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.
|
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features "The Father of Texas Blues," Blind Lemon Jefferson. Enjoy!
Blind Lemon Jefferson - Match Box Blues
"In accordance to the principles of doublethink, it does not matter if the war is not real, or when it is, that victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact."
-- Winston Smith (1984)
News and Opinion
Time to Revive the Peace Movement
It has been 10 years of dormancy for the peace movement: a full decade since the thriving demonstrations of the early Bush years gave way to liberal demands that the focus shift to defeating the president at the ballot box. This fixation remained through the two ensuing presidential elections, which have demonstrated, beyond a reasonable doubt, the futility of this approach to altering American foreign policy. The vibrant and young foot soldiers of Obama’s first election are now seven years older, jaded and frustrated. Most of them are underemployed, over-indebted, and increasingly hopeless about their lot in life. Meanwhile, the elders responsible for luring them into the charade of electoral politics are seeing their safety net whittle away at the hands of an ever-avaricious power elite. This farce of democratic engagement has provided zero dividends, as Americans are worse off than they were a decade ago, and our military posture remains as imperialist and expansive as ever. Some of us resolutely warned against straying off into the electoral forest in 2004, but now is not the time for finger wagging or “I told you so” pronouncements. With the latest vicious bombardment of Palestinians by the Israeli war machine, the concurrent conflagration in Iraq, the rise of a U.S.-backed oligarchy in Ukraine, and continued drone attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia, the time is nigh for a revival of the peace movement.
... And this is what is so unique about the U.S. compared to empires past. We are at war with ourselves. The spoils of conquest are not returned home and invested in extravagant displays of grandeur like in London, Paris or Moscow. Our cities are ratty shitholes by comparison. Our treasury has been plundered by war-makers for decades, leaving our infrastructure dated and decrepit. We lack the social democratic provisions of any of our industrialized counterparts. We are left with inadequate health care, terribly unequal school systems, and primitive levels of workers’ rights and protections. We are one of only a few nations to not provide maternity leave, likewise with not guaranteeing paid vacation time. While most of our European counterparts are now preparing for their annual 4-6 weeks of summer rest, we’ll plod on through the scorching summer heat, not an end in sight.
... The repeated assaults on the Palestinian people will not end until Americans take action. The drones in the Middle East and the clandestine warfare in Eastern Europe will not cease until Americans demand it. The permanent posture of war will continue unencumbered until brave Americans stand up and show another way. Our treasury will continue to be looted by the war makers until we pry what is rightfully ours from their dirty, little hands. The path forward is clear: we diligently organize until we are back to the levels of engagement seen during the first few years of this millennium, when millions lined the streets throughout the world in protest, and the New York Times declared us to be the “Second Superpower.” If we can sustain the pressure for years on end, history tells us that we can fundamentally alter foreign policy through public pressure. Hopefully, liberals have learned their lesson about the uselessness of hoping for change from above, and won’t abscond again.
Israel-Gaza conflict: No truce
Israeli air strikes target Hamas leaders as ceasefire fails
Israeli missiles struck the houses of several senior Hamas figures overnight, as at least seven Palestinians were reportedly killed in the latest escalation of violence.The renewed strikes came a day after the failure of a brief and one-sided ceasefire on Tuesday observed by Israel, but not by Hamas.
Among the residences targeted were those of former interior minister Fathi Hamad and senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, which was destroyed. Zahar was said to be hiding elsewhere at the time of the missile strike.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has said he had "no choice" but to escalate Israel's bombing campaign. "When there is no ceasefire, our answer is fire," he said. ...
Early on Wednesday morning, Israel dropped leaflets and delivered warnings by phone and text that tens of thousands of residents of two Gaza City neighbourhoods, Zeitoun in the south and Shujai'iya in the east, should evacuate their homes before planned strikes and head to the city centre.
Among those ordered to leave were the patients of a rehabilitation hospital.
Fear grips Gaza hospital targeted by Israeli bombs
At Al-Wafa rehabilitation hospital near Gaza City, a handful of doctors and nurses hover over paralysed patients, wondering how to protect them from more air strikes as threatened by Israel.
The patients lie mostly inert in beds lined up in the hospital’s reception, where staff moved them after an Israeli rocket crashed into the fourth floor.
The staff have appealed to international agencies for protection, and say the hospital is known to the Israeli army.
But it was hit again on Tuesday night.
Shortly aftwards, the Israeli army contacted the hospital three times, saying everyone should be evacuated by morning as the air force was planning to intensify its air strikes.
