The Evening Blues - 10-5-15

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Motown stars Mary Wells and Stevie Wonder. Enjoy!

Mary Wells - My Guy

“If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.”

-― Victor Hugo


News and Opinion

UN rights chief says Afghan bombing may be war crime and that US-led forces are likely to blame

The U.S. military said it conducted an air strike on Saturday near a hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in the northern city of Kunduz that killed 19 staff and patients, including three children, the medical aid group said. ...

U.N. Human Rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein led a chorus of condemnation, without saying who carried out the strike, and that an assault on a hospital could amount to a war crime.

The medical charity said its staff phoned military officials at NATO in Kabul and Washington during the morning attack, but bombs continued to rain down for nearly an hour. ...

MSF said it had given the location of the hospital to both Afghan and U.S. forces several times in the past few months, most recently this week, to avoid being caught in crossfire. ...

Zeid called for a "swift, full and transparent" investigation into the bombardment, which, if established as deliberate in court, he said, could be a war crime.

"This event is utterly tragic, inexcusable, and possibly even criminal," he said.

War Crime in Afghanistan?: Outrage After U.S. Airstrike on Hospital Kills 22 Patients & Staff

One Day After Warning Russia of Civilian Casualties, the U.S. Bombs a Hospital in Afghanistan

Yesterday afternoon, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power marched to Twitter to proclaim: “We call on Russia to immediately cease attacks on Syrian oppo[sition and] civilians.” Along with that decree, she posted a statement from the U.S. and several of its closest authoritarian allies — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the U.K. — warning Russia that civilian casualties “will only fuel more extremism and radicalization.”

Early this morning, in the Afghan city of Kunduz, the U.S. dropped bombs on a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)). The airstrike killed at least nine of the hospital’s medical staff, and seriously injured dozens of patients. “Among the dead was the Afghan head of the hospital, Abdul Sattar,” reported the New York Times.  ...

For its part, the U.S. military in Afghanistan issued a statement acknowledging that it carried out airstrikes, claimed they were conducted “against individuals threatening the force,” and conceded that “the strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.” But the NYT reported: “From early on, the Taliban had respected the hospital’s request not to bring weapons inside, according to staff members, and the hospital had been a refuge in the shattered city of Kunduz. It was a place where the wounded from all sides were treated.”

MSF’s full, frequently updated, hard-to-read account of all of this is here. ...

This last week has been a particularly gruesome illustration of continuous U.S. conduct under the War on Terror banner, including under the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president who celebrates himself for “ending two wars” (in the same two countries where the U.S. continues to drop bombs). The formula by now is clear: bombing whatever countries it wants, justifying it all by reflexively labeling their targets as “terrorists,” and then dishonestly denying or casually dismissing the civilians they slaughter as “collateral damage.” If one were to construct a list of all the countries in the world based on their credibility to condemn Russia for using this exact rhetorical template in Syria, the U.S. would literally be last on that list.

CNN and the NYT Are Deliberately Obscuring Who Perpetrated the Afghan Hospital Attack

Much of the world spent the last 48 hours expressing revulsion at the U.S. airstrike on a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. It was quite clear early on that the perpetrator of the attack was the U.S., and many media outlets and other organizations around the world have been stating this without any difficulties.

“U.S. Airstrike Kills 19 at Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Afghanistan,” states the straightforward Wall Street Journal headline, under which appears this equally clear lede: “A U.S. airstrike in the Afghan city of Kunduz killed at least 19 people at a hospital run by international medical-aid organization Doctors Without Borders early Saturday, prompting condemnation from humanitarian groups and the United Nations.” ...

But not CNN and The New York Times. For the last 36 hours, and up through this moment, this is the extraordinary opening paragraph in the featured article on the attack from the cable news network:

cnn.png

We’re bravely here to report that these two incidents perhaps coincidentally occurred at “about” the same time: there was a hospital that blew up, and then there was this other event where the U.S. carried out an airstrike. As the blogger Billmon wrote: “London 1940: Civilians throughout the city were killed at about the same time as a German air strike, CNN reports.”

The entire article is designed to obfuscate who carried out this atrocity. ...

The article in the NYT‘s Sunday print edition illustrated the pains the paper was suffering to avoid framing the story as what it was: a U.S. airstrike on a hospital. ... That led Kade Crockford, in exasperation, to offer this obvious editorial suggestion:


[For further updates, see this story just up today from Glenn Greenwald: The Radically Changing Story of the U.S. Airstrike on Afghan Hospital: From Mistake to Justification - js]

Mission Accomplished Redux: 1 Year After "End" to War in Afghanistan, Aid Workers Reveal Real Story

Obama demands details on Afghan clinic airstrike

President Barack Obama says he expects a full accounting of the circumstances surrounding the deadly bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan that killed 19.

Obama says he's asked the U.S. Defense Department to keep him informed about the full investigation into what happened. He says he'll wait for those results before making a judgment about the circumstances.

It's unclear exactly who bombed the hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Kunduz. The group has said all indications point to the U.S.-led international coalition. Afghan forces backed by U.S. airstrikes have been battling the Taliban in Kunduz.

