"From the outside, anarchy might look threatening and scary and exciting. From the inside, anarchy can seem quite boring. But it is a profoundly hopeful type of boring." This more nuanced account of what anarchism is and what anarchists do is a refreshing change from the usual shrill MSM version. A must-read. "

Team Agonist | Blogistan | May 25

As you all know the only poetry thread rules are: no original poetry unless you just happen to be Maya Angelou or an up and coming poet that has been published. Otherwise stick to what has proven to be good poetry.

originally posted Memorial Day May 29, 2006. Please add your favorites.

From OilPrice.com:

Song Xiaojun, a former senior officer of the People's Liberation Army, warned that Australia cannot juggle its relationships with the United States and China indefinitely and Australia has to find a godfather sooner or later. Australia always has to depend on somebody else, whether it is to be the 'son' of the US or 'son' of China.

What is also notable about Song's remarks is that they coincided with Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr's first official visit to China, where Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi urged Australia to dismiss its alliance with the United States, a decades-old bipartisan and central pillar of the nation's foreign policy, as "the time for Cold War alliances has passed."

Hiroshi Matsubara | Tokyo | May 21

Asahi Shimbun - Despite growing international concerns over the state of spent fuel rods at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, two government experts said on May 21 that there are no plans to speed up their scheduled removal by 2015.

Speaking at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo, the government apparently wanted to get the message out to the world that the No. 4 reactor at the plant, which houses more than 1,500 nuclear fuel rods, could withstand a similar strike to last year's Great East Japan Earthquake.

John M. Broder & Matthew L. Wald | Washington | May 21

NYT - Gregory B. Jaczko, whose three-year tenure as chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been marked by bitter battles with colleagues and with Congress, announced Monday that he would step down as soon as a successor was confirmed.

The White House said it would name a successor “soon,” but it is unlikely that anyone will be confirmed to succeed Dr. Jaczko for many months, ensuring continued turmoil at the deeply divided agency. The commission’s inspector general is preparing a report to be issued in coming weeks that is expected to repeat some of the charges of mismanagement and verbal abuse of subordinates that have isolated Dr. Jaczko from other members.

Fret not, drone strike naysayers -- John Brennan has a list, and he's checking it twice:

White House counterterror chief John Brennan has seized the lead in guiding the debate on which terror leaders will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure to vet both military and CIA targets.

The move concentrates power over the use of lethal U.S. force outside war zones at the White House.

The process, which is about a month old, means Brennan's staff consults the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies as to who should go on the list, making a previous military-run review process in place since 2009 less relevant, according to two current and three former U.S. officials aware of the evolution in how the government targets terrorists.

In describing Brennan's arrangement to The Associated Press, the officials provided the first detailed description of the military's previous review process that set a schedule for killing or capturing terror leaders around the Arab world and beyond. They spoke on condition of anonymity because U.S. officials are not allowed to publicly describe the classified targeting program.

One senior administration official argues that Brennan's move adds another layer of review that augments rather than detracts from the Pentagon's role. The official says that in fact there will be more people at the table making the decisions, including representatives from every agency involved in counterterrorism, before they are reviewed by senior officials and ultimately the president.

Yep. Nothing beats normalizing the unthinkable via bureaucratic smoke & mirrors. Apparently Arendt's keystone work is to Obama as Orwell's was to W: not a cautionary tale, but, rather, a user's guide.

h/t Roland Paris

Robert Naiman:

At the intersection of Cermak and Michigan streets in Chicago yesterday, veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq told their stories when they threw back their service medals in protest at NATO leaders, echoing a famous protest against the Vietnam War.

A lot of media coming out of Chicago last night focused on street skirmishes between a handful of apolitical adventurists and the Chicago police. But some media got the real story.

Zach LaPorte, a 28-year-old mechanical engineer from Milwaukee who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, said, "I witnessed civilian casualties and civilians being arrested in what I consider an illegal occupation of a sovereign nation," Reuters reported. Former U.S. Army Sergeant Alejandro Villatoro of Chicago, who served during the Iraq 2003 invasion and in Afghanistan in 2011, said: "There's no honor in these wars... There's just shame."

Cape Town | May 21

Reuters - Israeli goods produced in the occupied Palestinian territories and sold in South Africa may no longer be labelled "Made in Israel," the South African trade minister said on Monday, causing concern in Israel that other countries may follow suit.

"We are, through this notice, requiring that they be correctly labelled and it will then be up to consumers in South Africa whether they want to purchase those products or not," Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies told reporters.