Director Basman Alashi explained that the 14 patients in the facility, many of them paralysed or in a coma, are in no position to be moved.
And even if they were, he said, there is no place to take them.
“There is no place safe in Gaza! If a hospital is not safe, where is?
“We cannot leave our patients, they are helpless. They cannot move, they cannot walk, they cannot eat, they cannot even scratch their heads by themselves,” he said.
Even as he spoke, the sound of shelling rattled the hospital windows. ...
Mercifully, said staff doctor Hassan Sarsur, many of the patients are unconscious and unaware of what is happening.
But for others, the situation is terrifying.
“Several of our female patients are paralysed but conscious, and during the night they were crying with fear and clutching our hands,” Sarsur said.
Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza
Israel has commenced full-scale warfare on the people of Gaza. ...
Israel’s overwhelming use of military force constitutes collective punishment, which is a war crime. The laws of war, also known as international humanitarian law, are primarily found in the Geneva Conventions.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a party, specifically forbids collective punishment. It says, “No protected person [civilian] may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. . . . Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.”
Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians in Operation Protective Edge constitutes a deliberate policy to punish the entire population of Gaza. Since the Palestinians concluded a unity agreement between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza in June, Israel has stepped up the construction of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. ...
The 140 square-mile Gaza Strip, home to 1.7 million people (half of whom are children), is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. It is often described as the world’s largest “open air prison,” as Israel maintains a tight blockade, restricting all ingress and egress.
Since mid-2013, unemployment has dramatically increased and delivery of basic services has decreased. More than 90 percent of the water in Gaza is unsuitable for drinking. The health system is close to collapse, according to the World Health Organization.
Last year, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reported, “Palestinian children arrested by [Israeli] military and police are systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture.”
The committee also concluded that Israel’s “illegal long-standing occupation” of Palestinian land, continued expansion of “unlawful” Jewish settlements, construction of the barrier wall into the West Bank [found by the International Court of Justice 10 years ago to violate international law], and the confiscation of land and demolition of homes and livelihoods “constitute severe and continuous violations of the rights of Palestinian children and their families.” ...
U.S. military aid to Israel also violates U.S. law. The Human Rights and Security Assistance Act requires that the United States halt all military aid to Israel because the latter has engaged in a consistent pattern of gross violation of internationally recognized human rights.
Netanyahu criticised by cabinet members over Gaza crisis
Binyamin Netanyahu's cabinet is in disarray as the Israeli prime minister comes under fire from several of his most senior ministers for his handling of the crisis in Gaza.
The storm of public criticism from his own ranks resulted in the sacking on Tuesday night of the deputy defence minister, Danny Danon, a member of Netanyahu's own Likud party.
Danon told the media on Tuesday that Hamas had humiliated Israel by setting conditions for peace, after Netanyahu said he was willing to accept the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire. ...
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's hawkish foreign minister, split his Yisrael Beiteinu party from Likud – dismantling a crucial alliance for Netanyahu – having accused the prime minister of hesitation over a ground invasion of Gaza.
"All this hesitation works against us. We must go all the way, there is no alternative. We have to end this conflict with the IDF in control of all of Gaza ..." Lieberman said at a press conference on Tuesday night.
Israel Orders 100,000 Gazans Out of Homes, Raising Fear of Invasion
Tensions continue to rise in the Gaza Strip today, with the Israeli military ordering some 100,000 Palestinian civilians to leave their homes pending an “expansion” of the operation, which has so far consisted of airstrikes while have killed nearly 200 Gazans, mostly civilians.
Whether or not that means a full-scale ground invasion is unclear, and Israeli officials are not making their intentions clear in this regard yet, though after the recent ceasefire attempt failed, they are promising more and more escalations.
Florida teen beaten by Israeli police heads back to U.S.
The swelling on his face has gone down, but Tariq Khdeir’s wrists still bear the marks of plastic handcuffs pulled tight as an Israeli border police officer beat him senseless earlier this month as he lay on the ground after being seized during violent Palestinian protests in East Jerusalem. ...
Images of his disfigured face and of the police officer repeatedly punching and kicking him in the head as another officer held him down went viral on the Internet. The State Department said it was “deeply troubled” and demanded an investigation, President Barack Obama brought up the matter with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with the teen.
The Israeli Justice Ministry said later that the officer suspected of beating Tariq had been suspended for 15 days and might face criminal charges.
Now Tariq is returning to the United States _ he was scheduled to be on board a flight that left Israel late Tuesday _ with no charges pending against him. He was detained after the beating incident _ the Justice Ministry said he’d been “allegedly identified by the police as taking an active part in the riots, while masked and carrying a slingshot” _ and held until an Israeli judge ordered him released to nine days of house arrest.
