Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
|
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Texas blues guitarist and singer, Lightnin' Hopkins' cousin, Andrew "Smokey" Hogg. Enjoy!
Andrew "Smokey" Hogg - Dirty Mistreater
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
-- Thomas Paine
News and Opinion
Judge orders US release of military detainee abuse photos
The U.S. must release photographs showing abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, a federal judge has ruled in a long-running clash over letting the world see potentially disturbing images of how the military treated prisoners.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein's ruling Friday gives the government, which has fought the case for over a decade, two months to decide whether to appeal before the photos could be released. ...
It's unclear how many more photographs may exist. The government has said it has 29 relevant pictures from at least seven different sites in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it's believed to have perhaps hundreds or thousands more, Hellerstein said in a ruling in August. He said some photos he had seen "are relatively innocuous while others need more serious consideration," and he has ruled that any images that would be released would be redacted to protect the identities of people in them.
Some photographs, taken by service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, were part of criminal investigations of alleged abuse. Some images show "soldiers pointing pistols or rifles at the heads of hooded and handcuffed detainees," then-Solicitor General — now Supreme Court Justice — Elena Kagan wrote in an appeal to the high court earlier in the case, which has taken a long road through the courts and Congress.
Pentagon Panel Proposes Sweeping Changes that Could Impact Guantanamo Force-Feeding
A federal committee that advises the Secretary of Defense on health policy has recommended that the Pentagon allow military healthcare workers to bow out of performing medical procedures that would violate their profession's code of ethics, or their religious and moral beliefs. Personnel that decline to participate in the procedures should not face retribution.
The recommendation is one of more dozen suggested changes to military medical ethical policies contained in a sweeping 104-page report drafted by the Defense Health Board's medical ethics subcommittee and quietly released last week. If the Pentagon accepts the committee's guidance, it could potentially have a huge impact on the operations at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, where hunger-striking detainees are routinely force-fed by Navy nurses who have been accused of violating their medical code of ethics.
Since the onset of the global war on terror, the military has been blamed for gross violations of standard medical ethical principles to avoid the infliction of harm by forcing doctors and nurses to participate not only in the widely condemned practice of force-feeding of detainees, but also in interrogations where prisoners were abused and tortured.
The military's medical ethical practices came under intense scrutiny in 2013 during the height of a mass hunger strike at Guantanamo where dozens of detainees were restrained and forced to ingest a liquid nutritional supplement through their nostrils. Detainees, through their attorneys, said the tube feedings, administered by nurses, were extremely painful and dehumanizing. Professional medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, rebuked the practice, noting that it "violates core ethical values of the medical profession." The United Nations said it was a breach of international law. Military officials defended the medical procedure, saying it's Guantanamo's policy to administer force-feeds as a last resort in order to prevent detainees who refuse to eat from dying.
In January, VICE News obtained a two-page document in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that contained the first known acknowledgement by the US military that force-feeding people who are capable of making informed decisions about their own health is a violation of medical ethics and international law.
Florida no longer safe haven for war criminals as US prosecutors take action
As one of an estimated 3.6 million senior citizens living in Florida, Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova found the perfect place to hide in plain sight. ... Vides, however, was guarding a secret. The smartly dressed pensioner was once an army general and defence minister in El Salvador during a bloody 12-year civil war in the 1980s, and he stands accused of covering up a series of atrocities, including the rape and murder of four American churchwomen.
The former Cold War ally of the US had been quietly welcomed in as a lawful permanent resident in 1989, seen as a friend to the conservative Reagan and Bush adminstrations in an era of leftist insurgency in several south and central American countries.
Now, partly due to the shift in attitudes by Barack Obama’s White House toward the pursuit of war criminals, Vides, 77, is a pariah. He suffered a significant blow to his hopes of remaining in Florida last week when a strongly worded ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals confirmed a 2012 federal court decision ordering his deportation (pdf).
The panel totally rejected Vides’s defence that his conduct, which included allegations that he conspired to hide the torture and rape of detainees, among other human rights abuses, was “consistent with the ‘official policy’ of the US”.