The president was sending his deepest condolences to the medical workers and civilians killed. He says the U.S. will continue working with Afghanistan's government and its overseas partners to promote security in Afghanistan.

Death Toll in Hospital Bombing Climbs to 22 as MSF Demands Answers

Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders — also known as Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF — said on Sunday that the death toll from a suspected US airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan has climbed to 22, with 12 MSF staff and 10 patients, including three children, killed in the attack.

The humanitarian organization issued a statement on Sunday denying that Taliban fighters were firing from its hospital in Kunduz at Afghan and NATO forces before the bombing, which also left dozens of people seriously wounded. ...

MSF issued a statement on Sunday demanding "a full and transparent investigation into the event be conducted by an independent international body," saying "an internal investigation by a party to the conflict would be wholly insufficient." MSF said it was operating "under the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed."
"Not a single member of our staff reported any fighting inside the MSF hospital compound prior to the US airstrike on Saturday morning," the statement said, noting that the facility was full of staff and patients. "We reiterate that the main hospital building, where medical personnel were caring for patients, was repeatedly and very precisely hit during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly untouched."

Wikileaks: US State Dept atempted to influence media to 'balance' interview w/ Assange

Turkey Says Russia Violated Its Airspace and Is Escalating Syria's Crisis

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Monday that Russia's entry into the conflict in Syria has escalated the crisis, and that Moscow has described its warplane's violation of Turkey's airspace as a "mistake."

A Russian aircraft entered Turkish airspace near the Syrian border on Saturday, prompting Ankara to scramble two F-16 jets to intercept it and summon Moscow's ambassador in protest, the foreign ministry said today.

Speaking in a live interview on HaberTurk TV, Davutoglu also said that Turkey's rules of engagement were clear, whoever violates its airspace. ...

President Tayyip Erdogan has criticized Russia's air strikes in Syria, launched last week, as a "grave mistake." Moscow says it aims to weaken the Islamic State (IS) group but Western powers see the actions as support for President Bashar al-Assad.

Who is Russia bombing in Syria? The militant groups determined to fight to the death

Few moderates remain in the war-torn country and those that do exist lack military strength

The controversy over who exactly the Russians are bombing in Syria is the consequence of a genuinely confusing situation on the ground combined with a heavy dose of propaganda. 

A big distinction is made between Isis and the other leading rebel organisations such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham - the main three Islamist groups which dominate the armed opposition to President Assad’s regime. ...

More recently, Turkey, Qatar and other Sunni states have been trying to rebrand al-Nusra as more moderate than Isis and therefore internationally acceptable as an ally against President Bashar al-Assad. It led a coalition of other groups to capture Idlib City and other important positions in March and May.

Ahrar al-Sham also sought to benefit from re-labelling, but these changes were directed primarily at foreign powers rather than a domestic audience within Syria.

The sad truth is that after four years of war in Syria there are few moderates left and those that do exist lack military strength. The Free Syrian Army was always a mosaic of factions and is now largely ineffectual. But it is important to take on board that Syria is in the midst of a genuine civil war with a core of people on all sides who believe they must fight to the death.

US Plans to Escalate Syrian Airstrikes to ‘Hem In Russia’

President Obama insists that the US remains as committed as ever to fighting ISIS in Syria. Despite that, the announcement of two new planned escalations in Syria are being couched almost entirely as being aimed at Russia, suggesting the US is seeing the war as a chance to one-up Russia first and foremost. ...

Officials say the hope is that, with more American warplanes in the air over a wider chunk of ISIS territory, that would make less territory for Russian warplanes to operate in, effectively hemming them in and limiting their ability to strike ISIS themselves.

Though US officials say that the initial consideration of this plan predates Russia’s airstrikes, the emphasis on limiting Russia’s operations suggests that this, and not some sudden belief that a few more strikes would change the face of the ISIS war, is the real reason the administration suddenly decided to go ahead with the plan.

Gitmo detainee 'Shaker Aamer is on hunger strike for not being released but we are close to get him out’ - lawyer

A US Drone Killed This Man's Family. He Asked For Simple Apology. Obama Said 'No'

The administration of President Barack Obama is refusing to formally apologize for the drone strike that killed the family members of Yemeni man Faisal bin Ali Jaber—who has spent months battling in the courts for justice or, short of that, mere acknowledgement of his loss.

The 2012 bombing killed Faisal's nephew Waleed bin Ali Jaber, a police officer, and brother-in-law Salem bin Ali Jaber, a local imam reportedly known for preaching against al-Qaeda, when it struck their village of Khashamir.

After Faisal traveled to the U.S. in 2013 to discuss his family members' deaths with the White House, his relatives "were given a plastic bag containing $100,000 in sequentially-marked U.S. dollar bills as a condolence payment," according to the human rights organization Reprieve.

Seeking formal restitution, Faisal launched a lawsuit against Obama earlier this year charging that the bombing in 2012 amounted to the unlawful and wrongful killing of innocents.

