Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues shouter Jimmy Rushing. Enjoy!
Jimmy Rushing + Billy Taylor - Boogie Woogie
“It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of Philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, it has set up that single, unconscionable freedom -- free trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.”
-- Karl Marx
News and Opinion
Thanks to WikiLeaks, We See Just How Bad TPP Trade Deal is for Regular People
Among the many betrayals of the Obama administration is its overall treatment of what many people refer to as "intellectual property" – the idea that ideas themselves and digital goods and services are exactly like physical property, and that therefore the law should treat them the same way. This corporatist stance defies both reality and the American Constitution, which expressly called for creators to have rights for limited periods, the goal of which was to promote inventive progress and the arts.
In the years 2007 and 2008, candidate Obama indicated that he'd take a more nuanced view than the absolutist one from Hollywood and other interests that work relentlessly for total control over this increasingly vital part of our economy and lives. But no clearer demonstration of the real White House view is offered than a just-leaked draft of an international treaty that would, as many had feared, create draconian new rights for corporate "owners" and mean vastly fewer rights for the rest of us. ...
Congress has shown little appetite for restraining the overweening power of the corporate interests promoting this expansion. With few exceptions, lawmakers have repeatedly given copyright, patent and trademark interests more control over the years. So we shouldn't be too optimistic about the mini-flurry of Capitol Hill opposition to the treaty that emerged this week. It's based much more on Congress protecting its prerogatives – worries about the treaty's so-called "fast track" authorities, giving the president power to act without congressional approval – than on substantive objections to the document's contents.
That said, some members of Congress have become more aware of the deeper issues. The public revolt against the repugnant "Stop Online Piracy Act" two years ago was a taste of what happens when people become more widely aware of what they can lose when governments and corporate interests collude. ...
Thanks to WikiLeaks, we now have at least partial transparency. The more you know about the odious TPP, the less you'll like it – and that's why the administration and its corporate allies don't want you to know.
TPP Exposed: WikiLeaks Publishes Secret Trade Text to Rewrite Copyright Laws, Limit Internet Freedom
TPP Leak Confirms the Worst: US Negotiators Still Trying to Trade Away Internet Freedoms
After years of secret trade negotiations over the future of intellectual property rights (and limits on those rights), the public gets a chance to looks at the results. For those of us who care about free speech and a balanced intellectual property system that encourages innovation, creativity, and access to knowledge, it’s not a pretty picture. ...
The leaked text, from August 2013, confirms long-standing suspicions about the harm the agreement could do to users’ rights and a free and open Internet. From locking in excessive copyright term limits to further entrenching failed policies that give legal teeth to Digital Rights Management (DRM) tools, the TPP text we’ve seen today reflects a terrible but unsurprising truth: an agreement negotiated in near-total secrecy, including corporations but excluding the public, comes out as an anti-user wish list of industry-friendly policies. ...
The document Wikileaks has published contains nearly 100 pages of bracketed text—meaning it includes annotated sections that are proposed and opposed by the negotiating countries. The text is not final, but the story it tells so far is unmistakable: United States negotiators (with occasional help from others) repeatedly pushing for restrictive policies, and facing only limited opposition, coming from countries like Chile, Canada, New Zealand, and Malaysia. ...
The latest TPP leak confirms our longstanding fears about these negotiations. The USTR is pushing for regulations that would, for the most part, put the desires of major content and patent owners over the needs of the public. No wonder the negotiators want to keep the process secret.
Leaked Documents Reveal Obama Administration Push for Internet Freedom Limits, Terms That Raise Drug Prices in Closed-Door Trade Talks
Secret documents published today by WikiLeaks and analyzed by Public Citizen reveal that the Obama administration is demanding terms that would limit Internet freedom and access to lifesaving medicines throughout the Asia-Pacific region and bind Americans to the same bad rules, belying the administration’s stated commitments to reduce health care costs and advance free expression online, Public Citizen said today.
The leak shows the United States seeking to impose the most extreme demands of Big Pharma and Hollywood, Public Citizen said, despite the express and frequently universal opposition of U.S. trade partners. Concerns raised by TPP negotiating partners and many civic groups worldwide regarding TPP undermining access to affordable medicines, the Internet and even textbooks have resulted in a deadlock over the TPP Intellectual Property Chapter, leading to an impasse in the TPP talks, Public Citizen said.
