the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Big Oil has never had it so good, and its immediate priority is rewarding shareholders. The world's largest energy companies, including TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA), Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) and Chevron (CVX.N) are ramping up buyback programmes despite criticism that they are not moving swiftly enough to increase oil and gas output as high fuel prices pinch consumers worldwide. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell (SHEL.L) and TotalEnergies produced a combined profit of $51 billion, with Exxon topping the pile at $18 billion.    BP is set to report next Tuesday. That money is increasingly going into shareholder buybacks, which are frequently criticised by investor advocates as a less desirable use of funds than business investment. Exxon, Chevron, Shell and Total returned a total of $23 billion to shareholders in the second quarter in dividends and share repurchases, based on Reuters calculations.   Full report:   https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/big-oils-q2-profits-hit-record-...

The “Uber Files” leak reveals the power of the company’s multimillion-dollar lobbying effort — and how it worked with governments around the world to undercut workers’ rights.   by Paris Marx  Part 3 - Uber Hasn’t Changed When Dara Khosrowshahi became CEO in August 2017, the company framed its problem as having a bad corporate “culture” and promised that Khosrowshahi was going to clean it up. But while management’s treatment of women and other marginalized groups at its headquarters was a problem, the rot went to the very core of its business model — and that was something Khosrowshahi couldn’t (and wouldn’t) change. The most important campaign that Khosrowshahi has undertaken since taking over Uber has not been to clean up the company’s “frat house” culture, but to overturn the rights of workers in California. In September 2019, the state passed Assembly Bill 5, which would have forced gig companies like Uber to reclassify their workers as employees instead of independent con...

Latin American nations are putting themselves on the front line for the sovereignty of certain countries, and are backing progressive processes in others   by Rodrigo Guillot   Part 1 Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) visited the United States on July 12 and offered five proposals to US President Joe Biden. These proposals are based on AMLO’s in-depth knowledge of Mexican history and his reading of the economic crisis in the United States, which seems to be losing its edge as a global leader. The first of the proposals that AMLO made was about Mexico allowing US consumers to fill gasoline tanks on the Mexican side of the border. By doing so, it is permitting the United States to ease its inflation crisis. AMLO offered to double the supply of gasoline in Mexico in his show of support to further ease the crisis. Second, AMLO said that Mexico would provide for more than 600 miles of gas pipelines along the US–Mexico border to help transport natural gas fr...

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.   And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had...

The Jimmy Dore Show   In 2005 Tom Cruise was widely mocked, derided and accused of being a lunatic after appearing on the Today Show and expressing controversial views about the ineffectiveness of antidepressants and the widespread practice of prescribing Ritalin and Adderall to children. Now 17 years later Cruise is being vindicated by a comprehensive study questioning the science behind “chemical imbalances” in the brain and demonstrating that antidepressants do not work as advertised. 

In Liberalism and Its Discontents, Francis Fukuyama diagnoses the political and psychological malaise caused by capitalism. His analysis makes one thing clear: liberalism is incapable of addressing the social, economic, and ecological crises it faces.    by Samuel McIlhagga  Part 1 In a CNN interview, after another round of the US government’s sanctions on Russia, the following exchange took place between the show’s host and President Joe Biden’s economic adviser Brian Deese:               CNN: What do you say to those families that say, “Listen, we can’t afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months if not years, this is just not sustainable”?         Deese: Well, what you heard from the president today was a clear articulation of the stakes. . . . This is about the future of the liberal world order and we have to stand firm. The events of the past two years, from the start of t...

Boris Johnson’s disastrous time in office has spluttered to an ignominious conclusion. Many of those now deploring his record sided with Johnson when it really mattered because they wanted to block a left-wing government that could transform British society.   by Daniel Finn   Part 3 - Change UK Can Believe In Austin and Woodcock weren’t the only Labour MPs to break ranks under Corbyn. In February 2019, seven MPs resigned from the party and set up the Independent Group, which later became Change UK. There was a lot of talk in the commentariat about their potential to break the mold of British politics. Yet in the 2019 election, Change UK — now calling itself the Independent Group for Change — took just over ten thousand votes, marginally outpolling the Monster Raving Loony Party. All of the Labour defectors lost their seats — including those who defected a second time to the Liberal Democrats — apart from the ones who decided not to stand. They’ve since gone on to higher ...

Redacted   Russia joined forces with China to create a new reserve currency. This new currency will be based on rare earth minerals like gold, silver, uranium and more. This is a massive challenge to the US dollar dominance which isn't based on gold or anything. 

