The culture war that so defines current debates between the left and right sides of politics has its history in the barmy theory of 'cultural Marxism'

What do the Australian's columnist Nick Cater, video game hate group #Gamergate, Norwegian mass shooter Anders Breivik and random blokes on YouTube have in common? Apart from anything else, they have all invoked the spectre of "cultural Marxism" to account for things they disapprove of - things like Islamic immigrant communities, feminism and, er, opposition leader Bill Shorten [Leader of the Australian Labor Party - Sott.net ed.].

What are they talking about? The tale varies in the telling, but the theory of cultural Marxism is integral to the fantasy life of the contemporary right. It depends on a crazy-mirror history, which glancingly reflects things that really happened, only to distort them in the most bizarre ways.

It begins in the 1910s and 1920s. When the socialist revolution failed to materialise beyond the Soviet Union, Marxist thinkers like Antonio Gramsci and Georg Lukacs tried to explain why. Their answer was that culture and religion blunted the proletariat's desire to revolt, and the solution was that Marxists should carry out a "long march through the institutions" - universities and schools, government bureaucracies and the media - so that cultural values could be progressively changed from above.

A Kansas City, Missouri couple may have tapped into America's latent resentment regarding this election season, receiving national attention for a joke campaign sign which they put in their front yard reading: "Everybody Sucks 2016. The US is doomed."

Debbie Butler told KSHB-TV last week that she and her husband, an Army veteran who fought in both Afghanistan and Iraq, first bought the sign as joke.

"It's just fun," Butler told the network. "We just thought it was funny when we saw it, so we bought it and put it in the front yard."

Although buying it may have just been a flight of fancy, it has since attracted attention from Kansas City residents, and images of it have gone viral on a national level.

"It gets a lot of car honks," Butler explained to KHSB. "It gets people stopping and saying, 'We love your sign.' People slow down and take pictures of our sign."

Another West Point scandal is apparently brewing this week on the campus of the 214 year-old United States Military Academy located 50 miles up the Hudson River from New York City. A photo of sixteen African American female cadets posing in dress gray uniform directly in front of the historic Central Barracks (built circa slavery era of 1850) with raised clenched fists has gone viral and is creating quite a stir. A West Point official acknowledged that the controversial photograph depicts a group of cadet women from this year's senior class due to graduate May 21^st and that the incident is currently under serious investigation for any violation of the Defense Department stipulation prohibiting:

Any member of the Armed Forces shall not display a partisan political sign, poster, banner, or similar device visible to the public at one's residence on a military installation.

In recent years the Black Lives Matter group has adopted this arm and hand gesture as a sign of solidarity lending support to the many African Americans murdered since the Trayvon Martin case in 2012. The numerous high profile cases of unarmed black men killed by white policemen has given impetus to the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Off its own website it defines itself as "a chapter-based national organization working for the validity of Black life. We are working to (re)build the Black liberation movement." It should come as no surprise that any organization advocating black empowerment especially when it began using the clenched raised fist as its symbolic gesture signifying solidarity and strength would attract illicit attention from the FBI and Homeland Security, not unlike the FBI's long running COINTELPRO operation that illegally monitored Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement and the Students for a Democratic Society back in the 1960's and 70's.

During this year's presidential election campaign, Black Lives Matter protesters attending Donald Trump rallies have recently been widely reported in the media for clashes with Trump supporters, at times erupting in violence mostly from angry Trump zealots pissed at that their uninvited party crashers. This of course comes in response to Trump making inflammatory racist statements against both Muslims and Latinos.

Hundreds of thousands of children starting school are lacking basic personal hygiene, communication and social skills, but can probably unlock an iPhone, new research says.

The State of Education report by school leaders service The Key surveyed more than 1,100 senior primary school staff on pupils' readiness to start school.

Those surveyed said many children suffer from a lack of social skills, which included delayed speech or deficient self-help skills, such as taking themselves to the toilet.

Some teachers also said many pupils had levels of reading, writing and numeracy much lower than they should be.

One headteacher said four-year-olds "know how to swipe a phone but haven't a clue about conversations."

"Why, in the 21st century, are children still arriving in school nurseries aged three or above, without being toilet trained?" another school leader lamented.

Monday morning, scientists working for the Department of Homeland Security will begin releasing (nontoxic) gases and particles on crowded subway platforms, beginning a week-long airflow study aimed at measuring the impact of a nightmarish chemical or biological terrorist attack.

It's not the first such study — most recently the NYPD gassed the subway system in 2013 (also nontoxic) — but this is the first large-scale use of particles, in addition to gases. While gas tests help scientists, counter-terrorism specialists, and emergency responders understand the impact of chemical weapons like sarin gas or mustard gas, the particle test will measure the fallout from aerosol-dispensed biological agents like anthrax or ricin.

Every day this week, particles will be released from machines at busy stations like Grand Central, Times Square, 34th St. - Penn Station. Special machines and filters on platforms and subway cars will gather the particles. Researchers working throughout the system will also wear small patches designed to collect them.

The Department of Homeland Security, along with a MTA and a slew of other agencies, assured New Yorkers that neither the gases nor the particles are a health risk. The study won't significantly increase the level of particle matter wafting through the air, in part, because New York City subway stations are already brimming with particulate. In fact, as the project's assessment report noted, the levels of steel, manganese, and chromium in the subway system are 100 times higher than outdoors.