How the Israeli government plans to pursue the case against the officer isn’t clear. Tariq’s family has filed its own complaint accusing the officer of assault, the father said.
Ukrainian refugees flee to Russia from civil war horrors
Isis Marches Further Into Syria Tipping the Balance of Power in the Civil War
Isis fighters have captured much of eastern Syria in the past few days while international attention has been focused on the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. Using tanks and artillery seized in Iraq, it has taken almost all of oil-rich Deir Ezzor province and is battling to crush the resistance of the Syrian Kurds.
Isis is establishing dominance over the opposition to Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, as other rebel groups flee or pledge allegiance to the caliphate declared by the Isis leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, after the capture of Mosul on 10 June. On Monday, the jihadists took over the rebel held half of Deir Ezzor on the Euphrates river, raising their black flag over the city and executing the rebel commander from Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qa’ida affiliate that was previously in control.
The recent Isis advances in Syria, following victories in Iraq last month, are altering the balance of power in the whole region. The opposition military forces not aligned with the Syrian government or Isis are being squeezed out of existence, making obsolete the US, British, Saudi and Turkish policy of backing groups hostile to both Assad and Isis.
Isis is seeking to capture the Syrian Kurdish enclave at Kobani, or Ayn al-Arab, where some 500,000 Kurds are concentrated, many of them refugees from other parts of northern Syria. “Isis have about 5,000 fighters which have been attacking us for the past 13 days using tanks and rockets and American Humvees captured in Iraq,” Idris Naasan, a political activist in Kobani, told The Independent by telephone. “The fighting is very heavy and we have lost three villages we are trying to regain.”
"Iraq Has Already Disintegrated": ISIS Expands Stronghold as Leaks Expose US Doubts on Iraqi Forces
Iraq parliament elects Sunni speaker
The Iraqi parliament named moderate Islamist Sunni politician Salim al-Jabouri as new speaker on Tuesday, state television reported, winning an absolute majority of votes from deputies, in a move that was praised by the United States.
Live television footage broadcast from inside the parliamentary chamber showed the 43-year-old Jabouri being congratulated by other lawmakers.
Juburi won 194 out of the 273 votes cast, with most of the rest deemed invalid and only 19 going to his only rival, an obscure candidate elected to parliament on a secular list.
US drone kills 12 in Pakistan tribal area
At least 12 people have been killed in a US drone attack in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan, sources have told Al Jazeera, the second such attack this week.
... Four missiles fired by the drone targeted a vehicle, local sources said, resulting in the destruction of the vehicle and an adjacent compound.
Al Jazeera cannot independently verify the death toll, as access to the area is restricted. The AP news agency said 15 people were killed, citing two anonymous Pakistani officials.
The strike on Wednesday was the fifth since a six-month hiatus of such attacks by US forces ended in June.
Hat tip dharmafarmer:
Navy Nurse Refuses Gitmo Force Feed Order
A Navy medical officer at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba has refused an order to continue force-feeding hunger-striking prisoners in what one detainee lawyer described as an act of conscientious objection. ...
It is the first known instance of a U.S. service member rebelling against the Pentagon’s force-feeding policy. An unknown number of the 149 detainees at Guantánamo’s Camp Delta have been on hunger strike for the past year and a half to protest their indefinite detention. ...
Last year, civilian doctors writing for the New England Journal of Medicine declared that medical professionals taking part in force-feeding was unethical and called the Guantánamo medical staff to refuse to participate.
Revealed: the hunger strikes of America's most secret foreign prisoners
Sometimes they stopped eating to protest unclean drinking water. Other times they stopped eating because their comrades were placed in segregated housing. Still other times they stopped eating out of dissatisfaction with their access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), their only source of connection to their families and the outside world.
Without any visibility beyond the walls of their prison, non-Afghan detainees that the US holds in almost complete secrecy in Afghanistan have engaged in hunger strikes, the Guardian has confirmed. The hunger strikes are reminiscent, on smaller scale, of those at Guantánamo Bay that seized the world's attention last year.
Confirmation of the strikes, from multiple sources as well as first-hand testimony of a former detainee, comes despite the US military refusing to disclose practically anything about the conditions of confinement for nearly 40 men held in a section of a prison, known as the Detention Facility in Parwan, on the outskirts of Bagram airfield.
While the US no longer detains Afghans at Bagram following a transfer of the prison, it continues to hold 38 non-Afghans there, most of them Pakistanis. Nearly 13 years after 9/11, they comprise the most secretive cohort of detainees still held by the US. ...
