of acute class struggle, the leading bodies of the trade unions aim to become masters of the mass movement in order to render it harmless… In time of war or revolution, when the bourgeoisie is plunged into exceptional difficulties, trade union leaders usually become bourgeois ministers.”

…

At its most fundamental level, the promotion of the unions by the ruling class is aimed at quarantining workers from socialism. The overriding fear of the ruling class is that the objective radicalization of the working class, intensified by the pandemic, will acquire a socialist leadership and political program. It is this fear that is behind Biden’s extraordinary intervention at Amazon.