Legal experts say the ruling appears to signal the end of Florida’s status as the go-to safe haven for overseas military leaders with dark pasts. While there have been successful prosecutions of other offenders, the Vides case marks the first time federal prosecutors have won a deportation order against such a high-ranking military commander under a 2004 law that prohibits human rights abusers coming to, or living in, the US. And it sets a precedent for the speedier “removal” of other alleged war criminals enjoying life in the Sunshine State, including another El Salvador general, Jose Guillermo Garcia, whose case is also on appeal.
Yemen in Crisis: U.S. Closes Key Drone Base & Withdraws Forces as U.N. Warns of Civil War
Stakes Are High on Afghan President’s First US Visit
Ashraf Ghani is making his first official visit to the US as Afghanistan's president today and the stakes are dauntingly high. Washington is reconsidering the scale and pace of its withdrawal from Afghanistan, and peace talks with the Taliban remain a looming question mark in the coming months.
Ghani, who spent years in Washington as a World Bank official, is getting a warm welcome in the US as he works to repair a relationship left tarnished by his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, who was once acquiescent to the Americans but turned hostile toward them during his last years in office. Ghani hopes to secure assurances that the US won't pull out its men and money too quickly. ...
The original US withdrawal schedule has already been modified. One of Ghani's first moves after being elected president was to sign an agreement with the US allowing for some 10,000 troops to remain in Afghanistan in a training capacity beyond the official "end" of US combat — something Karzai had refused to do. Since then, US military commanders have repeatedly argued for an extended stay, and the White House has given plenty of signs that it's ready to walk back on its plans and keep more troops there longer.
Earlier this week, senior officials said two major US military bases in Kandahar and Jalalabad were likely to stay open beyond the end of 2015, Reuters reported, part of an effort to avoid a security collapse like the one seen in Iraq after the Americans left.
Iraq, it seems, has served as a cautionary tale for withdrawing too quickly from Afghanistan.
Iraqi Sunnis accuse Shi'ite paramilitaries of burning homes outside Tikrit
Two Iraqi local officials and a police officer accused Shi'ite paramilitary forces on Saturday of burning and looting homes in the town of al-Dour after capturing the area during a military campaign to oust Islamic State fighters.
A spokesman for the armed faction, Kataib Hezbollah, denied the allegations, while a security commander in the area also said there had been no incident in al-Dour.
Salahuddin Provincial Council member Sahar Mawlood, parliament member Dhia al-Douri and a local policeman said that Kataib Hezbollah fighters, who have been battling Islamic State, had looted, blown up or set fire to houses in the town.
"More than 150 houses were burned. Today witnessed the largest targeting of houses, more than the previous days," Mawlood said. ...
The Shi'ite paramilitary forces have been hailed as heroes by fellow Shi'ites, but accused by the Sunni minority of punishing Sunnis with extrajudicial killings and by driving ordinary people from their homes for failing to resist Islamic State.
It’s Official: The Pentagon Finally Admitted That Israel Has Nuclear Weapons, Too
While the Washington press corps obsessed over Hillary Clinton’s e-mails at the State Department, reporters were missing a far more important story about government secrets. After five decades of pretending otherwise, the Pentagon has reluctantly confirmed that Israel does indeed possess nuclear bombs, as well as awesome weapons technology similar to America’s.
Early last month the Department of Defense released a secret report done in 1987 by the Pentagon-funded Institute for Defense Analysis that essentially confirms the existence of Israel’s nukes. DOD was responding to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by Grant Smith, an investigative reporter and author who heads the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy. Smith said he thinks this is the first time the US government has ever provided official recognition of the long-standing reality. ...
Yet the confirmation of this poorly kept secret opens a troublesome can of worms for both the US government and our closest ally in the Middle East. Official acknowledgement poses questions and contradictions that cry out for closer inspection. For many years, the United States collaborated with Israel’s development of critical technology needed for advanced armaments. Yet Washington pushed other nations to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires international inspections to discourage the spread of nuclear arms. Israel has never signed the NPT and therefore does not have to submit to inspections.
