This evening's music features Chicago blues harmonica player Big Walter Horton.

Here are some stories from tonight's posting:

Turkey Calls NATO Meeting, Says Territorial Integrity Under Threat

NATO has announced that the North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s decision-making body, will be holding a Tuesday meeting after being called by Turkey invoking an Article 4 request, meaning the country believes its territorial integrity is under threat. ...

ISIS carried out a bombing in southern Turkey, near the Kurdish city of Kobani, killing 32 people last week. Since then, Turkish troops have fought ISIS along the border and carried out airstrikes against ISIS targets in northern Syria. At the same time, Turkey began attacking PKK targets in northern Iraq on Friday, and are accusing the PKK of being behind a bombing that killed two Turkish soldiers Sunday.

Since Turkey is a member nation, NATO is obliged to provide military support to defend its borders from foreign threats. This could be used by hawkish NATO nations, parlaying Turkish sovereignty into an excuse to make the ISIS war a formal NATO operation, and one that would be dramatically escalated in the process.

Turkey’s New “War on Terror” Mainly Targeting Kurds

What was at first announced as a new Turkish turn toward attacks on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on Friday has quickly become largely a campaign against Kurds instead. It is being alleged that the Turkish Air Force launched dozens of strikes against bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party over the border in Iraq on Saturday, and just 4 against Daesh positions in Syria.

Erdogan vs. #ISIS
(BY Marian KEMENSKY)
#Turkey #TurkeyAttackKurdsNotISIS pic.twitter.com/MXuzCKNs33

— Scimonium (@scimonium) July 26, 2015

What is weird about the Turkish campaign against the Kurdish forces is that they have been the only really effective fighters against Daesh with the exception of Shiite militias in Iraq. If you were going to launch a campaign against Daesh, would you do it by damaging Daesh’s most effective foe on the ground?

Early on Sunday Turkish police in the capital of Ankara dispersed hundreds of Kurdish activists who gathered to protest the bombardments, and arrested 25. the headlines say something about the protesters not wanting the campaign against Daesh, but these were mostly Kurds and they weren’t demonstrating in favor of the beheaders. Turkey’s twin campaign has a propaganda element that the press is sometimes falling for. ...

The PKK had had a truce with the Turkish government since 2013, but a PKK spokesman said Saturday that the truce, and any peace process are at an end given the bombing campaign Ankara launched against them.

Chinese shares tumble 8.5 percent in biggest one-day drop since 2007

Chinese shares slid more than 8 percent on Monday as an unprecedented government rescue plan to prop up valuations ran out of steam, throwing Beijing's efforts to stave off a deeper crash into doubt.

Major indexes suffered their largest one-day drop since 2007, shattering three weeks of relative calm in China's volatile stock markets since Beijing unleashed a barrage of support measures to arrest a slump that started in mid-June.

"The lesson from China's last equity bubble is that, once sentiment has soured, policy interventions aimed at shoring up prices have only a short-lived effect," wrote Capital Economics analysts in a research note reacting to the slide.

Beppe: Nationalize Banks to Throw Off 'Anti-Democratic Straitjacket' of Eurozone

Longtime critic of the Eurozone's destructive commitment to austerity, Italian comedian-turned-political activist Beppe Grillo has launched what one news outlet called a "full-throated attack" on the single currency, saying his country should throw off that "anti-democratic straitjacket" by nationalizing its banks and taking a stronger stance against the demands of elite financial interests.

Grillo, who the Guardian says "transformed Italian politics when he launched his anti-establishment Five Star Movement in 2009," called for Italy to exit the Euro in order to guard against the threat of bankruptcy and German-imposed austerity.

In comments written at his blog, Grillo criticized Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras while comparing Germany's conduct during recent bailout negotiations to "explicit Nazism." He said that in the wake of the Greek crisis, Italy should be prepared to use its whopping debt as a weapon against foreign creditors. ...

In a separate interview this week with the Financial Times, Grillo said of the so-called Troika: "They don't care if they have to put tens of millions of people into hunger to balance an account, it's collateral damage. We've entrusted our lives to people who know nothing about life."

Responding to Grillo's comments, Open Europe's Vincenzo Scarpetta told the Guardian and Portuguese business daily Jornal de Negócios: "The Greek deal and negotiations have helped [Italy’s anti-euro parties] make the case that it is impossible to reform the euro from the inside."

