USA: What saved American democracy? – By Bo Rothstein

Democracy is a fragile form of government. History has shown democracies can be undermined in several ways. It can happen quickly, as in a coup, but democracies can also erode more slowly, as is now taking place in Poland and Hungary.

Based on research on how democracies have collapsed, political science has highlighted what to be especially wary about. If political leaders do not unequivocally take a stand against political violence, do not respect the democratic rights of their opponents and refrain from promising to respect an election result that goes against them, then democracy is in danger.

During his election campaign and even more during his time as president, Donald Trump undoubtedly violated these three principles. His many false claims that the election was rigged, and that he actually won, his support for his Republican party colleagues’ efforts to impede minority turnout and his incitement to the mob that forcibly broke into Congress on January 6th were clear examples.

Read more at: What saved American democracy? – Bo Rothstein

The Rich and Poor Gap: Societies Are Headed Toward Revolution, Suggests Inequality Study

There’s a common thread tying together the most disruptive revolutions of human history, and it has some scientists worried about the United States. In those revolutions, conflict largely boiled down to pervasive economic inequality. On Wednesday, a study in Nature, showing how and when those first divisions between rich and poor began, suggests not only that history has always repeated itself but also that it’s bound to do so again — and perhaps sooner than we think.

In the largest study of its kind, a team of scientists from Washington State University and 13 other institutions examined the factors leading to economic inequality throughout all of human history and noticed some worrying trends. Using a well-established score of inequality called the Gini coefficient, which gives perfect, egalitarian societies a score of 0 and high-inequality societies a 1, they showed that civilization tends to move toward inequality as some people gain the means to make others relatively poor — and employ it. Coupled with what researchers already know about inequality leading to social instability, the study does not bode well for the state of the world today.

“We could be concerned in the United States, that if Ginis get too high, we could be inviting revolution, or we could be inviting state collapse. There’s only a few things that are going to decrease our Ginis dramatically,” said Tim Kohler, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and a professor of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology in a statement.

Currently, the United States Gini score is around .81, one of the highest in the world, according to the 2016 Allianz Global Wealth Report.

Kohler and his team had their work cut out for them, as studying inequality before the age of global wealth reports is not a straightforward task. It’s one thing to measure modern day economic inequality using measures of individual net worth, but those kind of metrics aren’t available for, say, hunter-gatherers chasing buffalo during the Paleolithic. To surmount this obstacle, the researchers decided to use house size as a catch-all proxy for wealth, then examined the makeup of societies from prehistoric times to modern day using data from 63 archaeological digs

Overall, they found that human societies started off fairly equal, with the hunter-gatherer societies consistently getting Gini scores around .17. The divide between rich and poor really began once humans started to domesticate plants and animals and switch to farming-based societies. Learning to till the land meant introducing the concept of land ownership, and inevitably, some people ended up as landless peasants. Furthermore, because these societies no longer lived as nomads, it became easier to accumulate wealth (like land) and pass it down from generation to generation.

The Gini scores got higher as farming societies got bigger. The small scale “horticultural” farmers had a median Gini of .27, and larger-scale “agricultural” societies moved up to .35. This pattern continued until, oddly, humans moved into the New World — the Americas. Then, over time, the researchers saw that Gini scores kept rising in Old World Eurasia but actually hit a plateau in the Americas. The researchers think this plateau happened because there were fewer draft animals, like horse and water buffalo, in the New World, making it harder for new agricultural societies to expand and cultivate more land.

Overall, the highest-ever historical Gini the researchers found was that of the ancient Old World (think Patrician Rome), which got a score of .59. While the degrees of inequality experienced by historical societies are quite high, the researchers note, they’re nowhere near as high as the Gini scores we’re seeing now.  

A global report from Credit Suisse showed that modern humans are continuing the trends set by our predecessors: Now, the report showed, half of the world’s wealth really does belong to a super-rich one percent, and the gap is only growing. Historically, Kohler says in his statement, there’s only so much inequality a society can sustain before it reaches a tipping point. Among the many known effects of inequality on a society are social unrest, a decrease in health, increased violence, and decreased solidarity. Unfortunately, Kohler points out, humans have never been especially good at decreasing inequality peacefully — historically, the only effective methods for doing so are plague, massive warfare, or revolution.