Washington knew all along what the inspectors would find in Israel. Furthermore, as far back as the 1960s, the US Foreign Assistance Act was amended by concerned senators to prohibit any foreign aid for countries developing their own nukes. Smith asserts that the exception made for Israel was a violation of the US law but it was shrouded by the official secrecy. Since Israel is a major recipient of US aid, American presidents had good reason not to reveal the truth.
Obama: We Take Netanyahu at His Word in Opposing Two-State Solution
In his first public comments since the election on the worsening US-Israeli relations, President Barack Obama said he believes he has to take Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu at his word when he say he opposes Palestinian statehood.
Netanyahu had claimed to be in favor of the two-state solution for many years, but publicly disavowed the position just days before last week’s election, which appears to have gained him considerable right-wing support.
Netanyahu followed up on the election and White House criticism by trying to backtrack once more, saying he’s still technically in support of a two-state solution, just not right now. The US has pushed for clarification.
Top Obama aide to address US Jewish group amid delicate relations with Israel
Beset by questions about the US’s relationship with Israel and the new partisan rifts dividing it, the White House has sent an emissary to an American Jewish group to deliver a speech that may reveal changing contours in a decades-long marriage of unconditional support.
On Monday, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough will give the keynote address at the final event of J Street’s 2015 conference, a three-day gathering of students, activists and lobbyists who attend sessions such as “Beyond the Green Line: Are Settlements an Obstacle to Peace?” and a gala meant to inspire them to take their ideas into the halls of the Capitol.
McDonough, who is Catholic, has acted as one of Obama’s closest foreign policy advisers, peacemaker with top congressional Republicans, and a hard-driving presidential fixer for everything from the botched healthcare program to emergency aid for Haiti. By sending McDonough, a nearly direct line to the president, the White House has ordered a personal touch for a delicate crisis of relations – and sent an able micromanager to galvanize lobbyists who are critical of Netanyahu.
The Obama administration has not yet made clear what designs it has, if any, for a new definition of US-Israeli relations, but McDonough’s speech could herald changes that the president suggested are inevitable. “From our point of view, the status quo is unsustainable,” Obama told the Huffington Post. ...
J Street represents a subset of Jewish Americans far closer to the views of Barack Obama than the rightwing platform of Binyamin Netanyahu. The advocacy group frequently criticizes Netanyahu for his policies on settlements, the Palestinian territories, Iran talks and inequality at home, and the Israeli prime minister has found a far more supportive audience in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), which had its annual conference in the same convention center earlier this month.
Israeli Delegation Heads to France to Try to Kill Iran Deal
A delegation of senior Israeli officials are headed to Paris this weekend, with plans to meet with top French officials, whom they hope to convince to abandon the ongoing Iran nuclear negotiations.
Traditionally, this lobby against diplomacy at the most vital times of negotiations would involve a pilgrimage to DC, though growing acrimony between the Obama Administration and the Netanyahu government appears to have convinced the latter that the French are their best bet to sabotage the nuclear deal.
NATO's Breedlove says 'all tools' on table to help Ukraine
Washington has been discussing whether to supply Kyiv with weapons to assist their military fighting pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine which NATO says have been armed and are supported by Moscow.
Speaking at the annual Brussels Forum on Sunday, General Philip Breedlove said when asked if he favored sending weaponry to the region, "I'd not think that any tool of the US, or any other nation's power should necessarily be off the table."
Breedlove added, without specifically referencing Russia, that diplomatic, information, military, and economic tactics were being employed against Ukraine.
"And so we, I think in the West should consider all of our tools in reply. Could it be destabilizing? The answer is yes. Also, inaction could be destabilizing," Breedlove said.
Can 'pirates' win UK general election? Loz Kaye on the upcoming vote
New Zealand Spied on WTO Director Candidates
New Zealand launched a covert surveillance operation targeting candidates vying to be director general of the World Trade Organization, a top-secret document reveals.
