The Evening Blues - 10-2-15
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues guitarist and singer Guy Davis. Enjoy!
Guy Davis - Things About Coming My Way
“We are beckoned to see the world through a one-way mirror, as if we are threatened and innocent and the rest of humanity is threatening, or wretched, or expendable. Our memory is struggling to rescue the truth that human rights were not handed down as privileges from a parliament, or a boardroom, or an institution, but that peace is only possible with justice and with information that gives us the power to act justly.”-- John Pilger
News and Opinion
U.S. Senators Hem and Haw on Saudi Arabia's Human Rights Abuses
Leading American politicians of both major parties appear to share an extreme reluctance to openly criticize the human rights abuses of Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally that has ramped up executions of its own citizens, led a coalition bombing effort in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians, and supported Sunni extremist groups throughout war-torn Syria.
Given the news this week that Saudi-led forces bombed a wedding party in Yemen, killing scores of civilians, as well as the decision by the Saudi government to behead and then crucify Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, the teenage son of a government critic, I attempted to talk about the Saudi Arabian human rights record to a number of politicians at the Washington Ideas Forum, an event hosted by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute to discuss “this year’s most pressing issues and ideas of consequence.”
Most were uninterested in commenting.
Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney smiled and repeatedly said, “Nice to see you,” when I asked if he had any concerns about the Saudi Arabian-led bombing campaign in Yemen.
I found Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., as he was getting out of his car. “As the co-founder of the Human Rights Caucus in the Senate, I do think we need to pay attention to human rights all over the world, regardless of where human rights violations arise,” he said.
I asked if he would comment specifically on Saudi Arabia. Coons ignored me and continued walking into the building.
[More at the link, including a bizarre reply by John McCain. -js]
As Saudis Block a Human Rights Inquiry in Yemen, America Stays Quiet
A Dutch-led effort to create a human rights mission for Yemen was abandoned Wednesday amid intense Saudi opposition at the UN, but human rights experts are laying blame in part at the feet of the United States, which failed to vigorously back the Netherlands — and may have worked behind the scenes to head off the independent investigation.
A Saudi-led coalition has bombed Yemen since late March in an attempt to push back Houthi rebels and their allies and reinstate the government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. The US (and UK) offers logistical support for the coalition, in addition to selling billions of dollars in weapons to its members, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. US officials say American personnel are also involved in providing targeting assistance for airstrikes, which the UN says are responsible for the majority of the more than 2,300 civilian deaths in the conflict in the past six months.
In September, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein called for an independent, international inquiry into crimes committed in Yemen in the preceding year. Shortly after, the Netherlands, supported by several European countries, presented a draft resolution to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). Among other elements, it called for a human rights mission, commissioned by Zeid, to be sent to Yemen, and for that team to be allowed access to all areas of the country. ...
Largely quiet on the matter was the United States. After multiple requests for comment on whether the American government supported an international, independent human rights inquiry for Yemen, US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power released an ambiguously worded statement on September 24. ... Observers in Geneva and New York say that instead of pushing for the Dutch resolution or one of its later drafts to be passed, the US simply let it die.
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights run by immigrant from his UK home
Putin in Paris for talks as Russia urged to stop hitting Syrian opposition
Vladimir Putin is meeting western leaders for the first time since Russia launched airstrikes in Syria, amid a growing rift over who it is targeting.
Allies in the US-led coalition against Islamic State released a joint statement calling on Moscow to immediately cease attacks on the Syrian opposition and to focus on fighting Isis.
The statement by France, Turkey, the United States, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Britain expressed concern that Russia’s actions would “only fuel more extremism and radicalisation”. Russia insists it is only bombing Isis and other “terror” groups.
The Russian president is in Paris for a peace summit on the Ukraine conflict, but Russia’s sudden intervention in Syria looks set to dominate as he holds talks with France’s François Hollande and Germany’s Angela Merkel.
Alexei Pushkov, a top Russian foreign affairs official, told French radio he believed the air campaign could last about three or four months. He also hit out at western criticism, writing on Twitter: “The US is criticising Russia for ‘lack of selectivity in our targets’ in Syria. So what stopped them from picking the right targets over a whole year, rather than just pointlessly bombing the desert?!”
US Seeks to Cut Europeans Out of Syria Peace Talks
With the UN General Assembly setting up a growing call for international negotiations on ending the Syrian Civil War, the Obama Administration is taking a risky position, reportedly trying to keep all Western European nations from taking part in the negotiations. ...
The US is envisioning a five nation effort, led by them, and including Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The assumption from this is likely that Turkey and Saudi Arabia will back the US position, giving them a 3-2 majority at the negotiating table. ...
US officials are defending their position as believing that the talks will be easier if they restrict it to those “directly involved” in Syria, but this must inevitably raise the question of whether the US is really “involved” in any way that France, for instance, is not.
The real risk of including France, Germany, and Britain is the appeal to reasonableness they are liable to bring to the table, as the US can count on the Saudis and Turkish government to both unconditionally spurn any unity deal that keeps Assad in power in any form, while the European nations are more likely to push for some sort of compromise deal that starts a transition.