Varoufakis claims had approval to plan parallel banking system

Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has claimed that he was authorized by Alexis Tsipras last December to look into a parallel payment system that would operate using wiretapped tax registration numbers (AFMs) and could eventually work as a parallel banking system, Kathimerini has learned.

In a teleconference call with members of international hedge funds that was allegedly coordinated by former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont, Varoufakis claimed to have been given the okay by Tsipras last December – a month before general elections that brought SYRIZA to power – to plan a payment system that could operate in euros but which could be changed into drachmas “overnight” if necessary, Kathimerini understands.

Varoufakis worked with a small team to prepare the plan, which would have required a staff of 1,000 to implement but did not get the final go-ahead from Tsipras to proceed, he said.

The call took place on July 16, more than a week after Varoufakis left his post as finance minister.

Yanis Varoufakis defends secret plan for parallel Greek payment system

Yanis Varoufakis has just released a statement defending his work creating a parallel payment system during his time as finance minister.

The statement, from “the Office of Yanis Varoufakis”, insists that he was fully authorised to carry out the work.

It also criticises the media for their “far-fetched” articles, and denies the claim that he ever planned to hijack all taxpayers tax file numbers [which he does not actually say on the leaked Tapes].

[Here's part of Varoufakis' statement - js]

During the Greek government’s negotiations with the Eurogroup, Minister Varoufakis oversaw a Working Group with a remit to prepare contingency plans against the creditors’ efforts to undermine the Greek government and in view of forces at work within the Eurozone to have Greece expelled from the euro. The Working Group was convened by the Minister, at the behest of the Prime Minister, and was coordinated by Professor James K. Galbraith. (Click here for a statement on the matter by Professor Galbraith).

It is worth noting that, prior to Mr Varoufakis’ comfirmation of the existence of the said Working Group, the Minister was criticized widely for having neglected to make such contingency plans. The Bank of Greece, the ECB, treasuries of EU member-states, banks, international organisations etc. had all drawn up such plans since 2012. Greece’s Ministry of Finance would have been remiss had it made no attempt to draw up contingency plans.

Ever since Mr Varoufakis announced the existence of the Working Group, the media have indulged in far-fetched articles that damage the quality of public debate. The Ministry of Finance’s Working Group worked exclusively within the framework of government policy and its recommendations were always aimed at serving the public interest, at respecting the laws of the land, and at keeping the country in the Eurozone.

Greek insiders: Alexis Tsipras considering November 8 election

Over in Athens prime minister Alexis Tsipras marks six months in office today with his party divided and almost every promise he ever made overturned.

Alexis Tsipras’ political dexterity will be tested again this afternoon when he presides over a critical meeting of his Syriza’s party’s political secretariat. It will not be easy. The coalition of the radical left (if that is what Syriza can now be called) is in shellshock over Tsipras’ embrace of the neo-liberal policies he had once so stridently opposed, in return for talks on a third bailout.`

The argument that no plausible alternative exists is not washing with hardliners who will be in attendance. Indicative of that stance, the Left Platform’s website, ISKRA (so named for the paper set up in exile by Vladimir Lenin) has declared “the battle continues” with hardliners drawing their line in the sand. ...

Tsipras is expected this afternoon to ram home the message that with Greece’s exit from the euro zone presaging assured catastrophe, a third bailout is the only option. “We will demand a central committee party convention,” said one well-placed source who now aligns with the hardliners.

“Tsipras won’t want that because the central committee [Syriza’s governing body] is against the measures but that is what we will do.”

Insiders say Tsipras has a road-map of sorts – one that starts with the new loan agreement being negotiated by August 18, Syriza calling an urgent party conference (which would deal with dissidents) at the end of September and elections being held on November 8.

If Syriza Ruptures, Will Greece's Left Unite to Oppose Austerity?

Feds Regularly Monitored Black Lives Matter Since Ferguson

The Department of Homeland Security has been monitoring the Black Lives Matter movement since anti-police protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri last summer, according to hundreds of documents obtained by The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The documents, released by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Operations Coordination, indicate that the department frequently collects information, including location data, on Black Lives Matter activities from public social media accounts, including on Facebook, Twitter, and Vine, even for events expected to be peaceful. The reports confirm social media surveillance of the protest movement and ostensibly related events in the cities of Ferguson, Baltimore, Washington, DC, and New York.