"What is the value of a human life? The secret payment to my family represents a fraction of the cost of the operation that killed them," Faisal wrote in a June op-ed announcing the lawsuit. "This seems to be the Obama administration's cold calculation: Yemeni lives are cheap. They cost the President no political or moral capital."

'More dangerous than Isis': power cuts leave Iraqis boiling with rage

Under a scorching sun, a man in faded blue overalls hung from a boom on the back of a truck, attempting to stitch together some unpromising bundles of electrical cables.

“We are in an endless game of fix and repair,” said Faris, a young, earnest engineer as he watched his colleague grapple with ancient wires that needed welding back into a battered electricity grid, itself a relic of the Saddam era. ...

More than a decade after the US invasion – and more than $40bn (£26bn) of investment later – Iraqis must still make do with limited electricity. In a country with one of the world’s largest oil reserves, this is a matter of great exasperation for locals.

“People here get a few hours of electricity every day, so when the current comes there is a huge demand: everyone plugs in their fridges and air conditioners, the old network is overloaded and transformers fry and cables melt,” said Faris. “We work three shifts, 24 hours a day, trying to patch up the old network and we can’t keep up.”

When summer temperatures peak above 50C (122F), it’s a matter of life and death – a far more emotive issue than Isis and the sectarian divide. This summer, as temperatures surged and tempers frayed, thousands of people staged a series of protests, pressing into city centre squares to denounce the corruption that riddles the system.

It is ordinary folk who bear the brunt of this crisis, while the elite find ways to survive – or even profit from – the problem.

More Than 100 Palestinians Reported Wounded as Clashes Erupt in Jerusalem

Clashes erupted on Sunday between Palestinian youths and Israeli security forces across the West Bank, with more than 100 Palestinians reported wounded after a violent stretch in Jerusalem that included a pair of stabbings that targeted Israelis.

Palestinians took to the streets to protest a ban on entering Jerusalem's Old City imposed by Israeli authorities after a pair of stabbing attacks left two ultra-Orthodox men dead and three others wounded. Soldiers reportedly dispersed the demonstrators with teargas, stun grenades, and live ammunition.

Confrontations broke out in several Palestinian refugee camps, at two Israeli security checkpoints, and in the Isawiyya neighborhood, the home of a Palestinian man was shot to death by police after he stabbed a 15-year-old Israeli early on Sunday in Jerusalem's Musrara neighborhood, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

This is an interesting article about what the US empire has been doing for the last 50 years in Colombia. As you might expect, assassinations, torture, disappearances and massive numbers of deaths were on the menu of US policy. Here's an excerpt to get you started:

Misrepresentation of the Colombian Conflict

A week and a half ago news emerged from Havana that the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the Colombian government had reached a framework for a final peace agreement to be signed within six months. This was hailed as a breakthrough in the half-century-old conflict and an opportunity to bring peace to the people of Colombia. But by adopting the government’s narrative, mainstream media have failed to recognize the primary cause of the violence and the inevitability that it will continue in the future. ...

“As in many other Latin American countries, we can find the seeds of present-day social inequality and strife in the concentration of Colombia’s land and resources under the control of a tiny minority, matched by the progressive dispossession of the majority of people, which originated with colonialism in the sixteenth century,” explains Jasmin Hristov in her book Blood and Capital: The Paramilitarization of Colombia.

After the FARC developed as the armed wing of the Communist Party in Colombia, the counterinsurgency doctrine – developed by the US military and codified in manuals distributed as early as the 1960s – taught the US’s Colombian counterparts to view any advocacy for social justice or democratic reform as a form of Communist insurgency. In addition to armed rebels, clergy, academics, labor leaders, human rights workers, and other members of civil society became potential insurgent targets.

To further extend their reach into Colombian society, the government legally authorized paramilitarism in 1965 with Plan Lazlo to form “civilian defense forces” armed and incorporated into the Colombian military system. These forces serve the government’s goal of preserving the status quo by carrying out their dirty work through the use of death squads, assassinations, torture, intimidation and disappearances while providing cover and the appearance of distance from the state itself.

The Colombian conflict cannot be understood without recognizing the true nature of the actors involved and the interests they represent. “The paramilitary has never been, and is even less so now, a third actor (the state and the guerillas being the other two), as portrayed in mainstream security discourses,” writes Hristov.

The Catalan people have spoken. Will the Spanish government listen?

On 27 September Catalonia’s voters went to the polls and with a record 77.4% turnout gave a win in every single electoral district to the political forces whose campaign promise was, if elected, that they would follow a “roadmap” towards Catalan independence from Spain. Pro-independence lists obtained 48% of the votes and 72 seats out of 135, whereas unionist lists got 39% of the votes and 52 seats.

These plebiscitary elections were the only way possible to give the Catalan people the vote on the political future they have long called for, after the Spanish government’s longstanding refusal to allow an independence referendum. The vote was the culmination of an incredible four years of mass citizen mobilisation. Our independence movement is not a sudden whim, not something dreamt up by a political party, or dominated by a single figure. It is the people who, on Catalonia’s national day, 11 September, come out year after year on to the streets in their millions, peacefully demonstrating with a smile, songs and flags to call for independence; for Catalonia to become a new state in Europe. ...