"We are not seeking to prevent the entry of such products into South Africa," he said.

South Africa's trade with Israel is modest, but there is concern in Israel about broader economic and political damage.

A labelling change would bolster an international campaign by pro-Palestinian activists for a boycott of products made by Israeli factories in the West Bank, territory Israel captured in the 1967 war and which Palestinians want as part of a future state.

"If this will move to other places in the world, we will be in big trouble," Israeli Industry and Trade Minister Shalom Simhon told reporters before Davies's news conference.

The demand for a change in labelling was published in the government gazette earlier this month in a statement that said traders must not "incorrectly label products that originate from the Occupied Palestinian Territory" as products made in Israel.

I always find it both amusing and frustrating when American national security analysts decide they're going to pontificate on NATO and Europe. Try as they might, it seems impossible for them to see the issue in any other than a highly polarized, American exceptionalist, way. Take my friend Michael Cohen at the national Security Network, writing today:

the biggest problem with NATO funding (and this has been true for quite some time) is not that President Obama is undermining the alliance with defense cuts here at home, but rather that America's NATO allies refuse to fully pony up their share of NATO's defense budget. And why they should they? Indeed, as long as NATO funding is used as a political football then the United States will continue to be played for a sucker by the Europeans who know that for all our complaining about their lack of financial support for the military alliance . . . we're never going to pull the plug.

At some point, it's worth asking whether this makes any sense at all. Why should the US be responsible for underwriting European security (and in turn the European welfare state), especially when European countries face not a single legitimate military threat to their well-being? Moreover, it Europeans don't think it's important enough to spend their own money on their own security why should America? Now granted, the Europeans are a little short on cash these days, but then so is the United States. But of course as the House of Representatives reminded us recently - as they eviscerated key social safety net programs to restore cuts made to the defense budget -- you can't put a price tag on a huge American military that does little to keep America safe and underwrites the security of other countries.

In Romney's statement he noted "NATO is a testament to the fact that the price of weakness is always far greater than the price of strength." If anything it's increasingly becoming a testament to how divorced from reality our own national security debate has become. The new American weakness is apparently when you don't let key European allies take enough advantage of you.

Now there are exactly two unarguable facts in all that: that Europe refuses to pony up its share of the NATO budget and that European countries face not a single legitimate military threat to their well-being. Do you think the two might be connected?

Look, from a European point of view - and I don't mean the poodlish yes-men in London - the NATO budget may be agreed to by all parties but it is set to an American agenda and only agreed to after a lot of American arm-bending. It funds an organization which has outlived its original purpose, surviving now only to give a modicum of cover to American military adventurism - which is why the US will "never pull the plug". NATO only survives because the costs that would be imposed by America on any European nation who withdrew would be greater than the status quo.

It is ridiculous to suggest that European allies are "taking advantage" of the US or that the US is "underwriting European security" while admitting that there's no threat to Europe needing all that money spent on it. But Michael isn't the only smart American making the same logical mistake this week, to say nothing of what gets said by the not-so-smart hawks over on the Right.

P.S.: Is America sure it wants a well armed Europe? Remember the last time it was true? The US spent the next thirty years guaranteeing Europe's security partly so that Europe (Germany) wouldn't have to stand up seriously continental-sized armed forces itself. And if it does, why does it keep trying to put its own spanner in the works of a European Defense Force and other intra-European defense pacts?

Chicago | May 21

AFP - NATO leaders launched Sunday the first phase of a US-led missile shield for Europe and sought to appease Russian anger over the system by renewing an invitation to cooperate.

President Barack Obama and his allies declared an "interim capability" at a Chicago summit, putting a US warship carrying interceptors in the Mediterranean and a Turkey-based radar system under NATO command in a German base.

The alliance insists that the shield is not aimed at Russia and aims to knock out missiles that could be launched by enemies such as Iran, but Moscow fears the system will also serve to neutralize its nuclear deterrent.

"We have invited Russia to cooperate on missile defense and this invitation still stands," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a news conference.

"We will continue our dialogue with Russia and I hope that at a certain stage Russia will realize that it is in our common interest to cooperate on missile defense," he said.

Besides the ironic title, I guess it explains why Putin refused to go to Chicago.

New York Times Editorial, May 19

Despite the persistent gender gap in opinion polls and mounting criticism of their hostility to women’s rights, Republicans are not backing off their assault on women’s equality and well-being. New laws in some states could mean a death sentence for a pregnant woman who suffers a life-threatening condition. But the attack goes well beyond abortion, into birth control, access to health care, equal pay and domestic violence.

