Black Agenda Report 12 August 2020

12 August 2020 — Black Agenda Report

Backtracking on George Floyd Promises: The Minneapolis Police Name-Change Con

Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
When Black Lives Matter chapters demand “abolition” and “defunding” of the police, rather than community control of the cops, they play into the hands of charlatans and misleaders on city councils and in the halls of Congress.
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Former McCain Advisor and Iraq War Advocate Niall Ferguson Warns TikTok Is a Chinese Imperial Plot

12 August 2020 — MintPress News

Writing in Bloomberg, Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, warned that TikTok was not simply a popular Chinese-owned video app, but “Xi Jinping’s imperial panopticon,” and a “superweapon” for Chinese domination of the world. Ferguson applauded the Trump administration’s decision to force the company to sell up to an American corporation or face a complete ban within 45 days.

Moral panic over refugees in the English Channel is the ugly face of Brexit

12 August 2020 — Medium

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Imagine the courage and fortitude, borne of desperation, it requires to embark on a do or die attempt to cross the sea in a dinghy from a land where you’ve already been met with the fist of fury rather than the hand of friendship, to another land where more hostility and rage awaits your arrival.

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It Is Late, but It Is Early Morning If We Insist a Little: The Thirty-Third Newsletter (2020)

13 August 2020 — Tricontinental

Jamil Molaeb Lebanon Untitled October 2019 3Jamil Molaeb (Lebanon), Untitled, October 2019.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

Nothing happens in Beirut and Lebanon that is transparent; plots of all kinds unravel against the ordinary hopes of the population. After the deadly explosion, it was impossible to imagine that the most reasonable explanation would be accepted. Rumours flew around, except the rumours did not have their impact. It was clear to the people that this time – unlike so many times previously – it was their own political system that had to be held accountable for the enormous explosion, which came in the midst of a pandemic, a currency and economic crisis, and a long-standing and unresolved political quagmire.

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A quick update on Belarus

12 August 2020 — The Saker

A quick update on Belarus

To make a long story short, two major developments have happened:

  1. My guess is that by now Lukashenko has now figured (again) that the West wants him dead AND he has figured out that he has been conned by the Ukie SBU and, most likely, elements inside his own KGB.
  2. The Belarusian security forces (riot police and KGB) have ruthlessly cracked down on the opposition and right now they seem to be in control of the situation.

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Could a Color Revolution be Possible in Belarus?

12 August 2020 — American Herald Tribune

Belarus 0a003

The political crisis in Belarus is getting worse day after day. As a result of elections in the country, a violent wave of protests began in several cities. The focus of the demonstrations is Minsk, the country’s capital. In the most violent night so far, 40 more policemen and 50 civilians were injured, some seriously. More than 1,000 were arrested, according to data from the Ministry of Interior.

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Dead Zones: Industrial Agriculture versus Ocean Life

12 August, 2020 Climate & Capitalism
Metabolic Rifts

Worldwide, there are now over a thousand coastal areas where fish can’t breathe. The nitrogen that makes crops grow is also destroying offshore ecosystems.

“Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first.” —Frederick Engels

Continuing our series on metabolic rifts in the 21st century. As always, comments, questions and corrections are welcome.


by Ian Angus

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Putin and Russia are facing a very serious crisis in Belarus

12 August, 2020 — Information Clearing House

By The Saker

Some of my longtime readers might have noticed that I rarely (if ever!) wrote about Belarus or President Lukashenko.  As always with the blog, there always is a reason for why I do mention something and no less a reason why I do not mention something.  In the case of Belarus or Lukashenko, my reason for not writing about them was the exact same why I never wrote about the Ukraine before 2013: I was both uninspired and mostly disgusted with what I saw taking place there.  And I did not feel strongly enough to write about it.  That changed for the Ukraine with the Euromaidan.

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