Russian Airstrikes in Syria Could Last Four Months, Officials Say
Russia's airstrikes in Syria could continue for three to four months, according to the head of the lower house of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, as controversy continues over what Moscow's attacks are actually targeting.
"There is always a risk of being bogged down but in Moscow, we are talking about an operation of three to four months," Alexei Pushkov told French radio Europe 1, adding that the strikes were going to intensify.
Officials announced on Friday that airstrikes had been carried out for a third day in row and claimed that these hit 12 Islamic State (IS) targets.
Yet the US, which is leading its own air campaign against IS, says Moscow has been using its campaign as a pretext to hit other groups opposed to Russia's ally, President Bashar al-Assad.
Some of the groups that have been hit are supported by countries which oppose both Assad and IS, including at least one group that received training from the CIA.
Russia's air campaign in a country already being bombed by a US-led coalition of Western and Arab countries means that the Cold War superpower foes Moscow and Washington are now flying combat missions over the same country for the first time since World War II.
An excellent exposition of the propagandistic lies, distortions and obfuscations emanating from the US government and its lapdog press. It's well worth reading in full. Here's a taste to get you started:
War Party Hates Putin – Loves al-Qaeda
As Russian fighter jets target al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, the Western media is up in arms – and in denial. They deny the Russians are taking on ISIS – and they are indignant that Putin is targeting al-Qaeda, which is almost never referred to by its actual name, but is instead described as “al-Nusra,” or the more inclusive “Army of Conquest,” which are alternate names for the heirs of Osama bin Laden.
And there are no ideological lines being drawn in this information war: both the left and the right – e.g. the left-liberal Vox and the Fox News network – are utilizing a map put out by the neoconservative “Institute for the Study of War” to “prove” that Putin isn’t really attacking ISIS – he’s actually only concerned with destroying the “non-ISIS” rebels and propping up the faltering regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The premise behind this kind of propaganda is that there really is some difference between ISIS and the multitude of Islamist groups proliferating like wasps in the region: and that, furthermore, al-Qaeda is “relatively” moderate when compared to the Islamic State. Yes, incredibly, the US and British media are pushing the line that the al-Qaeda fighters in Syria, known as al-Nusra, are really the Good Guys.
Didn’t you know that we have always been at war with Eastasia?
There is much whining, this [Thursday] morning, that a supposedly US-“vetted” group known as Tajammu al-Aaza has felt Putin’s wrath – but when we get down into the weeds, we discover that this outfit is fighting alongside al-Qaeda:
“Jamil al-Saleh, a defected Syrian army officer who is now the leader of the rebel group Tajammu al-Aaza, told AlSouria.net that the Russian airstrikes targeted his group’s base in al-Lataminah, a town in the western Syrian governorate of Hama. That area represents one of the farthest southern points of the rebel advance from the north and is therefore a crucial front line in the war. An alliance of Syrian rebel factions, including both the al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front and groups considered by Washington to be more moderate, successfully drove Assad regime forces out of the northern governorate of Idlib and are now pushing south into Hama.”
‘If Russia found a cure for cancer, western media would make it look like a bad thing’
US Sending Mixed Signals on Russia’s Strikes in Syria
There’s a disconcerting lack of consistency among US comments on Russia’s launching of airstrikes against ISIS and other rebel factions in Syria and even within individual US governmental agencies there seem to be a fairly broad array of conflicting statements, with some expressing concerns about the “mixed signals” the US is sending on the matter.
Secretary of State John Kerry is perhaps the most glaring culprit, at times warning of “grave concerns” about Russian involvement and insisting that the US welcomes any Russian efforts to fight ISIS within the same speech. In another speech he accused Russia of “siding with Hezbollah” and said Putin was making Russia a target for Sunni terror. ...
US officials were mostly consistent in condemning the possibility of Russian involvement in Syria before the airstrikes began, but since then there have been many conflicting accounts, and a lot of officials who were previously condemning Russia’s calls for unity suddenly talking up the notion of a secular unified Syria fighting against ISIS.
The Pentagon has been bashing Russia on the matter, with Ash Carter condemning Russia’s military as “unprofessional” for the way they notified the US ahead of their airstrikes, while the White House suggested they had no problem at all with it, and saw Russia’s moves as consistent with their long-standing position of backing the Assad government.
U.S. seen unlikely to defend Syrian rebels from Russian strikes
Already out-gunned and out-manned in Syria’s civil war, U.S.-backed rebels are facing a new and possibly even more serious threat to their survival: Russian air strikes that Washington appears reluctant to thwart.
The Obama administration – blindsided by the speed of Moscow’s direct intervention and a Russian target list that included CIA-trained fighters – made clear on Thursday that the it had no desire to increase the risk of an air clash between the former Cold War foes.
While Washington took pains to insist it still considered the "moderate" opposition vital to Syria’s future and was not abandoning them, withholding U.S. air cover could further jeopardise beleaguered rebel forces.
