the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

While Lebanon’s protests remain focused on the economy and widespread corruption, Washington is increasingly determined to exploit the movement as a geopolitical weapon in the region. by Rania Khalek Part 7 -  Demanding a technocratic government, looking to Hong Kong for inspiration The protest demand which has garnered the most media attention has been the call for the installment of a “technocratic government.” Activists from civil society groups have been pumping out printed fliers and posters clamoring for a technocratic government. Some of the major local media outlets owned by oligarchs with competing political agendas suddenly began reporting, with an unusually unified message, that the main protest demand was for technocracy. This call quickly spread among non-ideological protesters across the country who have proven themselves to be susceptible to catchy slogans. But what does a “technocratic government” mean in practice in Lebanon? It would not necessari...

The Intercept On November 10, Evo Morales, who served as president of Bolivia for 13 years and presided over extraordinary economic growth and a reduction of inequality praised even by his critics, announced that he was resigning the presidency under duress, with implicit threats from the Bolivian military. Morales later made clear that he viewed these events as a classic right-wing military coup of the kind that has plagued the continent for decades, explaining that he was removed from his position by force and then ultimately pressured by a police mutiny and military threats to flee his own country. Morales went to Mexico, where he was granted political asylum, and lived under heavy security in Mexico City until being granted refugee status in Argentina. On December 3, Glenn Greenwald interviewed Morales in Mexico City about the events that led to his removal and exile from Bolivia, but also broader trends in regional and global politics, as well as the role played by the U.S....

The Grayzone Anya Parampil covers the obliteration of Bolivian coup leader Luis Fernando Camacho's big event in Washington, where he was auditioning for US support at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank on December 12. The presidential candidate had hoped to present himself as a unifying figure, but was instead met with ferocious resistance by Bolivians and US anti-war protesters denouncing his fascist past. 

A new government study commissioned by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders details how crushing student loan debt and stagnant wages are threatening to make millennials the first U.S. generation with a lower quality of life than their parents. The Government Accountability Office report, obtained Wednesday by Teen Vogue , found that millennials between the ages of 25 and 37 have substantially less wealth, lower homeownership rates, and fewer retirement resources than Generation X and the Baby Boomers. " The millennial generation (those born between 1982 and 2000) might not have the same opportunity as previous generations had to fare better economically than their parents, " the GAO report states. " Millennial households had significantly lower median and average net worth than Generation X households at similar ages. " In a statement to Teen Vogue , Sanders said the study confirms his fears about the grim financial prospects of young people in the United States. ...

Chancellor Angela Merkel has insisted that Berlin will not give into pressure from Washington after the US Senate approved a bill sanctioning German companies working on a pipeline that will deliver natural gas from Russia. During Wednesday’s Q&A session in parliament, lawmakers asked Merkel about the possibility of the US slapping sanctions on German companies building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The chancellor said that she firmly opposes such sanctions because they have an extraterritorial effect. They will not push Berlin to abandon the project, however, she said. On Tuesday, the US Senate approved a bill that allows the imposition of sanctions on German entities over Nord Stream 2. Officials in Washington have long tried to pressure Germany into ditching the project, arguing that it would render the country too dependent on Moscow. Merkel, however, has always maintained that the Nord Stream 2 serves Germany’s economic interests, and Russia is a reliable gas supplier. ...

Humiliating scandals are destroying right-wing leader Luis Fernando Camacho and the right is fracturing as a more militant MAS party readies for an uphill election battle. by Wyatt Reed Part 1 Just one month after ruling elites and right-wing politicians seized power in Bolivia with a military coup, the fragile unity they briefly enjoyed has erupted into a bitter public feud. Local analysts had predicted that coup leader Luis Fernando Camacho and businessman Marco Pumari could unite the right from the country’s east and west, both indigenous and white or mestizo. They were seen as an insurmountable dream team.  That alliance now lies smoldering, with the two presidential frontrunners openly airing their dirty laundry amid a vicious power struggle. The battle between the two right-wing heavyweights began when Camacho secretly taped and leaked a conversation in which he accused Pumari of soliciting a bribe of $250,000 and control of two customs checkpoints in ret...

By joining the roadblocks around Beirut, protesters allowed themselves to be used by US-allied parties playing a dangerous game that has the potential to explode into open warfare by Rania Khalek Part 1 The US is desperate to ride the revolutionary wave in Lebanon, hoping it can fracture a governing coalition that includes Hezbollah, a top target of the Trump administration and its friends from Tel Aviv to Riyadh. To this end, political figures Washington has cultivated and parties the US backs have penetrated the protest movement that has swept the country and are now on the frontlines of blockades obstructing roads around the country. In the first part of this report, I surveyed the role of the US in weaponizing NGO’s and civil society activists to co-opt the nationwide anti-corruption protests. In this installment, we will see how the influence of the US and its Gulf allies also extends to feudal lords and warlords from Samir Geagea to Walid Joumblatt to Saad Hariri, ...

by Asa Winstanley Part 1 The Labour Party suffered a devastating defeat on Thursday. Jeremy Corbyn immediately announced he would not lead the party into another election. With this defeat, the UK – and the world – have lost perhaps the best opportunity in a generation to send a resounding message through the ballot box against neoliberal austerity and endless war. But Labour’s worst performance since 1983 carries an important lesson for the grassroots left-wing campaign in the United States to elect Bernie Sanders as president: You must defeat false anti-Semitism smears at all costs. Do not indulge, entertain or appease them. The main issue that dominated the UK’s election campaign was the European Union. Brexit-supporting working class seats in the North punished Labour for endorsing a second referendum. The party was blamed for blocking the result of the 2016 vote, which endorsed leaving the EU. But aside from Brexit, the only other issue that dominated was ...

Journalists revealed to me the tactics they use to sell stories painting Venezuela as a socialist dystopia. One described himself as a “mercenary,” explaining how he aims to please his employer’s funders. by Alan MacLeod Part 4 - ‘You are a mercenary in a sense’ “ Every journalist has an audience he caters for and in my case, it’s the financial community, ” Anatoly Kurmanaev explained. “ You are a mercenary in a sense. You’re there to provide information to a particular client that they find important and it’s not good or bad, it’s just the way it is. ” When he made these comments, Kurmanaev was working for the publication owned by Michael Bloomberg, the pro-war billionaire who is today the 13th-richest person in the world, and whose reporters are forbidden from “investigating” his presidential campaign. With pressure from all sides to serve as stenographers for right-wing opposition movements, many Western correspondents exist in a cultural bubble, almost entirely is...

The Jewish community’s alienation from Labour has been years in the making - but it is Johnson's Conservatives who have embraced hostility to minorities Jonathan Cook Part 8 - An expanded definition Unlike Miliband, of course, Corbyn has no ethnic card to play in his own defence. That has left him uniquely exposed. Once antisemitism was redefined by Labour’s adoption of the IHRA code, Corbyn’s decades of campaigning for justice for Palestinians easily became conflated with antisemitism. It has allowed his critics to reframe his decades of his anti-racism activism as proof of his racism. In addition, for those British Jews who regard Israel as central to their identity, Corbyn’s record of vocal criticism of Israel has been perceived as an attack on who they are. Many have been only too ready to accept claims that his support for justice for Palestinian is rooted not in principle but in antisemitism. The ludicrous lengths to which his opponents – whether in the pro-I...