The Spanish government seems to think that if it pretends nothing is wrong, “the Catalonia problem” will just go away. However, what was once an internal matter for Spain to resolve has now taken on an international perspective, as foreign parliaments and even governments wonder why, despite our calls for dialogue, Madrid refuses to sit down and talk. My last meeting with President Rajoy was 14 months ago. We have requested a dialogue over and over again. Our hands are extended, yet the fist in Madrid is never unclenched.

The people who turned out in historic numbers to vote on 27 September for pro-independence clearly want to live in their own country, a free country.

Gosh Ben, I wonder if there was anything that you could have done when you were running the Fed to have helped bring about the outcome that you now think should have happened...

Ben Bernanke says Wall Street executives should have gone to jail

Former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke says some Wall Street executives should have been jailed for their roles in the financial crisis that gripped the country in 2008 and triggered the great recession.

Billions of dollars in fines have been levied against major banks and brokerage firms as a result of the economic meltdown that was in large part triggered by reckless lending and shady securities dealings that blew up a housing bubble.

But in an interview with USA Today published on Sunday, Bernanke said in addition to the corporations, individuals should have been held accountable. “It would have been my preference to have more investigations of individual actions because obviously everything that went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm,” he said.

TPP deal: US and 11 other countries reach landmark Pacific trade pact

Pacific trade ministers including the US, Australia and Japan have reached a deal on the most sweeping trade liberalization pact in a generation, which will cut trade barriers and set common standards for 12 countries, an official familiar with the talks said on Monday.

Leaders from a dozen Pacific Rim nations are poised to announce the pact later on Monday. The deal could reshape industries and influence everything from the price of cheese to the cost of cancer treatments.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership would affect 40% of the world economy and would stand as a legacy-defining achievement for Barack Obama, if it is ratified by Congress.

Lawmakers in other TPP countries must also approve the deal.

The final round of negotiations in Atlanta, which began on Wednesday, had got stuck over the question of how long a monopoly period should be allowed on next-generation biotech drugs, until the United States and Australia negotiated a compromise.



the horse race


Sanders Vows to Stop 'Disastrous' TPP as Ministers Seal Deal for Corporate Elite

Amid a last minute scramble, leaders from the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries announced Monday that they had reached agreement on a sweeping trade deal, one that critics, including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, say will slash standards and protections for both consumers and workers—with impacts to be felt across the globe. ...

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was ... quick to condemn the deal. Saying he was disappointed but not surprised by the "disastrous" agreement, Sanders added: "Wall Street and other big corporations have won again. It is time for the rest of us to stop letting multi-national corporations rig the system to pad their profits at our expense."

The compromise was reached after five days of round-the-clock negotiations in Atlanta, Georgia. U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly "spent recent days contacting world leaders to seal the deal." ...

Senator Sanders said he "will do all that I can to defeat this agreement." in the U.S. Senate. "We need trade policies that benefit American workers and consumers, not just the CEOs of large multi-national corporations," he added.

From the "Blind Hogs sometimes find truffles" department:

Trump: Middle East Would Be More Stable With Saddam and Gadhafi

Says Ousting Assad In Syria 'Going to Be the Same Thing'

Speaking today on NBC’s Meet the Press, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump cautioned against further intervention in Syria, noting that the US largely has no idea who these rebels they’ve been funding and arming are, and predicting that Syria would go the way of Libya and Iraq, toward more chaos, if Assad was ousted.

Pressed on whether this meant he believed the region would be more stable with Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein still in power, he confirmed it was “not even a contest,” saying Libya isn’t even really a country anymore, and ISIS came out of the removal of Saddam in Iraq. ...

Trump has been campaigning, like materially all of the Republican field, as a hawk, but is showing a lot more nuance in recent weeks, including unveiling an economic plan that would cut the defense budget, with an eye on massive savings to be achieved by eliminating corruption and fraud in spending.

Media ignores Bernie Sanders support surge

With Call for 'Political Revolution,' Bernie Sanders Goes Big in Boston

By some counts, at least 32,000 had shown up to support senator's call for progressive reforms on Saturday

Sen. Bernie Sanders drew overflowing crowds to his Boston, Massachusetts presidential campaign rally Saturday night as he called for political revolution, racial justice, and gun law reform, among other progressive issues.

Tens of thousands of supporters turned out at the Boston Convention Center to see Sanders speak—skyrocketing numbers that are now typical for the senator from Vermont whose run at the White House for 2016 once seemed like a long shot. ...

Sanders' big night in Boston follows other recent advances, including new polls that show him surpassing Hillary Clinton, his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, in key battleground states. And after publicly eschewing big money and Super PACs at the start of his campaign, Sanders announced on Thursday that he had raised at least $26 million from a collective 650,000 donors.



the evening greens


Naomi Klein on The Leap Manifesto & What a System of Climate and Economic Justice Looks Like

Warmer Winters Slow the Growth of Forest Giants

Spring is arriving ever earlier as greenhouse gas levels rise and global temperatures warm, and the northern hemisphere growing season is now two weeks longer  than it was in 1900.