President Barack Obama has rarely launched military action in support of the opposition in four years of Syria's civil war and is hesitant to get further ensnared in the conflict. Even if he wanted to, he could face legal limitations due to the scope of his presidential war powers. ...
Russia’s deepening role, together with inconclusive talks between the U.S. and Russian militaries on air safety on Thursday, underscored the consensus in Washington that Obama has few good options for turning the situation around.
Obama does have the power to expand the arming of moderate rebels so they can better defend themselves or to set up no-fly zones, as some critics at home have demanded, but U.S. officials note that such measures would carry their own risks of escalating Washington's involvement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be betting that Obama, wary of seeing the United States pulled into another Middle East war, would be unlikely to respond aggressively.
Inter-Imperial Feuds and the Lost Revolution in Syria
US Unlikely to Fight Russia Over ‘Moderate’ Syrian Rebels
Though the Obama Administration has “warned” Russia against attacking non-ISIS rebels in Syria, the Russian government has insisted that they are following the US example and attacking a list of different terrorist factions. Some of those factions were armed by the CIA, and still nominally are supported by the US. ...
The “moderate” factions from the era when the US was supporting them have, as Russia noted, in many cases defected to ISIS, and what’s left is a very limited force. ... White House officials are threatening “diplomatic consequences” to Russia if they don’t do what the US wants, but even here the risk is pretty limited for Russia, as those long-forgotten factions aren’t worth anything more than some token statements of disapproval to the US, not worth a serious worsening of US-Russian relations, and certainly not worth a military confrontation.
Lebanon Reaps Windfall From Congress
Tiny Lebanon is seeing its fortunes surge on Capitol Hill as fear of the Islamic State (IS) supplants any lingering concerns about Hezbollah.
Congress over the past year has approved more than $1 billion in proposed arms sales for the Lebanese armed forces, including attack aircraft and helicopters. And lawmakers on Sept. 29 cemented Beirut's status as a key ally with the release of a compromise annual defense bill that puts Lebanon on equal footing with longtime partner Jordan.
The free flow of aid and weapons represents a sea change from the situation five years ago, when Congress briefly held up all military aid following an incident in which Lebanese soldiers shot and killed an Israeli officer on the border. Hezbollah's political dominance over the following three years caused further hand-wringing on Capitol Hill, but over the past few months Lebanon's military has emerged as a trusted backstop against Islamist militants of all stripes.
Abbas UN Speech: "Bombshell" or Wet Firecracker?
Police use of chemical spray on Alabama schoolchildren violated civil rights
Federal judge finds officers attached to Birmingham schools routinely used a military-grade pepper spray-teargas mixture to quell normal adolescent behavior
A federal judge in Alabama ruled on Thursday that Birmingham police department officers violated the civil rights of high school students when officers used chemical spray to subdue them for minor behavioral issues.
The suit, initially filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010, alleged that school resource officers (SROs) assigned to schools in the Birmingham public school district were routinely resorting to chemical spray to deal with “normal – and, at times, challenging – adolescent behavior”. This included what the US district court judge Abdul Kallon described as non-threatening infractions that are “universal to all teenagers – ie backtalking and challenging authority”.
According to the SPLC, police in Birmingham public schools – whose students are predominantly black – sprayed about 300 students in 110 incidents between 2006 and 2011.
“This is a great victory for students and their families in Birmingham, and it sends a strong message to school officials across the country that it’s time to stop treating schoolchildren like they’re criminals,” said Ebony Howard, the SPLC’s lead attorney in the case.
The chemical spray in question, “Freeze +P”, is a military-grade mixture of pepper spray and teargas designed to cause “strong respiratory effects” and “severe pain”, according to the product’s manufacturer. One plaintiff recalled that being sprayed felt like “needles stabbing [her] face”, and several noted significant trouble breathing after inhaling the compound.
NYPD to require officers to report every time they use force
New York City police on Thursday announced a new policy requiring officers to report nearly every time they use force, shortly after a watchdog condemned the department’s inability to track such instances and its failure to discipline officers who used excessive force.
“NYPD was living a little bit in the dark ages,” said Philip Eure, the New York police inspector general, as he released an investigative report about the department.
The report stated that the NYPD had no standardized method of reporting or tracking the use of force throughout the department. The findings detailed a litany of New York City’s bad policing practices with regard to use of force, citing problems with officer training and policies intended to de-escalate situations.
Investigators reviewed 104 substantiated allegations of unwarranted force from the past five years and found that the commissioner had failed to discipline officers in 36% of those cases.
The department has no definition for what constitutes “force”, “excessive force”, or “deadly physical force”, investigators said, calling on the NYPD to clarify its policies. The report also faulted the agency’s training for officers. Of the nearly 500 hours of coursework in the police academy, investigators said they could only identify one nine-hour course specifically on the use of force.
As Secret Trade Talks Reveal Cracks, Demonstrators Aim Death Blows at TPP
As trade ministers from around the world continued meeting in Atlanta on Thursday for final-stretch negotiations on the corporate-friendly Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), civil society groups demonstrated on the streets in a final salvo against a deal they describe as "a wholesale auction of our rights, our freedoms, and our democracy to multinational corporations who put profits over people."
