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Today, the final run-off election to determine Frances next president will take place. Center-left candidate Emmanuel Macron will face off against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. The day before, the country was rocked by a massive hacking attack on Macrons campaign.

France's election campaign commission said Saturday a significant amount of data and some fake information has been leaked on social networks, reported the Associated Press Philippe Sotto, John Leicester and Raphael Satter. It urged citizens not to relay the data on social media to protect the integrity of the French vote.

Does any of this sound familiar? If you paid even the slightest bit of attention to our latest presidential election, it should ring some bells. (Remember last years email hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta?)

Though it isnt yet clear who is responsible, French officials are taking the threat extremely seriously.

The Macron team asked the campaign oversight commission Saturday to bring in cybersecurity agency ANSSI to study the hack, according to a government official. ANSSI can only be called in for cases where the cyberattack is 'massive and sophisticated' and the Macron hack appears to fit the bill, the official said, reported the AP. Someone on 4chan a site known, among other things, for cruel hoaxes and political extremism posted links to a large set of data Friday night.

This cyber tampering with free and fair elections in the western world isnt the first, nor will it be the last.

The head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency accused Russian rivals of gathering large amounts of political data in cyber attacks and said it was up to the Kremlin to decide whether it wanted to put it to use ahead of Germany's September elections, reported Reuters Andrea Shalal. Moscow denies it has in any way been involved in cyber attacks on the German political establishment. Hans-Georg Maassen, president of the BfV agency, said 'large amounts of data' were seized during a May 2015 cyber attack on the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, which has previously been blamed on APT28, a Russian hacking group.

Color us not shocked if it turns out Russian hackers were behind the French attack. Whatever the case, these online attacks arent just targeted at the candidates themselves, but the idea of democracy itself. In the 21st century we must realize this is the new way wars will be fought. We must remain vigilant or we will all further suffer the consequences.

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Editorial: French hack an attack on democracy - Kokomo Tribune

Sunday May 7 2017 In Summary

President Uhuru Kenyatta was officially unveiled as the Jubilee candidate on Saturday in a series of ceremonies held by parties that support his re-election.

The endorsement came a day after National Super Alliance leader Raila Odinga was in turn handed the mantle as the candidate of the united opposition ticket.

There are things to celebrate about these developments. To a certain extent, it shows that Kenyas democracy is continuing to gain in maturity.

There are now two main political blocs, in contrast to the splintered parties that used to be witnessed in the 1990s.

Also, it is expected the election will be hotly contested, something which cannot be said of many other countries in the region.

Still, there is major uncertainty about the status of preparations for the election.

It is essential that all parties do their utmost to support the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission so that it can be ready to deliver a free, fair and credible vote.

Politicians should realise they have a major duty to ensure the country does not go back to the violence and disruption that marked the vote in 2007.

They should restrain themselves in their public pronouncements and should emphasise to their supporters that elections are not a do-or-die battle.

The framing of issues is also important. It is unfortunate that nearly all Kenyan elections are won or lost on the question of ethnic mobilisation rather than based upon policy debates. This is something that should change.

The parties should come up with manifestoes that offer costed plans for what they hope to achieve for Kenyans between 2017 and 2022.

Elections in Kenya are a time when too much anxiety exerts a negative effect on the economy and on crucial sectors such as agriculture.

All this can be prevented if the politicians that have been given the mantle of leadership conduct themselves over the next three months with a measure of maturity, restraint and responsibility. The race is on. Let it be a clean and fair contest.

Politicians should tell their supporters that elections are not a do-or-die battle.

Somali militants used rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) to shoot down two US helicopters in

The grand homecoming party at Bukhungu stadium was organised by SportPesa.

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EDITORIAL: Let's nurture our parties and democracy in peace - Daily Nation

THE European Union (EU) has injected another $5 million to capacitate civil society organizations involved in women and youth issues with a view to enhancing an equitable and democratic society.

This development comes amid governments suspicion that thewestern bloc seeks to influence the 2018 election result.

Early this year, the EU came under attack from government after it had announced a $5 million call for proposals to NGOs engaged indemocracy and good governance work.

