the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

The mega-rich buy up media outlets precisely because a lie is more likely to fly than the truth – including the lie that they are invaluable. by Jonathan Cook  Part 1 The most dangerous thing about Elon Musk buying Twitter outright for $44 billion is the rapidly spreading notion that his controlling an influential social media platform is dangerous. It is, but not for any of the reasons his critics assert. The current furor is dangerously misguided for two reasons. First, it assumes that one billionaire owning Twitter is significantly more harmful than a bunch of them owning it. And second, it worries that Musk is committed to an anarchic version of free speech that will undermine the health of our societies. This is the equivalent of staring resolutely at a single tree to avoid noticing the forest all around it. The fact that so many of us now do this routinely suggests how far we already are from a healthy society. Money is power. The fact that our societies have allowed a small ...

Imran Khan joins the long list of deposed prime ministers and underscores the reality that, in Pakistan, whoever the people elect, the U.S.-backed military is always in charge. by Alan Macleod  Part 3 - Why would the US want Khan gone? Pakistan has, historically, had a close relationship with the United States, especially militarily. Between 2002 and 2018, the U.S. gave $33 billion worth of assistance to Pakistan, of which more than $14 billion was military aid. Its armed forces are stocked with the best American gear and its officers are trained in the United States. Pakistan was also a key player in the U.S. occupation of neighboring Afghanistan, with successive administrations allowing the U.S. military to conduct operations from its territory. The result was a humanitarian disaster for the country; an estimated 83,000 Pakistanis lost their lives as a consequence of the War on Terror. Khan, who had long opposed U.S. actions in the region, sharply reduced the nation’s involvement...

by Caitlin Johnstone   In what his lawyers have described as a “brief but significant moment in the case,” a British magistrates’ court has signed off on Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States, bringing the WikiLeaks founder one step closer to a US trial under the Espionage Act which threatens press freedoms worldwide. The extradition case now goes to UK Home Secretary Priti Patel for approval, which will likely be forthcoming as Patel is a reliably loyal empire manager. After that point, Assange’s legal team will be able to launch an appeal. This is happening at the same time the United States and the United Kingdom are loudly demanding accountability for alleged war crimes by the Russian military in Ukraine, which is interesting because attempting to bring accountability for war crimes is precisely why Julian Assange is in prison. “He is a war criminal,” President Biden said of Vladimir Putin following allegations of war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine earlier this month. “I ...

by Sam Carliner Just thirteen days before World Press Freedom Day 2022 the very existence of world press freedom inched closer to its possible demise. On April 20, a U.K. court formally approved extradition of WikiLeaks founder and Australian journalist, Julian Assange, to the United States to be tried under the Espionage Act. He is facing a sentence of up to 175 years. Extradition is still not guaranteed. The ultimate decision is pending approval from the U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel, and Assange’s legal team is requesting an appeal. However the reality of extradition and all the implications for a free press that come with it are increasingly likely.   Unlike most Assange supporters I’ve met, I’m from a generation born too late to fully appreciate the importance of WikiLeaks and its most significant publications like the Collateral Murder Video, the Iraq War Logs, and CableGate. In fact, I first encountered Chelsea Manning through my friends in the LGBTQ+ community who admired...

Journalists in Greece working to hold those in power to account are facing increasing pressures. by Matthaios Tsimitakis In a democracy, the media should keep authority and government in check. In Greece, it feels more and more that it works the other way around. Take the story of Thanasis Koukakis, a 43-year-old financial journalist who works for CNN Greece, and contributes to CNBC, the Financial Times and the Greek investigative outlet Inside Story . Citing national security concerns, in 2020 the Greek National Intelligence Service directly administered by the prime minister’s office, intercepted his communications, while he was investigating the affairs of Greek bankers and businessmen. When the journalist became aware of this, the government tried to erase traces of the interception. Shortly after, his mobile phone was infected with the Predator spyware. The software allows the user to gain full access to a target’s phone to extract data, contacts, and messages, including those se...

failed evolution   On 11 April 2019, the Ecuadorian government of traitor Lenin Moreno, invited the Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and they arrested Julian Assange . Since then, Assange is kept in Belmarsh high security prison in London, without actual charges.   The real reason world's number one political prisoner is still kept in this high security prison, is because he exposed horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.   The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future.   That Assange, who is in precarious physical and psychological health and who suffered a stroke during court video proceedings, has been condemned to death should not come as a surprise. The ten years he has been detained, seven in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London an...

By inviting an Azov fighter to address Greece’s parliament, Zelensky opened the country’s historic wounds and triggered angry demonstrations that have shaken its pro-US government.   by TJ Coles   Part 2 - The CIA guides Greece’s post-war plan to “kill the communists”   In 1936, Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas became a pro-Nazi dictator with the support of King Geórgios II. Metaxas’ death in 1941 bolstered the Greek Communist Party’s (KKE) anti-Nazi resistance. The KKE had established ELAS, the People’s Liberation Army, to fight the occupying Nazis. Until 1943, ELAS was initially trained by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), a top-secret unit designed to train European paramilitaries. Indicative of the power of Greek leftism, ELAS’s political wing, the National Liberation Front (EAM), boasted 2 million members. The British Foreign Office fought to restore Geórgios II, explicitly citing his anti-left credentials. Working with Cyprus’s fascist battalion X,...

