the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Beyond the bias and politicization of the report, what perhaps damns it most is how it is being used.   by Leonardo Flores   Part 4 - The report in the context of a hybrid war Beyond the bias and politicization of the report, what perhaps damns it most is how it is being used. The omissions on the impact of coups and sanctions enable regime change operatives such as Elliott Abrams, U.S. special representative for Iran and Venezuela, to cite the report as evidence of crimes against humanity while, in the same breath, threatening to cut off Venezuela’s diesel supplies, which has drawn widespread condemnation from NGOs across the political spectrum for the devastating effect it would have on the Venezuelan people. The report was similarly used by Senators Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin, who referenced it in a letter to the European Union in which they expressed “ deep concern ” over EU talks with the Maduro government and urged the EU to not monitor Venezuela’s parliamentary elections. This b

by Jonathan Cook   Part 4 - A small window on reality   The Social Dilemma ignores all of this to focus on the dangers of so-called “fake news”. It dramatises a scene suggesting that only those sucked into information blackholes and conspiracy sites end up taking to the street to protest – and when they do, the film hints, it will not end well for them. Apps allowing us to hail a taxi or navigate our way to a destination are undoubtedly useful tools. But being able to find out what our leaders are really doing – whether they are committing crimes against others or against us – is an even more useful tool. In fact, it is a vital one if we want to stop the kind of self-destructive behaviours The Social Dilemma is concerned about, not least our destruction of the planet’s life systems (an issue that, except for one interviewee’s final comment, the film leaves untouched). Use of social media does not mean one necessarily loses touch with the real world. For a minority, social media has dee

The Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) won with 52.4 percent over the parties that were backed by the right-wing interim regime.   After midnight on Sunday, Bolivian authorities allowed the results of the exit polls to be known. The Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) presidential candidate Luis Arce obtained 52.4 percent of the votes, the Citizen Community (CC) candidate Carlos Mesa got 31.5 percent, and the "We Believe Alliance" candidate Luis Fernando Camacho reached 14.1 percent of the votes.  Bolivia's president-elect Arce thanked the people for their support and for their peaceful participation in the electoral process. “ We have recovered democracy and hope. We ratify our commitment to work with social organizations. We are going to build a national unity government. " Previously, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) spokesperson Sebastian Mitchell made an official statement regarding the absence of definitive data on the elections. He said that mainstream media an

Former Bolivian president Evo Morales on his rise to power, the coup which overthrew his government – and why today's election is a fight to restore popular sovereignty.   An interview with Evo Morales   Evo Morales’s fate after last November’s military coup in Bolivia follows the same dark pattern as that of many left-wing, progressive, and anti-imperialist leaders in the region. Parallels have been drawn with the coup against Chile’s Salvador Allende in September 1973, the attempted military uprising against Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in April 2002, and the Ecuadorian police’s bid to oust Rafael Correa in September 2010. With Morales now in exile in Argentina, he has also been compared to that country’s leader Juan Domingo Perón after the September 1955 takeover by an ultraconservative faction of the army. The military dictatorship implemented a total ban on the Peronista movement, yet the exiled Perón continued to bear enormous influence due to the base he had built through the de

Consortium News   Recently, U.S. prosecutors indicted WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange on seventeen espionage charges stemming from the disclosure of atrocities committed by the U.S. armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. With global consequences directly affecting the freedom of the press, Assange stands to be extradited from the UK to trial in the U.S. under the Espionage Act.   In this event, author and activist, Miko Peled, speaks with three prominent activists who have persistently advocated for Assange’s release and freedom. Miko and the panel tackle the following topics:  - Julian Assange and WikiLeaks’ contributions to journalism - The campaign to prosecute Assange - Assange’s eviction from the embassy and his corresponding treatment by the British authorities - The likelihood of Assange’s extradition to the U.S. to face espionage charges - The lack of journalistic support and solidarity for Assange