The Zanu PF administration claimed the funds were meant to oil anti-government organizations so that they encourage citizens to vote the ruling party out of power.

In response, the EU head of delegation in Zimbabwe, Philippe Van Damme, said he was frustrated by the accusations adding that the western bloc had no hidden agenda in Zimbabwe.

However, the EU has announced another fund. In a statement recently, EU ambassador to Zimbabwe, Philippe Van Damme, said this round of funds will be accessed by organizations engaged in promoting an equitable, open and democratic society.

The specific objective is to promote the empowerment of young women and men and their participation in inclusive and sustainable growth within the overall concept of decent work for all, said Van Damme.

The call will prioritise support to multi-actor partnerships with the private sector and public authorities, socioeconomic initiatives aimed at sustainable wealth and job creation, sustainable service provision for productive activities and access to productive resources and improvement of the business environment and practices, said the statement.

It added, Specific emphasis is put on tackling injustice and inequality and enabling citizens and populations to benefit from inclusive social services, wealth and job creation.

This is fully in line with the strategic objective of the EU's development cooperation in Zimbabwe to reduce and eventually eradicate poverty and to support peace and stability, by supporting inclusive and sustainable growth and promoting human rights, democracy and the rule of law, with particular attention to the crosscutting thematic areas of gender equality, youth, vulnerable groups and migration.

Link:
Democracy: EU pours $5m into youths projects - New Zimbabwe.com

Amazing.

The Early Reds

And speaking of this small 1919 sect, Im reminded of one of my favorite movies: Reds (1981). I could watch it another 20 times. It explores the lives of the American Communists of the turn of the 20th century, their loves, longings and aspirations. The focus is on fiery but deluded Jack Reed, but it includes portraits of a passionate Louise Bryant, the gentile Max Eastman, an edgy Eugene ONeill and the ever inspiring Emma Goldman.

These people werent the Progressives of the mainstream that history credits with having so much influence over policy in those days. These were the real deal: the Communists that were the source of national frenzy during the Red Scare of the 1920s.

The movie portrays them not as monsters but idealists. They were all very talented, artistic, mostly privileged in upbringing, and what drew them to Communism was not bloodlust for genocide but some very high ideals.

They felt a passion for justice. They wanted to end war. They opposed exploitation. They longed for universal freedom and maximum civil liberty. They despised the entrenched hierarchies of the old order and hoped for a new society in which everyone had an equal chance.

All of that sounds reasonable until you get to the details. The Communists had a curious understanding of each of these concepts. Freedom meant freedom from material want. Justice meant a planned distribution of goods. The end of war meant a new form of war against the capitalists who they believed created war. The hierarchies they wanted to be abolished were not just state-privileged nobles but also the meritocratic elites of industrial capitalism, and even small land owners, no matter how small the plot.

Why be a Communist rather than just a solid liberal of the old school? In the way the movie portrays it, the problem was not so much in their goals but in their mistaken means. They hated the state as it existed but imagined that a new dictatorship of the proletariat could become a transition mechanism to usher in their classless society. That led them to cheer on the Bolshevik Revolution in its early stages, and work for the same thing to happen in the United States.

The Dream Dies

Watching their one-by-one demoralisation is painful. Goldman sees the betrayal immediately. Reed becomes an apologist for genocide. Bryant forgets pretending to be political and believing in free love, marries Reed and tends to his medical needs before his death. ONeill just becomes a full-time cynic (and drunk). It took Max Eastman longer to lose the faith, but he eventually became an anti-socialist and wrote for FEE.

The initial demoralisation of the early American Communists came in the 1920s. They came to realise that all the warning against this wicked ideology having been written about for many centuries prior, even back to the ancient world were true.

Eastman, for example, realised that he was seeking to liberate people by taking from them the three things people love most in life: their families, their religion and their property. Instead of creating a new heaven on earth, they had become apologists for a killing machine.

Stunned and embarrassed, they moved on with life.

But the history didnt end there. There were still more recruits being added to the ranks, generations of them. The same thing happened after 1989. Some people lost the faith, others decided that socialism needs yet another chance to strut its stuff.

Its still going on today.