Moment Of Clarity with Lee Camp Wars, neocolonialism, corruption, fraud, inequality, suppression, environmental disaster, a failed economic system and more ...

Multipolarista   Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Iran, signed a $40 billion energy cooperation agreement, and pledged to strengthen their economic and military alliance with China. Moscow and Tehran also called to drop the US dollar and use local currencies for trade.

globinfo freexchange   Inside the storm of inflation, the European Central Bank suddenly thought that it would be a good idea to raise key interest rates for the first time in 11 years.  According to Deutsche Welle (DW) [emphasis added]:                       The ECB raised its negative benchmark deposit rate by 50 basis points from minus 0.5% to 0%, lifting the bank's deposit facility out of negative territory for the first time in eight years. The announcement came as a surprise as the bank had initially hinted that it would hike the rate by 25 basis points only .    It's remarkable that DW's analyst, Kristie Pladson, stated that " ... this is a historic decision they've taken now - first hike in eleven years, so, on that level, it's a little bit unclear exactly what effect it's going to have ... "   However, one thing ECB's move will surely affect, is money ...

The “Uber Files” leak reveals the power of the company’s multimillion-dollar lobbying effort — and how it worked with governments around the world to undercut workers’ rights.   by Paris Marx  Part 2 - Uber Sold Us a Lie In the early years of the 2010s, Uber was ascendant and much of the media couldn’t get enough of it. The company was showered with positive press that ignored the already obvious ways it was harming workers and communities for its own benefit. That allowed Kalanick to make a whole range of bold claims that made Uber sound not only like it was going to be great for us, but that technology was delivering a better future. As I outline in Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation, Uber was supposed to reduce car ownership, cut traffic congestion, make mobility more accessible for underserved communities, allow its drivers to make a good living, and be complimentary toward transit services — or so Kalanick claimed. It only t...

by Alan Macleod   Part 4 - Hollywood: the military’s wingman   “Top Gun: Maverick” has been produced at a time when the United States is currently throttling Iran with illegal and deadly sanctions. In early 2020, the Trump administration assassinated top Iranian general and statesman Qassem Soleimani, and influential figures in the United States have called for an unprovoked nuclear attack on the country. Yet none of this context is mentioned, leaving the legality of the depicted attack unquestioned. As Stahl told MintPress , the basic assumption is that “ the U.S. has the right to violate international law and strike any country for any reason. ” “ Imagine if this film came out of Iran and was about striking an Israeli or U.S. nuclear facility, ” he said. “ Heads would explode with accusations of hard-line propaganda. ” Therefore, “Top Gun: Maverick” falls in line in promoting a remarkably militaristic society; one that spends almost as much on war as every other nation on Ea...

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.   And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had...

The Grayzone   A recent article in The Guardian parroted a US state-funded group's evidence-free allegations that The Grayzone ’s Aaron Maté -- who has reported extensively on the OPCW’s Syria cover-up scandal -- is " the most prolific spreader of disinformation " about Syria among a " network " of " conspiracy theorists. " Aaron called Guardian reporter Mark Townsend on the phone to ask him to substantiate these defamatory claims, and why he didn’t reach out before printing them. 

Caitlin Johnstone The biggest lie the hawks ever sold was that their militaristic policies prevent the problems they actually create. Militarizing against Russia caused this war. The war on terror created terror groups. Continuing the encirclement of China will likely lead to a nasty confrontation there.

Boris Johnson’s disastrous time in office has spluttered to an ignominious conclusion. Many of those now deploring his record sided with Johnson when it really mattered because they wanted to block a left-wing government that could transform British society.   by Daniel Finn   Part 2 - Two Lords A-Leaping Ian Austin and John Woodcock were both elected as MPs for Labour-held seats (Dudley North, 2005, and Barrow & Furness, 2010, respectively) but refused to accept Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of their party after 2015. Media coverage frequently depicted them as courageous dissidents, although their main political concern appeared to be support for Middle Eastern states responsible for gross violations of human rights, including Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Woodcock backed the Saudi invasion of Yemen and denounced Corbyn’s call for a freeze on arms sales to the Saudi war machine. Both MPs resigned from the Labour Party after the 2017 general election, having only hel...

