Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features "The Philosopher of Soul," Johnnie Taylor. Enjoy!

^{Johnnie Taylor - Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone}

"Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources."

-- Ronald Reagan

---

News and Opinion

With fight against the Islamic State in Iraq stalled, U.S. looks to Syria for gains

The White House’s top national security officials met last week and will convene again in the next few days to discuss ways to capitalize on recent and unexpected gains made by Syrian irregular forces. The administration is considering providing arms and ammunition to a wider array of rebel groups in Syria and relaxing vetting standards, effectively deepening America’s involvement in the ongoing civil war.

Such a move could lift some of the restrictions that have slowed the Pentagon’s troubled program to train Syrian fighters in Turkey and other sites outside Syria.

Rather than subjecting rebels to repeated rounds of screening before and during their training, U.S. officials might restrict vetting to unit leaders already in the fight. “The key thing is getting them some [expletive] bullets,” one U.S. official said.

US Plans Escalation to ISIS War in Syria, Will Lower Vetting Requirements

Officials Say Getting More Arms Into Syria More Important Than Vetting

Not that Centcom officials would even publicly admit it (or allow it in their reports), but the war against ISIS isn’t going so well in Iraq. Months of effort at “retaking Ramadi” hasn’t even gotten the city surrounded, and ISIS seems more entrenched than ever. Administration officials, at least, seem to be conceding that point, and are looking to shift their war focus away from Iraq and toward Syria.

It’s hard to imagine it, but US officials see Syria as a more promising territory, even though they trained 54 troops, sent them into Syria, and had them quickly turn into “four or five.” They’re citing the comparative success of the Kurdish YPG in fighting ISIS there as proof of this, and are looking to escalate their backing for them.

This has been proposed more than a few times, however, and usually gets shot down by Turkey, which considers the YPG a terrorist organization and doesn’t want them getting any stronger either. The US is desperate for gains, however, and may be less and less worried about where they come from.

Noam Chomsky on George Orwell, the Suppression of Ideas and the Myth of American Exceptionalism

Noam Chomsky: The United States, Not Iran, Poses Greatest Threat to World Peace

An interesting analysis, worth reading in full at the link:

US Middle Eastern Hegemony: Russia and Assad in the Cross-Hairs

Syria has become America’s Vietnam, an arena for testing regional power with eliminating ISIS a pretext for internal regime change (Assad) to satisfy an ally (Israel). Netanyahu is our Diem, and Assad our Ho. Meanwhile the country is torn up, wracked with violence, generating a refugee problem not seen for over half-a-century—a complicated geopolitical setting in which the US is more anti-Assad than anti-ISIS, for reasons never openly explained and leaving ISIS more room to operate. Genuine opposition to ISIS would have enlisted Assad’s support. Instead, the guns are turned in his direction. Russia equally opposed to ISIS as America claims to be, is viewed as the Cold War enemy whose support is rejected, lest it assist in the defense of Assad against both ISIS and the US. The friend of our enemy (Syria) is our enemy, whilst the enemy (ISIS) of our enemy remains our enemy, but practically at one step removed. In Washington’s policy circles we hear more about Assad than ISIS, as though the entire strategy has been scripted by Israel, which ISIS has curiously left alone.

Very suspicious diplomatic high jinks as meanwhile the trail of human suffering extends through Europe in agonizing flight from a country the victim of international pressures having little to do with the record of the Assad government in relation to its own people. We create the turmoil, and then walk away from its consequences. I have said before that Putin sees through Obama, no free passes because of color, and instead recognition that he has militarized capitalism and intensified confrontation with both Russia and China. Syria, and thus unilateral dominance in the Middle East, is the staging area for mounting a geostrategic offensive with respect to China and Russia as well as safeguarding Israel’s interests. Unlike his predecessors, Obama values the former purpose over the latter, Israel less the end-all and be-all of policy in the area, than to be automatically a high priority as America has bigger fish to fry.