In the period leading up to the May 2013 appointment, the country’s electronic eavesdropping agency programmed an Internet spying system to intercept emails about a list of high-profile candidates from Brazil, Costa Rica, Ghana, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, and South Korea.
New Zealand’s trade minister Tim Groser was one of nine candidates in contention for the position at the WTO, a powerful international organization based in Geneva, Switzerland that negotiates trade agreements between nations. The surveillance operation, carried out by Government Communications Security Bureau, or GCSB, appears to have been part of a secret effort to help Groser win the job.
Groser ultimately failed to get the position.
A top-secret document obtained by The Intercept and the New Zealand Herald reveals how GCSB used the XKEYSCORE Internet surveillance system to collect communications about the WTO director general candidates.
Documents Reveal Canada’s Secret Hacking Tactics
Canada’s electronic surveillance agency has secretly developed an arsenal of cyber weapons capable of stealing data and destroying adversaries’ infrastructure, according to newly revealed classified documents.
Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, has also covertly hacked into computers across the world to gather intelligence, breaking into networks in Europe, Mexico, the Middle East, and North Africa, the documents show.
The revelations, reported Monday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept, shine a light for the first time on how Canada has adopted aggressive tactics to attack, sabotage, and infiltrate targeted computer systems.
The latest disclosures come as the Canadian government debates whether to hand over more powers to its spies to disrupt threats as part of the controversial anti-terrorism law, Bill C-51.
Christopher Parsons, a surveillance expert at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, told CBC News that the new revelations showed that Canada’s computer networks had already been “turned into a battlefield without any Canadian being asked: Should it be done? How should it be done?”
Communication Security Establishment's cyberwarfare toolbox revealed
Canada's electronic spy agency and the U.S. National Security Agency "cooperate closely" in "computer network access and exploitation" of certain targets, according to an April 2013 briefing note for the NSA.
Their targets are located in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Mexico, plus other unnamed countries connected to the two agencies' counterterrorism goals, the documents say. Specific techniques used against the targets are not revealed. ...
But the latest top-secret documents released to CBC News and The Intercept illustrate the development of a large stockpile of Canadian cyber-spy capabilities that go beyond hacking for intelligence, including:
- destroying infrastructure, which could include electricity, transportation or banking systems;
- creating unrest by using false-flags — ie. making a target think another country conducted the operation;
- disrupting online traffic by such techniques as deleting emails, freezing internet connections, blocking websites and redirecting wire money transfers.
It’s unclear which of the 32 cyber tactics listed in the 2011 document are actively used or in development. ...
Back in 2011, CSE envisioned creating a "perimeter around Canada" to better defend the country's interests from potential threats from other countries and criminals, raising the prospect the agency was preparing a broad surveillance program to target Canadians’ online traffic.
At the time, "full visibility of our national infrastructure" was among its goals, according to a planning document for 2015. Security analysts wanted the means to detect an attack before it hit a target like a government website.
Lawyers for CIA Leaker Cite Selective Prosecution After Petraeus Plea Deal
Lawyers for Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA official convicted earlier this year of leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter, have requested a reconsideration of his conviction because two former generals, David Petraeus and James Cartwright, have received far more lenient treatment for what they call similar offenses.
“The principal difference between Mr. Sterling and Generals Petraeus and Cartwright are their respective races and rank,” the new filing states. “Like General Cartwright, General Petraeus is a white, high ranking official … The government must explain why the justice meted out to white generals is so different from what Mr. Sterling faced.” ...
Earlier this month, Petraeus, who led U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and was the director of the CIA, reached an agreement with prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information when he gave his lover and authorized biographer, Paula Broadwell, eight notebooks filled with highly-classified information about military plans and secret programs, covert agent names, and confidential discussions he had with senior officials including President Obama. ... No charges have been filed against Cartwright even though it has been reported that federal prosecutors believe he leaked highly classified information to Times reporter David Sanger about a joint effort by the U.S. and Israel to cripple Iran’s nuclear centrifuges through a cyber-attack with a computer worm called Stuxnet. According to The Washington Post, the FBI has interviewed Cartwright on at least two occasions but has stopped short of indicting him.