The Obama administration’s proposals are the worst – the most damaging for health – we have seen in a U.S. trade agreement to date. The Obama administration has backtracked from even the modest health considerations adopted under the Bush administration,” said Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s global access to medicines program. “The Obama administration’s shameful bullying on behalf of the giant drug companies would lead to preventable suffering and death in Asia-Pacific countries. And soon the administration is expected to propose additional TPP terms that would lock Americans into high prices for cancer drugs for years to come.”
“It is clear from the text obtained by WikiLeaks that the U.S. government is isolated and has lost this debate,” Maybarduk said. “Our partners don’t want to trade away their people’s health. Americans don’t want these measures either. Nevertheless, the Obama administration – on behalf of Big Pharma and big movie studios – now is trying to accomplish through pressure what it could not through persuasion.”
The Bipartisan Fight Against Secret Trade Deals
The United States is currently writing new deals with 11 other Pacific Rim countries and with the European Union. These deals will lead to more pressure to frack for shale gas, increase potentially unsafe seafood imports, privatize our municipal water systems and privatize our food safety inspection system. ...
In the past week strong bipartisan opposition to Fast Track has emerged on Capitol Hill. Four different letters were sent by Members of Congress to President Obama expressing their opposition to Fast Track—in total 185 Members of Congress have spoken up against it, including 158 Democrats and 27 Republicans.
Make sure Congress votes no. Take action today and tell your Member of Congress to “Vote No on Fast Track”.
Americans’ personal data shared with CIA, IRS, others in security probe
U.S. agencies collected and shared the personal information of thousands of Americans in an attempt to root out untrustworthy federal workers that ended up scrutinizing people who had no direct ties to the U.S. government and simply had purchased certain books.
Federal officials gathered the information from the customer records of two men who were under criminal investigation for purportedly teaching people how to pass lie detector tests. The officials then distributed a list of 4,904 people – along with many of their Social Security numbers, addresses and professions – to nearly 30 federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Food and Drug Administration.
Although the polygraph-beating techniques are unproven, authorities hoped to find government employees or applicants who might have tried to use them to lie during the tests required for security clearances. Officials with multiple agencies confirmed that they’d checked the names in their databases and planned to retain the list in case any of those named take polygraphs for federal jobs or criminal investigations.
It turned out, however, that many people on the list worked outside the federal government and lived across the country. ... Moreover, many of them had only bought books or DVDs from one of the men being investigated and didn’t receive the one-on-one training that investigators had suspected. In one case, a Washington lawyer was listed even though he’d never contacted the instructors. Dozens of others had wanted to pass a polygraph not for a job, but for a personal reason: The test was demanded by spouses who suspected infidelity.
The unprecedented creation of such a list and decision to disseminate it widely demonstrate the ease with which the federal government can collect and share Americans’ personal information, even when there’s no clear reason for doing so.
Hedges: Jeremy Hammond Exposed State's Plan to Criminalize Democratic Dissent
Federal Judge Claims DOJ Disregards Equality Under Law With Wall Street
United States District Judge Jed Rakoff has given a scathing rebuke to US Attorney General Eric Holder’s Too Big To Jail rationale for not prosecuting crimes committed by Wall Street banks and executives. Judge Rakoff, in a speech before the New York Bar Association, labeled Holder’s view on Wall Street and rich Wall Street executives as “disturbing.”
To a federal judge, who takes an oath to apply the law equally to rich and to poor, this excuse — sometimes labeled the `too big to jail’ excuse –- is disturbing, frankly, in what it says about the department’s apparent disregard for equality under the law. In fairness, however, Mr. Holder was referring to the prosecution of financial institutions, rather than their CEOs. But if we are talking about prosecuting individuals, the excuse becomes entirely irrelevant.
Apparent disregard for equality under the law. That is a somewhat breathtaking indictment from a sitting federal judge against the Justice Department. Judge Rakoff is saying, with little in the way of equivocation, that Eric Holder’s Justice Department has a different set of rules for the rich. That Wall Street is above the law.
Glenn Greenwald On One Thing All Americans Should Agree Must Change
Over 3,000 US prisoners serving life without parole for non-violent crimes
The ACLU's report, A Living Death, chronicles the thousands of lives ruined and families destroyed by the modern phenomenon of sentencing people to die behind bars for non-violent offences. It notes that contrary to the expectation that such a harsh penalty would be meted out only to the most serious offenders, people have been caught in this brutal trap for sometimes the most petty causes. ...