Israel is short-sighted, thinking of itself only in regional terms, to which it has been accustomed to wrapping America around its little finger, but the global framework, as the US sees it, is now rapidly changing, the rise of Russia and China to all intents and purposes having equal strength with America creating on its part the necessity for a realpolitik of war, intervention, threats of embargoes (Xi’s coming visit and planned discussions on cyberwarfare, to which the US already hints at embargo-retaliation should the negotiations not go as we want), covert action, and in Syria, regime change, in response to perceived threats. America now is running at full throttle. Israel, a reflex action of pledges of security (Obama will lavish more military hardware on Israel in Netanyahu’s coming visit), but attention is directed elsewhere, so that Syria is merely part of an omelet of scrambled eggs with Russia and China the featured adversaries. Assad, Putin, Xi, the two-and-one-half horsemen of the apocalypse, or perhaps better, Assad the stalking horse to get at the other two. What happens in Damascus has repercussions in Moscow and Beijing.

Syria Reports ‘Deep Coordination’ Between Russia, Iran

In recent comments, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem confirmed “deep coordination” between Iran and Russia on military operations in Syria, and US officials say that months of “high-level” talks between Russian and Iranian brass is a “complicating” matter for them.

It’s no secret that both Iran and Russia are major allies of the Syrian government, and have both been advising them on the ongoing civil war, but as both nations have looked to step up their support in the face of recent Syrian losses to ISIS, they seem to be coordinating more closely on the matter.

Israel and Russia Meet to Keep from Firing at Each Other in Syria

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he had reached a tentative agreement with Russia aimed at warding off possible military encounters in Syria, as both countries consider further involvement in the country.

Speaking to Israeli reporters gathered in Moscow, Netanyahu said that he had come to the Russian capital to "prevent misunderstandings between IDF [Israel Defense Forces] units and Russian forces" in Syria. Uncharacteristically for conferences of this sort, and underscoring its seriousness, Netanyahu was accompanied by military staff that included IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkot and Military Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Hertzi Halevy.

Emerging after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu said that they had "agreed on a mechanism to prevent such misunderstandings."

Israel is believed to have launched a number of airstrikes within Syria since the start of its civil war, targeting what are believed to be arms transfers to Hezbollah fighters. The Lebanese militia, which has helped to prop up the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has fought several conflicts with Israel in the past. Israel does not publicly acknowledge such airstrikes, however, or others that it launched prior to the war, including one that reportedly destroyed a nascent Syrian nuclear site.

Putin to Netanyahu: Syrian army too busy saving country to threaten Israel

Netanyahu: Russia Will Allow Israeli Attacks on Syria

Says He Told Putin 'In No Uncertain Terms' Attacks Would Continue

Following weekend meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed an agreement had been reached in which Israeli attacks on Syrian military targets could continue even as Russia provides military aid to the same forces.

Russia hasn’t commented on the matter, but Netanyahu said he told Putin “in no uncertain terms” that the attacks would continue, and that Israel has a “right and duty” to attack Syrian military sites that might be transferring arms to Hezbollah, one of Syria’s main allies in the ongoing civil war.

SOCOM Report: Al-Qaeda a Bigger Threat Than ISIS

A much-hyped new report for SOCOM is aiming to shift US focus away from ISIS and back toward al-Qaeda on the grounds that the later is a bigger “long-term” threat, and that ISIS is too aggressive to actually be successful in the long run.

The report comes out of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and attempts to compare al-Qaeda to Mao, with ISIS as Che Guevara, and drawing the conclusion that because Mao had a much bigger reign, that means al-Qaeda ultimately will too.

Underpinning all the claims of ISIS relying on a strategy that “already failed” is the conceit of a US victory in the occupation of Iraq, and the notion that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which became ISIS, was “defeated” by the US in that war. It then goes on to assume ISIS will inevitably be defeated the same way again.

This is a really excellent article that exposes the way that the beltway propaganda machine disinforms the public. The piece is rich in detail and is definitely worth a click to take in the whole thing. Here's a taste:

Down the Memory Hole: NYT Erases CIA’s Efforts to Overthrow Syria’s Government

FAIR has noted before how America’s well-documented clandestine activities in Syria have been routinely ignored when the corporate media discuss the Obama administration’s “hands-off” approach to the four-and-a-half-year-long conflict. This past week, two pieces—one in the New York Times detailing the “finger pointing” over Obama’s “failed” Syria policy, and a Vox “explainer” of the Syrian civil war—did one better: They didn’t just omit the fact that the CIA has been arming, training and funding rebels since 2012, they heavily implied they had never done so.