Even among Marx-friendly economists, the labor theory of value has fallen out of favor. But its technical validity is less important than the core message: workers are exploited because the value they create is undemocratically taken by capitalists. by Ben Burgis   Part 5 - Cohen’s Analysis of Working-Class Unfreedom To be clear, neither Marx nor Cohen thought that workers should receive the entire product of their labor. Marx argued that this would be both impractical and wrong for a variety of reasons. For one, what about upkeep of old factory equipment? Or about building new factories? What about “common needs” like schools and hospitals or the consumption needs of those unable to work? What makes the surrender of some of the value produced by workers or the value of the commodities they produce exploitation is that it’s surrendered not in some democratic process in which the beneficiaries have to make a convincing case but that it’s taken as a result of the power one class...

Leaked emails reveal British journalist Paul Mason plotting with an intel contractor to destroy The Grayzone through “relentless deplatforming” and a “full nuclear legal” attack. The scheme is part of a wider planned assault on the UK left.   by Kit Klarenberg and Max Blumenthal Part 5 - Consulting Nina Jankowicz on paranoid scheme against Consortium News On April 8, Mason emailed Khan to express alarm about a piece in Consortium News , the independent news platform founded by the late Robert Parry in 1995, questioning the Western narrative of the Bucha massacre. “ Who’s behind Consortium News? ”, the subject header read. Assistance soon arrived from none other than Andy Pryce from the Counter Disinformation and Media Development unit at the UK Foreign Office. To learn more about Consortium News , Pryce had consulted Nina Jankowicz, then the chief of the Department of Homeland Security’s newly inaugurated Disinformation Governance Board. (Jankowicz would resign her post in disgrace...

by Caitlin Johnstone  Genocide walrus John Bolton outright admitted to planning foreign coups with the US government in conversation with CNN's Jake Tapper on Wednesday. That's coups, plural. While arguing that the Capitol riot on January 6th of last year was not an attempted coup but rather just Trump stumbling around trying to look after his own interests, Bolton hastened to pull authority on the matter when Tapper suggested that he might not be correct about how coups work. “ I disagree with that, " Bolton said. " As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat — not here, but, you know, other places — it takes a lot of work, and that’s not what [Trump] did. ” Places. Plural. Tapper just let Bolton's remark slide like he didn't just admit to something extraordinarily fiendish, but did eventually follow up with a request that the former National Security Advisor elaborate. “ I do want to ask a follow up, " Tapper said. " When we were talking about wha...

Democracy Now!   As the Pentagon authorizes an additional $400 million for Ukraine's defense on Friday, bringing estimated total U.S. security spending on Ukraine under President Biden to a staggering $8 billion, we speak to Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News, about the pressure on news media to follow a single approved narrative on the Ukraine war. The independent media outlet recently had their PayPal account shut down and received notice from NewsGuard, a fact-checking group, that they are under review for publishing fake news. "American and European audiences have been fed the idea that Russia has been failing in this war and that Ukraine still has a chance to win, but I think we're starting to see reality seep into the reporting," says Lauria.

The “Uber Files” leak reveals the power of the company’s multimillion-dollar lobbying effort — and how it worked with governments around the world to undercut workers’ rights.   by Paris Marx  Part 1 Sometimes we have problems because, well, we’re just fucking illegal.” Those were the words of Nairi Hourdajian, Uber’s head of global communications, in a message sent to a colleague in 2014 as the company was facing the prospect of being shut down in Thailand and India. Revealed as part of a trove of more than 124,000 leaked documents and correspondences from 2013 to 2017, dubbed the “Uber Files,” the admission gets to the core of how Uber became the globe-spanning transportation company it is today: by breaking laws, evading authorities, cultivating connections with powerful people, and putting its drivers on the front line of the backlash. The documents provide new details on aspects of the company that have come to light in recent years. The Uber Files show how the company re...

by Alan Macleod   Part 3 - A grim reality   When pressed on its involvement in Hollywood, the Pentagon insists it is there merely to ensure that the military is presented as realistically as possible. Indeed, the “Top Gun: Maverick” production agreement states that its liaisons were there “ to provide on-set dialogue and depict action scenes accurately. ” Cruise, who played Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, is on the same page, stating that he demanded the movie “ had to be as real as possible. ” Yet the entire premise of the movie – that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon and that the U.S. military would have to scramble together a plan to bomb the country in a matter of days – is absurd in itself. Maverick himself often egregiously breaks Navy rules, disobeying senior officers and stealing a plane – something that would never be tolerated. Furthermore, there are a number of crazy acrobatic stunts that are supposedly part of Maverick’s training program, including one where he flies ...

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.   And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had...