"They're getting close, but we can stop them," reads the Citizens Trade Campaign's call-to-action. "If we do, and the Atlanta round fails, many believe the TPP could be knocked off track indefinitely."
How do we want to be remembered? As people who stood up for #HumanRights, or as people who didn't care? #StopTPP #p2 pic.twitter.com/sZNk4oM5if
— Expose The TPP (@ExposeTPP) September 30, 2015
High-level officials including Japan's Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Akira Amari and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key have warned that if the talks do not wrap up this week, the 12-nation trade agreement could be put on ice for years.
Trade talks over Pacific Rim deal appear headed to a third day: http://t.co/OmMI04m0rq #StopTPP #TPP @OpenTheGov pic.twitter.com/DNeIOXFEsO
— Global Trade Watch (@PCGTW) October 2, 2015
"The window of opportunity to complete [the] TPP is closing so you wouldn’t say it’s impossible to complete the deal if it doesn’t take place in Atlanta, but it does become more difficult," Key told the Asia Society in New York this week.
Citing such remarks, organizers of Thursday's demonstration declare: "Very rarely do protests have as much potential for immediate results as this one."
Alongside Housing Activists, Warren Blasts HUD's Collusion with Wall Street
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Wednesday took part in a Washington, D.C. rally to urge the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to quit selling home loans to hedge funds and private financial firms.
Warren joined Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) and a group of community activists at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation on Capitol Hill to protest predatory lending schemes that allow financiers to foreclose on struggling borrowers without first modifying loan terms. Warren blasted HUD and the FHFA for their role in the crisis and called on the government to make it easier for nonprofit housing groups to buy distressed mortgages at auction.
"HUD and FHFA have been lining up with the Wall Street speculators," Warren said in a speech before the march. "This should surprise absolutely nobody.... Wall Street is interested in profits, not in working out a way for people to stay in their homes."
"These Wall Street investors made money by crashing the economy, got bailed out and now they’re back to feed at the trough again, scooping up these loans at rock-bottom prices so that they profit off them a second time—and it is up to us to stop that!" Warren said to a cheering crowd.
US economy adds only 142,000 jobs, raising doubts about interest rate rise
Payrolls outside of farming rose by 142,000 last month and August figures were revised sharply lower to show only 136,000 jobs added in August, Labor Department says
The US economy added only 142,000 jobs in September, raising doubts about whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates before the year’s end.
The unemployment rate remained steady at 5.1%.
Friday’s report by the Department of Labor fell short of expectation as economist expected employers to add 206,000 jobs.
Last month, the non-farm payroll figures for June and July were revised up, causing the unemployment rate to drop to 5.1%. August’s numbers were lower than expected, although many economists pointed out that the figures for August are usually revised up. However, in Friday’s report, the figures for both July and August were revised down.
July’s figure was revised from 245,000 to 223,000, and the change for August was revised from 173,000 to 136,000, meaning that 59,000 fewer jobs were created than previously reported. ...
Janet Yellen, chair of the US Federal Reserve, said in September that continued job growth and 2% inflation would indicate that US economy was ready for a hike in interest rates.
Unemployment 5.1%? What a total load of crap!
'60 Minutes' used 'planted' questions, Clinton email says
CBS's "60 Minutes" used questions "planted" by the State Department in a 2011 interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, a State Department aide told Hillary Clinton in a newly released email.
"I just received confirmation from 60 Minutes that a piece on Julian Assange will air Sunday night," Philip Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs, wrote to Clinton in 2011. "He will be the only person featured. We had made a number of suggestions for outside experts and former diplomats to interview to 'balance' the piece. 60 Minutes assures me that they raised a number of questions and concerns we planted with them during the course of the interview. We will be prepared to respond to the narrative Assange presents during the program." ...
Crowley's email was released Thursday by the State Department as part of an ongoing release of emails from Clinton's tenure as secretary of state. It is the fifth such batch of emails to be released amid the ongoing controversy over Clinton's use of a private email server.
Rock-Star Appeal of Bernie Sanders Should Make Clinton Very Worried
First came the big crowds, now comes the big money. At this point, anyone who doesn’t take Bernie Sanders seriously must not be paying attention.
Sanders’ campaign announced that it raised an eye-bugging $26 million in the third quarter—essentially matching the $28 million raised during those three months by Hillary Clinton, long considered the presumptive Democratic nominee. If that doesn’t make Clintonistas nervous, they need defibrillation. ...
Polls show Sanders leading Clinton in New Hampshire and essentially tied with her in Iowa. It is possible that Clinton could lose the first two primary states and still win the nomination, but only two Democrats have accomplished this feat—Bill Clinton, who didn’t even campaign in Iowa in 1992, and George McGovern, for whom the subsequent 1972 general election did not work out well. ...
What explains Sanders’ appeal? Much is made of his “authenticity,” and it’s certainly true that there is a refreshing lack of artifice about him. But tousled hair alone isn’t enough to explain his rock-star status in college towns and other liberal redoubts.