It is hard to destroy your own cause and feel righteous while doing so, yet the American left has done it. After more than two centuries at the vanguard of the struggle for freedom, the American left, broadly defined, executed a volte face and embraced anti-working-class policies marketed as purely technical public health measures.   by Christian Parenti   Part 4 - Severity of the disease   The basic error of mainstream media hype is to conflate the “case fatality rate” (CFR) with the “death rate.” The number of known Covid “cases” is a function of testing; more testing means more cases are found. Thus, the denominator in the CFR depends on political, scientific, and economic choices. Up to 40 percent of Covid cases are totally asymptomatic and another 30 percent have only mild symptoms that can be confused with the common cold. Many of these asymptomatic and mild cases do not get recognized as Covid.  Thus, the real measure of lethality is not the CFR but the “infec...

The Grayzone   In a live interview with Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil, reporter Alejandro Kirk details what he's seen inside and around the strategic battlefront city of Mariupol. Kirk has been reporting from the front lines of Donbas for HispanTV, and puncturing the one-sided narrative fed to Western audiences.

Testimony by evacuated Mariupol residents and warnings of a false flag attack undermine the Ukrainian government’s claims about a Russian bombing of a local theater sheltering civilians.   by Max Blumenthal  Part 6 - “When [Azov soldiers] were leaving, they destroyed the drama theater” On March 17, a young woman delivered an eye-opening account of the situation inside Mariupol to ANNA, the Abkhazian Network News Agency. “ The Azov fighters were simply hiding behind us, ” she told a reporter. “ We were their human shields, that’s it. They were breaking everything, all around us, they were not letting us outside. We spent 15 days in a basement, with kids… They gave us no water, nothing. ” Describing how the Azov Battalion placed its tanks in front of local bomb shelters, the woman offered a revealing detail: “ When they were leaving, ” she said, referring to the Azov Battalion, “t hey destroyed the drama theatre. People with shrapnel were brought to us. ” Numerous evacuees echoe...

του system failure Έχει γίνει απολύτως φυσιολογικό πλέον οι άνθρωποι στην «ελεύθερη» και «δημοκρατική» Δύση να ψηφίζουν το «μικρότερο από τα δύο κακά». Παρά το γεγονός ότι δεν υπάρχει τίποτα δημοκρατικό και φυσιολογικό σε βρόμικες τακτικές (που περιλαμβάνουν ακόμα και εσωκομματικά πραξικοπήματα) που οργανώνονται από δικομματικές δικτατορίες εναντίον υποψηφίων της πραγματικής αριστεράς, το αποτέλεσμα αυτής της διαδικασίας θεωρείται πλέον η νέα πολιτική "κανονικότητα".   Δηλαδή, ένας νεοφιλελεύθερος (ψευτοαριστερός, ειδικά αν μιλάμε για τις ΗΠΑ) υποψήφιος εναντίον ενός υποψηφίου της alt-right, δηλαδή της λεγόμενης εναλλακτικής δεξιάς, που δημιουργεί συνθήκες σίγουρης νίκης για τις καπιταλιστικές ελίτ ενάντια στην εργατική τάξη σε κάθε χώρα.  Το αποκρουστικό αυτό θέαμα επαναλαμβάνεται όλο και πιο συχνά σε κάθε εκλογικό κύκλο. Οι ελίτ παράγουν τεράστιες ποσότητες προπαγανδιστικής ενέργειας, μέσω των ελεγχόμενων Μέσων Μαζικής Εξαπάτησης, για να απομακρύνουν τυχόν πραγματικές απει...

Imran Khan joins the long list of deposed prime ministers and underscores the reality that, in Pakistan, whoever the people elect, the U.S.-backed military is always in charge. by Alan Macleod  Part 2 - Beggars can’t be choosers Despite the official denials, there is some evidence that the United States may have played a role in the proceedings. First Lu, the man at the center of the affair, has kept relatively silent. But when Indian newspaper The Hindustan Times directly asked him to confirm or deny the cable’s authenticity, giving him an opportunity to wash his hands of responsibility, Lu responded simply by saying, “ We are following developments in Pakistan and we respect and support Pakistan’s constitutional process and the rule of law ” – an answer that is far from a denial and could be interpreted as giving his blessing to proceedings. Perhaps even more damning were remarks made by new Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif. Responding to allegations that opposition parties, includ...

by system failure   It has become completely normal now for people in the "free" and "democratic" West to vote for the "lesser of two evils". Despite the fact that there is nothing democratic and normal in dirty tactics (which include even internal-party coups) organized by bipartisan dictatorships against real-Leftist candidates, the outcome of this process is now considered the new norm. That is, a neoliberal (pseudo-Left for the US) candidate against an alt-right candidate, which is definitely a win-win situation for the capitalist elites against the working class in every country.   This ugly show is repeated election cycle after election cycle. The elites produce huge amounts of propaganda energy, through their corporate media, to remove any anti-establishment real threats. In the final round, they leave their most favored neoliberal Cinderella to face an alt-right bad witch.   Bad witch's role is to scary the liberal and the Leftist voters in ord...