... Based on multiple reports over the past three-and-a-half years, we know that the Central Intelligence Agency set up a secret program of arming, funding and training anti-Assad forces. This has been reported by major outlets, including the New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and, most recently, the Washington Post, which—partly thanks to the Snowden revelations—detailed a program that trained approximately 10,000 rebel fighters at a cost of $1 billion a year, or roughly 1/15th of the CIA’s official annual budget.

In addition to the CIA’s efforts, there is a much more scrutinized and far more publicized program by the Department of Defense to train “moderate rebels,” of which only a few dozen actually saw battle. ... It has, by all accounts, been an abysmal failure. One thing the DoD’s rebel training program hasn’t been a failure at, however, is helping credulous reporters rewrite history by treating the Pentagon program as the only US effort to train Syrian rebels–now or in the past. ...

Let’s start with Peter Baker’s New York Times piece from September 17 and some of its improbable claims:

Finger-Pointing, but Few Answers, After a Syria Solution Fails

By any measure, President Obama’s effort to train a Syrian opposition army to fight the Islamic State on the ground has been an abysmal failure. The military acknowledged this week that just four or five American-trained fighters are actually fighting.

Notice the sleight-of-hand. There may only be “four or five American-trained fighters…fighting” expressly against ISIS, but there is no doubt thousands more American-trained fighters are fighting in Syria. ... This is the worst type of “officials say” journalism. The premise, while ostensibly critical of US foreign policy, is actually helping advance its larger goal of rewriting US involvement in the Syrian civil war. A four-year-long deliberate strategy of backing anti-Assad forces–which has helped fuel the bloody civil war and paved the way for the rise of ISIS–is reduced to a cheesy “bumbling bureaucrat” narrative.

Clinton Says U.S. Policy in Syria "Failure"

Refugees stuck in no man's land between Croatia and Serbia

Refugees hoping to reach the safety of the EU faced a fresh obstacle on Tuesday morning after Croatian police blocked off part of the country’s border with Serbia, which had in recent days become the main entry point to the EU for thousands of people walking north from Greece.

More than 2,000 refugees were stranded overnight on Monday in no man’s land between the Croatian village of Tovarnik and the Serbian town of Šid, medics on the scene told the Guardian, creating another dilemma for European leaders hoping to hammer out a migration strategy in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Other refugees were subsequently allowed to cross the border at a second crossing, near the town of Bapska, to the north. But the development at Tovarnik nevertheless marks the first time Croatia has attempted to stop refugees from entering its territory since it became the primary refugee route to northern Europe last week.

After Hungary shut its southern border a week ago, refugees swerved west through Croatia, and for several days Croatian police let tens of thousands enter through this crossing point. They were then allowed to wait at the first train station across the border. But with Croatia struggling to process people fast enough, officials are keeping people outside the borders until space frees up inside.

Europeans Are Creating Apps and Illustrated Travel Guides to Help Migrants Find Their Way

The company that publishes the French equivalent of the Lonely Planet guide has just released a special illustrated guide book for migrants.

The 90-page guide — titled Hello — is illustrated by French artist Pascal Gauffre, allowing migrants to communicate by simply pointing out what they are looking for, from embassies to ATMs to places of worship. The book is divided into five categories, including "practical information," "accomodation," "health and hygiene," "food," and "leisure." ...

For the past two weeks, migrants traveling through Hungary have also been able to download a free app to help them along their journey. InfoAid, which is available for Android devices, provides up-to-date information on border closures and transport routes, as well as information on asylum procedures.

In Croatia, which has become a gateway to western Europe now that the Hungarian border is closed, activists have set up a Facebook page to warn migrants about the threat of minefields left over from the 1990s Balkans war. The page — titled "Dear Refugees: Welcome to Croatia" — carries maps and warnings to migrants to "stick to clearly visible roads" when they make they way through the country.

Egypt condemned over human rights record in northern Sinai

Egypt’s military campaign against insurgents in northern Sinai is harming thousands of civilians and risks turning more people against the government, according to Human Rights Watch.