The report's author Jennifer Turner states that today, the US is “virtually alone in its willingness to sentence non-violent offenders to die behind bars.” Life without parole for non-violent sentences has been ruled a violation of human rights by the European Court of Human Rights. The UK is one of only two countries in Europe that still metes out the penalty at all, and even then only in 49 cases of murder. ...
Again, the offences involved can be startlingly petty. Drug cases itemised in the report include a man sentenced to die in prison for having been found in possession of a crack pipe; an offender with a bottle cap that contained a trace of heroin that was too small to measure; a prisoner arrested with a trace amount of cocaine in their pocket too tiny to see with the naked eye; a man who acted as a go-between in a sale to an undercover police officer of marijuana – street value $10.
Occupy Wall Street activists buy $15m of Americans' personal debt
Rolling Jubilee spent $400,000 to purchase debt cheaply from banks before 'abolishing' it, freeing individuals from their bills
A group of Occupy Wall Street activists has bought almost $15m of Americans' personal debt over the last year as part of the Rolling Jubilee project to help people pay off their outstanding credit.
Rolling Jubilee, set up by Occupy's Strike Debt group following the street protests that swept the world in 2011, launched on 15 November 2012. The group purchases personal debt cheaply from banks before "abolishing" it, freeing individuals from their bills.
By purchasing the debt at knockdown prices the group has managed to free $14,734,569.87 of personal debt, mainly medical debt, spending only $400,000.
"We thought that the ratio would be about 20 to 1," said Andrew Ross, a member of Strike Debt and professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University. He said the team initially envisaged raising $50,000, which would have enabled it to buy $1m in debt.
"In fact we've been able to buy debt a lot more cheaply than that."
National defense is supported by a "single payer" system. Why can't health care be that way?
National defense, i.e. the military, is a single payer system. We seem to have no problem with that. The government pays and private firms make the tanks, bombs, planes and ships.
Why can't we make national health care, for everybody, a single payer system? ...
Does the government require citizens to buy "defense insurance?" No, it just pays for everyone's defense.
There's always money for war:
NATO erects $1bn HQ as members slash military spending
NATO is constructing a bold, new headquarters in Brussels, but the $1 billion project is raising eyebrows at a time of economic hardship and military spending cuts. It also suggests the Western military bloc is here to stay.
The sprawling steel-and-glass complex, which features four extending claw-like structures extending on both sides and a grandiose 105-foot-high (32 meters) entrance, will be headquarters for more than 4,000 NATO staff from the 28 member states starting in 2016.
Although the old NATO headquarters was built in 1967, and is said to have outlived its usefulness, critics are questioning the timing of the lavish new construction, coming as it does amid a deep economic crisis for many European nations. ...
NATO alliance members have shared the expenses of the new complex at a time when many are being forced to cut key military capabilities - not to mention social welfare plans - due to a tight budget squeeze.
Afghan Murder Mystery: Civilian death probe curbed as US rebuffs cooperation
Blue Ribbon Task Force Says Army Field Manual on Interrogation Allows Torture, Abuse
A report by a multidisciplinary task force, made up largely of medical professionals, ethicists and legal experts, has called on President Obama to issue an executive order outlawing torture and other abusive techniques currently in use in the military's Army Field Manual on interrogations. The Task Force, which wrote the report for The Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP) and the Open Society Foundations (OSF), has also called on the Department of Defense to rewrite the Army Field Manual in accordance with such an executive order.
The recommendation for action on the Army Field Manual (AFM) was the second finding and recommendation in the report (PDF):
The president has issued an executive order prohibiting the use of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and has repudiated Justice Department legal memoranda authorizing its use. However, the Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations, which binds both military and CIA interrogators, permits methods of interrogation that are recognized under international law as forms of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Such methods include sleep deprivation, isolation, and exploitation of fear.
Besides recommending that the Department of Defense (DoD) revise the AFM itself, the Task Force report calls for the United States to "accede to the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture, which requires the creation of an independent domestic monitoring body for the purpose of preventing torture against individuals in custody." ...