They also show the department watching over gatherings that seem benign and even mundane. For example, DHS circulated information on a nationwide series of silent vigils and a DHS-funded agency planned to monitor a funk music parade and a walk to end breast cancer in the nation’s capital.

The tracking of domestic protest groups and peaceful gatherings raises questions over whether DHS is chilling the exercise of First Amendment rights, and over whether the department, created in large part to combat terrorism, has allowed its mission to creep beyond the bounds of useful security activities as its annual budget has grown beyond $60 billion.

Social Security Trustees' Report Lacks the Usual Panic

Every year the Social Security trustees issue their report on the financial condition of the program. In the past this release was generally accompanied by some serious deep breathing as reporters warned of multi-trillion dollar shortfalls and the impending bankruptcy of the program. This could be accompanied by appeals on behalf of our children by politicians and advocates of cuts to Social Security.

The panic was largely absent from the reporting this year. ...

For more than two decades there have been well-funded efforts to try to scare the public into supporting cuts in Social Security and/or privatizing the program. The most visible person in this effort has been private equity billionaire Peter Peterson, but many other wealthy individuals have signed up for the cause. ...

The scare story could easily be dismantled for anyone willing to take the time to think it through. Yes, the ratio of workers to retirees will fall in the decades ahead, but it has also fallen during the last five decades. That has not prevented both workers and retirees from enjoying large gains in living standards during this period.

Furthermore, while the multi-trillion dollar shortfalls may be lots of money, they are not especially large relative to the size of our economy. In fact, the projected shortfall for Social Security is well under of 1.0 percent of future GDP, a considerably smaller burden than the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A remarkably under-reported aspect of this story is the sharp falloff in the projection of the combined Social Security and Medicare shortfall. Back in 2008, the combined shortfall for these programs was projected at 2.2 percent of future GDP. In the most recent projections the 75-year shortfall in these programs was projected at less than 1.3 percent of GDP. The main reason is a sharp slowing in health-care costs, which translates into large savings for Medicare.

In case any Democrats are interested in exploring the reasons why lots of people, including those who would seem to be the Democrats' natural constituency don't choose to vote - here's an interesting essay ...

I won't vote in US elections anymore – I don't want to be part of a racist system

After 20 years of casting a ballot in every US election, I’m now done with the electoral system. For many Americans, it’s not difficult to find a reason to stay home, be it inertia or unappealing candidates. But I’m not voting because I cannot participate in the electoral system of a government that doesn’t care if black people live or die.

As black Americans, we’ve grown up with the mantra that our ancestors died for the right to vote, so we should never take voting for granted. This was especially true for black Americans like me, who grew up in Southern states where white-dominated legislatures denied their black neighbors access to the ballot for nearly a century. ... But that narrative didn’t take into account the broader history of how the fight for voting rights fit into the greater civil rights movement. The fight for suffrage was only one of the many strategies that black activists used to advance political autonomy and human rights. The struggle for voting from 1865–1965 was merely a means to an end, not the end itself. ...

Democratic party leadership sees nothing wrong with trotting out the history of anti-black oppression during election season to get black people to come to the polls. Electoral staff on Democratic campaigns pull out the same talking points about how John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson supported civil rights and how many current Democratic politicians participated in racial justice activism back in the 1960s.

Yet these same Democrats can’t be bothered to defend black humanity when we are under attack from nearly every sector of society the rest of the year. And no, Bernie Sanders, it is not enough to talk about economic justice and jobs when black labor is devalued as inherently worthless. And no, Hillary Clinton, rallying women to your campaign means nothing when you refuse to acknowledge how women in black communities are specifically subjugated as black women in this country, including black transgender women, who are constantly under attack from both transmisogynist vigilantes and the racist penal system. And no, Martin O’Malley, you don’t get trot out empty promises about criminal justice reform when as Baltimore’s mayor and Maryland’s governor you personally oversaw one of the most viciously brutal and anti-black penal systems in this country. ...

The electoral system’s grudging acknowledgement isn’t enough for me anymore. These days, I choose to focus my time and energy on the work of activists fighting for genuine liberation, instead of a plutocratic electoral system desperate for legitimacy and relevance in a world that is rapidly leaving them behind.

Also of interest:

The ‘gig economy’ is coming. What will it mean for work?

Can Bernie Sanders Be Less White?

God's Masterpiece or the Devil's Bad Joke?

The Greek Warrior