The government has evicted 3,200 families over the past two years and razed hundreds of hectares of farmland and thousands of homes in its bid to destroy smugglers’ tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip with Egypt’s northern Sinai peninsula, the rights group said in a report published on Tuesday.

“Destroying homes, neighbourhoods and livelihoods is a textbook example of how to lose a counterinsurgency campaign,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the organisation’s director in the Middle East and north Africa.

“The Egyptian authorities provided residents with little or no warning of the evictions, no temporary housing, mostly inadequate compensation for their destroyed homes – none at all for their farmland,” Human Rights Watch said.

Egypt’s government wants to create a buffer zone along its border with the Gaza Strip to destroy a cross-border network of tunnels. The government accuses Islamic militants of using the tunnels to move between Egypt’s Sinai peninsula and Gaza, which is ruled by the militant group Hamas.

US weighs abstention on Cuba embargo vote at UN

The Obama administration may allow the U.N. to condemn America's economic embargo against Cuba without a fight, The Associated Press has learned, an unprecedented step that could increase pressure on Congress to end the 54-year-old restrictions. ...

It is unheard of for a U.N. member state not to oppose resolutions critical of its own laws. And by not actively opposing the resolution, the administration would be effectively siding with the world body against the Republican-led House and Senate, which have refused to repeal the embargo despite calls from President Barack Obama to do so.

The U.S. and Cuba restored diplomatic relations this year, and leaders of the two countries want to improve commercial ties. But the embargo remains. ...

General Assembly resolutions are unenforceable. But the annual exercise has given Cuba a stage to demonstrate America's isolation on the embargo, and it has underscored the sense internationally that the U.S. restrictions are illegitimate.

The United States has lost the votes by increasingly overwhelming and embarrassing margins. Last year's tally was 188-2 with only Israel siding with the U.S. Israel would be expected to vote whichever way the U.S. decides.

Released Guantanamo Prisoner Experienced Terror On Flight To Morocco

Younis Abdurrahman Chekkouri, who was detained for 13 years, was repatriated to Morocco last week. Moroccan authorities did not immediately release him.

His lawyer from the legal action charity, Reprieve, met with Chekkouri and learned he was terrified by the way he was treated by United States authorities.

Chekkouri was “blindfolded, forced to wear ear-defenders, and had his arms shackled to his legs during the ten hour flight to Morocco.” He told his local lawyer in Casablanca the treatment “replicated the total sight and sound deprivation he experienced when he was first rendered to Guantanamo.”

“Younis was tortured and brutally mistreated for years during his Guantanamo ordeal,” Cori Crider, attorney for Younis and strategic director at Reprieve, declared. “As if this weren’t enough for a man the U.S. government would later declare should never have been imprisoned in the first place, he then spent the flight back to Morocco blindfolded and with his arms shackled to his legs.”

“We are very concerned for Younous’ health during his ongoing detention in Morocco and urge the authorities to release him as soon as possible,” Crider added.

Chekkouri was cleared for release in 2009 by President Barack Obama’s own review task force composed of representatives from U.S. security agencies. He has never faced any charges or trial and yet he has now essentially been arrested by Moroccan authorities, who are keeping him in detention.

No “Facebook Bureau of Investigations” as Terror-Reporting Provision Dies in Senate

A provision that would have forced tech companies like Twitter and Facebook to report every inkling of “terrorist activity” on their services to law enforcement was removed from the 2016 Intelligence Authorization Bill on Monday.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., put a hold on the bill in July because of the proposal supported by Sen Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. The proposal generated intense and negative responses from technologists and privacy supporters who said it would turn tech companies into “law enforcement watchdogs.”

Wyden celebrated his victory in a press release on Monday. “Going after terrorist recruitment and activity online is a serious mission that demands a serious response from our law enforcement and intelligence agencies,” he wrote. “Social media companies aren’t qualified to judge which posts amount to ‘terrorist activity,’ and they shouldn’t be forced against their will to create a Facebook Bureau of Investigations to police their users’ speech.”