Read more: Societies Are Headed Toward Revolution, Suggests Inequality Study | Inver

Spain: Citizens take power in Spain’s largest cities as a political revolution sweeps the country

“We are servants of the people of Madrid”, said Carmena. “We are here because they have chosen us to represent them. We cannot forget it.We are at their service. Therefore I would insist and remember that we want to listen as well as govern”.

Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the anti-austerity anti-corruption Podemos party was there to the witness the event. He can claim much of the credit for the changes taking place across the country.

The victory for the left wing citizens’ alliance in the Spanish capital is the fall out from the dismal ruling right-wing Partido Popular results in the local and regional elections last month.

Similar citizen-driven left-wing alliances are now also in power in Barcelona and Valencia.
What amounts to a political revolution in Spain can be traced back to the ‘indignados’ protests against austerity measures introduced by the PP Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in 2011.

He now has some serious thinking to do before the parliamentary elections due in November.

Read more: Citizens take power in Spain’s largest cities as a political revolution sweeps the country | euronews, world news

E.U. Imposes Sanctions Despite Russian Criticism - by Stephen Castle and Steven Lee Myers

Brushing aside Russian criticism, the European Union agreed on Thursday to go ahead with sanctions that include travel bans and asset freezes imposed on those deemed responsible for the fatal escalation of violence in Ukraine.

A day after the United States announced some similar moves, foreign ministers of the 28-nation European Union said they would devise a list of those who would be subject to the European sanctions, and that the sanctions would also ban the export of equipment likely to be used for repression in Ukraine.

But the European foreign ministers also left themselves room to continue a dialogue with President Viktor F. Yanukovych’s government, emphasizing the importance of political progress in Kiev, where the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland have been trying to mediate.

Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, said that the foreign ministers had acted because of the “widespread horror” at what had happened in Ukraine but that the number of those affected by the sanctions would depend on the behavior of the Ukrainian government.

 

Read More: E.U. Imposes Sanctions Despite Russian Criticism - NYTimes.com

Ukraine crisis turning into Revolution: Police storm main Kiev 'Maidan' protest camp - by Daniel Sandford

Police are storming the main protest camp in Ukraine's capital, Kiev, which has been occupied since November.

Explosions are taking place, fireworks are being thrown and large fires have broken out in Independence Square, known locally as the Maidan.

On Tuesday at least 18 people were killed, including seven policemen, in the worst violence seen in weeks.

Opposition leaders later met President Viktor Yanukovych but failed to find a solution to the crisis.

Vitaly Klitschko, leader of the opposition Udar (Punch) party, told Ukraine's Hromadske TV that the president had given the protesters only one option, leave the Maidan and go home.

Security forces had given protesters a deadline of 18:00 local time (16:00 GMT) to leave Independence Square, the scene of a mostly peaceful protest camp since November.

The city's metro service was completely shut down, and there were reports that cars were being prevented from coming in to the capital.

Then shortly before 18:00 GMT, police announced over loudspeakers that they were about to begin "an anti-terror operation".

Late on Tuesday, the police tried to break through a barricade from the Evropeyska Square, but the attack was repelled.

In a renewed assault shortly after 04:00 local time on Wednesday (02:00 GMT), the police tried to move on the protesters' tents near the main monument on the square.

A number of tents were set ablaze, and the police reportedly again began using water cannon.

In speeches from the main stage, protest leaders urged people already on the Maidan to stand firm, and called on Ukrainians elsewhere to come to the square.

Meanwhile, there are reports of unrest breaking out elsewhere in Ukraine, including the western cities of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk. 

Mr Yanukovych's aide said the president was preparing to address the nation, without providing further details.

Read more: BBC News - Ukraine crisis: Police storm main Kiev 'Maidan' protest camp