We live in the best of times & in the worst of times. In the best of times, because millions of people are actively defying tyranny; in the worst of times, because we have not yet learned how to end it. We have learned the hard way that numbers are essential but not sufficient to force the hand of tyranny; that for every inroad we make against injustice, the oligarchs resort to military might & electoral ruses. They shoot first, reshuffle the seats in parliament, & yell “uncle.”

Their most effective deceit is the whipsaw of divide & conquer which they have mastered to the level of fine art. Societies & social movements are complex organisms comprising millions of people with different understandings of what is to be done, which road to take. It could not be otherwise in diverse societies where opinionated people from different classes confront the complexities of class, poverty, gender violence, white supremacy, injustice, & democracy.

The way forward means forging unity with all those willing to act against injustice & not denouncing some as ‘mere liberals’. Liberals bankroll many social movements, including the antiwar movement, & remain an important component of the move even in its weakened state. We leave it to others to denounce them & we part with them in the electoral arena but we will march shoulder to shoulder with all who actively oppose these rotten wars or are willing to stand against injustice. On that score, we will proudly work with anyone.

More & more people are retreating to cynicism & misanthropy, writing jeremiads that will wrench your heart-strings, give you indigestion, & make episodes of the Kardashian show actually appealing. These cynical dilettantes respond viscerally & not politically to defeat. The defeats of the Arab uprisings have been devastating to observe–& not more so than to the Arab peoples who poured their hearts & souls into social transformation & were outwitted. Our response should not be a high & mighty “We could have told you so, fools! There’s no point in trying. We’re all doomed. Hope kills.” We might better ask them what they’ve learned, what went wrong, what they would do otherwise; we could query them about the problems of program & leadership & organization.

If a way is to be found out of this morass, it will not be by textual exegeses & culling quotes from Marx & Engels (or for heaven’s sake, mastering the art of Zizek-speak) to replace analyses. It will be through identifying with working people in this world–precisely where the organized left is most bereft. If we don’t know what’s happening to working people, if we don’t know what they are thinking & doing about it, we will never get our heads above sea level & out of internecine squabbles. The left will remain a burlesque comparable to the evangelical movement speaking in tongues no one else understands–& only a fool would want to.

Once again, when Marx said history repeats itself, first as tragedy & then as farce, he could not have seen that in the barbaric phase of capitalism, tragedy & farce would become indistinguishable–or that neoliberal capitalism would create the tragedy & the organized left provide the farce–if not sometimes the slapstick, when they should be providing leadership. There is no reason in the world to study theory if you can’t apply it to the world we live in, if you’re too damn revolutionary to work with others, or if your relationship with working people is only Platonic.

Everything on this planet moves by the efforts of working people; we are the agency of social transformation. We are not the less interesting class or the uninteresting class bereft of ideas & wallowing in consumerism, as we are most often depicted. Our power is the future & the hope of humanity–& we should never, never forget that.

(Photo of child workers by unidentified photographer)

Arizona governor Jan Brewery has vetoed the antigay bill SB 1062 after a barrage of opposition. The US western states are filled with politicians like her who hold to a mythology they are descendants of the pioneers (Hollywood remains their guide to US history). Their real patrimony of course is cattle rustlers, outlaws on the run, decommissioned soldiers from the Confederate army or US government regiments to herd Native Americans onto reservations. An unsavory lot altogether. Their ancestors amassed enough stolen goods to bankroll their kids through school & buy them public office. They often wear Stetsons, like the Texas Rangers (they even sleep in the damn things)–a style, btw, stolen from Mexican inhabitants who they also forcibly dispossessed.

Most people think such types all ended up on ponderosas in Texas but the small state of Arizona has more than its fair share. Over the decades, their criminality has not diminished but is now accessorized with an invincible pomposity. Continuing their legacy of law-breaking, they are now attempting to destroy the US Bill of Rights–first through SB 1070, a vicious legal, military, & political assault on immigrants & immigrant rights; & now through SB 1062, a vicious, lowdown attempt to outlaw homosexuality under the guise of freedom of religion.Their entire patrimony is a godless one, guided more by the dictates of criminality than by the Beatitudes, so for them to call on religion to sanction attacks on democratic rights is not merely folly; it is farce.

