And speaking of David Petraeus in my previous post here is the Washington Post article David Petraeus: Anti-Muslim bigotry aids Islamist terrorists mentioned in that post. Leave it to the Washington Post to publish something like this.

While Islamist extremist networks do not pose an “existential” threat to the United States in the way that Soviet nuclear weapons once did, their bloodlust and their ambition to inflict genocidal violence make them uniquely malevolent actors on the world stage.

No irony here for Petraeus to go on and say the following:

For that reason, I have grown increasingly concerned about inflammatory political discourse that has become far too common both at home and abroad against Muslims and Islam, including proposals from various quarters for blanket discrimination against people on the basis of their religion.

I suppose the words “bloodlust” and “genocidal violence” are not thought of as inflammatory. Sorry David, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t use inflammatory language and then profess your concern over people using such language.

I think David Petraeus should read his own advice

But it is precisely because the danger of Islamist extremism is so great that politicians here and abroad who toy with anti-Muslim bigotry must consider the effects of their rhetoric. Demonizing a religious faith and its adherents not only runs contrary to our most cherished and fundamental values as a country; it is also corrosive to our vital national security interests and, ultimately, to the United States’ success in this war.

So why did Petraeus choose to use words that were “corrosive to our vital national security interests’?

CNN has the article Why ISIS is celebrating Trump’s immigration ban.

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, retired US Army Gen. and former CIA Director David Petraeus said he has grown increasingly concerned about anti-Muslim rhetoric in the United States.

“As policy, these concepts are totally counterproductive,” Petraeus said. “Rather than making our country safer, they will compound the already grave terrorist danger to our citizens. As ideas, they are toxic and, indeed, non-biodegradable — a kind of poison that, once released into our body politic, is not easily expunged.”

In the spirit of being fair and unbalanced, CNN goes on to add the following to their article:

The number of American Muslims who radicalize is small, especially when compared with other Western countries, said William McCants, director of the Brookings Institution’s Project on US Relations with the Islamic World.

Law enforcement experts estimate that about 250 Americans have tried to join ISIS, far fewer than the thousands who have flocked to Syria and Iraq from countries such as France and Belgium.

“I would argue that American Islam is doing something right in contrast to these other countries,” McCants said.

I would argue that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans provide somewhat of a barrier for American Muslims wanting to go to the Caliphate compared to those lining in Europe. Perhaps it is not only American Islam is doing something right but America (USA) that is doing something right, Well, that is until Trump arrived upon the scene. In the USA, we have far more acceptance of diverse people that some countries in Europe. We do not ban the wearing of religious garb as they do in France. We do not insist on English being the official language. There are a lot of things we do right that Trump wants to start doing wrong.

Counterpunch as the article Celebrating Dr. King with the Departure of Barack Obama by Ajamu Baraka.

It is not too late, even with the election of Donald Trump, but it will take courage and clear thinking in order to shake ourselves free from the strange, hypnotic trance that has gripped liberals and progressives of all stripes. Dr. King pointed us in the right direction just before he was assassinated when he reminded us that we were living in revolutionary times. King argued that the U.S. needed to get on the right side of the world revolution and that required a revolution of values in U.S. society. With the U.S. gripped in an unsolvable capitalist economic crisis that has deepened poverty, exacerbated racism and xenophobia, intensified class contradictions and struggle, and produced a Donald Trump, the liberated knowledge and experience of the black liberation movement in the U.S. is actively creating new ways of living and seeing the world that will liberate all of us.

This is the reality of a new world that Dr. King could see from the mountaintop – and that is a world that a visionless, opportunist technocrat like Obama and a moribund liberalism could never imagine.

Wow, what a powerful statement this article is. In his own book, Barack Obama stated that he decided to go to Harvard University to learn where the levers of power were. I guess he learned his lessons well, and he worked those levers of power mercilessly.

New Economic Perspectives has the short article When will the EU and the ECB Stop Torturing the Greeks?

The International Monetary Fund believes Greece’s debt is “highly unsustainable” and will reach 275% of gross domestic product by 2060 unless the country’s loans are significantly restructured, according to a draft confidential review of the country’s economy.

I have found some of the worst enemies of Greece among USA citizens with a Greek background. The ones to which I refer blame the laziness of the Greek people, and refuse to understand what the international financial community is doing to Greece.

The Dallas News has the opinion piece How we Americans can turn the tables on Steve Bannon’s shock event.

What Steve Bannon is doing, most dramatically with the ban on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries — is creating what is known as a “shock event.”

Such an event is unexpected and confusing and throws a society into chaos. People scramble to react to the event, usually along some fault line that those responsible for the event can widen by claiming that they alone know how to restore order.

For “corroboration” of this take on events, I hark back to some earlier posts of mine The Shock Doctrine. In her book and lectures, Naomi Klein gives a thorough exposition of the shock doctrine. It is shocking.