In a Grayzone exclusive, José Bustani, the former head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, speaks out in support of two veteran OPCW inspectors who challenged a US-backed cover-up of their investigation in Syria.   Bustani also reacts to the recent US-UK-France-led effort to prevent his testimony at the UN Security Council about the OPCW’s Syria cover-up scandal. And Bustani reveals new details of how he was targeted in the lead-up to the Iraq war, when the Bush administration engineered his ouster for impeding its plans to invade.   Bustani discloses for the first time that his office was bugged – and that the OPCW’s then-head of security, a U.S. citizen, vanished right after this was discovered. It’s a case of history repeating itself, with the world’s top superpower once again trying to silence a veteran diplomat from the Global South, whose courage and principle challenges a pro-war deception.  More: https://thegrayzone.com/2020/10/18/ex-opcw-chief-defends

by Gabriel Rockhill    “The U.S. has established itself as the mortal enemy of all people’s government, all scientific-socialist mobilization of consciousness everywhere on the globe, all anti-imperialist activity on earth.” – George Jackson Part 1   One of the founding myths of the contemporary Western European and American world is that fascism was defeated in WWII by liberal democracies, and particularly by the United States.  With the subsequent Nuremburg trials and the patient construction of a liberal world order, a bulwark was erected—in fits and starts, and with the constant threat of regression—against fascism and its evil twin in the East. American culture industries have rehearsed this narrative ad nauseum, brewing it into a saccharine ideological Kool-Aid and piping it into every household, shack and street corner with a TV or smartphone, tirelessly juxtaposing the supreme evil of Nazism to the freedom and prosperity of liberal democracy. The material record suggests, howev

The Ecuadorian diplomat who gave Julian Assange political asylum reports from the extradition hearing against the WikiLeaks journalist, and explains why it is “the most important case against the freedom of expression in an entire generation.”   by Fidel Narváez, (translated by Ben Norton)   Part 2 - The accusation is for a “political crime,” which is not subject to extradition. Publishing classified, and truthful, information is not a crime.   Julian Assange would be prosecuted under the Espionage Act of the United States for a political “crime,” which is excluded from the extradition agreements between the United Kingdom and U.S. The U.S. attorney general’s office has furthermore said that Assange, as a foreigner, would not be able to exercise the right of the First Amendment. That is to say, punishments apply to foreigners in the U.S., but not legal protections. The director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Trevor Timm, told the court that the extradition of Assange would be

A Washington, DC-based PR firm linked to the US government and Democratic Party, CLS Strategies, ran a fake news network on Facebook and Instagram, spreading propaganda for Bolivia’s coup regime and the right-wing opposition in Venezuela and Mexico. by Ben Norton Part 9 - CLS Strategies’ deep ties to the US government CLS Strategies boasts on its website that it has a “ team of veteran political operatives, former journalists and corporate communications experts ” who are employed as “ strategists, counselors and problem solvers. ” Among those veteran political operatives are some prominent former US government officials. A senior advisor to CLS is Mark Feierstein, a longtime Democratic Party operative who has spent decades overseeing regime-change policies in Latin America. Feierstein played a key role in the Obama administration’s foreign policy team as the president’s top advisor on Latin America, and served as senior director for Western hemisphere affairs on the National

 by Alex Harman Part 7 - Amazon Calls for Federal Price Gouging Legislation   After two months of media reports of price gouging on its platform, Amazon publicly called for a federal price gouging law “ to ensure there are no gaps in protection for consumers ” and to “ complement ” the efforts to fight price gouging in the states. The framework preferred by Amazon would include elements from many state statutes, including prohibitions on “ unconscionable ” price increases and an allowance for actual cost increases.  The Amazon framework recommended that price gouging prohibitions go into effect whenever a federal public health or national emergency is declared. Notably, Amazon would have the prohibition apply to all levels of the supply chain rather than just retailers.  However, the Amazon proposal would include language to clarify that the price gouging prohibition “ should apply to the party who actually sets the price. ” If it became law, this language would immunize Amazon from