the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Moderate Rebels   Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton are joined by Aaron Maté to discuss the radlibs in academia who pretend to be radical but use anti-materialist post-modern philosophy and neoliberal identity politics to defend Western imperialism, from Ecuador to Syria, China to Venezuela. We also make fun of Bernard-Henri Lévy, who has never seen a US war he didn't love. 

With the potential comeback of Lula da Silva, Brazil may once again be on a path away from fascism and one that puts economic justice and anti-imperialism first.   by Alan Macleod   Part 2 - A massive turnaround “ There is a sense of elation for [Lula’s] supporters and those that stood by him for so many years, ” said Michael Fox, a filmmaker based in the southern city of Florianopolis, who likened following Brazilian politics to a ride on a rollercoaster:                            In just a few weeks, Lula’s charges have been annulled and now the once super-star judge Sergio Moro is under formal investigation for judicial bias, a felony charge. It’s a massive turnaround and it can’t be understated. “ This is victory for democracy. We again have hope of a better Brazil with Lula free, ” one jubilant supporter of the former president told Fox. Lula was the runaway favorite to be re-elected in 2018; just six weeks before the election, polls showed that more than twice as many people int

failed evolution survey software * Η σειρά με την οποία έχουν τοποθετηθεί τα πολιτικά κόμματα έγινε με βάση το αποτέλεσμα των τελευταίων βουλευτικών εκλογών του Ιουλίου του 2019.  * Αν προτιμάτε άλλο κόμμα από αυτά που εκπροσωπούνται στη βουλή, υπάρχει η επιλογή "Άλλο", ενώ μπορείτε, αν θέλετε, να γράψετε στα σχόλια το όνομα του κόμματος.  * Παρακαλούμε κοινοποιείστε για καλύτερο δείγμα.

An investigative analysis takes apart a hackneyed piece of propaganda authored by an international alt-right clique with links to the Pentagon.   by Raul Diego   Part 9 - A classic case of projection The remaining points are remarkable on several counts. One is how the already copious amount of references increase in frequency and the other is the sheer mendacity as the authors engage in the tired and familiar pattern seen in 2016 when Russia was alleged to have carried out a massive social media campaign that threw the election for Donald Trump. Furthermore, the authors not only accuse China of the same type of meme bombardment capable of turning water into wine but also have the audacity to portray the giant mainstream news outlets – from the New York Times to the Washington Post – as helpless victims of a vast Chinese state propaganda machine. By and large, the document concludes by listing scientists, politicians, and a few advocates, who they consider to be either unwitting acco

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) issued a report alleging Russian interference in the 2020 election, contradicting November statements that there was no meddling, while ignoring documented interference from top US ally Colombia.   by Dan Cohen   Part 3 - When Russian “propaganda” happens to be the plain truth   The report says that Russia’s primary effort was “ alleging corrupt ties between President Joe Biden, his family and other U.S. officials in Ukraine. ” Clearly, that’s a reference to Biden overseeing the 2014 coup d’etat in Ukraine and then putting his son Hunter on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where he collected an $80,000 paycheck every month despite having no background in energy. That’s right, if you think that’s corruption, you’re getting played by Putin. The report also claims that Russian online influence actors played a tricky double game. Not only did they “ promote former President [Donald] Trump and his commentary… At th

The debt burden crushing poor countries will not be alleviated until creditors in rich countries are made to give up some of their wealth   by John Smith  Part 3 - Ask, and thou shalt receive… a kick in the teeth So far, 44 countries have applied for relief under the DSSI, and a total of $5.4bn in interest payments have been postponed, to be added to their total outstanding debt, which stood at $477bn in 2018. These savings are equivalent to 2.2% of gross domestic product, or about a tenth of the fall in their tax revenues resulting from the pandemic. To receive relief, DSSI countries must request a suspension of their interest payments, even though the act of making this request brings their creditworthiness into question and invites credit rating agencies to consider downgrading their debt, as has already happened to Ethiopia, Pakistan and Cameroon. Instead of getting debt relief, their borrowing costs have jumped, thereby increasing their debt burden. According to Eurodad’s Daniel M

by Kevin Tillman   Part 3 - End the Tradition   To be sure, this has been a bipartisan pattern, as the administrations of president after president, Democrat and Republican, engaged in it. Even if we were to take the position that some of those interventions were somehow legal, moral, or necessary, the behavior itself has become completely normalized as a crucial go-to option for any president. It’s also worth noting just what types of nations have typically been targeted for such interventions — usually vulnerable states with weak economies and frail institutions. Whether democracies or dictatorships hasn’t seemed to matter. The populations of such countries have, however, almost invariably been nonwhite. Putting aside the obvious illegality, immorality, and even cowardice of picking on vulnerable nations, such acts historically have probably exacerbated the role of jingoism and xenophobia, as well as cultural and racial superiority in this country, just the sort of thinking so eviden

How did EU governments decide to oppose a global measure that could boost production of COVID vaccines and medicines for the global south? You won’t get the slightest hint from official EU sources. But leaked documents reveal that the Commission and member states see the real problem as a mere PR issue of how to deflect criticism. Given the pandemic, their position seems indefensible.   Corporate Europe Observatory   Part 4 - The world needs to understand the EU better   To almost anyone, to the public, that would be where the story ended – with no insight into how the EU’s decision to oppose the India/ South Africa proposal was made, nor into what arguments were considered. But then sometimes, with a stroke of luck, documents are leaked. And in this case, documents from a German Ministry ended up with Corporate Europe Observatory (unfortunately they cannot be made public). According to those documents, the proposed India/ South Africa waiver was discussed on three occasions in the Tra

globinfo freexchange   In his new documentary Can't Get You Out of My Head , Adam Curtis traces the origins of popular conspiracy theories that survived up to our days and spread rapidly due to Internet. As a result, Curtis finds that Trump election and Brexit triggered a conspiracy paranoia that took over both the liberal establishment and the ultra-conservative camp. The story begins in the late 60s, when Kerry Thornley and his friend Greg Hill had started what they called Operation Mindfuck . They had spread the conspiracy theory that the Illuminati were really the secret rulers of the world. They had done it to parody and ridicule all conspiracy theories because they thought that they undermined the confidence of individuals and made them easier to control.    But now, in the mass of data online, those stories about the Illuminati got mixed up with other conspiracies, both true and false, and out of it came extraordinary dreamlike stories built out of fragments of truth and fic

globinfo freexchange  In 1957, BBC conducted a very interesting experiment. The spaghetti-tree hoax was a three-minute hoax report broadcast on April Fools' Day 1957 by the BBC current-affairs programme Panorama , purportedly showing a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the family "spaghetti tree". At the time spaghetti was relatively little known in the UK, so that many Britons were unaware that it is made from wheat flour and water; a number of viewers afterwards contacted the BBC for advice on growing their own spaghetti trees. Decades later, CNN called this broadcast " the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled ". This "innocent" farce showed dramatically the unimaginable power of TV and the mainstream media to shape massively the minds of millions. Earlier, Freud's young nephew, Edward Bernays, had set the foundations of modern propaganda. It is worth to add that the te