Imprisoned by Injustice, Judge Refuses to Release Last of 'Angola Three'

Albert Woodfox, who served 43 years in solitary confinement, will once again stand trial for charges that were three times overturned

Despite a federal court order to end the 43-year confinement of Albert Woodfox, the last remaining prisoner of the "Angola 3" will have to stand trial for a third time after a District judge on Monday denied a motion to dismiss the case.

Woodfox, who has maintained his innocence in the 1972 killing of Angola prison guard Brent Miller, spent 43 years in solitary confinement in a case that has garnered international condemnation.

Though the charges against him were dropped twice—once in 1992 and again last year—and despite U.S. District Judge James Brady granting him "unconditional release" last June, the state of Louisiana has doggedly pursued Woodfox's prosecution. 

US progressives hope Pope Francis can bring moral force to key issues

Before Pope Francis steps on to the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews military facility on Tuesday at the start of a five-day tour of the US, he will already have raised the hopes and quickened the pulses of American progressives who see in him a chance to rise from the partisan swamp of Washington to higher moral ground.

From the fight against economic inequality and climate change, to the plight of undocumented immigrants and the movement against mass incarceration in US prisons, advocacy groups see the pope’s first US visit as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to press their case beyond the arid stalemate of national party politics. While the TV screens will focus on the pontiff’s big set speeches before Congress and the United Nations, around the country thousands of progressive discussion groups and viewing parties will be held in an attempt to seize the moment. ...

“The pope has very broad appeal outside Catholics,” said
(The Catholic Legal Immigration Network) Clinic’s advocacy director, Ashley Feasley. “That means he has the power to deliver a very strong message when he speaks out.”

Her point about the pontiff’s wide appeal is supported by a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll that shows that while 86% of Catholics predictably view him favourably, so do 70% of all Americans and 65% of non-Catholics. Though some conservative critics have attempted to distance themselves from the pope’s visit – one Arizona Republican congressman, Paul Gosar, says he is boycotting the trip – they are out of step with the majority of US opinion, the poll suggests.

It found that 59% of all Americans, and 67% of US Catholics, think that it would be appropriate for Francis to address social, economic and environmental issues directly in his Congress speech.

As Pope Francis Arrives in DC, Federal Workers Strike Against Poverty Wages

Bernie Sanders will join rally as those who "cook and clean" for nation's lawmakers demand dignity from those they serve

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders says he will be among those joining federal workers in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday as they seek to leverage the much-anticipated arrival of Pope Francis as a way to lift their ongoing campaign for better wages and treatment. ...

In a letter (pdf) addressed to Pope Francis, who arrives Tuesday for a five-day U.S. visit, the workers invited the head of the Catholic Church to meet with them so he could better understand the plight of workers who may "cook and clean at the U.S. Capitol and other federal buildings," but remain trapped in "utter poverty" due to their low-wages and inability to form a union.

"We may be invisible to the wealthy and powerful we serve everyday—but we know we are worthy of a more abundant life as children of God," the letter stated. "That’s why we are joining with other low-wage workers across America who are fighting to provide a decent life for ourselves and our families. As you prepare to meet with the Congress and President, we hope that you will also take a little time to meet with us and listen to our stories."

Keiser Report: British vs American Sex & Economic Scandals

What David Cameron Did to the Pig, His Party Is Now Doing to the Country

Whatever you do, don’t think about David Cameron and a dead pig. I know, I know it’s like trying not to think of an elephant, but the fact is that the allegations that the Prime Minister may have put a 'private part of his anatomy" into a dead pig's mouth as part of an initiation ritual for an elite drinking society at Oxford University are actually a very serious matter, and it’s all about corruption and the nature of elected power, and it would help if we could all just calm down for a second and stop giggling. Don’t think I don’t see you at the back there. ...

Sniggering aside, this is unlikely to hurt David Cameron in the long run. He’s not looking for re-election, and besides, everyone knows posh people get up to weird sex stuff. Weird sex stuff is as British as weak tea and racism. When I was at Oxford, it was an open secret that the posh kids had naughty parties, and, of course, so did the rest of us - the difference was the much lower budget, and the fact that the posh kids didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as we did. It all seemed to be more about getting on than getting off. You didn’t shag or not shag the pig’s face because that was what you were into, you did it because you had your eye on a safe seat in Dorset in 20 years’ time and you needed to make the right friends.