“The charges faced by General Cartwright could not be more similar to what Mr. Sterling faced,” stated the five-page motion filed yesterday by Sterling’s lawyers, Edward MacMahon Jr. and Barry Pollack. “The only difference between the two cases—aside from the minor detail that the Stuxnet story was published by a different New York Times writer than Mr. Risen—is that General Cartwright is a white high-ranking official and Jeffrey Sterling is an African American man who became an outcast at the CIA following his publically-filed employment discrimination claim.” The motion described the case against Sterling as an instance of “selective prosecution.”
'Black America in Crisis': Report Shows Troubling Racial Disparities Across US
"The state of Black America is in crisis—and we see justice challenged at every turn."
So says this year's National Urban League assessment of racial equality in the U.S., which considers employment, income, housing, education, health, social justice, and civic engagement. The 39th edition of the State of Black America, released Thursday, is titled: Save Our Cities: Education + Justice + Jobs.
The League's 2015 Equality Index of Black America—a section of the report that analyzes national statistics from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—stands at 72.2 percent.
What that means is that "Blacks experience less than three-fourths the quality of life experienced by white Americans," the report explains, citing a lower median income, higher unemployment rate, and greater likelihood to be living in poverty.
The Equality Index of Hispanic America, meanwhile, hovers just below 78 percent, with such disparities only slightly less egregious.
The searing report notes many instances of injustice experienced by the Black community, including a lack of accountability for police officers responsible for killing unarmed Black men, teenagers, and children, pervasive economic inequality, and "a continual assault on voting rights."
North Korea Calls Planned Balloon Drop of 'The Interview' DVDs a 'De Facto Declaration of War'
In a twist worthy of Hollywood, the North Korean government has called a planned balloon drop of The Interview DVDs into the country a "de facto declaration of a war."
A statement obtained by KCNA Watch, which follows North Korea news, said the authorities would shoot down any balloons that carry The Interview DVDs or informational leaflets by South Korean activists and members of Human Rights Foundation. ...
Activists lead by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak, from Fighters for a Free North Korea, had planned on dropping 10,000 copies of The Interview and 500,000 informational leaflets in a fight to expose North Korean citizens to new information about their country, according to Global Post. The stunt was reportedly scheduled around March 26 to mark the fifth anniversary of the sinking of a South Korea warship, which the government has blamed on North Korea.
Similar drops have previously led to violence. In 2014, a launch caused a brief exchange of gunfire after North Korean soldiers attempted to shoot down the balloons.
Chris Hedges: Journalism as Subversion
The assault of global capitalism is not only an economic and political assault. It is a cultural and historical assault. Global capitalism seeks to erase our stories and our histories. Its systems of mass communication, which peddle a fake intimacy with manufactured celebrities and a false sense of belonging within a mercenary consumer culture, shut out our voices, hopes and dreams. Salacious gossip about the elites and entertainers, lurid tales of violence and inane trivia replace in national discourse the actual and the real. The goal is a vast historical amnesia. ...
As the mass media, now uniformly in the hands of large corporations, turn news into the ridiculous chronicling of pseudo-events and pseudo-controversy we become ever more invisible as individuals. Any reporting of the truth—the truth about what the powerful are doing to us and how we are struggling to endure and retain our dignity and self-respect—would fracture and divide a global population that must be molded into compliant consumers and obedient corporate subjects. This has made journalism, real journalism, subversive. And it has made P. Sainath—who has spent more than two decades making his way from rural Indian village to rural Indian village to make sure the voices of the country’s poor are heard, recorded and honored—one of the most subversive journalists on the subcontinent. He doggedly documented the some 300,000 suicides of desperate Indian farmers—happening for the last 19 years at the rate of one every half hour—in his book “Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories From India’s Poorest Districts.” And in December, after leaving The Hindu newspaper, where he was the rural affairs editor, he created the People’s Archive of Rural India. He works for no pay. He relies on a small army of volunteers. He says his archive deals with “the everyday lives of everyday people.” And, because it is a platform for mixed media, encompassing print, still photographs, audio and film, as well as an online research library, it is a model for those who seek to tell the stories that global capitalism attempts to blot out. ...