I believe his success to date is due to insight and ideology. Sanders was perceptive enough to frame a message that is perfect for the zeitgeist: The system is rigged to benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else. And having identified the problem, he offers clear and internally consistent remedies.
India unveils climate change plan
India, the world’s third biggest greenhouse gas emitter, has pledged to source 40% of its electricity from renewable and other low-carbon sources by 2030.
It is the last major economy, following 140 other countries including China, the US and the EU, to submit a climate change plan to the UN before international talks to reach a deal on tackling global warming in Paris this December.
Campaigners welcomed the commitment to cut the “emissions intensity” of its economy – a ratio of carbon emissions per unit of GDP – by up to 35% by 2030.
India’s population of 1.2 billion, about 363 million of whom live in poverty, is projected to grow to 1.5 billion by 2030. “It is estimated that more than half of India of 2030 is yet to be built,” India’s submission claimed.
The country has previously pledged an emissions intensity cut of up to 25% by 2020.
Prakash Javadekar, India’s environment minister, said: “Though India is not part of the problem, it wants to be part of the solution. Our historical cumulative emission as of today is below 3%.”
In a speech in New York, he referenced the pope’s address to the UN last week and emphasised that while India was a big emitter, it was responsible for less carbon pollution than many developed countries since the industrial revolution.
India’s submission to the UN, known as its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), focuses on clean energy, including solar power, which the prime minister, Narendra Modi, has already strongly backed. It also promised to plant more forests by 2030 to absorb carbon emissions.
Modi has repeatedly said India would not accept constraints on its development as part of any climate deal. Unlike China’s submission to the UN in June, India’s does not spell out when its emissions might peak.
This Changes Everything: Naomi Klein & Avi Lewis Film Re-imagines Vast Challenge of Climate Change
VW scandal widens as France and Italy launch deception inquiries
The Volkswagen emissions-testing scandal is deepening, with authorities in France and Italy launching investigations into the embattled German carmaker.
Italy’s competition regulator is to investigate whether VW engaged in “improper commercial practices” by promoting its vehicles as meeting emissions standards which it failed to reach without a “defeat device”. ...
In France, an official from the prosecutor’s office told Reuters that an inquiry had been opened. The French magazine L’Express said this had been launched at the instigation of Pierre Serne, vice-president of the region Île-de-France responsible for transport.
It also emerged on Friday that other car manufacturers – BMW, Chrysler, General Motors, Land Rover and Mercedes-Benz – are under scrutiny from the US regulator that exposed Volkswagen’s manipulation of emissions tests.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has broadened its investigation to include at least 28 diesel-powered car models made by those companies, according to the Financial Times.
To punish Volkswagen for its emissions scandal, make it build electric cars
Once the media storm around Volkswagen’s emission cheating scandal calms down, the most likely outcome is a massive recall and a huge fine. ...
A recall would be ineffective at best. Many VW car owners in the US are unlikely to voluntarily surrender cars that function properly and do not present, at the individual car level, a health risk. It is not certain that a fix can even be implemented. The best-case scenario of a recall is that some of the cars are brought in and have the emissions issue fixed at the expense of reduced gas mileage, thereby increasing greenhouse gas emissions. The worst-case scenario is that VW sends millions of cars to the junkyard. Both outcomes are negatives for the environment.
As for a fine, $10bn seems to be the ballpark figure at this point. Some of it might help fund the Environmental Protection Agency but, if past fines to the financial industry are any indication, the money will mostly be used in areas that have little connection to the original issue. And fines, even really big ones, often fail to deter future misdeeds. Look at Wall Street, where fines have increased in both frequency and dollar amounts without ever reshaping the industry’s culture.
Here’s a better outcome: the EPA should mandate that Volkswagen exclusively produce electric vehicles within five years for the US market. This would remove the emissions from millions of cars, not only health pollutants like nitrous oxide but also more essentially the other greenhouse gases that threaten our whole planet. The company is well on its way to commercializing electric vehicles, and the $10bn fine could be put to better use by building a battery factory in the US to supply those electric models, creating jobs along the way. Add in an obligation for VW to equip US highways with electric charging stations and we’ll have changed the transportation landscape of this country for the better.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Guantánamo Speaks: Former Prisoner Given Voice and Shape in Laurie Anderson Show
Sustaining Perpetual War: The Bloodless Narrative
When Shaker Aamer is free from Guantánamo the slurs will start
Full unedited text of Vladimir Putin's interview with Charlie Rose: What CBS left out
A Little Night Music
Guy Davis - Matchbox Blues
Guy Davis - That's No Way to Get Along
Guy Davis - Black Coffee
Guy Davis - Goin' Down Slow
Guy Davis - Cain't Be Satisfied
Guy Davis - Rolling In My Sweet Baby's Arms
Guy Davis - Waiting on the Cards to Fall
Guy Davis - Pay Day
Guy Davis - Step It Up and Go
Guy Davis - 61 highway
Guy Davis- You don't know my mind
Phil Wiggins & Guy Davis - Louis Collins
Guy Davis - See That My Grave Is Kept Clean
Comments
How Secretary Hillary manipulated the media
It works
evening gj...
amusingly the article upstairs in the diary about this has a response from 60 minutes:
preposterous, i tell you, preposterous. the spokesdroid doth protest too much, methinks.
