the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

The Real News Network
From medicare for all to neoliberal tax subsidies for major corporations the mainstream media often bolsters the notion that a more fair and equitable society is not possible.

Hong Kong’s increasingly xenophobic protests are devolving into chaos with help from US government regime-change outfits and a right-wing local media tycoon with close ties to hardliners in Washington.
by Dan Cohen
Part 1
President Donald Trump tweeted on August 13 that he “can’t imagine why” the United States has been blamed for the chaotic protests that have gripped Hong Kong.

Trump’s befuddlement might be understandable considering the carefully managed narrative of the US government and its unofficial media apparatus, which have portrayed the protests as an organic “pro-democracy” expression of grassroots youth. However, a look beneath the surface of this oversimplified, made-for-television script reveals that the ferociously anti-Chinese network behind the demonstrations has been cultivated with the help of millions of dollars from the US government, as well as a Washington-linked local media tycoon. 
Since March, raucous protests have gripped Hong Kong. In July and August, these d…

On the campaign trail, Joe Biden has boasted of his role in transforming Colombia and Central America through ambitious economic and security programs. Colombians and Hondurans tell The Grayzone about the damage his plans did to their societies.
by Max Blumenthal
Part 6 - Energy industry rush dooms indigenous communities and human rights defenders
The implementation of the Alliance for Prosperity was overseen by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), a US-dominated international financial institution based in Washington, DC that supports corporate investment in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A graphic on the IADB’s website outlined the plan’s objectives in anodyne language that concealed its aggressively neoliberal agenda.
For instance, the IADB promised the “fostering [of] regional energy integration.” This was a clear reference to Plan Pueblo Panama, a region-wide neoliberal development blueprint that was conceived as a boon to the energy industry. Under the plan, the IADB would…

Civil liberties groups and privacy advocates raised alarm Thursday after the Trump administration called on Congress to reauthorize an NSA mass surveillance program that was exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The New York Times, which obtained the Trump administration's request to Congress, reported that "the administration urged lawmakers to make permanent the legal authority for the National Security Agency to gain access to logs of Americans' domestic communications, the USA Freedom Act."
"The law, enacted after the intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden revealed the existence of the program in 2013, is set to expire in December, but the Trump administration wants it made permanent," according to the Times.

The administration claimed in its letter to Congress—which was signed by outgoing National Intelligence chief Dan Coats—that the NSA has suspended the spying program, but Free Press Action government relations director Sandra Fulton said in a …

RT America
Host Chris Hedges talks to author and journalist Max Blumenthal about the intimate connection between the misguided support the United States has given to international Jihadism – starting with over $1billion Washington gave to the Afghan Mujahideen in the 1970s – and the rise of neo-fascists and ultra-nationalist movements in Europe and the US. Blumenthal’s new book The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump was published in April by Verso Books.

Related:
CIA's critical role in the revival of Islamic fundamentalism
MBS: spread of Wahhabism was done at request of West during Cold War

The Grayzone
MIT professor Ted Postol warns that Trump's withdrawal from the INF treaty -- a critical Cold War pact that eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons -- threatens nuclear 'catastrophe.'

RT America
How did a CIA-backed military coup in 2009 turn Honduras into a violent, repressive dictatorship and lay the groundwork for the civil strife seen there today? RT America’s Michele Greenstein explains. Then former President Manuel Zelaya joins Rick Sanchez to explain how he was ousted and his progressive government dismantled for the sake of US-based transnational companies. 
Zelaya reveals:
                    I had joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas and people from the United States threatened me. Including president Bush. They asked why was a friend of Chávez ... the United States warned me: 'if you sign the Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas, ALBA, you're going to have problems with the United States.' I signed it, and six months later I had problems. They kicked me out.

by Caitlin Johnstone
If people could see the world with fresh eyes, as though they were viewing it for the very first time, they would suddenly find themselves smashed between two equally strong yet wildly different experiences.
On the one hand, they would experience breathless awe at the thunderous beauty of everything that exists. We tend to develop a mental habit of taking things for granted just because we have a thought story about knowing what they are and having seen them before. The labeling, dividing mind says “Oh yeah, I know what that is, that’s a tree. I’ve seen a million of those, no big deal,” and we make a habit of overlooking it. This habit combines with our fixation on looping mental chatter to pull the interest and attention out of our experience of the world which would otherwise be experienced as a nonstop eruption of staggering beauty.
On the other hand, someone seeing the world with fresh eyes would at the same time experience howling rage at all the immense evil…

Many people are not aware that back in April of 2017, tech giant Google embarked on massive effort to ‘cleanse’ their search engines of content which Google’s executives believe should not be widely seen or read by billions of viewers across the globe.
However, Google’s censorship was not limited to ‘right wing’ or ‘pro-Trump’ information as has been widely reported by numerous conservative outlets. Google’s political censorship program has also buried content and redirected internet searches away from left-wing, progressive and anti-war websites, cutting the search traffic of leading alternative news outlets by well over 50 percent since they implemented their corporate information purge in April 2017. In some instances, website traffic from Google searches dropped more than 70%.
This political lustration by the Silicon Valley conglomerate has had a devastating effect of independent media outlets worldwide, as Google continually works to control the public information space.
But thei…

The Grayzone
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been smeared as an Assad apologist for her efforts to end the US-backed proxy war and her skepticism of US military strikes in Syria. MIT professor emeritus Ted Postol, a leading missile expert and informal Gabbard advisor, defends Gabbard's stance and criticizes the OPCW's continued silence on a leaked document that suggests the April 2018 gas attack in Douma was staged.