“If you cover farm suicides, if you stay with the story and want to tell the story, you are called an activist,” he said. “[But] if you sit polishing your stool with the seat of your trousers in the newsroom for 30 years churning yard upon yard of news from corporate press releases—why, then, you are a professional. You will even be highly regarded, a respected professional, because the corporations respect you. The great journalists in history are never professional in that sense. The best journalism has always come from dissidents. Journalism is also an art of dissent. How many establishment journalists do we remember a year after they are dead? Look at the anti-establishment journalists. Look at Thomas Paine or John Reed. ‘Ten Days that Shook the World’ will be read a thousand years after all the New York Times best-sellers by the New York Times journalists are in the shredder. The great journalists are all dissidents. They spoke the truth against power and about power. The journalism of dissent is the richest journalism we have. And the Third World and ex-colonial countries have far richer traditions than Europe. In the colonies, journalism was the child of the freedom struggle.”
RIP Danny Schechter: Media Pioneer Who Covered Apartheid South Africa, Occupy & Kissinger
Alexis Tsipras warns Angela Merkel of Greek 'cashflow issue' ahead of talks
The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has raised the stakes ahead of talks with Angela Merkel, warning that an insolvent Athens will be unable to meet looming debt repayments without urgent aid from its creditors.
In a letter leaked on the eve of his visit to Berlin, the leftwing leader catapulted to power promising to end austerity urged Merkel not to allow “a small cashflow issue” to turn into a major crisis.
“Given that Greece has no access to money markets, and also in view of the ‘spikes’ in our debt repayment obligations in the spring and summer of 2015, it ought to be clear that … it would [be] impossible for any government to service its debt obligations,” said the five-page letter leaked to the Financial Times.
“Servicing these repayments through internal resources alone would, indeed, lead to a sharp deterioration in the already depressed Greek social economy – a prospect that I will not countenance,” the letter said.
Tsipras, who will hold face to face talks with Merkel for the first time on Monday, issued the warning as it became clear that the cash-strapped Greek state has come perilously close to running out of money. The coalition government, dominated by Tsipras’ leftwing Syriza party, may have to resort to raiding insurance funds to pay pensions and public salaries at the end of the month.
Tens of Thousands Flood Dublin Demanding Abolition of Austerity Tax On Water
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of the Irish capital on Saturday to demand the abolition of a controversial water tax—an austerity measure that protesters say violates the human right to this vital good.
The campaign Right2Water announced in a press statement on Saturday that over 80,000 people from across Ireland took part in the demonstration. The group, whose steering committee organized the rally, had insisted ahead of the event that a big turnout is vital to "send a clear message that we refuse to be bullied and intimidated into acquiescence."
The Dublin rally was the latest mass mobilization in a protracted fight to head off a top-down push to directly charge residents for water use, to satisfy European Union and International Monetary Fund demands.
Beyond declaring that they "won't pay," protesters also seek to take proactive steps to prevent the government from privatizing Ireland's water bureau, Irish Water
Addressing the crowd, Communications Workers Union representative Steve Fitzpatrick called for water to be protected as a public good in the constitution. The union is proposing an amendment which would read, "The Government shall be collectively responsible for the protection, management and maintenance of the public water system."
'Food, Dignity, and a Roof': Thousands March Against Austerity in Spanish Capital
A "March for Dignity" drew thousands to the Spanish capital on Saturday in the latest show of mass opposition to the government's harsh austerity policies that have slashed public goods—from education to public health to unemployment assistance. ...
The rally, which follows a last year's March for Dignity, is part of escalating mobilizations aimed at building towards a general strike in October—ahead of the national elections.