There is a reason that David Cameron is allowed to hold office when everyone assumes he spent the 1980s taking drugs and getting up to weird things with his Eton mates, but Jeremy Corbyn is considered unelectable because he didn’t sing the national anthem last week. Cameron is part of a select group of people to whom different rules apply, and he knows it, and his friends know it, and the tabloids know it, and the whole cosy British political machine knows it. This is why Corbyn will spend the next five years being savaged for having a slightly rumpled tie by the same newspapers that reported on the dead pig allegations under the title "the making of an extraordinary Prime Minister". ...

There are a lot of things that David Cameron has definitely done that I do find disgusting, though. Taking away benefits from sick and disabled people, pricing poor kids out of higher education, and forcing millions of families to rely on food banks. That, to me, is shocking and grotesque. ... Power and money are accessed through the back door, or, as it may be, the pig's mouth, and as with any kink, the eroticism isn't about the act, but about what the act symbolises. It's about humiliation, about control, about power play. What might the young swain have been thinking as he unzipped? What went through his head? If you ask me, I'll bet he was thinking: Soon. Someday soon, I will do this to the whole bloody country.

---

---

Noam Chomsky on Trump: "We Should Recognize the Other Candidates are Not That Different"

Clinton's promise on treatment prices hits pharma shares

The frontrunner for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination put the drugs industry on notice on Monday after it was revealed that a US company had increased the cost of a drug used by HIV patients from $13.50 per pill to $750 (£485).

Martin Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager who now runs Turing Pharmaceuticals, said that although patients typically took the drug, Daraprim, for several weeks, it was still a bargain.

“This drug saves your life for $50,000,” he told Bloomberg TV. “At this price, it’s a no-brainer.”

Shkreli said producing the 62-year-old drug at the old price was not financially viable but his comments could prove the final straw for the drugs industry, which has been accused of overcharging for treatments for cancer and other diseases.

Clinton tweeted on Monday: “Price gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous. Tomorrow I’ll lay out a plan to take it on.”

Clinton’s comment, made shortly before the UK stock market closed, sent shares of US biotechnology companies falling on Monday. It was later reported that she is proposing a $250 monthly cap on prescription drugs for patients with chronic or serious medical conditions.

Here's some more of the ongoing left discussion about Bernie Sanders' candidacy. I tried to pull out the important points here, but it would be best to read the whole piece if this debate interests you.

Don’t Get Berned Again! The Sanders Bribe

We have heard Sanders’s defense of the Israeli atrocities in the bombing of Gaza, his call for Saudi Arabia to do even more killing and his concern about Putin for – well, being Putin and Russian. Thus Bernie is joining a cheering section that could root us right into nuclear war and oblivion. ...

Confirmation comes in an NPR interview with David Green:

BS: …..The United States has got to work with our European allies and allies throughout the world to come up with an intelligent, rational approach to deal with Russia, to deal with ISIS and deal with other national security threats.

DG: Sounds like you would intervene less than this president has?

BS: No, I didn’t say that. You’ve got to look at each particular case, obviously.

And, obviously also, there is not a shred of anti-interventionist or anti-imperial philosophy displayed here. ...

The fundamental problem with Sanders’s campaign is that it is based on bribery, and an especially immoral sort of bribery at that. For Bernie promises more social benefits if we, the beneficiaries, let him continue the Empire’s warfare – both economic and military. That is a most unsavory sort of bribe. Basically he gives us butter if we give him guns to kill innocents. ...

Sanders is an advocate of what was once called in the socialist movement “social chauvinism” in contradistinction to “social democracy.” Social chauvinism, where loyalty to Empire replaces loyalty to peace and the humanity of all nations, has been a plentiful commodity on the planet since World War I, at least, and Sanders appears to stand squarely in that barbarous tradition. ...

