You can’t tell if something’s changing in the world or if social media only makes it seem so because now we know what other people are doing. But just the knowing solidarity protests against police violence toward the Black community are going on around the world is itself transformative.

Solidarity isn’t just wishy-washy sentiments of good-will; it’s the iron law of social transformation & scares the willakers out of the ruling elite–especially as their system has entered a spiral of crises they are unable to maneuver out of except with brute force.

What’s with all the clamor for prosecuting the Bush-Cheney gang for sanctioning torture? Why stop there when Obama campaigned to close Guantanamo & end torture but instead continued both? Bush is conscienceless; Cheney is a psychopath, one gene away from a slug. Obama campaigned like he could distinguish evil. So if he can pretend a conscience, we can pretend to let him walk scot free of the stench & culpability of this report. He needs to face the music for these unspeakable crimes along with the Bush regime.

Because I only get four TV channels my viewing options are quite limited. But even beggars have their standards. I can’t do soap operas, game shows (Though I must admit I do like checking Vanna White’s gowns.), or the Victoria’s Secret special tonight.

I don’t mind that young women strut in their underwear & ridiculous wing get-ups. The standards of 6 feet tall women under 100 pounds each is disturbing but we’re used to that. You know what’s the most creepy? That it’s a white supremacy parade. There’s something so Aryan (in the Nazi sense) about it all & I don’t think I’m just reading that ethos into this spectacle. The models are mostly blond but even if they threw a brunette in it wouldn’t change anything. If they threw in a Black model that wouldn’t change anything.

Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro is making news for her comments after the killer cop was allowed to walk for murdering Eric Garner. With supreme arrogance & insolence (though still perfectly coifed), Pirro claimed on her TV show that the public needs retraining to show more sensitivity & obedience to cops. The killer cop now becomes the victim & Garner a belligerent disobedient boor who got what his insensitivity deserved.

Before we get all aghast at the racism & stupidity of Pirro we need take a gander at her personal & political history to see that her entire career is based on such swill. She’s a social climber from Westchester County north of NYC, married for nearly 40 years to Al Pirro (divorced last year), a hustler who got bagged & sent up the river for tax evasion on their personal wealth. He hasn’t been prosecuted for his mob connections or for buying her elective offices in Westchester because they partied at their mansion with all the highest officials in the state, including the governor. She hasn’t been prosecuted either for sharing in the income tax fraud. But then she has friends in high places.

This photo is being considered for an annual photojournalist award by the Guardian UK. It’s a Palestinian man holding up the body of one-year-old Noha Mesleh at her funeral on July 25th. The child was killed when Israel bombed the UN school used as a refugee center In Beit Hanun.

There are many reports, including in mainstream media, about the horrific physical & psychological trauma sustained by the children of Gaza who were directly targeted by Israeli bombers. But of course the trauma of adults who watched their children suffer & die or suffer & live with severe shrapnel damage, amputation, & psychic devastation is also massive. You can see that in the faces here. Especially as Zionists malign them as using their children for human shields; especially as they try to keep their children safe now midst mountains of cement rubble & without a place to live.

File this image under “The political uses of cognitive dissonance in war propaganda.” The media caption reads: “An Afghan laborer works at a plastic recycle factory in Herat, Afghanistan, December 8, 2014. Afghanistan’s economy has improved, with the help of international aid, after suffering decades of fighting.”

Deconstructing that caption will be a breeze. Plastics when recycled release toxic chemicals like benzene & dioxin & heavy metals like cadmium & lead. They’re released into the air, water, & ground where they enter the food supply. All that & all that international aid & they can’t come up with safety equipment for this young worker!?

Irish Central, a website of Irish-American news, showed uncustomary spunk when they objected to Patricia Napier-Fitzpatrick (whether she was born of Irish descent or married it we don’t know & don’t give a rat’s ass) who suggested people in the US show respect to Willie & KKKKaty by bowing & curtsying. Napier-Fitzpatrick is a former cosmetic executive, now owner of an etiquette school that teaches protocol to politicians & corporations so they don’t fart or pick their noses at gala affairs when they’re trying to sew up a deal. Good manners & common decency don’t always come with patrician privilege.

There will be plenty to say by the time Willie & KKKKaty finish their trip to NYC. Presently Willie is at the White House meeting with Obama. To discuss what? Haute couture? Or troops in Afghanistan & Iraq?

KKKKaty, who’s living off the money cut from education & health care in England, toured a Harlem day care center with the mayor’s wife Chirlane McCray. It’s observable & quite creepy that the British moochocracy whose fortune rests on brutal colonialism seeks out photo ops with Blacks on their travels. Sometimes this doesn’t work out so well–like when Willie & KKKKaty were photographed riding a sedan chair borne by Blacks on one of their Commonwealth tours. We’re supposed to find it endearing when Harry chuckles it up with Black kids. It’s about as endearing as a Walmart ad.

These Palestinian boys are going after an Israeli armored water cannon during a protest of Qadomem, the expanding Zionist settlement in the West Bank. The water cannon is not for irrigating fields; it’s an anti-riot assault weapon that causes multiple injuries including to internal organs & eyes & broken bones. Innovations in the use of water cannons include adding toxic dyes to the water & electrifying the water for additional harm.

Palestinians armed only with rocks & slingshots stand up against water cannons, bulldozers, & other armored vehicles, tear gas, & live ammo at weekly anti-settlement protests where hundreds of injuries & arrests are sustained by protesters.

Everyone recognizes the acceleration in Zionist settlements in the West Bank. The offenses are so egregious even Obama is putting on a dog & pony show of protest. The White House is issuing sharply worded statements & Obama is putting on his mad face for Netan-psycho. It’s the same kind of protest Obama issued about civilian deaths in Gaza during Operation Ethnic Cleansing which didn’t stop the Pentagon from supplying billions of military equipment to the the murderous campaign.

This week Obama is threatening Israel with sanctions over the settlements though we soon learn the sanctions would be only symbolic, not the debilitating kind used against Iraq or Iran. That means they’ll amount to little more than a “tut-tut” or the naughty finger because the US does not object to Israeli settlements & expropriation of Palestinians. It’s the tempo of the heist that’s at dispute. Israel is fundamental to US neoliberal scheming in the Middle East & the US doesn’t want that undermined by the psychotic intemperance & headlong rush of Israel to clear out the Palestinians by ethnic cleansing.

As the threat against Palestinians accelerates in Gaza & the West Bank, active solidarity becomes more imperative, starting with evangelizing for the cultural & economic boycott of Israel (BDS). This is a time for deepening education with forums & teach-ins & for combining that education with fundraising for humanitarian aid to Gaza. Education is as much a part of solidarity as protest rallies.
Our fullest solidarity with Palestinians. Boycott all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729); demand “No military aid to Israel!”

(Photo by Alaa Badarneh/EPA)