But, paradoxically, new research shows that forest giants that once responded to the early spring are beginning to slow down—because they miss the chill.

Yongshuo Fu, an Earth system scientist at Peking University, Beijing, and colleagues report in Nature journal that they have measured a slowdown in the response of oaks and other forest citizens to the change in temperatures and carbon dioxide levels.

Where these species, on average, unfolded their first leaves four days earlier, with every 1°C rise in temperature, they now do so only 2.3 days earlier for every additional 1°C.

The reason is that, to take full advantage of the ever-earlier spring, these deciduous species first need to feel a period of chill. And as temperatures on average rise, the extent of true winter chill diminishes.

The researchers concede that there may be other or additional reasons why alder (Alnus glutinosa), silver birch (Betula pendula), horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), beech (Fagus sylvatica), lime (Tilia cordata), oak (Quercus robur) and ash (Fraxinus excelsior) seem to be slowing in their leafy response.

But since many deciduous trees depend on a frosty spell to release them from their periods of dormancy, it seems a likely factor.

10 Million at Risk of Hunger Due to Climate Change and El Niño, Oxfam Warns

At least ten million of the poorest people face food insecurity in 2015 and 2016 due to extreme weather conditions and the onset of El Niño, Oxfam has reported.

In Oxfam’s new report called Entering Uncharted Waters, erratic weather patterns were noted including high temperatures and droughts, disrupting farming seasons around the world.

Countries are already facing a “major emergency,” said Oxfam, including Ethiopia where 4.5 million people are in need of food assistance due to a drought this year.

Almost three million face hunger in Malawi as a result of erratic rains followed by drought. These conditions have caused a stifling in food production and a rise in food prices.

Christian Aid reported that the production of maize, Malawi’s staple food, has dropped by 30 percent in 2014, while maize prices have risen between 50 and 100 percent.

Central American farmers have been coping with a drought for almost two years, also disrupting its maize production and decreasing access to sufficient food.

Oxfam warns that conditions will worsen due to the incoming El Niño, which could be the “most powerful” since 1997

Naomi Klein & Avi Lewis: Climate Change Could Be Catalyst to Build a Fairer Economic System

'Once-In-A-Millenium' Flooding Creates 'Otherworldly Scenes' in South Carolina

South Carolina's once-in-a-millennium flooding this weekend left at least seven people dead and much of the state paralyzed—and as rains continued into Monday morning, officials warned that the deluge is likely to worsen. ...

Climate scientists have linked South Carolina's catastrophic rains to climate change.

"Joaquin has been traveling over a record-warm ocean surface and undoubtedly that has contributed to its rapid intensification," Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, told The Huffington Post last week. "In a very basic sense, warmer ocean surface temperatures mean there is more energy available to strengthen these storms. So we expect more intense hurricanes in general in a warmer world."

And as Bobby Magill noted in Climate Central last year, "Charleston is also among the East Coast’s most vulnerable metropolitan areas to rising seas and a changing climate, which may threaten nearly $150 billion of infrastructure along the South Carolina coast. In the past century, the Atlantic has risen more than a foot along the coast near here and could rise an additional 5 feet by 2100, according to research on climate change’s impact on the Southeast released in November and used as part of the Third National Climate Assessment."


Also of Interest

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

From Inside Rikers Island, a Harrowing Look at the Torture of Solitary Confinement

Sneezing monkey and walking fish among new species discovered in Himalayas

Syria, the Times and the Mystery of the "Moderate Rebels"

The Hope Behind Putin’s Syria Help

Syria crisis: The West wrings its hands in horror but it was our folly that helped create this bloodbath

Abbas’ last hurrah?

Hundreds of Canadian Artists Slam Anti-Terror Law for Its 'Direct Attack on Creative Arts, Free Expression'

‘Rape Rooms’: How West Virginia Women Paid Off Coal Company Debts

Wikileaks vs. the Empire: the Revolutionary Act of Telling the Truth


A Little Night Music

Mary Wells - Drop in the bucket

Mary Wells - Your Old Standby

Mary Wells - Make Me Yours

Mary Wells - Can't You See You're Losing Me

Mary Wells - You Beat Me to the Punch

Mary Wells - One Who Really Loves You

Mary Wells & Smokey Robinson - Two Lovers Medley

Mary Wells + Marvin Gaye - The late late show

Little Stevie Wonder - Fingertips

Little Stevie Wonder - Contract On Love

Little Stevie Wonder - I call it pretty music, but the old people call it the blues

Stevie Wonder - Happy street

Little Stevie Wonder - Wondering

Stevie Wonder - This Little Girl

Stevie Wonder - Uptight!

Stevie Wonder - Kiss Me Baby

Stevie Wonder - Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Stevie Wonder - We can work it out

Stevie Wonder - Superstition

Stevie Wonder - Free

Stevie Wonder - Sir Duke

Stevie Wonder - Higher Ground



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joe shikspack's picture

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snoopydawg's picture

The GOP and the DEMS who have worked so hard to sell out what's left of America, the middle class and the poor by passing the TPP!
Obama has spent the last 7 years working on getting this bill passed with help from Hillary and Kerry.
I believe it's one of the reasons he was selected to run for president. Another reason was to continue PNAC's goals of destabilizing the Middle East.
I don't think he ever had any plans to do the things he said he would do during his first campaign. Go back and look at videos from that time and see him smirk after he says " YES WE CAN!"