A lot has been made in recent years about how the New York Times is reticent to use the word "torture" to describe what is under any common sense or legal definition torture. That is certainly a disgraceful adaptation to the U.S. government's policies on interrogation, which include Bush and Cheney's outright advocacy of torture to the Obama administration's refusal to investigate or hold accountable those who tortured. ...
[T]he Obama administration is itself involved in torture, from its approval of extraordinary rendition to the documented operation of detention centers, ostensibly under the administration of allied forces, where torture takes place. (See this 2011 report in The Nation by Jeremy Scahill about CIA torture sites in Somalia.) Other accusations of torture by agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation exist as well.
RT Inside 'Modern Gulag': Gitmo inmates in limbo as Obama idles
"Authorities must give assurances to Sarah Harrison that she can return to her country safely"
Reporters Without Borders is concerned about what may lie in store for British journalist and WikiLeaks editor Sarah Harrison if she decides to return to the United Kingdom after spending several months in Moscow with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
In a statement posted on the WikiLeaks website on 6 November, Harrison said she had left Russia and was now in Germany, where she has joined a group of Berlin-based journalists and activists, including Laura Poitras and Jacob Applebaum, who are investigating NSA surveillance practices.
On her arrival in Berlin on 2 November, WikiLeaks’ lawyers strongly advised her not to return to the United Kingdom.
“David Miranda’s detention at Heathrow Airport in August under the Terrorism Act and the nine-hour interrogation that ensued have given us an idea of the welcome that could await Sarah Harrison in Britain.” Reporters Without Borders said.
Abbas: Palestinian peace talks team resigns
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday his peace negotiators had resigned over the lack of progress in U.S.-brokered peace talks clouded by Israeli settlement building.
The development would mark a new low point for the talks with Israel that resumed in July and which officials from both sides have said have made little headway. ...
In a statement to Reuters TV on Wednesday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat did not elaborate on the report of his resignation, but said the sessions with Israel were frozen.
"In reality, the negotiations stopped last week in light of the settlement announcements last week," he said.
The Evening Greens
'Nature Is Not for Sale' Forum Challenges Corporate Push to Financialize the World
Backed by its headline sponsor of the Royal Bank of Scotland, recently under fire for backing mountaintop removal, the World Forum on Natural Capital will hold its inaugural conference in Edinburgh, Scotland from Nov 21-22.
Among the organizations heading to conference are BP, Shell, Nestle, Coca Cola and the Inter-American Development Bank, where attendees will talk about putting a price tag on "biodiversity and ecosystems, in order to manage these risks and opportunities and enable a better future for all.”
In an op-ed published in The Scotsman on Wednesday, Jonathan Hughes, conservation director at Scottish Wildlife Trust, which organized the forum, writes that "corporate giants are beginning to understand, and even embrace, nature conservation," and, he continues,
By valuing natural capital in a similar way to financial, manufactured, social and human capital, we can make decisions on the management of our environment based not just on the vitally important moral case for saving nature, but also on hard-nosed economics.
[A] concurrent "counter forum," entitled Nature Is Not for Sale, has been organized by the World Development Movement, Counter Balance, Re:Common and Carbon Trade Watch in Edinburgh, because, the groups say:
Following the launch of the Natural Capital Declaration, promoted by major global banks at the occasion of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Rio in June 2012, business and governments are working to assign monetary value to services provided by nature’s different services, under the banner of the so-called “Green Economy”. [...]
We believe nature’s value is priceless and has to be protected. That’s why we reject this new wave of commodification and financialization of nature promoted by governments, corporations and banks. Putting a price on nature will not save it from pollution and destruction. To the contrary, these new commodities will only guarantee extra profits to the few, while leaving the environment at risk in the long-run.
Ecosystems and their services are common resources and must not be enclosed for private gain. Compliance with existing environmental regulation would be replaced with financial compensation. Instead of saying that a polluter does not have the right to pollute our common resources, markets sell that right. Once a price is put on nature, all of our common resources can be bought, sold and packaged. Worse, as we have seen in the recent financial crisis, a market can be manipulated, repackaged and resold as financial derivatives, bonds and other products.
Ultimately, accounting natural capital will result in increased exploitation of natural resources instead of protecting them.
UN: 2013 is seventh warmest year since records began
World Meteorological Organisation says provisional figures for 2013 underscore the longterm trend of global warming
This year is the seventh warmest since records began in 1850, with a trend of extreme weather events and the impact of storms such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines aggravated by rising sea levels, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Wednesday.
