It's commonly assumed that the emergence of language was a key element of the great leap. We of course know very little about the sociopolitical conditions that existed at the time, but there's no scenario I can think of that suggests how a sudden change in these conditions could have led to the emergence of language.

What Wikileaks exposed is kind of superficial in a way.

Violence can succeed, as Americans know well from the conquest of the national territory. But at terrible cost. It can also provoke violence in response, and often does.

The US is the wrecking machine that is destroying everything. The world is hoping that China will somehow come to the rescue.

There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism.

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies.

Suppose that the US really is trying to get rid of drugs in Colombia. Does Colombia then have the right to fumigate tobacco farms in Kentucky? They are producing a lethal substance far more dangerous than cocaine. More Colombians die from tobacco-related illnesses than Americans die from cocaine. Of course, Colombia has no right to do that.