Unlike at Guantánamo, non-Afghan detainees at Bagram enjoy no recognized legal right to challenge their detention. They do not see lawyers. The human rights observers who shuttle to and from Guantánamo, munching on fried pickles at the Irish pub at the naval station, never shuttle to Bagram. Only the ICRC ever visits the detainees at Bagram and it insists on secrecy to ensure access.
Keiser Report: Middle class not prospering because it doesn't steal big enough like banksters do
This may be a bigger story than it appears. Breaking the US dollar's role as the sole global reserve currency and diminishing the institutional power of western finance (IMF, World Bank) will have huge repercussions.
BRICS establish $100bn bank and currency pool to cut out Western dominance
The group of emerging economies signed the long-anticipated document to create the $100 bn BRICS Development Bank and a reserve currency pool worth over another $100 bn. Both will counter the influence of Western-based lending institutions and the dollar.
The new bank will provide money for infrastructure and development projects in BRICS countries, and unlike the IMF or World Bank, each nation has equal say, regardless of GDP size.
Each BRICS member is expected to put an equal share into establishing the startup capital of $50 billion with a goal to reach $100 billion. The BRICS bank will be headquartered in Shanghai, India will preside as president the first year, and Russia will be the chairman of the representatives.
“BRICS Bank will be one of the major multilateral development finance institutions in this world,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday at the 6th BRICS summit in Fortaleza, Brazil.
The big launch of the BRICS bank is seen as a first step to break the dominance of the US dollar in global trade, as well as dollar-backed institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, both US-based institutions BRICS countries have little influence within.
BRICS bank on its way to beat casino financial system
Campaign to break California into six states submits signatures
The billionaire backer of a long-shot effort to break California into six separate states submitted signatures to state officials on Tuesday aimed at putting his proposal before voters in 2016.
Timothy Draper, a founder of a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that has invested in Twitter, Skype and Tesla, among other companies, has been agitating for months for a ballot initiative to chop the most populous U.S. state into smaller entities.
Draper's plan would split the world’s eighth-largest economy along geographic lines.
One state, to be called Silicon Valley, would include the tech hub along with the San Francisco Bay Area. Jefferson, named after the third U.S. president, would encompass the northernmost region. The state capital of Sacramento would be in North California, while South California would be made up of San Diego and the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles.
L.A. itself would be part of a state called West California.
Public Outrage Over Net Neutrality Proposal Causes FCC Site to Crash
Comment deadline extended to Friday
The Federal Communications Commission received so many comments on net neutrality Tuesday that its site crashed, making it necessary to extend the public comment period until midnight on Friday.
Open Internet advocates were not surprised that the FCC's controversial proposal, which would allow Internet service providers to create so-called "fast lanes" for companies that can afford the extra fees, garnered so much feedback. And grassroots organizations believe the unprecedented public response—more than 780,000 comments filed as of Tuesday afternoon—bolsters their cause.
“In close to a decade of fighting for the open Internet, I’ve never seen more awareness and enthusiasm about this issue,” said Free Press president and CEO Craig Aaron in a statement. “Millions of Internet users have flooded the agency with support for real net neutrality. And almost no one outside FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's office is advocating for his pay-to-play proposal."
"Wheeler claims he supports the open Internet, but the rules he’s proposing would allow rampant discrimination and fast lanes for the fortunate few. That’s totally unacceptable, and it’s why so many everyday Internet users are so upset. The best and only path forward for Wheeler is to reclassify Internet providers as common carriers,” Aaron stated.
Julian Assange's lawyers will appeal ruling to uphold arrest warrant
Lawyers for Julian Assange said they would appeal after a Stockholm judge rejected their challenge to the warrant for his arrest, condemning the WikiLeaks founder to remain in the Ecuador embassy in London.
"The court believes there is probable cause for the crimes of which he is accused," judge Lena Egelin said in a statement to the court.
"He has chosen himself to go into the embassy and … the court does not believe that the deprivation of his liberty is such as to be disproportionate" to the allegations, she said. ...
"We are confident and have strong legal arguments to get the decision overruled in the court of appeal," Assange lawyer Tholmas Olsson told the Guardian, adding that the judge's statement was formal and gave no indication of the reasoning behind it.
"It took two hours today for the judge to rule, so it must have been a difficult decision."
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Wealth Gap
War criminal Henry Kissinger's heart located
Former US secretary of state and Nobel peace prize winner Henry Kissinger underwent heart surgery at a New York City hospital on Tuesday and was resting comfortably, hospital officials said.