Hundreds of people are protesting at San Francisco City Hall on Monday, expressing support for five people who conducted a hunger strike lasting more than two weeks, and pushing for an end to police brutality and the removal of the city's police chief.

Demonstrators in San Francisco are calling for the ouster of Police Chief Greg Suhr, with an all-day strike intended to push their agenda. The beleaguered city police department has been racked with controversy over the fatal shootings of people of color, as well as racist and homophobic text messages sent by some officers.

Beginning at 8 a.m., demonstrators started marching on City Hall, chanting slogans such as "No justice, no peace," and "Fire Chief Suhr." At one point, they also chanted, "How do you spell murder? S-F-P-D."
Monday's strike comes a few days after 33 protesters were arrested during a Friday night demonstration at City Hall, where dozens of demonstrators came out in support of five hunger strikers known as the "Frisco Five." In an attempt to force Mayor Ed Lee to fire Suhr, the individuals subsisted on chicken broth, coconut water and juice for 17 days before being admitted into a hospital for deteriorating health.

The "Immortal regiment" movement has spread from Russia to cities worldwide, with thousands of people in 42 countries across the globe already marching or getting ready to march in commemoration of their loved ones who fought in World War Two.

The marches, which are taking place from May 7 through May 9, are an act of admiration and remembrance of all those who showed bravery during perhaps the most terrifying time in our recent history. They serve to show that each person who died or suffered in World War II was someone's family, someone's loved one.

Since its inception in 2007, the Immortal Regiment initiative has been met with unprecedented support, and by 2015 it had received national status. Last year it was held in seven other countries in post-Soviet space and Europe for the first time. This year's map of the Regiment movement, however, is unprecedented.

The Cook County prosecutor who brought murder charges against a Chicago police officer who fatally shot Laquan McDonald wants to withdraw from the case, while the cop's attorney has asked the court for special security after receiving death threats.

"While it has not been an easy decision, I believe it is the right one because it will help to avoid unnecessary legal delays and provide continuity in the handling of this very important and complicated case," Cook County State Attorney Anita Alvarez said in a statement, according to the Washington Post.

The case in question concerns white Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot a black teenager, Laquan McDonald, 16 times in October of 2014. Alvarez took more than a year to file first-degree murder charges against the police officer, which came shortly after the public release of dashcam video showing Van Dyke shooting McDonald over and over.

The footage led to major protests and investigations from authorities at the local and federal level, as well as the Chicago Police Department. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was prompted to fire the police superintendent, Garry McCarthy, due to the handling of the case.

Earlier this year, civil rights attorneys and activists called for a special prosecutor to replace Alvarez because of her alleged close political relationship with the police officers' union, which they argued created a conflict of interest and made her reluctant to pursue criminal cases against police.

Political rivals may brand the right-wing German party AfD xenophobic for claiming that there is "no place for Islam in Germany" in its political program, but 60 percent of the country's citizens agree with the idea, according to a new poll.

Conducted by the newspaper Bild together with research institute INSA, the poll showed a dramatic change in the attitude of the German population to Islam over the past year. In January 2015, 37 percent of people said that Islam had a place in Germany, but the figure in the latest poll dropped by 15 percentage points to just 22 percent.

The suspicion towards Islam is overwhelming among AfD voters, 92 percent of whom supported their party's stance, but was spread among members of other parties as well. Only supporters of the Green party were more in favor of Islam than against it (42 percent vs 39 percent).

The negative attitude toward the religion does not directly translate into mistrust toward those adhering to it however. Less than 30 percent said they would not like to live alongside Muslim people, while almost half said they were fine with it.

At the very highest levels it is now clear that the Chinese regime of President Xi Jinping and his Prime Minister, Li Keqiang, who is also head of the State Council, have decided to make China a world leader in the highly controversial field of Genetically Manipulated Organisms or GMO and the related highly toxic (to humans) pesticides and herbicides. This was made clear in November when the Chinese state ChemChina announced it was seeking to buy the Anglo-Swiss pharmaceutical giant, Syngenta of Basel. This is for me a personal disappointment and for the world, a major blow.

In November, China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) made a failed bid to buy the Swiss-based Syngenta, the world's largest crop chemical pesticide and herbicide producer with 19 percent of the world market. Syngenta is also one of the world's four giant GMO seed patent holders alongside Monsanto, DuPont and Dow, the "Four Horsemen of the GMO Apocalypse," as they are sometimes called. The takeover bid is no spur of the moment whim. It comes after Monsanto's takeover of Syngenta was rejected by the company earlier in 2015. On December 18, ChemChina revealed its seriousness when it made a second larger bid to take Syngenta and all its GMO and pesticide patents and production. The new offer, estimated worth $44 billion, would be the largest corporate takeover in China's history.

Xi's Grave Error

In clearly sanctioning the ChemChina bid to become a "global player" in the GMO game of population reduction, Xi Jinping and his Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister are committing a grave error. Taking him at his word, Xi gave a speech last year, made public in May, 2015, in which he declared that China must, "boldly research and innovate, and dominate the high points of GMO techniques."

When the Chinese set out to dominate a global market, be it textiles, electronics, or now GMO food and pesticides, we must take that seriously. Xi in that same speech, delivered in late 2014, went on to say, "We cannot let foreign companies dominate the GMO market." The plan is clearly to use China's enormous financial resources to buy that foreign competition such as Syngenta.