Yesterday afternoon, governor Brewery announced she has vetoed SB 1062. The media explained it was due to pressure from conservative business owners & Republican legislators second-guessing their vote to outlaw LGBTI people. Governor Brewery is a contemptible politician (likely the progeny of a Confederate soldier) & incapable of doing the right thing for the right reason. In her own explanation for her veto, she tried to approximate a civil liberties defense but it sounds sarcastic coming from the mouth of a woman who sics the full force of the law (or is that lawlessness?) against undocumented immigrants. The only way she will do the right thing is with a cattle prod up her ass.

And the only reason conservative business owners & breast-beating politicians opposed SB 1062 is because they saw another boycott coming at them, like the one so effective in opposing anti-immigration legislation. The real force behind Brewery’s veto is those millions of Americans who stand up for the Bill of Rights, who won’t put their money where injustice prevails & who forego the grandeur of the Grand Canyon to stand in line at Disney World rather than give a dime to the systematic dismantling of democratic & human rights by two-bit Confederates.

Hats off to the Bill of Rights & to those who stand with it come hell or high water. There’s a victory to celebrate.

(Photo of protestors against SB 1062 by Jim Poulin/Phoenix Business Journal)

The Philippines aren’t the biggest country in the world but their working people must rank among the most combative in the world. We’ve seen repeated pitched battles between riot cops & slum tenants resisting eviction. Every time a US president visits the Philippines, there are ferocious street scuffles between antiwar activists & riot cops.

The water cannon, an extremely dangerous assaultive weapon, is always used against protestors & in one memorable protest the activists wrenched it away & turned it on the cops. A memorable moment; also hilarious.

Here water cannons are used against antiwar activists moving toward the US embassy in Manila to protest the upcoming visit of Obama. Activists are demanding the withdrawal of US troops in the country under a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) the US has with the Filipino regime. The VFA establishes the terms of US military presence. The most contentious provisions in these VFAs is always about civil & criminal jurisdiction over military personnel–that is, whether the jurisdiction will reside in Philippine courts or with US military courts (similar to the dispute Afghan president Karzai is having with the US over the Bilateral Security Agreement). We do more than tip our hats to these brothers & sisters; we offer them our deepest respect & solidarity. US out of the Philippines!

(Photo by Bullit Marquez/AP)

The nastiest feature of US & European propaganda against North Korea is not how they demonize its leaders–it’s inarguable that North Korea is a tyranny run like a feudal fiefdom (while the US considers South Korea a colonial military outpost). The nastiest feature is how propaganda draws on the most vile & racist stereotypes of Asians by portraying North Koreans as commie-bots, emotionless, stoical, obedient, showing emotions only in unison & on cue, & goose-stepping their way through every human activity.

The next time you hear the US saber-rattling with nuclear weaponry against North Korea, keep this poignant image in mind: North Koreans on the bus hold their South Korean family members’ hands after seeing them for the first time in decades at the Separated Family Reunion Meeting at Diamond Mountain in the North.

(Photo by Lee Ji-Eun Yonhap/AP)

Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni predictably signed the antigay bill into law today just six weeks after Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan signed a ban on homosexuality into law. The legislation in Nigeria triggered an outbreak of antigay violence which is exactly what it was intended to do–& it will have the same effect in Uganda.

Museveni who claims he sought scientific counsel on homosexuality said, “Homosexuals are actually mercenaries. They are heterosexual people but because of money they say they are homosexuals. These are prostitutes because of money.” His mangled rhetoric may be the result of his evangelical habit of speaking in tongues not cited in the lexicon of human languages & is only matched by his ignorance & social hatred. They’re more akin to a grunt–or even a fart.

He doesn’t know when to shut up because he went on to take issue with gay oral sex in lurid terms, claiming it gives you worms. Hopefully Uganda won’t ban sex education because our man knows less about sex than a US middle-school kid–& that’s saying a lot about his ignorance.

