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The vision for Evergreene Digest is to be the preferred one-stop on-line source for information and perspectives that major news entities exclude from the present day American conversation. The Internet makes it possible to loosen the grip on big media by taking the news into our own hands. We readers-turned-reporters can restore integrity to the nation's single most vital conduit for democratic participation, our media.

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To the Person Sitting in Darkness

Wed, 06/19/2013 - 08:16 — Dave Culver
  • This essay attacking America's policy in the Phillipines in the context of European imperialism was originally published in North American Review, February 1901. Mark Twain never included it an any collection published during his lifetime, but it was reprinted as a pamphlet and widely distributed by the Anti-Imperialist League of New York.
  • MarkTwain | The War Prayer

Mark Twain, New York (NY) Sun

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Kevin Zeese

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of all reader supported Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

February, 1901 | "Christmas will dawn in the United States over a people full of hope and aspiration and good cheer. Such a condition means contentment and happiness. The carping grumbler who may here and there go forth will find few to listen to him. The majority will wonder what is the matter with him and pass on.--New York Tribune, on Christmas Eve.

"The purpose of this article is not to describe the terrible offenses against humanity committed in the name of Politics in some of the most notorious East Side districts. They could not be described, even verbally. But it is the intention to let the great mass of more or less careless citizens of this beautiful metropolis of the New World get some conception of the havoc and ruin wrought to man, woman and child in the most densely populated and least known section of the city. Name, date and place can be supplied to those of little faith--or to any man who feels himself aggrieved. It is a plain statement of record and observation, written without license and without garnish.

Full story…

Related:

The War Prayer, Mark Twain, WarPrayer.org

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fulttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory with stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

 

 

 

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Critical Thinking

Mike Thompson | Surveillance Problems in America / cmsimg.freep.com

Tue, 06/18/2013 - 07:40 — Dave Culver


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Elizabeth Warren's QE for Students: Populist Demagoguery or Economic Breakthrough?

Tue, 06/18/2013 - 07:30 — Dave Culver
  • Investing in our young people has worked before and can work again; and if Congress orders the Fed to fund this investment in our collective futures by “quantitative easing,” it need cost the taxpayers nothing at all.  
  • The Japanese have finally seen the light and are using their QE tool as economic stimulus rather than just to keep their banks afloat, and we need to do the same.

Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog

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Dollarmen graduates. (Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)

Monday, 17 June 2013 | On July 1, interest rates will double for millions of students – from 3.4% to 6.8% – unless Congress acts; and the legislative fixes on the table are largely just compromises. Only one proposal promises real relief – Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s “Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act.” This bill has been dismissed out of hand as “shameless populist demagoguery” and “a cheap political gimmick,” but is it? Or could Warren’s outside-the-box bill represent the sort of game-changing thinking sorely needed to turn the economy around?

Warren and her co-sponsor John Tierney propose that students be allowed to borrow directly from the government at the same rate that banks get from the Federal Reserve — 0.75 percent. They argue:

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Youth & Education

Minnesota Orchestra Locked Out by Corporate CEOs

Mon, 06/17/2013 - 14:55 — Dave Culver

Sam Pizzigati, Campaign For America's Future

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Lydia Howell

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of all reader supported Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

Locked-out musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra 

6/16/2013| What do bank executives who make $19 million a year do in their spare time? They do the same thing they do in the hours they spend in their executive suites. They squeeze America’s middle class.

That’s not, of course, what the flacks at U.S. Bancorp, the nation’s fifth-largest bank, will tell you. They’ll inform you that the CEO of their Minneapolis-based banking giant, Richard Davis, graciously gives of his spare time to serve on the board of the nationally renowned Minnesota Orchestra.

Full story…

Related:

MN Orchestra Reality Check, momc-editor, Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra

May 28, 2013 | In response to your many letters and comments, we have updated our FAQs and will be featuring new ones regularly.

Minnesota Orchestra audit finds no legal problems, but raises question of unused funds, Euan Kerr, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR)

June 13, 2013 | The question of whether the Minnesota Orchestra should return almost a million dollars in state aid because of the ongoing musicians lockout was raised Thursday after a report from the Legislative Auditor.

 

 

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IMF | Sequester Hurting U.S. Economy, Delaying Recovery

Sat, 06/15/2013 - 12:20 — Dave Culver
  • The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates growth of just 1.9 percent this year, as Managing Director Christine Lagarde said "very significant" decreases in federal spending and higher taxes may have reduced growth by up to 1.75 percentage points.
  • Austerity is Dead

Shahien Nasiripour, Huffington Post

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of all reader supported Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

06/14/2013 | As much as half of U.S. economic growth this year has been slashed due to tax increases and indiscriminate federal spending cuts known as sequestration, according to a sobering new forecast by the International Monetary Fund, which urged lawmakers to repeal the cuts.

Risks to U.S. growth are "modestly tilted to the downside," the IMF said in its annual report on the nation's economy, as a reduction of $85 billion in government expenditures this year due to sequestration has dampened demand and investment, just as tax hikes have taken a big bite out of U.S. paychecks and reduced household spending.