So the question must be put. Is it moral to support a candidate to get some more goodies in return for the sacrifice of ever more lives by the US military machine? Or if this moral appeal does not move the Sanders supporters, then the prospect of a new World War with Russia and/or China should give them pause. As a decades long worker for Single Payer, I am not willing to gain Single Payer as Bernie promises at the cost of more war, death to innocents in the developing world and perhaps annihilation of humanity. The task for Bernie supporters is to demand and get an antiwar stance or drop their support.

Sandersphobia and Its Discontents

The latest ejaculation from the Sanderphobe ranks broadcast into the left echo chamber notes that despite having been affiliated with the Democrats for less than five of the 372 months of his political career, Sanders might as well be one since he VOTES WITH THE DEMOCRATS 98% OF THE TIME!!!!  As with the smirks accompanying this “devastating indictment”, one can just as easily imagine that not one issuing it has for one second considered the obvious rejoinder:  the 2% of the time Sanders failed to vote with the Democrats, he voted with the Republicans.  If this number were higher, say, 20%, one knows perfectly well what the response would be: “You see!!! Just like we said.  Bernie is not just a closet neoliberal he’s a closet neo-con fascist!!!” ...

What made this smear particularly clueless was that a day or so prior, Sanders had, in fact, not just in the far left imagination, placed himself squarely in the camp of the reactionary right. The trigger was the most recent smear from the Clinton campaign, which focussed on Sanders’s complementary remarks about the election of Jeremy Corbyn. Applying the time honored, red-baiting logic, Corbyn’s association with the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is proof positive of Sanders’s enthusiasm for bloodthirsty tyrants, among them “Communist dictator” Chavez.  Rather than easily exposing this as a lie-for example, by citing the fact that Chavez won by landslides in elections certified as fair by numerous international observers, Sanders chose to accept the reactionary framing, repudiating any association with Chavez, and by extension, the Latin American left, whose successful counterattack against the same neoliberal forces opposing Sanders should be embraced by him, not rejected.

Not surprisingly, and quite justifiably, this cynical display of capitulatory Realpolitik provoked plenty of pushback from the left (such as it is) including this petition which I signed and urge others to do likewise. Putting aside the obvious fact that Sanders’s gambit was a disgrace, it will be interesting to see whether he will be forced to respond to outrage from his core supporters.  It will be recalled that this is exactly what he did in reacting to Black Lives Matter protests, immediately including a racial justice component of his platform now prominently displayed on his website.  Will he unveil a non-interventionist policy with respect to Latin America, as well as, one hopes, a commitment to the international law and the U.N. charter, particularly as applied to the leading recipient of U.S. aid, the State of Israel? ...

One of the facts highlighted by Time [when it featured Sanders on this week’s cover] is “Corbin Trent, a 35-year-old who sold his food-truck business” who recognizes that “The end goal is to build a political movement that pushes beyond whatever the campaign is or does.”  Trent along with numerous other Sanders supporters is giving voice to the traditional left critique of candidate centered “quadrennial electoral extravaganzas” demobilizing rather than reinforcing than the mass protest movements which should be their accompaniment.  That he specifically references “a political movement beyond the campaign” shows that they are not “sheep” or “sheeple”, but are participating with the expectation that if-or more likely when-Sanders loses in the primary, that they will be on the streets protesting whatever corporate stooge the Democrat leadership anoints in a 21st century version of a smoke filled room, quite possibly during the Philadelphia convention. ...

Rather than endlessly recycling Sanders’s real and imagined liabilities and belittling his supporters, why not work to develop the movement which is temporarily coalescing behind but which has explicitly stated its intention to “push beyond the campaign”.  Why not focus discussion on the kind of organization that will be required to be on the streets regardless of who wins the nomination or the general election, including Sanders, as Sanders himself has repeatedly asserted?

---

The Evening Greens

---

Energy and Forestry Firms Say Indigenous People Should Have Power to Nix Projects in Canada

The Boreal Leadership Council, which includes First Nations, conservation groups, financial institutions, as well as resource firms like Suncor Energy Inc. and Tembec Inc., is advocating for the policy of "free, prior, and informed consent" when considering projects that could affect Aboriginal communities in a report released Monday.

"Free, prior, and informed consent," or FPIC, is a term used to describe the right of indigenous peoples to offer consent to or reject projects that could impact their resources or territories. The concept was embedded in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 — every signatory is supposed to abide by it.

