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!
Tonight's music features blues and gospel singer, guitarist and songwriter Pops Staples and the Staples Singers. Enjoy!
Pop Staples + Bonnie Raitt - World In Motion
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture to heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man; not such as nature may offer as the prodigy of many centuries, but such as may be expected in the ordinary successions of magistracy. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honourable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace."
-- James Madison
News and Opinion
Obama moves to make the War on Terror permanent
The Washington Post has a crucial and disturbing story this morning by Greg Miller about the concerted efforts by the Obama administration to fully institutionalize – to make officially permanent – the most extremist powers it has exercised in the name of the war on terror.
Based on interviews with "current and former officials from the White House and the Pentagon, as well as intelligence and counterterrorism agencies", Miller reports that as "the United States' conventional wars are winding down", the Obama administration "expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years" (the "capture" part of that list is little more than symbolic, as the US focus is overwhelmingly on the "kill" part). Specifically, "among senior Obama administration officials, there is broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade." As Miller puts it: "That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism."
In pursuit of this goal, "White House counterterrorism adviser John O Brennan is seeking to codify the administration's approach to generating capture/kill lists, part of a broader effort to guide future administrations through the counterterrorism processes that Obama has embraced." All of this, writes Miller, demonstrates "the extent to which Obama has institutionalized the highly classified practice of targeted killing, transforming ad-hoc elements into a counterterrorism infrastructure capable of sustaining a seemingly permanent war."
Third Party Presidential Debate
Ecuador ‘very concerned’ about Assange’s health
Ecuador is “very concerned” about the health of Julian Assange after the WikiLeaks founder lost a lot of weight while staying at the country’s embassy in London, a foreign ministry official said while in Moscow. ...
“Assange has visibly lost weight, and we are very concerned for his health,” he said, quoted by the Voice of Russia radio. “In case of his illness we will have to pick among two options: to treat Mr Assange at the embassy or to hospitalise him.” ...
Assange said in an interview published September 30 that his health was “slowly deteriorating” in the embassy, adding that he had “a racking cough”.
He said he was keeping fit by using a running machine, boxing and seeing a personal trainer — reportedly an ex-soldier in Britain’s elite SAS who is now a whistleblower — every other day.
300th Wrongly Convicted American Death Row Inmate Released Thanks to DNA Evidence
The American criminal justice system has some explaining to do. Last week, for the 300th time since 1989, DNA evidence forced the release of a wrongly convicted prisoner, and there are likely thousands more still serving long sentences or awaiting execution on death row for crimes they did not commit.
The most recent case is that of Damon Thibodeaux of Louisiana. In 1996, the then 22-year-old deckhand on a Mississippi River workboat was sentenced to death for the killing of his 14-year-old step-cousin, Crystal Champagne. After 15 years at the notorious Angola prison farm for the crime, Thibodeaux was officially cleared via DNA testing and released on September 28, 2012.
The case illustrates the problems of inaccurate eyewitness testimony, police overreaching and false confessions that so commonly lead to wrongful convictions.
Big London Protests Against Austerity
Thousands protest at parliament in Madrid
Thousands of Spaniards massed outside parliament in Madrid Tuesday yelling in anger at government austerity cuts that they say are punishing the poor. ...
Protestors yelled for the resignation of members of the two main political parties, the ruling conservative Popular Party and the opposition Socialists.'
"I have come to shout and insult them," said Rafael Martinez, 48, an unemployed accountant.
"Spain is suffering from terrible corruption. The same hierarchy is in charge as in the time of Franco," the dictator who ruled Spain over four decades until he died in 1975.
The economic crisis, blamed on the collapse of a speculation-driven real estate boom, has plunged Spain into recession, throwing millions out of work and many families into poverty. Unemployment is close to 25 percent.
Most Greeks Look to Left for Solutions, but Far Right Gaining Strength
Walmart legal troubles mount as Black Friday walkout looms
In the midst of worker strikes in several cities and the looming threat of a mass employee walkout on Black Friday (one of the busiest shopping days of the year), the world’s largest retailer has been hit with a class action lawsuit affecting temporary workers in the Chicago area.