Reports mention the “fierce criticism” Museveni is receiving from US politicians like Obama & John Kerry. Obama described the law as “morally wrong,” Kerry said he was “deeply disappointed,” White House spokesperson Jay Carney called it “abhorrent,” NSA advisor Susan Rice said its passage was a “sad day for Uganda.” There are two pound Chihuahuas that pack a bigger bite.

Remember it was just a few weeks ago that Obama addressed the National Prayer Breakfast operated by the US political forces behind the Ugandan law. Collusion speaks louder than words–even if he could rise to the level of fierce. Museveni has no fear of political reprisals from the US since he is a partner in US military & economic operations in Uganda. Collusion speaks louder than wimpy-assed protests but profiteering speaks loudest of all.

It is a sad day for human rights; it is also a call to action because what began in Nigeria, Uganda, & Russia is being duplicated in Arizona & elsewhere. It’s a good time to recall the words of German theologian Martin Niemöller: “In Germany they came first for the Communists & I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews & I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists & I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics &I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me & by that time no one was left to speak up.” Niemöller neglected to mention that homosexuals, Roma, people with disabilities were also among the litany of victims.

Our fullest solidarity with the LGBTI people of Uganda & Nigeria–& Arizona, USA.

(Photo from Advocate.com)

One of the most promising & important developments in immigration rights is the defiance of African immigrants in Israel whose rights are under siege by the Zionist regime & vigilante violence promoted by politicians. Their struggle for the right of asylum exposes the inherent racism of Zionism & is as important to the struggle of Palestinians as it is to immigration rights. It is certainly one of the most important developments in Israeli politics for a long time.

For too long, Africans fleeing from the colonial plunder of their countries have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, been incarcerated in isolated detention centers without minimum standards of housing or health care, or deported & dumped willy-nilly back on the continent. Seeking asylum in Israel is a safer route & Israel has every obligation to honor their demands since it has long been a key player in the neoliberal plunder, particularly in South Sudan.

For the past few years, African immigrants have waged resistance to incarceration & deportation & as the persecution & inflammatory racist rhetoric of Israeli politicians crescendoed in the past year, they set up Occupy-type encampments in public parks & at detention centers.

Here they set up an encampment outside the detention center in Holot, Israel & were joined in protest by defiant inmates. We cannot express our solidarity strongly enough.

(Photo by Oliver Weiken/EPA)

Under neoliberal capitalism, there’s a scam invented every minute. It’s pointless to sleep with one eye open because those think tanks they operate invent one doozy after another to outsmart us–all of the switch & bait kind. The muckraker has become more indispensable than the NY Times to keep track of the trickeries they’re cooking up.

Plunder is the very nature of neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism. The plunder is so relentless the entire planet is undergoing climate chaos & the predators are still unable to restrain their rapacity. Working people need to be the ones to stop them & that historic mission requires a clear understanding of the foxy-assed machinations they use to fool us.

Diamond & gold mining, particularly in African countries, is a cornucopia of plunder for multinational conglomerates, leading to war, massive human suffering, & millions of African deaths. As opposition to “blood diamonds” grew around the world, the mining & jewelry industries pulled a fast one. Along with government officials collusive in the plunder & NGOs, industry representatives set up the phony Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) in 2003 to stop trade in “blood diamonds.” A component organization of KPCS is Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) which established standards of conduct for gold, platinum, & diamond industries to regulate labor standards, indigenous people’s rights, & environmental contamination, The 300 companies certified by RJC are the largest mining companies, refiners, & jewelers in the world. It’s the neoliberal version of putting a fox to guard the chicken coop & has not changed the character of massive & violent exploitation one iota.

This swindle is an old one employed by neoliberal predators. Back in the 1990s, the forestry industry set up Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) to certify companies as deforesting in a green tradition. You can find their certification logo all over paper products. Companies like Weyerhaeuser, notorious for reckless logging practices which led to landslides in Washington state, are certified because SFI is bankrolled by the industry & won’t saw off the hand that feeds it. Greenwashing might be too tepid a term for such deceit.