The demonstration came one day before Andalusia's regional election on Sunday—which many say will be a test of popular support for the left-wing, anti-austerity Podemos party in the lead-up to the general election.
This region is stricken by poverty and joblessness, with more than a third of all people unemployed—a rate higher than the national average of 25 percent.
'Bread, work, housing, dignity!' Spaniards march against govt
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature reports from the Chicago Day Book on the organizing efforts of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in that city. Rose Schneiderman of New York City, general organizer of the ILGWU, will assist.
Tune in at 2pm!
|
Wisconsin free to impose voter ID law after US supreme court rejects challenge
The US supreme court on Monday turned away a challenge to Wisconsin’s voter identification law, after having blocked the state from requiring photo IDs in November’s general election.
The justices’ action means the state is free to impose the voter ID requirement in future elections, and is further evidence that the court put the law on hold last year only because the election was close at hand and absentee ballots already had been mailed with no notification of the need to present photo IDs. ...
Wisconsin was one of four states in which a dispute over voting rules reached the supreme court last fall. The other states were North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. Of the four states, only Wisconsin’s new rules were blocked.
New Chinese-backed Development Fund Challenges US-dominated, Neoliberal WTO - Europe Signs On
Michael Hudson Report: Britain, German, France and Italy are among those who joined Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in an expression of their discontent over World Bank polices that force developing countries to depend on the US
PERIES: So, Michael, let's begin with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The Chinese have established this bank with a $50 billion investment. Now, is this then a serious challenge to the World Bank?
HUDSON: Well, the idea is to make an alternative development philosophy to the World Bank. From the very beginning, the World Bank has been basically an extension of the U.S. Defense Department, from the first president, John J. McCloy, who is assistant secretary of defense, down through Robert McNamara, 1968 to '81, and then by the neocon cold warrior Paul Wolfowitz, 2005 to '07, and Larry Summers, the chief economist, along with Bob Zoellick.
So you have the purpose of the World Bank lending essentially for plantation export crops, for export crops to make countries avoid producing anything that might compete with American exports, above all grain, although every single mission of the World Bank, country mission, has recommended that countries undertake land reform and agricultural extension to help promote family farming and countries to feed themselves. The World Bank has not made loans for this.
The World Bank, under U.S. congressional pressure, has said, look, we're not going to finance countries becoming independent of the United States; our function is to make them export more to the United States and to buy from the United States. So the funding of the World Bank has mainly been to fund infrastructure developments, vastly overpriced, to Third World countries to create money for American engineering firms; also to lend out dollars and to indebt countries to it; and worst of all, to promote privatization. And that's really the big difference between the Chinese Development Bank's philosophy and the World Bank.
The World Bank has pressured everywhere for privatization of public utilities, of basic infrastructure, and then it will make loans to the governments to develop this infrastructure or the roads and the external economies, and then sell them cheap to American buyers, who essentially will create monopolies and turn infrastructure into a rent extraction to squeeze out interest, dividends, management fees that are all going to be paid to the Americans. And this has been raising the price of basic utilities--communications, transportation, water, and other things throughout the Third World. And this has made these economies uncompetitive with the United States that has a mixed economy where the government subsidizes infrastructure. So the Chinese Development Bank is to help make other countries get independent of this sort of neocon, neoliberal, right-wing economic philosophy and work government-to-government, help governments develop infrastructure, so that they can provide basic services at a lower cost or a subsidized cost, or even freely to the populations. That's how the European countries and American economy got rich. And the only way to help repeat this process is to make a clean break from the United States and the World Bank.
The Evening Greens
Gates Foundation's Seed Agenda in Africa 'Another Form of Colonialism,' Warns Protesters
Food sovereignty activists are shining a light on a closed-door meeting between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which are meeting in London on Monday with representatives of the biotechnology industry to discuss how to privatize the seed and agricultural markets of Africa. ...