Full story…

Related: 

Austerity is Dead, Progress Report, ThinkProgress 

  • It’s Time to Focus on Jobs & Growth
  • Paul Krugman | Debunked Reinhart-Rogoff Paper 'Did A Lot Of Damage' 

 

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Now is the time to stand up to government surveillance

Thu, 06/13/2013 - 12:03 — Dave Culver

  • "I'm willing to sacrifice all…because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building." --Edward Snowden
  • Massive spying on Americans is outrageous

Meredith Aby, Fight Back News!

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Coleen Rowley

June 10, 2013 | In a whirlwind news week the public has become aware that the majority, if not all, of U.S. telephone calls are monitored by the NSA (National Security Agency) and have been for seven years, that the U.S. government is monitoring emails through a secret NSA program called PRISM, and that Edward Snowden is the whistleblower that made these revelations possible. On June 9, Snowden told the Guardian to publish that he was the leak even though it puts him in the crosshairs of the U.S. government. "I'm willing to sacrifice all…because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

These surveillance scandals come just weeks after the Associated Press announced that the U.S. Justice Department had secretly obtained two months worth of their reporters’ and editors’ phone records.

Full story...

Related:

Massive spying on Americans is outrageous, Coleen Rowley, Special to CNN 

Tue June 11, 2013 |

  • Surveillance programs create huge profit for private contractors
  • More importantly, stopping terrorists through mass data collection doesn't work
  • She says just look at how the Bush administration failed on 9/11 despite early warnings
  • Secretive spying programs harm national security and threaten democracy

 

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Activism & Organizing

Scott Stantis | It's Politically Hereditary / /www.usnews.com

Wed, 06/12/2013 - 11:39 — Dave Culver


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The Judicial Lynching of Bradley Manning

Wed, 06/12/2013 - 11:30 — Dave Culver

The First Amendment is dead. There is no legal mechanism left to challenge the crimes of the power elite. We are bound and shackled. And those individuals who dare to resist face the prospect, if they remain in the country, of joining Manning in prison, perhaps the last refuge for the honest and the brave.

Chris Hedges, Truthdig

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Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted out of a courthouse at Fort Meade, Md., on Wednesday after the third day of his court-martial. AP/Patrick Semansky
 
The military trial of Bradley Manning is a judicial lynching. The government has effectively muzzled the defense team. The Army private first class is not permitted to argue that he had a moral and legal obligation under international law to make public the war crimes he uncovered. The documents that detail the crimes, torture and killing Manning revealed, because they are classified, have been barred from discussion in court, effectively removing the fundamental issue of war crimes from the trial. Manning is forbidden by the court to challenge the government’s unverified assertion that he harmed national security. Lead defense attorney David E. Coombs said during pretrial proceedings that the judge’s refusal to permit information on the lack of actual damage from the leaks would “eliminate a viable defense, and cut defense off at the knees.” And this is what has happened.

Manning is also barred from presenting to the court his motives for giving the website WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic cables, war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq, and videos. The issues of his motives and potentially harming national security can be raised only at the time of sentencing, but by then it will be too late.

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The government is snooping in real time on the whole Internet.

Mon, 06/10/2013 - 12:29 — Dave Culver

Demand Progress / RootsAction Team

This article is made possible with the generous contributions of all reader supported Evergreene Digest readers like you. Thank you!

The revelations of spying on telephone customers are extraordinary -- but it gets even worse.  The government is spying, in real time, on rank-and-file Internet users.  From the Guardian:

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

Let's put it plainly: It has been conclusively demonstrated that the government is spying on millions of Americans, without meaningful oversight, and without the assent of the very people -- all of us -- whom our government is supposed to represent.

Click here to call for an immediate investigation into the government's enormous and unprecedented surveillance of our internet activity.

Full story…

Related:

Rise Up or Die, Chris Hedges, Truthdig

A handful of corporate oligarchs around the globe have everything—wealth, power and privilege—and the rest of us struggle as part of a vast underclass, increasingly impoverished and ruthlessly repressed. There is one set of laws and regulations for us; there is another set of laws and regulations for a power elite that functions as a global mafia.

How Google, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo and AOL are all blatantly lying to their own users in denying NSA spy grid scheme, Mike Adams, NaturalNews.com

  • Tech companies rush to issue (false) denials
  • The government is snooping in real time on the whole Internet

 

 

 
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Activism & Organizing

Austerity is Dead

Mon, 06/10/2013 - 11:24 — Dave Culver

  • It’s Time to Focus on Jobs & Growth
  • Paul Krugman | Debunked Reinhart-Rogoff Paper 'Did A Lot Of Damage' 

Progress Report, ThinkProgress

If you like reading this article, consider contributing a cafe latte to all reader-supported Evergreene Digest--using the donation button above—so we can bring you more just like it. 

Jun 6, 2013|For the better part of three years Washington has been gripped by an obsession with the deficit, but a new paper out from the Center for American Progress today argues that it’s time to abandon austerity, ditch deficit hysteria, and instead focus on jobs and economic growth.

What’s changed since Washington caught deficit fever in 2010? A lot, as it turns out.

Full story…

Related:

Paul Krugman | Debunked Reinhart-Rogoff Paper 'Did A Lot Of Damage' Huffington Post

  • “That paper of theirs did a lot of damage by giving people who didn’t want stimulus, who didn’t want any kind of expansionary policy, a way to scare their opponents.”
  • Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills
  • Austerity debunked

 

 

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