And of course he's mad at Russia for bombing the terrorists that we trained to help us overthrow Assad.
One reason for overthrowing him is to cut Russia's pipelines from supplying natural gas and letting another corporation do it instead.
I don't have the link to the article I read that talked about this. It may have been on counterpunch.

And they're still trying to cover their asses on the hospital bombing. The general in charge said that the afghan government asked us to do it because the Taliban was using it as a shield or some other bullshit.
Why anyone would think that Hillary would be different from Obama is beyond me, but I keep seeing comments about how Obama is the best president EVER!

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

obama and hillary are some of the best flunkies that the warmongers, the wall street crooks and the rest of the 1% ever hired.

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lotlizard's picture

The arc of John Kerry from antiwar veteran to Kissinger lite is also breathtaking in its audacity.

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joe shikspack's picture

for the warmongers.

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face. I consider white straight men 's appearance to be fair game (and the likes of Bobby Jindhal who pretend to be).

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joe shikspack's picture

it's his voice (that stentorian, droning monotone) of his that repulses me.

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is repulsive about that specimen.

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Shahryar's picture

I can't write it quite like it sounds.

That's his 2004 acceptance speech. It was what the kids call a downer. Or maybe they call it something else now. Those of us, and there are a lot, who remember when he seemed to be for peace were not thrilled with the militaristic tone of that speech.

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joe shikspack's picture

i remember hearing that "reporting for duty" crap and thinking that it's all downhill from here.

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janis b's picture

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I wonder what 1971 Kerry would say to 2015 Kerry?

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mimi's picture

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janis b's picture

you guys are hot tonight!

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I couldn't help but noticing how the rhetoric has really ratcheted up this week.
I'm not just talking about the testosterone-driven, penis-waving between Washington and Moscow. Although there is more than enough of that.

I find the propaganda even more interesting.
For instance, on Russia's side, consider these two headlines:
Putin 'sending 150,000 soldiers to Syria to WIPE OUT evil Islamic State'
Russians Moving Artillery, Ground Forces to Hama, Syria

I call bullsh*t on both of those headlines.
First of all, 150,000 troops? Seriously? That's laughable.
And Hama? Has anyone looked at a map recently?

This is nothing but pure, unadulterated bullsh*t. You can find lots of other headlines about how devastating Russia's bombing has been.
Seriously. After 4 years you think that the rebels are seeing anything new?

Not to be outdone, Washington has also started its own homegrown bullsh*t program.
U.S. Aims to Put More Pressure on ISIS in Syria
It's a more modest headline, but look at the context.

President Obama last week approved two important steps to set the offensive in motion over the coming weeks, officials said. Mr. Obama ordered the Pentagon, for the first time, to directly provide ammunition and perhaps some weapons to Syrian opposition forces on the ground. He also endorsed the idea for an increased air campaign from an air base in Turkey, although important details still need to be worked out.
Together, these measures are intended to empower 3,000 to 5,000 Arab fighters who would join more than 20,000 Kurdish combatants in an offensive backed by dozens of coalition warplanes to pressure Raqqa, the Islamic State’s main stronghold in Syria. Plans are also moving forward to have Syrian opposition fighters seal an important 60-mile part of the country’s border with Turkey to cut off critical supply lines of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

Really? Northeast Syria means the Kurds. Well, last I heard the Kurds have absolutely no intention of marching on a major city like Raqqa.
And who are these unnamed arab fighters? There are almost no Assad forces, or FSA, left in that part of the country.
As for sealing the border with Turkey, that's what the Kurds intended to do before Turkey said "no you are NOT". And this was before Turkey started bombing the Kurds.
In other words, I'm calling bullsh*t on this story too.

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joe shikspack's picture

it looks like there is a huge propaganda push going on, it's going to be increasingly difficult to find any credible news from syria as this situation plays out. the good thing, though, is that this time around we have access to many sources of media that were not available during the cold war so that we can compare the propaganda of many states against each other.

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lotlizard's picture

“Neutralizing” John Lennon: One Man Against the “Monster”

You gotta remember, establishment, it's just a name for evil. The monster doesn't care whether it kills all the students or whether there's a revolution. It's not thinking logically, it's out of control.
    —John Lennon (1969)

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joe shikspack's picture

lennon was relentlessly hounded by the establishment because he committed the unpardonable sin, being a charismatic spokesman against their evil wars and making it cool to be anti-establishment.

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mimi's picture

with which they can think illogical and there is no stopping them from going out of control, if you hack their heads off, they grow back. ... ready for a monster horror video?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNGrDbORK8k]
I mean our little drones are nothing against those Kraken ...
good night.

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mimi's picture

and gave up after the eights headline. Then I came here and I made it through all headlines to the end. It feels like the news collection from hell. I really didn't read any for more than a paragraph or two. I think I go back to the last EB from last week and see what I haven't read in there. Then I go to my twitter feed and see what's worth keeping in there. After that I go to sleep.