More on Hillary's emails
link
GJ and GG, Oh the confusion
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
heh...
The private prison scam
link
What conflict of intersest?
Privatize prisons, corporations are people, money is speech, corporate prison operators $peak, more people go to prison, corporate prison operators have more $peech, ... What could go wrong?
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
ISIS advancing near Israeli border
FSA south near collapse
What was left out of the 60 Minutes interview with Putin
some examples:
God, the clisterfuck continues over there
And people in this country actually believe that the U.S. is fighting ISIS instead of arming them when the troops we spend millions on for weapons and training just turn around and give the weapons to them.
I'm glad to see that Putin is at least trying to fight them, but feel sorry for the innocent civilians caught in between.
How so many people in this country believe that the U.S. is fighting terrorism instead of creating it is beyond me.
How many BILLION of our taxes now go to foreign countries while more social programs here get cut?
And I thought I've read that Russia has bombed the ISIS convoys that the U.S. can't seem to hit.
It's a shell game over there and the only people getting actual help is the defense contractors who are making huge profits.
I need a score card for help in keeping track of who's the real bad guys.
And of course, this country ignores the human rights abuses of Saudi Arabia.
Good diary Joe. Do you ever post these diaries over on kos?
I'd like to see the reaction and the excuses people would give Obama for continuing pnac's wars of aggression.
Too bad that there isn't a country powerful enough to charge the U.S. with war crimes.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
morning snoopydawg...
it's pretty clear to me that isis is at least in part a us creation (how much of a creator depends in part on how much you think that we control the saudis) and that the us has armed them consciously and does little or nothing to stop their excesses.
the only strategy that makes sense to me from the evidence of us actions is that the us is trying to create a self-erasing jihadi force in the middle east - one that will depose leaders, cause chaos that requires a us-imposed tyrant eventually and then eventually extinguish itself by infighting.
i'm not posting this series over at the gos anymore. i still post other diaries over there (very occasionally) when i'd like some partisan eyeballs on them.
Pentagon considers shooting Russian planes
I don't believe it
Go to war with Russia to protect al-Qaeda? Just perfect.
How Putin has an advantage over us
linnk
This is an important point
We have no clear objectives unless constant turmoil in the region is an objective.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Hold your cards, we have a bingo
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
there is
a 1959 novel called Alas, Babylon in which World War III begins when a US fighter pilot fires on a Russian warplane diving for the airfield at Latakia and instead hits a train and an ammunition dump. But that was in that universe. Not this one.
Chinese, Russian, and American jets have been playing chicken with one another, all over the globe, for months. All these dumbasses need to leave behind their friggin' planes and go work on a farm.
yeah, at least there their shit would fertilize the soil .. /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
heh
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
heh, heh...
the pentagon might be considering it...
but at least according to reuters (see article above) the white house is really pretty much checkmated.
of course there could be some sort of unforeseen catalytic event...
Some "new Pearl Harbor," to coin a phrase … ?
Some new Gulf of Tonkin incident, some new USS Maine … ?
Some catalytic event that nobody, I mean really nobody, could ever possibly have foreseen … ?
'zackly, lotlizard nt
gjohn
Post this on kos? I know you get a lot of crap when you post diaries there, but I'd love to see the comments on this.
Have you read the comments about how Obama hasn't started any new wars? I e seen one prominent diarist write how she can sleep better at night because he hasn't started any new wars and has ended two.
I find that funny since the war in Afghanistan is still going on
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
How politicians avoid condemning the Saudis
link
Essence: how evil & absurd is U.S. pro-Saudi, pro-Israel policy?
Essence: while U.S. pro-Saudi and pro-Israel Middle East policy has always displayed aspects of the evil and the absurd, lately the evilness and absurdity have reached such a depth and degree — and observable consequences have become so numerous — that certain basic truths are finally becoming evident to a wider public.
Observers who instinctively self-censor on Middle East related topics welcome the distraction of inane non-issues such as whether Trump insulted McCain's sacrosanct veteranhood.
What deserves to be insulted is McCain's willingness to spread blatant lies as demonstrated here.
Of course practically the entire U.S. elite across the board either prostitutes or censors itself regarding the Middle East, enshrining dishonesty and disinformation as the norm.
In the end, this is just another case of someone publicly playing the weasel in order to confirm that they are an insider who knows the rules.
It's very upsetting to learn about the
start of US policy towards the Saudis especially. It all began with Roosevelt agreeing to protect the Saudi 18th century religion, wahhabism, a cruel, extremist religion, in return for oil deals.
That religion is alive and well in the Middle East and it's the basis of the ISIS extremism.
Pro-Israel that's another story but at its roots there are deals that were made by former western leaders that are at the root of today's ME conflicts.
To thine own self be true.