Republicans seem immune to criticism. In an angry speech last month, John Boehner, the House speaker, said claims that his party was damaging the welfare of women were “entirely created” by Democrats. Earlier, the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, sneered that any suggestion of a G.O.P. “war on women” was as big a fiction as a “war on caterpillars.”

Thomas K. Grose | London | May 18

National Geographic News - This summer at the largest urban mall in Europe, visitors may notice something different at their feet. Twenty bright green rubber tiles will adorn one of the outdoor walkways at the Westfield Stratford City Mall, which abuts the new Olympic stadium in east London.

The squares aren't just ornamental. They are designed to collect the kinetic energy created by the estimated 40 million pedestrians who will use that walkway in a year, generating several hundred kilowatt-hours of electricity from their footsteps. That's enough to power half the mall's outdoor lighting.

Frank Dohmen & Alexander Jung | May 19

Speigel Online - With the planned Nabucco natural gas pipeline in southern Europe hitting snag after snag, Russian natural gas giant Gazprom is considering the construction of a second Baltic Sea pipeline to go with the just-finished Nord Stream. With unconventional natural gas from the US flooding the market, however, the strategy is not without risk.

Peter Lee | May 18 | Asia Times

What's the standoff between China and the Philippines over an atoll in the South China Sea all about? Is it a matter of seafood and sovereignty ... or gas fields and gambling?

To an outside observer, the antics of China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia over conflicting territorial claims smack of farce auditioning for tragedy, and ridiculous claims abound.

Eli Clifton | Washington | May 18

Think Progress - The House of Representatives this morning took a hard line against efforts by Democrats and libertarian Republicans to limit the president’s power to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects captured in the U.S.

An amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by Reps. Adam Smith (D-WA) and Justin Amash (R-MI) would have barred military detention of terrorism suspects arrested in the U.S. regardless of their nationality. Smith outlined the argument for his amendment last night:

What we’ve learned in the last 10 years is one power [the president] does not need the power to indefinitely detain or place in military custody people in the United States. Our justice system works.

But House Republicans hit back hard at the bipartisan amendment, attacking it as providing additional rights to foreign terrorists. This morning, the House defeated the Smith-Amash amendment in favor of a competing amendment sponsored by Reps. Jeff Landry (R-LA), Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Scott Rigell (R-VA). Their amendment, which passed this morning, prohibits the government from denying U.S. citizens their constitutional rights.

Oh, good, amendment explicitly upholds constitution!

Anastasia Tsioulcas | May 18

NPR - Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau — often cited as one of the greatest and most influential singers of the 20th century — died near Starnberg, Germany this morning at age 86...

Fischer-Dieskau's lyricism and sensitivity to the words he was singing made him unmatched among song interpreters. His repertoire was said to include more than 3,000 songs by composers including Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Mahler and Wolf, and he made hundreds of recordings over the course of his 50-year career. .. One of his most frequent collaborators, the pianist Gerald Moore, wrote in his memoirs: "He had only sung one phrase before I knew I was in the presence of a master." (At the time, Moore was 52 years old, while Fischer-Dieskau was just half the pianist's age.).

The Second World War defined a large part of the singer's youth. Conscripted into the German army, he was captured in Italy by the Americans in 1945 and spent almost two years as a POW; while there, he gave recitals of Schubert songs..

It was Fischer-Dieskau whom English composer and conductor Benjamin Britten requested to sing in the premiere of Britten's War Requiem in 1962 at the shattered and then rebuilt Coventry Cathedral.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: a guide in clips

Mark Leon Goldberg at UN Dispatch passes along this World Food Program video from Chad, "ground zero of the Sahel food crisis".

London-based journalist Neal mann is in Burkina Faso, where children are eating the leaves off trees to survive. You can follow his social media posts from his journey here.

Now, ask yourself why footage from across West Africa isn't on your nightly news, every night.

A small step forward towards undoing all the harm done by fearmongering and jingoism in the last decade:

A U.S. judge on Wednesday blocked enforcement of a recently enacted law's provision that authorizes indefinite military detention for those deemed to have "substantially supported" al Qaeda, the Taliban or "associated forces."

U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan ruled in favor of a group of civilian activists and journalists who said they feared being detained under a section of the law, which was signed by U.S. President Barack Obama in December 2011.

"In the face of what could be indeterminate military detention, due process requires more," the judge said.

She added that it was in the public interest to reconsider the law so that "ordinary citizens are able to understand the scope of conduct that could subject them to indefinite military detention."