The filing accuses Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and two temporary staffing agencies in the region – Labor Ready Midwest Inc. and QPS Employment Group, Inc. – of breaking minimum wage and overtime laws for temp workers by making them show up early and work through lunch breaks. The lawsuit also alleges that Walmart failed to pay contracted workers the requisite four hours minimum in wages.
Wikileaks cable shows that U.S. Fought to Keep Haitian Wages Down
Two years ago, Haiti unanimously passed a law sharply raising its minimum wage to 61 cents an hour. That doesn’t sound like much (and it isn’t), but it was two and a half times the then-minimum of 24 cents an hour.
This infuriated contractors for American corporations like Hanes and Levi Strauss that pay Haitians slave wages to sew their clothes. ... The U.S. ambassador put pressure on Haiti’s president, who duly carved out a $3 a day minimum wage for textile companies (the U.S. minimum wage, which itself is very low, works out to $58 a day).
The Nation reports that a Haitian family of three (two kids) needed $12.50 a day in 2008 to make ends meet.
Clinton Legacy: "Restoring Slavery" at $300m Haitian Industrial Complex
The Clintons are in Haiti to inaugurate the new $300 million industrial facility touted as "transformative" for the quake-ravaged country, but many wonder if this is simply the next round of imperialism in a country that has been plagued (literally) by outside intervention for too long.
The Caracol Industrial Park, which is hailed as “the centerpiece of the U.S. effort to help the country recover from the 2010 earthquake,” according to Trenton Daniel for the Associated Press, is slated to be built on a remote 617-acre site of farmland, mangroves and coral reefs in the northern part of the country.
Critics of the project believe that the industrial park does little more than replicate failed efforts from the past and will benefit outsiders more than Haitians. Writing for Haiti Liberte, Mona Péralte notes, (translated) "this park is a direct illustration of the role of imperialism in the country namely for exploit [if it] come cheaply, if not restore slavery."
Alex Dupuy, a Haiti-born sociologist at Wesleyan University, adds, "this is not a strategy that is meant to provide Haiti with any measure of sustainable development […] The only reason those industries come to Haiti is because the country has the lowest wages in the region.”
Cue the Math: 350’s Roadshow Takes Aim at Big Oil
McKibben and 350, the folks who brought us the Keystone XL pipeline protests, are now calling for a nationwide divestment campaign aimed at fossil fuel companies’ bottom line. Beginning with student-led campaigns on college campuses, modeled on the anti-apartheid campaigns of the 1980s, they’ll pressure institutions to withdraw all investments from big oil and coal and gas. Their larger goal is to ignite a morally charged movement to strip the industry of its legitimacy.
“The fossil fuel industry has behaved so recklessly that they should lose their social license — their veneer of respectability,” McKibben tells his audience. “You want to take away our planet and our future? We’re going to take away your money and your good name.”
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin'
Netroots Bloggers Mark 10th Birthday in Decline and Struggling for Survival
Remember when Obama was antiwar?
Canadian Government Continues to Choose Dirty Energy Over Democracy - by David Suzuki
Breaking: Finally, Climate Change Enters Presidential Debate Via Third Parties
A Little Night Music
Pops Staples - Down In Mississippi
Pop Staples - Nobody's Fault But Mine
Pop Staples - You got to serve somebody
Pops Staples - Grandma's Hands
Pop Staples Live From The Mountain Stage - Why Am I Treated So Bad
Pops Staples - Love Is A Precious Thing
Staple Singers - Respect yourself
Pops Staples - Waiting for My Child
Pops Staples - I Shall Not Be Moved
Pops Staples - Jesus Is Going To Make Up My Dying Bed
The Staple Singers - This May be the Last Time
Rolling Stones - The Last Time
Pop Staples - Black Boy
The Staple Singers - When Will We Be Paid? + Raise Your Voices High
The Staple Singers - The Weight
The Staple Singers - Freedom Highway
Remember when progressive debate was about our values and not about a "progressive" candidate? Remember when progressive websites championed progressive values and didn't tell progressives to shut up about values so that "progressive" candidates can get elected?
Come to where the debate is not constrained by oaths of fealty to persons or parties.
Come to where the pie is served in a variety of flavors.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." ~ Noam Chomsky
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