As for the Communist Party in America, most left-Progressives of the Antifa school regard the Party as an embarrassing sellout, wholly owned by the capitalist elite. And when we see their spokesmen appear on television every four years, they sound not unlike pundits we see on TV every night.

It would be nice if any article written about Communism were purely retrospective. That, sadly, is not the case. There seem to be new brands of Marxian thought codified every few years, and still more versions of its Hegelian roots that take on ever more complex ideological iterations (the alt-right is an example).

Why do people become Communists? Because human beings are capable of believing in all sorts of illusions, and we are capable of working long and hard to turn them into nightmares. Once weve invested the time and energy into something, however destructive, it can take a very long time to wake us up. Its hard to think of a grander example of the sunk-cost fallacy.

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Why Do People Become Communists, And Why Do They Stick With It? - Swarajya

Remember the photos of Soviet Union department stores with virtually nothing on the display shelves? In the 1970s, while I was serving in the military, we were told about the hardships the Soviet citizens were undergoing at the hands of their Communist government.

Aside from typically abysmal fiscal policy manifested by a command-and-control economy and the huge burden on that economy caused by military spending, the people were helpless to improve their lot. For them to protest or force change meant imprisonment or death.

Not far to the south of us, Venezuela has surpassed the old USSR in mismanagement by a wide margin. Unfortunately, under Hugo Chavez and now Nicolas Maduro, the downhill slide is accelerating into perilous territory, that of civil disorder and chaos.

Ironically, Venezuela is reportedly sitting on the largest supply of oil and gas in the world, but is paralyzed in its ability to benefit from it. Foreign oil companies and other businesses have been nationalized (a polite term for stolen by the government) and in so doing has frightened-off any more significant industrial investment. Why should a corporation invest in a country where its assets can be easily seized? It would be stupid to take that risk.

The basic mode of failure is the standard template of socialism which can be summarized by Dame Margaret Thatchers famous quote: The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples money. To apply a commonly-used phrase used to describe terminal cases, Venezuela is circling the drain to economic oblivion.

The populist/socialist Hugo Chavez really got the cart rolling by dolling out largess to people he thought would support him and thus keep him in power. But it becomes difficult to support a leader who cannot keep his people in paper toilet paper.

Chavez died March 5, 2013, just when things were becoming tense. His hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, has been trying to keep the economy bailed out, and to say that it hasnt been working out is a vast understatement. Conditions have deteriorated to the point of massive demonstrations, marches and rebellious actions by the now-nearly starving citizens.

But everything will probably turn out okay because in 2012 Chavez forbade the ownership of firearms by all citizens, presumably to keep them out of the hands of criminals so to protect the more and more angry (and hungry) citizens.

However, Maduro saw that the police and military forces might not be able to handle the rebellious Venezuelan people, so he did what every self-respecting dictator would do: He formed his own private, armed (non-government) militia to maintain order through force of intimidation or through whatever means necessary.

Now, instead of cutting his losses and returning the government to a democratic form, he will try to hang on until the end and either he is driven from power and killed, or becomes so ruthless that the people simply have no choice but to give up or be exterminated. The former is exactly what happened in Cuba when the Communists under the Castro brothers took over. But guess whose families are well-off, set for life and protected? Yes, its the tyrants.

Note that banning the private ownership of firearms in Venezuela was enacted just before conditions became intolerable. Without the means to defend themselves effectively against a rogue government and its enforcers, the people will suffer dearly.

The United States is the only nation that was founded on the principle of individual liberty. That means the right of men and women to protect their own lives. Our history our heritage is unique in that regard. The people of other countries have not had that experience, so they do not have the liberty mindset in which we were educated emphasis on were.

It is no secret that liberals/socialists in our government were licking their lips at the thought of Hillary Clinton winning the 2016 presidential election. Except for Democrat Party primary nomination shenanigans, self-described socialist Bernie Sanders would have been a suitable substitute. The supreme prize of control of the Supreme Court was lost in that electoral defeat.

Keep an eye on Venezuela and you will be surprised at the number of similarities in the dialogue of the Maduro regime and American liberal talking points, especially regarding class warfare.

Link:
Commentary: Venezuela, a rich country ruined by socialist dictators - Austin American-Statesman