By issuing a preliminary injunction, the judge prevents the U.S. government from enforcing section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act's "Homeland Battlefield" provisions.

There's nowhere the U.S. doesn't consider it's own backyard, whether the locals like it or not.

The US army has said a combat brigade will be assigned to the Pentagon's Africa Command next year in a pilot programme that will send small teams of soldiers to countries around the continent to do training and participate in military exercises.

A brigade from 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, NY will be assigned the task of putting US boots on the ground across the continent.

Africa Command is still based out of Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany because not a single African nation volunteered to host the US military basing required when Bush first stood up the unit in 2007. The view of the Southern African Development Community, which includes South Africa, Angola, Botswana and the Democratic Republic of Congo, that "it is better if the United States were involved with Africa from a distance rather than be present on the continent" was echoed by every other African security organisation and individual nations. Given that, one has to wonder just how welcome the guys from 10th Mountain will be.

David Usborne | New York | May 16

The Independent - The company that gave us the Instamatic has acknowledged that for 30 years it operated a small nuclear reactor in a basement on its corporate campus in Rochester, New York, unbeknown to almost everyone save a few scientists and engineers.

Kodak, which began operating the device, called a californium neutron flux multiplier (CFX), in 1974, insists there was nothing unsafe about it.

None the less, it came pre-loaded with nearly 1.5kg of uranium enriched up to a level of 93.4 per cent, which is just about right for an atomic warhead.

BBC News, By Kate McGeown, May 14

Manila - When night falls in Manila, a wave of young people scurry into the skyscrapers which criss-cross the city.

They're call centre agents, and because most of their clients are on the other side of the world, the night shift is their busiest time.

Last year, with more than 600,000 call centre workers, the Philippines officially overtook India as the world's call centre capital.

Go read David Axe on how Italian aviation blogger David Cenciotti joined the dots to throw some new light on America's shadow wars along Africa's Indian Ocean coastline. F-15s based in Djibouti carrying out airstrikes in Yemen, spyplanes at the same airbase, Reaper drones with bases in the Seychelles Yemen and Ethiopia. Axe himself adds the possibility of a floating headquarters for special forces ops sitting somewhere of the coast.

America is waging more wars, with a bigger involvement, than it wants to admit.

After the EU delisted the MeK on the back of a well-funded lobbying campaign by the MeK and it's neocon allies, there was always going to be huge political pressure for the U.S. to follow suit. The MeK has poured large sums, millions of dollars, into paying for lobbyists and former government officials to speak up on its behalf. Now it seems their efforts are to pay off. The WSJ is reporting insiders who say the delisting is likely to happen.

Glenn Greenwald explains why this is not just a bad idea but encapsulates everything that's wrong with Washington. It will cheapen the terrorist listing into simply a means to punish those the U.S. sees as its enemies, show that the U.S. is indeed an agressor against Iran, prove that national security decisions are available to the highest bidder and make a mockery of the rule of law by showing that the law is "not even a purported constraint on the conduct of Washington political elites".

As Andrew Exum put it this morning: “I guess Hizballah and LeT just need to buy off more former administration officials.”

Sadly I expected this, but it makes it no less disgusting that yet again the Obama administration doesn't even bother to make a passing nod to legality or ethics.

Stacey Leasca | Hong Kong | May 15

Global Post - Humans are using a planet and a half worth of natural resources.

Humans are using a planet and a half worth of natural resources, according to the World Wildlife Fund's annual Living Planet report.

The report said, "During the 1970s, humanity as a whole passed the point at which the annual Ecological Footprint matched the Earth’s annual biocapacity. This situation is called “ecological overshoot”, and has continued since then. An overshoot of 50 percent means it would take 1.5 years for the Earth to regenerate the renewable resources that people used in 2007 and absorb CO2 waste."

http://www.linktv.org/programs/dalai

A Link TV exclusive documentary that presents highlights of an extraordinary day-long ethics conference, featuring the Dalai Lama in conversation with some of the nation’s leading activists. A co-production of Tibet House U.S. in New York and Link TV, the program brings together for the first time ever one of the world’s most important spiritual leaders with renowned journalists, economists, environmentalists, and politicians to discuss the ethical dilemmas of the new millennium.

With allegations of government subterfuge, corporate malfeasance scandals and a devastating global warming crisis dominating the headlines, this unprecedented television program gives millions of Americans a rare glimpse into the enlightening ethical teachings, peaceful nature, and often surprising humor of the Dalai Lama.