Guardian:

Economists believe that many consumers, liberated from Delta-variant lockdowns, have been spending enthusiastically before the Christmas season to avoid shortages.

But despite the slowdown in spending gains, consumer demand is well above last year’s levels, with retail sales – the largest driver of the US economic activity – rising 18.2% in November from a year earlier.

“It’s very possible that people are taking a bit of an advantage or changing lanes because they are afraid of bad news coming from the Fed,” Julius de Kempenaer, a senior technical analyst at StockCharts.com, told Reuters.

“But on the other hand, if the market were really afraid of bad news, the futures should have moved a lot more. So, this is not really a market that is speaking its voice, not yet.”

With higher interest rates forecast – economists polled by Reuters predict rate rises of 0.25-0.50% in the third quarter of 2022, followed by another in the fourth – economists say that consumers may be spending before belt-tightening as pandemic support cheques end and the cost of credit increases.

Nothing in this sort of writing engages with the crush of lonely, deadening anomie. Consumers make demands. They speak their voices through the act of purchasing. Purchasing „goods“.

BBC:

A Belarusian opposition leader who rallied mass protests against disputed leader Alexander Lukashenko has been jailed for 18 years.

Sergei Tikhanovsky was convicted of organising riots among other charges following a trial condemned as a sham.

He planned to challenge Mr Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, but was detained before the vote.

His wife, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, took on Mr Lukashenko, who claimed victory in the widely discredited poll.

She claimed victory herself in the August election but, fearing for her safety, was forced into exile with her children the next day.

On Tuesday, Ms Tikhanovskaya questioned the validity of the court that tried her husband and said his sentence amounted to „revenge“ by Mr Lukashenko.

BBC:

The US has said no American troops or officials will be held accountable for a drone strike that killed 10 people in Afghanistan in August.

The attack took place during the final days of the US-led evacuation of Kabul after the Taliban seized control.

An aid worker and nine members of his family, including seven children, died in the strike.

American intelligence had believed the aid worker’s car was linked to IS-K, a local branch of Islamic State.

But in the aftermath, US Central Command’s Gen Kenneth McKenzie described the strike on 29 August as a „tragic mistake“.

…

A high-level internal review published last month, concluded that that there was no need for disciplinary action, since no law had been broken, and there was no evidence of misconduct or negligence.

Philadelphia Inquirer:

The headline of this article caught my eye as much as the restaurant’s act: from the Inquirer’s standpoint would there still be a story here were it not for the online controversy? The story surrounds Bryan Fuller, who had once been homeless. The Inquirer’s readers are asked to consider the statements of an individual, rather than to see homelessness as a societal ill to be addressed.

Wir sind die letzte Generation mit Hoffnungen gewesen. Wir hatten die große Hoffnung, daß eine menschlichere Gesell­schaft auf der ganzen Welt möglich ist. Ob diese Hoffnung nun berechtigt war oder nicht und ob unser Beitrag der richtige gewesen ist, bleibe mal dahingestellt. Doch diese Hoffnung kann heute niemand mehr haben, der bei klarem Verstand ist und sich auch nur einen Tag lang die Nachrichten anhört.…Es sieht rabenschwarz aus.

Ich meine allerdings: Ob man nun noch einen Hoffnungsschimmer sieht oder nicht, man sollte auf jeden Fall etwas tun. Die Hoffnung auf den Fünfjahresplan, die gibt es nicht mehr. Aber Herrschaft zu bekämpfen, dort wo sie ungerecht oder unerträglich wird, für eine solidarische, menschlichere Welt ein­treten, das solltest du zumindest in deiner näheren Umgebung versuchen. Sonst bist du auf jeden Fall verloren.

—Bommi Baumann, 1991 introduction to Wie alles anfing, (Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag GmbH, 2007), 7-8.