Not to be outdone in trickery, the palm oil & palm kernel industry set up the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004 to certify sustainable production of palm oil which is now an ubiquitous ingredient in everything from cosmetics to food. It is not possible to certify palm oil as sustainable when the very character of plantation production (primarily in Indonesia & SE Asia) requires massive deforestation & the destruction of natural habitat for, most notably, orangutans, elephants, tigers, rhinos, & birds. The effects on climate change, in particular massive flooding, have been reported with compelling force but the neoliberal plunderers cannot restrain their greed.

Does conflict of interest mean anything anymore!? Nope! Not in the barbaric phase of capitalism. It will take more than product boycotts to stop this plunder but the stakes are immense. Nothing less than the survival of humanity & the rest of the animal world is at issue. And that’s not just Armageddon-speak!

(Photo of young Sumatran elephant named Raja displaced by palm oil deforestation & who subsequently died by Ulet Ifansaasti/The Ecologist)

Arizona is becoming ground zero for a battle to defend the US Bill of Rights–probably the only salvageable part of the US Constitution other than it’s preamble. Its politicians are among the creepiest & most repugnant in US politics–like senator John McCain & governor Jan Brewer. That judgement could be an overstatement; it may only be that Arizona politicians are just grandstanders whereas reactionary politicians in other states do their nefarious work in the shadows where they think they won’t be caught. Showcasing Arizona may be part of a right-wing strategy to destroy the Bill of Rights.

Bankrolled & advised by the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), a state senator named Steve Yarbrough (R) introduced SB 1062, anti-gay legislation which would violate several provisions in the Bill of Rights under the guise of religious freedom. The bill was just passed by the state legislature & governor Brewer has until Friday, the 28th, to sign it into law. She’s pulling the Yoweri Museveni (president of Uganda) stunt of pretending to ponder the issue before she brings down the weight of law against LGBTI people.

CAP is a shadowy right-wing group that won’t identify it’s board of directors but is guided by Charles Krauthammer, a media commentator whose canon of beliefs is as odious & reactionary as they come. His persona is so elitist, snide, & condescending one can see him filling any position in a fascist regime that doesn’t require competency.

SB 1062 would allow a “person” defined as “any individual, association, partnership, corporation, church, religious assembly or institution or other business organization” to refuse to hire or deny services to LGBTI people on the basis of sincerely held religious beliefs & social hatred. We’re not talking a slippery slope here for the Bill of Rights; we’re talking a 600 foot cliff under the malignant guise of espousing religious freedom–it might be added, a religious freedom many reactionary politicians & racist schnooks like Krauthammer are attempting to deny Muslims.

The intentional vagueness of SB 1062 allows for active discrimination not only against LGBTI people but against unmarried women, Jews, Muslims, & others. And if your religious doctrine sincerely hates Mexicans & Blacks, can you deny them services too? That’s not a slippery slope for democratic rights. It’s a collision course with catastrophe.

There’s no report of objections to SB 1062 from Obama; McCain is too busy addressing & inciting fascists in Ukraine to do more than tweet “his hopes” that Brewer would veto the bill. Once again, there’s nothing like a good tweet to bring injustice to its knees.

Here’s contact information to lodge protests with governor Brewer & demand she veto SB 1062: http://azgovernor.gov/Contact.asp

(Photo of activists against SB 1062 rallying at state capitol in Phoenix, AZ on Feb 21st to demand Brewer veto bill; by AP)

Muhammed Muheisen, the photojournalist who does such powerful photos especially of Afghan refugee children in Pakistan, has done a poignant series on performing monkeys in Pakistan. The monkeys are captured as babies & trained (often using violence) to dance, salute, shake hands, & perform other tricks. This is not a criticism of Pakistanis or even the impoverished owners who reportedly only make about about 500 rupees (US $5.00) a day for the work. You can see the same kind of abuse in any US city with a zoo or where the circus is playing & they have elephants pirouetting on one foot.

This kind of crap is a vestige of such Platonic notions as the Great Chain of Being where life & matter are ranked in a hierarchy from God & angelic beings to royalty, lower to plebeians, then animals, & down to rocks. You can see how comfortably class stratification, white & male supremacy, abuse of animals fit in to such a repugnant schema–& how animals become objects only for labor & amusement.