This whole bombing shit everywhere around the world has to stop. Obama can't even apologize to a man who has lost his family through his drone strikes. Hands him dollar bills in a bag? Since when can you buy yourself a clean conscience from your own sins? That was a very low sinking feeling I had reading that article about Obama's condolence payment. Ok, I will read now some fairy tale with a happy end, where the prince kisses the princess and they lived happy ever after. That will put me to sleep.

BTW, the best thing of today's EB is the quote.

Have all a good night.

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joe shikspack's picture

happy reading!

have a great night.

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mimi's picture

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Shahryar's picture

in the shouter sense. Here's the flip side of her first hit (which was "Bye Bye Baby"). This is "I Don't Want to Take a Chance".

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joe shikspack's picture

that berry gordy fellow really had an ear for talent.

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/05/1428029/-After-thousands-laid-o...

There were stories of bossnapping around 2009 or so and now....

Good diary but the paeans to Gandhi ticked me off. I started this comment thread (with 2 comments) :
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1428029/57829331#c39

He preached it to the oppressed but never to the oppressors. I have run into so-called anti-imperialist White liberals who drip with white privilege crow about how Palestinians and others should protest non-violently, invoking Gandhi. Utter nonsense. Next, these specimens will be lecturing rape victims to say a prayer while confronting the rapist. Fools. Stupidos.

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joe shikspack's picture

Income inequality leads to one thing: Violence.

this error permeates the article and leads to bad conclusions.

let's set this straight - income inequality is violence.

it is the direct result of exploiters (or an exploiter class, more accurately) creating the conditions of scarcity of human survival needs in order to enslave and commodify other humans to systematically extract their labor.

what the enslaved masses do to seek redress of their grievances is usually somewhat less than proportional to the force arrayed against them by the exploiter class.

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my view too. Income inequality = offensive violence from oppressors. The response from workers is defensive. No wonder the author invoked Gandhi though defending the workers.

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lotlizard's picture

Want to get readers or listeners' subconscious mind to accept your premises and severely constrain the discussion before it even starts? Just use a little sleight of hand in the wording.

For example, if you're an I player, frame I/P discussions as

I's action: did it, or will it, lead to P violence?

and hope no one has the presence of mind to say

Let's get this straight: I's action is violence (and has been all along).
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media (mis?)coverage of the hospital bombing. And I see a 3rd one :

https://theintercept.com/2015/10/05/the-radically-changing-story-of-the-...

The standard pattern :
First deny, then justify and keep changing the story. And truth comes out in 30 years (max) when docs are declassified.

I am betting on the standard non-answers as the story keeps changing : 30 (wonder what's with that number?) terrorists hiding were killed, #2 Al-Qaeda man was killed etc etc. What else am I missing?

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joe shikspack's picture

What else am I missing?

some rhetoric condemning the taliban for using the msf civilians as human shields?

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link

Of the past six one-month bill auctions, five sales were offered at a zero yield.

In the secondary market, some bills have been yielding slightly below zero or around zero for weeks. On Monday, the yield on the one-month bill traded at negative-0.02% and the three-month yield was zero. An investor who holds the one-month bill through maturity will log a moderate capital loss, but that is the price the buyer has been willing to pay to obtain the bills.

This shouldn't happen.
3month.jpg

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link

(MarketWatch) — The current U.S.regulatory structure designed to prevent another financial crisis is “Balkanized,” a “mess” and likely to fail when needed, experts said.

“The current U.S. institutional set-up is likely to fail in a crisis, and will be doing less to prevent a crisis than it should be,” said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, at a two-day conference on financial stability sponsored by the Boston Federal Reserve.

Posen said that U.S. regulators, including the Fed, don’t have the tools or the mandates from Congress that they need.

Posen was especially critical of the umbrella group of regulators, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, that was set up by Dodd Frank to identify and deal with financial stability risks.

He said FSOC is chaired by the Secretary of Treasury, who is the most political member of the group.

“To me, the FSOC is a mess,” Posen said.

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how the giant ponzi scheme that is our economy is so "resilient". The 1% always seem to win. Anything on the scale of 2008 should have pushed us all into flooding the streets but despite the massive outrage, it all subsided. And it is business as usual.

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negative interest for our back accounts, adjusted for inflation?

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MarilynW's picture

extensive coverage of the war crime against Medecins Sans Frontieres. I feel sick over that. MSF closed up the hospital because they are not suicidal. Being in a US "protectorate" is dangerous.

PS: I like your new Green logo!

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To thine own self be true.

janis b's picture

and very inviting.

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joe shikspack's picture

this is apparently the first hospital that the us has bombed that had people in it whose lives matter, who may be more than "collateral damage." i guess obama will have to apologize. then we can get back to bombing the crap out of those brown people.

i've been wanting to upgrade the graphics for the c99 version of eb for a while and i finally had time to get one done - glad you like it - thanks!

