Links between the Council on Foreign Relations and various U.S. corporations and institutions

Immanuel Wallerstein - China and the United States: Rivals, Enemies, Collaborators?

The relations of China and the United States are a major preoccupation of the chattering classes (bloggers, the media, politicians, international bureaucrats). The analysis is usually posed as the relation between the declining superpower, the United States, and the rapidly rising “emergent” country, China. In the western world, the relation is usually defined negatively, China being seen as a “threat.” But threat to whom, and in what sense?

There are some who see China’s “rise” as the resumption of a central position on the globe, a central position that they once held and are now resuming. There are some who see it as something very recent – as China’s new role in the shifting geopolitics and world-economic relations of the modern world-system. FULL STORY

Vivek Chibber - Capitalism and the State (Lecture)

What Special Interests are Bankrolling the 2012 Presidential Candidates?

By: Michael Beckel & Brad Hooker (opensecrets.org)

Last month, most presidential candidates released their first fund-raising reports in what's likely to be the most expensive presidential election in history and the first in which neither majority party candidate participates in the nation's public financing system.

So how do the major candidates stack up in terms of who is bankrolling their campaigns?

A new Center for Responsive Politics analysis shows that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has raised more than 25 percent of his funds this year from the finance, insurance and real estate sector. That's $4.65 million from the financial sector out of $18 million in overall receipts. FULL STORY

Unemployed? It's All Part Of God's Plan For You

Americans who believe God has a plan for their lives are more likely to think the government "does too much," more likely to oppose unemployment benefits for healthy people and more likely to believe in the "American dream" that anything is possible for those who work hard.

Interestingly, the study also revealed that those who held such beliefs made less money than strong disbelievers. And that they tended to be less educated than disbelievers. That last finding isn’t a surprise. FULL STORY

Mumia Abu-Jamal - Corporate Supremacy Still