Those who defend performing monkeys by claiming owners have a strong bond with the monkeys & love them as their own children have to explain why that loving relationship has to be maintained by a rope around the neck so the monkey won’t run off. Such barbaric practices will not stop from outpourings of moral outrage but from eliminating inequity & poverty because on the other end of that rope is the owner’s neck, trapped in social inequality. If the owner has to choose between respect for animals & feeding a family, the unhappy animals draw the short stick.

Just another compelling reason to change the world.

(Photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP)

It is a daunting, near futile, task to get an understanding of the Ukrainian protests from media accounts–& not just mainstream, but liberal & radical media. You’re more likely to find that needle in a haystack.

There are several conflicting narratives–depending on your politics. The narrative in the Russian media is echoed by liberal & many radical commentators: fascists have taken over the streets of Ukraine & threaten an escalation to civil war. The capitalist media manages to denounce government repression of protestors without providing a clue as to why they are out in the streets–&, of course, echo the US & European regimes.

Sorting through the cacophony is no easy matter but these protests are of such consequence that all explanations must be scrutinized with a fine tooth comb. Schemas & doctrinaire glibness pawned off as analysis should not be accepted; you cannot just hurl epithets (like “fascist”) & call it analysis.

One cannot understand the conflict in Ukraine without reference to the collapse of the Soviet Union & the reentry of its component countries into the capitalist world economy. The character of the Soviet Union was such a divisive question within the socialist movement that when it collapsed many hoped old animosities could now be abandoned & a phony harmony established. But nobody can walk away from that carnage scot-free without an explanation for what happened. Why did the USSR, which seemed so impregnable, collapse like a deck of cards? If we don’t understand what happened, if no accounting is made, socialist theoretics become completely irrelevant to making this world suitable for human beings to live in.

The former countries within the USSR reentered the international capitalist system after the phase of neoliberal barbarism had already begun. In a process unlike the transition from feudalism to capitalism, a capitalist class & economy had to be constructed in each country from the debris of a state-managed economy run into the ground by tyranny. In the era of neoliberalism, that meant using gangsters & their methods for the massive theft & privatization of public assets. Capitalism now more resembled a mafia-like criminal enterprise–which did not go unobserved in those countries but could be analyzed every step of the way.

The Orange Revolution (2004-2005) & protests today in Ukraine reflect conflicts in the formation & stabilization of an oligarchy where the nation-state has become primarily a vehicle to amass private wealth. That’s the nature of neoliberalism: monopoly capitalism is at odds with the nation-state, defying sovereignty in the pursuit of plunder & cheap labor, & going global in the interests of private acquisition.

Many commentators on events in Ukraine refer to a new Cold War, as if Russia remains a socialist country being menaced by capitalists in league with home-grown fascists. Doctrinaire schemas & the cement heads that promote them as explanations cannot be reasoned with. In the Russian regime there isn’t a shred of socialism remaining. Putin is a former secret service agent, a spy, & just the kind of guy the new oligarchy needs to operate its criminal enterprise. If you think you’re defending socialism by defending Putin you may be more comfortable in the Democratic Party (where you can think anything & get away with it) or in the Libertarian Party (where you can talk rubbish & be taken as an oracle).

Certainly one of the reasons the USSR collapsed was its complete lack of democracy. But while Russia & most former soviet states have adopted capitalism, they have not abandoned tyranny because in the barbaric phase of capitalism democracy might put restraints on plunder. So the old tyrannies were maintained & undercover police agents like Putin came to the fore in politics. It is no accident that under neoliberalism the gulag remains in place & riot cops are an essential feature of rule.

The narrative of Russian, Ukrainian, liberal, & much radical media is simple–& even more so, simple-minded: fascist thugs have taken control of the streets across Ukraine demanding economic & political alliance with the European Union. The thrust & composition of these protests is completely reactionary & must be opposed.

There is no question the extreme right-wing & fascists played a key role in initiating these protests starting in November 2013 to protest Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych’s rejection of an economic deal with the European Union (EU) in favor of a trade deal with Russia & its economic partners. But when the regime (Yanukovych is a central figure in the Ukraine oligarchy) violently attacked the protestors thousands of Ukrainians entered the fray in opposition to attacks on democratic rights & in opposition to the austerity imposed by IMF & regime policies. What is the relative balance of forces now in the protests between the right-wing & democracy activists? With the information we have now, that is not possible to calculate. And we don’t have to in order to understand what to do.