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shaharazade's picture

Activist groups vowed to continue their protest against the deal. “The TPP is a wishlist for monopolistic corporations that inherently benefits giant multinational companies while undermining small businesses and startups,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight For the Future. “US lawmakers are in the spotlight now, and they should know that the public is watching them closely and overwhelmingly expects them to vote down this terrible deal.”

No way will this be voted down. It's fast tracked and neither side of the aisle is about to stop this mother fucking nasty trade deal. They all love it. It is just what they need to keep their nasty in place and legal. Welcome to the NWO wherein workers of all stripes and nationalities will be so screwed. We the workers need to globalize to combat this nasty 'trade agreement' that makes us all redundant cause the globalized Man might lose some money. I cannot believe that the Democrat's in congress and the WH are pumping this piece of shit as something we should accept as both workers and humans. How sick is this? Just a another nail in the coffin for human progress everywhere.

We're getting it from all sides nowadays. From global bloody useless war to free trade deals from hell. I say no way, but then again what will any of the elected representatives we voted for do to stop this pig deal? Nothing that will stop it, It's a done deal, a secret super dupper deal that we ordinary people have to realize is the inevitable way forward. Where's our Corbyn? What the fuck is the problem with the Democrats who think this is hunky dory? The TPP sucks for everyone globally and why oh why are the Dems. fast tracking this?

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The chances of Congress voting against this is less than zero. Even if 99% of the public hates it, and goes out to protest it (which will never happen), Congress has been bought and sold.

The only hope we have, and its a slim one, is overseas nations being unable to pass it.

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snoopydawg's picture

Placed?
If so, then I would like to see Bernie stand up and do it. Otherwise, IMO, what he's been saying during his campaign are just empty words.

Obama promised us all kinds of things, yet even before he was elected, he broke his promise to filibuster the FISA bill, yet voted for it.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

shaharazade's picture

for FISA I quit working for OFA. I lived about 6 blocks away from his early Portland primary headquarters and had spent 6 weeks working full time registering new Dem. Obama voters, canvasing and spreading the Obama hopey, changey thing. My boss understood as many of us quit after he showed his true colors with the FISA vote. She said to remember that Obama the man was not important what mattered was the bottom up movement his candidacy engendered. I feel the same about Bernie's candidacy. It's the people who say 'enough is enough' that matters. Their candidate may not win but they aren't going away as the arrogant global oligarchy has gone too far with their insatiable greed, power lust and killing sprees.

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joe shikspack's picture

She said to remember that Obama the man was not important what mattered was the bottom up movement his candidacy engendered. I feel the same about Bernie's candidacy. It's the people who say 'enough is enough' that matters. Their candidate may not win but they aren't going away as the arrogant global oligarchy has gone too far with their insatiable greed, power lust and killing sprees.

i couldn't agree more. i hope that this time the people stay active after the campaigning ends, because what they are demanding is so much more important than the standard-bearer. i also hope that the lefties who are currently passing their time bitching about bernie's shortcomings will get off their rusty dustys and start organizing around their issues, looking for support within the movement that is mobilizing.

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joe shikspack's picture

i believe that question was resolved in the fast track legislation.

i eager to see what bernie gets up to regarding tpp. this would be an excellent time to take his movement (the nascent "political revolution") out for a test drive.

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janis b's picture

Evening all

Thank you joe, for the 'wells and wonder' at a time of 'ill and stupor'.

Meat is the big winner ...
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1510/S00101/national-government-betrays...

“If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.”
-― Victor Hugo

He, who causes the darkness, is an originator of sin; but still, aren't we also capable and responsible for creating our own darkness ... by not seeing past the pretense?

I am back in my time zone and snail-paced internet connection. Better late than never, right?

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snoopydawg's picture

I wonder if this is true?

Meanwhile, members of the US Congress and the corporate lobbyists who are ‘cleared advisers’ will get to see the deal. Professor Kelsey predicts ‘they will be all over it, and seeking to remove what they still don’t like and add their demands. That will be the first of many opportunities to rewrite the deal as the US moves into an election year. The immediate responses from the US show it will be a dog fight in Congress with almost all the Democrat members opposing the deal and Republicans abandoning Obama in droves.’

The GOP was the ones pushing for fast track, right?

Obama and everyone who votes for this is committing treason according to many websites I've read. They are giving up our national sovereignty to foreign corporations when they can have the ability to sue any state that has banned fracking, raised the minimum wage or any other things that could get in the way of their profits.
Damn all those greedy f*ckers who will stop at nothing to make more money.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

janis b's picture

Maybe it's wishful thinking, but there's this ...

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/05/tpp-or-not-tpp-whats-the...

http://www.citizen.org/documents/statement-atlanta-tpp-ministerial-octob...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/trade-officials-announce-conclusio...

Thanks for inviting us to look at your photographs. They are beautiful. Soon as I can decide between White fence, Half Dome 1, and Snowy Trail in B&W, I will order one.

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joe shikspack's picture

He, who causes the darkness, is an originator of sin; but still, aren't we also capable and responsible for creating our own darkness ... by not seeing past the pretense?

heh, sometimes people shoot out the lights in order to perform sins themselves.

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