A build-up of manmade greenhouse gases in the atmosphere meant a warmer future was now inevitable, WMO secretary general Michel Jarraud said in a statement at the UN climate talks in Warsaw.
The WMO, giving a provisional overview, said the first nine months of the year tied with the same period of 2003 as seventh warmest, with average global land and ocean surface temperatures 0.48C above the 1961-1990 average.
"This year once again continues the underlying, long-term trend," towards higher temperatures caused by global warming, Jarraud said. The WMO said it was likely to end among the top 10 warmest years since records began in 1850.
Fossil Fuel Industry Receives $500 Billion in Subsidies by Governments Worldwide
Elsipogtog prepares to confront SWN’s machinery
LAKETON, NB–Warriors from Elsipogtog First Nation were preparing Tuesday evening to confront the machinery owned by a Houston-based energy firm conducting shale gas exploration work just north of the Mi’kmaq community.
SWN Resources Canada is expected to roll out its thumper trucks Wednesday in an area along Hwy 11 and about 46 kilometres north of Elsipogtog First Nations. The company laid out a string of geophones Tuesday which will be used to capture the vibrations emitted by the thumper trucks to create imagery of shale gas deposits in the area.
The majority of residents in Elsipogtog want to stop SWN’s exploration work fearing its completion would lead to the extraction of shale gas deposits through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Several warriors and supporters gathered around a fire Tuesday evening along Hwy 11 preparing for Wednesday’s appearance of the thumper trucks. Several planned to stay at the site overnight, with some sleeping in tents and others beneath tarps strapped to branches.
“When the sun rises I will be there waiting,” said Sequoyah Bernard, 19, one of the Warriors. “Whatever we decided to do that at that time, we will do.”
Scientists Warn of Extreme Risk: Greatest Short-term Threat to Humanity is From Fukushima Fuel Pools
The Japanese nuclear agency recently green-lighted the removal of the spent fuel rods from Fukushima reactor 4′s spent fuel pool. The operation is scheduled to begin this month.
The head of the U.S. Department of Energy correctly notes:
The success of the cleanup also has global significance. So we all have a direct interest in seeing that the next steps are taken well, efficiently and safely.
If one of the pools collapsed or caught fire, it could have severe adverse impacts not only on Japan … but the rest of the world, including the United States. Indeed, a Senator called it a national security concern for the U.S.:
The radiation caused by the failure of the spent fuel pools in the event of another earthquake could reach the West Coast within days.
'Trust Us': World's Most Perilous Nuclear Operation Set To Begin
With effort to remove fuel rods from Fukushima's Reactor 4 expected any day, few trust TEPCO's assurances
No one here trusts Tokyo Electric."
That's how Reuters, quoting former local resident Ichiro Kazawa, concludes their latest reporting on the pending and enormously dangerous operation scheduled to begin inside the crippled Reactor 4 building at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
As Common Dreams has previously reported, the operation to remove the fuel rods from Reactor 4 has nuclear experts sounding every alarm bell they can find in order to draw attention to the potentially devastating results if something goes wrong with the effort.
And as Kazawa's comments make clear, very few find trust in the promises coming from the plant's owner, the Tokyo Electric Company (or TEPCO).
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
The significance of British comedian Russell Brand’s call for revolution
Meet the Punk Rocker Who Can Liberate Your FBI File
Tehran Diary: Four Iranians on Life in the Time of Sanctions
A Little Night Music
Jimmy Rushing w/Count Basie - I left my baby
Jimmy Rushing - Going To Chicago
Count Basie with Jimmy Rushing - Take Back My Baby
Jimmy Rushing - After You've Gone
Jimmy Rushing - Mr. Five by Five
Jimmy Rushing - Bad Loser
Jimmy Rushing & Count Basie - Don't You Want A Man Like Me?
Count Basie and his Orchestra with Jimmy Rushing - Evenin'
Bennie Moten & Jimmy Rushing - As Long As I Love You
Jimmy Rushing - See See Rider
Jimmy Rushing - Every day I have the blues
Jimmy Rushing - Russian Lullaby
Jerry Garcia - Russian Lullaby
Jimmy Rushing - Sent For You Yesterday
Jimmy Rushing - Am I To Blame
Jimmy Rushing With Count Basie - Money Is Honey
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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