"The political reality is if you're not working with First Nations on the ground, if you don't have their consent, the likelihood of your project proceeding is negligible," Dave Porter, CEO of the BC First Nations Energy & Mining Council, told VICE News. "Canada will never realize its full economic potential unless it tackles the question of how to work with First Nations to obtain consent for resource development."

However, the fact that Aboriginal rights are constitutionally protected in Canada makes things a little more complicated. Canada did not vote in favor of adopting the UN declaration in 2007, and in 2010, accepted it only as an "non-legally binding aspirational document."

There's an ongoing debate about how the UN declaration should be interpreted to ensure it fits within the Canadian constitutional and legal framework.

Melting Permafrost Could Cost World Economy $43 Trillion by 2100

Doing nothing to slow the fast-warming Arctic carries an enormous economic price tag, warns new research

The melting of the Earth's permafrost could unleash hundreds of billions of tons stored CO2 and methane by the end of this century, warned prominent researchers on Monday, with resulting economic costs that could reach $43 trillion in damages related to the runaway impacts of climate change.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change, Prof. Chris Hope of Cambridge University and Prof. Kevin Schaefer, from the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, say their study shows that because the "Arctic is warming roughly twice as fast as the global average" and if current trends continue, the melting of huge sections of permafrost in the coming decades could result in hundreds of billions of ton of carbon dioxide (CO₂₎ and billions of tons of methane (CH₄₎ being released into the atmosphere.

Such an enormous increase of greenhouse gases would result in both economic and non-economic impacts, the researchers said. Computer models run by Hope and Schaefer found that melting permafrost would lead to higher chances of catastrophic and cascading events, such as the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets which would lead to increased flooding and more extreme weather around the world. Economic impacts cited included direct influence on the gross domestic product (GDP) of countries—such as the loss of agricultural output and the additional cost of coping with floods and heatwaves—while non-economic impacts included negative effects on human health and natural ecosystems. ...

In 2013, as Common Dreams reported, a separate team of researchers exploring the possible economic impacts of melting permafrost—sometimes described ominously as the "methane bomb"—could ultimately cost the global economy as much as $60 trillion.

With New Ban on Cultivation, Northern Ireland Joins EU's Anti-GMO Ranks

Yet another European nation has banned genetically modified (GM or GMO) crops, with Northern Ireland's Minister for the Environment Mark Durkan declaring Monday: "I remain unconvinced of the advantages of GM crops and I consider it prudent to prohibit their cultivation here for the foreseeable future."

"We are perceived internationally to have a clean and green image," Durkan told the BBC. "I am concerned that the growing of GM crops, which I acknowledge is controversial, could potentially damage that image."

He added: "The pattern of land use here and the relatively small size of many agricultural holdings creates potential difficulties if we were to seek to keep GM and non-GM crops separate."

The European Union said earlier this year that its 28 member states could adopt their own positions on the issue. Each regional assembly within the UK is making its own decision. Scotland and Germany both banned GM crops in August.

---

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

The Anti-Muslim Controversies of the Last Week, Reimagined

High pressure: the pipeline that could destroy New York state – video

Born In The USA: How America Created Iran's Nuclear Program

Remaking the World in Greater Israel’s Image

A message to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi from the former finance minister of Greece

A Moral Challenge for Pope Francis

Red Neoliberals: How Corbyn’s Victory Unmasked Britain’s Guardian

---

A Little Night Music

Johnnie Taylor - Running Out Of Lies

Johnnie Taylor - What Good Is A Man

Johnnie Taylor - Soul Heaven

Johnnie Taylor - I had a dream

Johnnie Taylor - Last Two Dollars

Johnnie Taylor - I Believe In You (You Believe In Me)

Johnnie Taylor - Woman across the river

Johnnie Taylor - Toe Hold

Johnny Taylor - Next Time

Johnny Taylor - Take Care Of Your Homework

Johnny Taylor - Mister Nobody is Somebody Now

Johnnie Taylor - Stop Doggin' Me Around

Johnnie Taylor - It's September

Johnnie Taylor - Still Called The Blues

Johnnie Taylor Live in Dallas 1989

---