Hillary Up, Bernie Down in Latest Polls
Debbie's plan is working. Keep Bernie out of the news as much as possible, keep Democratic voters in the dark. I expect things will change a little after the first debate but not all that much since I believe it will be held at 2:30 am with no working lights or microphones.
Meanwhile, did Firefox decide Adobe Flash is bad again?
morning shahryar...
i expect that little debbie and her happy henchmen will do whatever it takes to deliver the party nomination to a party hack with deep 1% credentials.
i haven't been having problems with flash lately. usually when i do, updating manually to the most recent version seems to do the trick.
Why Syria is Russia's Stalingrad
If a map can speak a thousand words, then this one is well worth studying:
http://трымава.рф/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5-%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B0.jpg
Keep in mind that thousands of the Islamists now fighting in Syria are Chechens and at least hundreds are Uighurs. A goodly number of these Russian and Chinese fighters are surely among the 10,000+ CIA-trained, -armed, -funded, and -backed "anti-Assad" forces who are becoming "battle-hardened" in Syria.
The article below (from which the map is taken) on current events in the Middle East from a Russian perspective, explains why Syria is Russia's Stalingrad in this brave new world of WW3:
http://fortruss.blogspot.com.ar/2015/09/why-syria-is-russias-stalingrad....
"Do you realize what you have done?" - Vladimir Putin, Speech before the United Nations General Assembly, September, 29, 2015
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
Help?
I don't know why my first, crucial link
above is not appearing properly.
I'm on my cell phone. Can anyone
provide a proper, click-able map link
for me (and us all)?
Thanks!
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
testing...
Many thanks! n/t
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
"They just don't want a job"
link
Where have I heard this before?
heh...
isn't that part of the republican catechism?
if you can hire and fire anytime, all the time, with
some companies it's even not possible to sign a six month rental contract because people are not sure if they can keep their jobs for six months. May be that's an exception, but there are jobs and companies that just are that bad. How many people walk away from a bad job because it's just doesn't make sense to continue.
https://www.euronews.com/live
That's me!
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
British int'l airport tactics come to America
The DHS just seized without a warrant the Stockton mayor's computer at SFO and would not let him leave until he gave up the password.
http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Stockton-mayor-was-briefly-detained-...
Wasn't it not that very long ago that we watched British authorities similarly detain Greenwald's partner David Miranda at Heathrow until he likewise
gave up the passwords to his electronics?
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
wow, the stockton mayor must be a terrist!
some interesting further reading:
66 Percent of Americans Now Live in a Constitution-Free Zone
The Government's 100-Mile "Border" Zone - Map
Xi whiz! — Mayor Silva isn't a person of color, either.
http://www.stocktongov.com/government/council/mayor.html
http://blog.simplejustice.us/2015/09/12/feds-but-it-looked-really-spy-ish/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/us/politics/us-drops-charges-that-prof...
Arne Duncan to leave. The next guy is as bad
When the boss hires both the employee and his replacement you can be sure that they'll either both be good or both be bad...because what's really happening is that the boss' ideas are implemented. He hires someone to do what he wants done.
So Arne Duncan is leaving, to be replaced by John King.
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/02/445285920/meet-the-next-secret...
In this article we get the first sign of trouble...
We're talking about someone to be in charge of public schools.
Problem #2
Problem #3
here's #4
Boy, will Obama be steamed when he finds out who he's nomninated! Because Obama's a good man and doesn't make decisions lightly.
i think that the only way to stop the charter movement...
is for lefties to start their own charter schools with a leftist curriculum in large numbers.
heh
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Giving you high Marx for an idea that makes a lot of Zinns.
Let's start Corbyn this school privatization trend.
Hola Jose', Que Pasa
ISIS , al-Nusra, or Army of Conquest, who cares what they call them. We are meddling and creating more enemies. Isn't it strange that the same crowd that advocates state's rights wants to butt into conflicts all around the globe. They are always picking sides and do not understand that our enemies, enemy is not our ally. They both hate us.
Krauthamer was especially smarmy and bullshitty today. He is such a putz.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
evening tim...
krauthammer is almost always smarmy, even when he (only very occasionally) has a point worth making.
xenophobia mixed with homicidal aggression seems to be what drives the rethugs these days. i keep waiting for trump to advocate exterminating most of the world as a "buffer zone" to "keep 'merka safe."
Evening Joe, do you know people who want to study in Germany?
Heh, no tuition, free education ... hmm...may be one should think it over twice...
Eight reasons not to study in Germany
okay, sounds awful to me today, but back then, when I was young and a student (now I don't know what this guy studied, but it's a bit better if you study sciences and engineering) it was not that much different.
Yeah, you better take real good notes. But I wonder which teaching assistant would give his handwritten notes to the students to copy, but teaching assistants are there to explain everything what the real prof expect you to understand on the fly of his bravado lectures. I am telling the truth here, I was such a teaching assistant and that's how it was. (I had a chemistry prof who wrote the biggest chemical formulas on the blackboard by hand faster that a stenographer a text and that several times during a one hour lecture, so he had to erase all his beautifully handwritten formulas constantly to refill the blackboard with new ones ... boy I was so scared to flunk his exams, every Monday morning, organic chemistry, absolute horror. But he was good, just hard to learn from him).