Kissinger, 91, underwent an aortic valve replacement procedure, according to New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
The German-born Jewish refugee served as secretary of state under Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, with a hand in the diplomatic opening of China, landmark US-Soviet arms control talks, expanded ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors and the Paris peace accords with North Vietnam.
While many hailed Kissinger for his brilliance and broad experience, some opponents branded him a war criminal for his support for anti-communist dictatorships, especially in Latin America.
The Evening Greens
World Council of Churches pulls fossil fuel investments
An umbrella group of churches, which represents over half a billion Christians worldwide, has decided to pull its investments out of fossil fuel companies.
The move by the World Council of Churches, which has 345 member churches including the Church of England but not the Catholic church, was welcomed as a "major victory" by climate campaigners who have been calling on companies and institutions such as pension funds, universities and local governments to divest from coal, oil and gas. ...
The report of the council's financy policy committee, published on Thursday on the final day of the council's central committee meeting in Geneva, says that: "The committee discussed the ethical investment criteria, and considered that the list of sectors in which the WCC does not invest should be extended to include fossil fuels." ...
Thursday's decision only applies to the council's own investments, rather than its members, such as the Church of England. A CoE spokeswoman said: "The WCC decision refers to its own financial investments only and not those of its member bodies."
Bill McKibben: Is Agriculture Destroying the Planet?
Harper government chills speech by harassing activist orgs with tax audits
OTTAWA - The Harper government's "ramp-up of anti-activist rhetoric," as it's been called, has drawn criticism in media and academic circles since 2012, but the targets themselves — environmental charities and others — have been muted and self-censored.
That's largely because they've been subject to new, high-stakes tax audits into their political activities that could strip them of their coveted charitable status. ...
Gareth Kirkby, a former journalist and now graduate student in communications, interviewed the leaders of 16 such groups for a master's thesis at Victoria's Royal Roads University, offering them anonymity in return for candid assessments of their predicaments.
Kirkby found evidence for what he called "advocacy chill" among charities who've been subject to some of the dozens of political-activity audits being conducted by the Canada Revenue Agency.
"The data suggest that the current federal government is corrupting Canada's democratic processes by treating as political enemies those civil-society organizations whose contributions to public policy conversations differ from government priorities," concludes Kirkby's MA thesis, accepted last month by the university after vetting by academic supervisors.
"What is unprecedented is the ... coupling of that rhetoric with action. This action entails specifically politicized use of the associated governmental regulatory body (the Charities Directorate at CRA) to pursue harassing actions seemingly designed to 'muffle' and 'distract.'"
South Portland, Maine council backs tar sands ban
SOUTH PORTLAND — The City Council overwhelmingly approved a first reading Wednesday night of a controversial proposal that would block tar sands oil from coming into the city.
The council voted 6-1 shortly after 11 p.m. in the South Portland Community Center gym, where nearly 500 citizens, energy company workers and others had gathered to show their support or opposition.
Councilors who supported the proposal called it a compromise alternative to the Waterfront Protection Ordinance that was narrowly defeated last November, saying the new proposal would protect existing jobs and industry. ...
The proposal now goes to the Planning Board, which is scheduled to review and take an advisory vote on July 15, to be followed by a final council vote on July 21.
North Texas city rejects partial fracking ban
DENTON, Texas – The council governing a North Texas city that sits atop a large natural gas reserve rejected a bid early Wednesday morning to ban further permitting of hydraulic fracturing in the community after eight hours of public testimony.
Denton City Council members voted down the petition 5-2, sending the proposal to a public ballot in November. ...
Industry groups and state regulators warned such a ban could be followed by litigation and a severe hit to Denton’s economy.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Bill of Rights Rollback in the US Borderlands
Richard Wolff:
Capitalism’s Deeper Problem
Noam Chomsky: On Israel-Palestine and BDS
Thrown Out of Court - How corporations became people you can't sue.
A Little Night Music
Blind Lemon Jefferson - See That My Grave Is Kept Clean
Blind Lemon Jefferson - Black Snake Moan
Blind Lemon Jefferson -- That Growling Baby Blues
Blind Lemon Jefferson - Jack of Diamonds
Blind Lemon Jefferson - Shuckin' Sugar
Blind Lemon Jefferson - Hot Dog
Blind Lemon Jefferson - Lemon's Worried Blues
Blind Lemon Jefferson - Piney Woods Money Mama
Blind Lemon Jefferson - Bed Springs Blues
Blind Lemon Jefferson - One Dime Blues
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!
|