It isn’t often in history–in fact, never–that fascists align with progressive regimes. It is just as infrequent they attack reactionary regimes. In fact, they align with reactionary regimes. So it’s a mighty curious phenomenon in Ukraine that fascists are confronting the Yanukovych regime over joining the EU trade bloc. The EU agreement is designed to bring austerity to Ukraine just as it has to Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, & elsewhere. These fascists aren’t dummies; they represent a section of the Ukraine oligarchy that sees its fortunes in alignment with Europe & NATO. And they are counterposed to those oligarchs who see their fortunes more aligned with Russian capitalism. This is no tug-of-war between socialism & capitalism but between competing spheres of plunder–because plunder was the nature of capitalism even before it entered its barbaric phase.

Ukrainian oligarchs are having differences over which trade bloc will give them the most bang & buck for the betrayal of Ukrainian working people. Joining the Russian trade bloc isn’t the equivalent of forming a socialist enterprise; the Russian trade bloc is a capitalist project for accruing private wealth to a handful of oligarchs in both Russia & Ukraine. From the point of view of Ukrainian workers, who gives a rat’s ass which enterprise you belong to because both will bleed you dry? Those who think Russian capitalism will find a kinder, gentler way of economic evisceration need to study the holodomor in Ukraine history. Or they could just look at the conditions for Russian workers today.

Our demands must be to end the violence against protestors; & we don’t give a rat’s ass that some of those protestors are fascists because defending the right of protest is defending the possibilities for political action in Ukraine & backing the oligarchic regime in its violence only facilitates the development of fascism. If our demand appears to be in synch with the US regime, that is only in appearance. The US regime is a rattlesnake; we do not accept them as allies any more than we look to the Ukrainian regime as allies against fascism. We do not look to the US-NATO to resolve the crisis in Ukraine. We demand US-NATO hands off Ukraine!

The situation is comparable to Egypt when the military junta took after the Muslim Brotherhood with extreme violent repression. We don’t have to have an ounce of affinity with the religious or political views of the MB to defend them against violent assaults. We don’t look to reactionary regimes to settle our differences with bloodshed.

Stephen F. Cohen, a long-time US liberal commentator on the USSR, is making media rounds denouncing the “western” media vilification of Putin as a thug. He claims the Ukraine streets are controlled by right-wing extremists “trying to kill cops.” This liberal historian of the Russian Revolution says a “coup d’etat from the streets” is not democratic & denounces the US for defending protestors against the police violence. Well we have news for comrade Cohen: Putin is a thug & “coup d’etats from the street” are more often referred to as uprisings or revolutions. As for “trying to kill cops?” Is that what he calls self-defense when they’re coming at you & sniping at you from rooftops with live ammunition?

The politics of the thousands protesting have not been parsed accurately but we can be certain that thousands of protestors are there to defend their right to protest without being assaulted with an arsenal of deadly weapons. This is not a question of idealizing masses of working people or of minimizing the influence of extreme right-wing political forces. People (scholars) who have never participated in social movements often view them as ideologically homogeneous when that has never been the case in a single social movement in human history.

Today the term fascist is used broadly to describe anyone with right-wing views. When the term is so recklessly thrown around, it becomes useless politically. But understanding scientifically what a fascist is (how they think, how they operate, who they align with) is of the greatest consequence as neoliberal capitalism resorts more & more to fascism, which is the last refuge of tyranny.

In Ukraine, working people are caught between oligarchs & fascists & until Ukrainians sort that matter out, our political response can only be “US-NATO, hands off Ukraine!” Because they operate secretly, we have no hard evidence yet of the machinations of German, EU & US machinations & intrigues in Ukraine–but we know they’re there because the nature of capitalism is ruthless competition & thus the question of which capitalist trade bloc Ukraine joins is a matter of great importance.

Once again, our political response must be “US-NATO hands off Ukraine!”

(Photo of Ukrainian protestors from BBC)