The meeting was convened to discuss a report put forth by Monitor-Deloitte, which was commissioned by BMGF and USAID to develop models for the commercialization of seed production in Africa, especially "early generation seed," and to identify ways in which the African governmental sectors could facilitate private involvement in African seed systems. The study was conducted in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia on maize, rice, sorghum, cowpea, common beans, cassava and sweet potato.
However, food sovereignty activists are sounding the alarm over the secret meeting. Heidi Chow, food sovereignty campaigner with Global Justice Now, which organized Monday's protest, warned that the agenda being promoted by these stakeholders will only increase corporate control over seeds.
"This is not 'aid' - it's another form of colonialism," said Chow. "We need to ensure that the control of seeds and other agricultural resources stay firmly in the hands of small farmers who feed the majority of the population in Africa, rather than allowing big agribusiness to dominate even more aspects of the food system."
Glyphosate, Favored Chemical of Monsanto & Dow, Declared 'Probable' Source of Cancer for Humans
World's most widely used herbicide ingredient shown to cause variety of cancers by research arm of World Health Organization
In a determination that could have far-reaching implications for the agro-chemical giants like Dow Chemical and Monsanto, the research arm of the World Health Organization has declared that glyphosate—the key ingredient of widely-used herbicides such as Roundup—should now be categorized as a "probable carcinogen" for humans.
In a report published on Friday in The Lancet Oncology medical journal, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), based in France, announced its findings after a meeting of 17 oncology experts from 11 countries met to review the available scientific research exploring the connection between glyphosate, as well as several organophosphate insecticides, and various human cancers. ... The panel of experts concluded that "limited evidence" exists to show the herbicide can cause non-Hodgkins lymphoma in humans and additional "convincing evidence" that it can cause other forms of cancer in both rats and mice. Researchers noted that glyphosate has been found in the blood and urine of agricultural workers, showing the chemical has been absorbed by the bodies of those who work most with it.
As the Associated Press explained, the research agency—which provides academic and scientific research FOR the WHO—has four levels of risks for possible cancer-causing agents: known carcinogens, probable or possible carcinogens, not classifiable and probably not carcinogenic. Glyphosate now falls in the second level of concern.
Does California Have One Year Of Water Left
Climate-sceptic US senator given funds by BP political action committee
One of America’s most powerful and outspoken opponents of climate change regulation received election campaign contributions that can be traced back to senior BP staff, including chief executive Bob Dudley.
Jim Inhofe, a Republican senator from Oklahoma who has tirelessly campaigned against calls for a carbon tax and challenges the overwhelming consensus on climate change, received $10,000 (£6,700) from BP’s Political Action Committee (PAC).
Following his re-election, Inhofe became chair of the Senate’s environment and public works committee in January, and then a month later featured in news bulletins throwing a snowball across the Senate floor. ...
Records suggest Inhofe’s 2014 campaign was a funding priority for the BP PAC, ranking as one of the top recipients of committee funds when compared with disbursements to other serving senators.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Neoliberalism as Social Necrophilia: The Case of Greece
To move beyond boom and bust, we need a new theory of capitalism
Netanyahu will be remembered for speaking Israel's truth
Transgender protesters block traffic in downtown LA
A Little Night Music
Andrew "Smokey" Hogg - Kind-Hearted Blues
Smokey Hogg - I'm Gonna Find Your Trick
Smokey Hogg - Jivin' Little Woman
Smokey Hogg - What More Can A Woman Do
Andrew "Smokey" Hogg - Good Morning Little School Girl
Smokey Hogg w/ Frankie Lee Sims - Hard Times
Andrew "Smokey" Hogg - Too Many Drivers
Smokey Hogg - What's On Your Mind?
Smokey Hogg - Oh Woman, Oh Woman
Smokey Hogg - Country Girl
Smokey Hogg - She's Always On My Mind
Smokey Hogg - Worried Blues
Smokey Hogg - When I've Been Drinkin'
Smokey Hogg - Penitentiary Blues
Smokey Hogg - Where Have You Been
Smokey Hogg - Great Big Mama
Smokey Hogg - Wanna Stay Home
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
|