Yes, we didn't have home works at the University. When I came to the US and took my first classes in Biostatistics, I couldn't believe the amount of homework they gave us. It felt like I was in highschool. I guess the Germans are so "mean" to say, at University level a student is supposed to know how to learn the material on his own without be guided by home works to pass the exam. Free thinkers etc. ha.ha. Free taking short cuts too, if you could pass the exams, nobody cared how you did it.
But I heard also that much has changed these days.
So, in case Sanders as President would give the Americans tuition free college, don't dream anymore to study in Germany... it may not be worth it. Especially don't study something like sociology or any humanities. That is blah, blah. Engineering might be ok:-)
That was a little trip down memory lane. Sorry for that. But better than reading about war all the time.
https://www.euronews.com/live
oops, I think I should have posted that in the OT, sorry /nt
https://www.euronews.com/live
evening mimi...
so what you're saying is that you have to work hard and really want to learn if you're going to accept germany's free education? heh, as regards chemistry, my inorganic chemistry textbook was an incredible sleep aid. 10 minutes of reading in it and i would be snoring away. i don't know how i managed to pass that class, but i knew by the middle of the semester that it would be my last chemistry class.
oh, tell me about it,
it's a bit different in Germany, if you want to become a chemist, you have to study it at least 10-12 semester, which means five to six years, chemistry and nothing but chemistry. I never wanted to become a Chemist, but a medical doctor, a physician, but couldn't get in into Medical School right away and had to be on a waiting list. So I started out to do all the chemistry and biology and physics classes that were required in the Chemistry department. That meant I had to take inorganic chemistry for two years, ie four classes and then later advanced inorganic chemistry again. I didn't mind the lab work (which was A LOT), but the lectures were awful and I really was barely passing. When I finally was accepted to Medical School, I had already three and a half years of a full Chemistry program behind me and I just had to finish it, because I was too tired to have done it all in vain.
And on top of all it, I basically just "had chosen" to become a Medical doctor, because the man I fell in love with, thought it would be great if we were a couple, him an engineer and me a medical doctor, like me a female Albert Schweitzer and he a high level political guy in his home country. Well... love makes you blind, doesn't it, at least when you are nineteen.
I would never study Chemistry again in my life, never, ever. That I actually found a job as a Chemist was a miracle back in the days. The only thing the diploma got me was for me to defend myself, when people wanted to put me down as a dumb girl who goes with a negro and must be "a little not so serious". They did shut up when they found out, what I did and who I was. But other than that, it was the most useless field a woman in the sixties could have chosen in Germany. All the years I was the only woman, just the first two years we were three. The other girls were definitely smarter than me. One married away after the second year and didn't finish her studies, the other one, a girl from Greece, married her Chemistry Assistant Prof and graduated with honors. Definitely a smart way to get where you need to go.
Later on I did regret to never had read and studied history and/or law and then I just wanted my own bookstore to read everything I missed reading in my twenties and thirties. Sigh. Now I am mid sixties and still haven't read what I wanted and my mind is getting tired.
Good Night.
https://www.euronews.com/live
the morning after "thought" ...
You know "The Thoughts are Free" song, right? I like this video and put it in my sigline at the kos for a while.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j54HIGk_AEI]
Here is a line from the lyrics:
I think I have found out now, what are my problems I have with comments on the gos and some authors, that lead me to ban myself.
The thoughts expressed online in comments they "don't flee past like nighttime shadows" anymore. (BTW I think I would translate the German version of "fliehen vorbei" with "fly by" or "pass by" and not with "flee past", but that's just me).
The thoughts are not free anymore on the internet, that's what it is. They are stuck there for very long time. And they can be shot or killed or manipulated. So, the great internet isn't the paradise of "free expression". It's a delusion.
That's why I will do my little bit to make that comment above as invisible as I can, though I really don't mind having said what I said, as it will hurt nobody but myself, if at all.
Expect the comment to be edited into nothingness.
Good morning. It's a new day.
https://www.euronews.com/live
I swilled a 5 hour energy to go to the gym
Can you tell?
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
sounds dangerous...
i hear that a lot of those energy formulas are pretty hard on the heart.
My heart is already broken
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
broken hearts are not mendable ...
they heal themselves with lots of scars and somehow one always lives with some kind of pain being reminded now and then of the scars. When the mind breaks too that's when it gets ... dark as in getting nowhere where is still hope and some light.
Great song.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Thank you Joe, especially for the Naomi Kline video
about the movie based on her book This Changes Everything made by her husband Avi Lewis, who is the son of Stephen Lewis, a great Canadian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Lewis
I can't wait to see the film.
To thine own self be true.
morning marilyn...
i'm very much looking forward to the film as well. i appreciate the idea that it might be uplifting as opposed to depressing.
Good evening, Joe, really great tonight.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
thanks el! nt
T.E.B. ...
Just popping in, Joe, to say I am still reading The Evening Blues (and a few other diaries here that don't appear at DKos).