Until we can mobilize & beat back the tsunami of hatred, there is a ready solution for Muslims. You could all wear sandwich boards with a list of denunciations like “I denounce Muslims for opposing the Crusades;” “I denounce Muslims for inventing algebra,” (that would have special appeal to school children); “I denounce Muslims for ISIL.” There are endless possibilities since there are so many Muslims in the world. Somebody somewhere must have done something wicked.

The sandwich boards needn’t be made of cardboard. They could become a fashion accessory in many colors & fabrics making it easier to travel & get past customs.

Now there’s no reason to go hog-wild & insist Christians, Jews, & others wear sandwich boards of denunciation. When the atheist murdered three Muslim students in Chapel Hill this week, it was just over a parking space. When a Muslim family was assaulted at the supermarket in Dearborn last Thursday & when they torched the Islamic elementary school in Houston on Friday it had nothing to do with religion. Christians, Jews, & atheists don’t have fatwas. We prefer inquisitions.

We should take a moment to honor the democracy protesters in Bahrain, especially the women who play a leading role in the Bahraini revolution & put the lie to all the misogynist crap about women wearing veils. If you want to know where their tough kids learned defiance against violent tyranny, take a look at this woman who showed up at yesterday’s protests wearing swimming goggles against tear gas.

Yesterday activists marked the 4th anniversary of the Bahraini revolution with demonstrations. The US Fifth Fleet & a new British naval base are situated in Bahrain to control the Gulf region & are vital in the campaign against ISIL. That means the democracy movement is up against the combined barbarism of the Bahrain regime, the US & UK. As if that weren’t enough, the media plays a pernicious role in fabricating a story about the democracy movement that turns it into a sectarian conflict between two denominations of Islam. And that deception includes Al-Jazeera & The Huntington Post. Anyone who has followed the Bahraini movement knows that narrative is designed to discredit the struggle against tyranny in Bahrain. Religious differences have played no role in the political movement.

All media have been proclaiming the uprising defeated & deader than a doornail, with headlines like “Bahrain Protesters Rally On Anniversary Of Crushed Uprising” & “Uprising crushed.” One wonders where the media gets their news. You can’t really believe estimates of the size of the protests since it’s established media practice to underestimate the size of progressive actions & inflate the size of right-wing events. But it seems likely the protests were smaller than usual, not because the fervor for social change has been crushed but because the regime threatened that even calls for protests would be treated like a crime & activists prosecuted for ‘spreading terror’. For the past several months, they’ve been stripping activists of their citizenship & throwing them into the gulag. And still protests continued.

Thousands of riot cops were deployed to thwart anniversary protests; they set up checkpoints & went nuts with the tear gas to prevent protesters from gathering. Hundreds were arrested, hundreds seriously injured by police assaults. One activist reported he saw hundreds of armed people in civilian clothes attacking protesters. Many protesters were shot but could not be taken to hospitals because they would likely be arrested, as happened in the 2011 uprising. Medical staff treating them then were prosecuted & incarcerated.

After all that, Al Jazeera had the chutzpah to repeat the Associated Press claim that protesters were violent, using rocks & petrol bombs to block roads & defy riot cops. They must be taking their cues from media coverage of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation & ethnic cleansing.

The Guardian-UK caption to this photo referred to clashes with police over the right to assemble as “riots.” Would that the rest of suffering humanity had mothers who taught their kids how to “riot.”
Our fullest respect & solidarity with the Bahraini revolution. We regret the movement in the US is too weak to restrain the Pentagon. Your intransigence will help to change that.

(Photo by Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP/Getty)

This is the Shejaiya neighborhood in Gaza City, a residential area bombed to smithereens by Israel last summer. The photo was taken in a recent sandstorm. The bombing buried many alive & has left thousands homeless in winter. This is what’s called a war crime, even though the UN needs a special commission to determine what our eyes can see.

The Guardian-UK caption to this photo read: “The buildings were destroyed during last year’s 50-day war between Israel & Hamas-led militants.” Sometimes the media lies about Palestine simply take your breath away.

(Photo by Mohammed Abed)

Now do you see why the US is in so much trouble? This is the criminal lineup of presidents for the dedication of Ronald Reagan’s presidential library in 1991. They all get one as a reward–though there’s little indication any of them ever cracked a book. Other than criminality, stupidity seems to be the only thing they have in common. They detest each other & that’s fully understandable.

George Bush the senior (& parent to an even bigger stupenagle & war criminal), was the current president here. He had just returned from a peace mission to the MIddle East. When the concept of peace is arming brutal tyrannies you can understand why the world is a mess wherever the US shows up.

People in other countries should not think badly of us for electing these jamokes. A rigged electoral system gives us only two choices. If these guys were the “lesser of two evils” consider the option we had.

(Photo by Anne Cusack/LA Times)

The first Copenhagen shooting was at a cafe right around dinner time. So there you have it! Another dispute over a parking space. Parking wasn’t a problem at 1:00 am when the second shooting took place at the synagogue? In these scenarios things don’t need to add up, do they? They don’t when Muslims are the victims.

Late breaking news on Associated Press tells us the synagogue is right near a bar. You see? Another parking dispute!

Though I’m no Sherlock Holmes but the story about the second shooting at a synagogue in central Copenhagen doesn’t add up. Probably it’s because all the facts aren’t in or maybe it’s because it stinks of “untruthiness.” A lone gunman shot at a synagogue at 1 am this morning. One unidentified person was shot in the head & two cops were injured.

So what was the person who got shot doing at the synagogue at 1 am? Was s/he just a passerby? Why were the two cops there? Did they just happen to pass by too? How did anybody know the place was shot up if most of the city was snoring?

This gunman also fled with his rifle on foot and one media source suggested he fled to the nearby crowded subway station. A man with a high-powered weapon didn’t draw attention to himself while he waited for the train?

We leave the sleuthing till more details are revealed.

This is a “call to arms” for Palestinian supporters & civil liberties advocates: Miko Peled, the Israeli anti-apartheid activist, was shut out by FB about two weeks ago because they claim his ID cannot be verified & he might be trolling. In a pig’s eye! Peled is a prominent figure who plays a pivotal role in Palestinian solidarity & FB would know that if they looked at the number of his friends, the activity on his wall, or just googled his name. He believes they are politically censoring him & that can hardly be in dispute.

Last year Facebook pulled the same stunt with Hamde Abu Rahma, a Palestinian photojournalist in the West Bank. Hundreds of FB supporters of his work rallied & campaigned to have his account restored, which it was. When your account is shut down, you lose an accounting of your friends, your photos, the discussions & you have to start from scratch. Facebook informed Peled that to reinstate his account it has to be under a different name or if someone else does it on his behalf. Once again, all they have to do is google his name. But of course, they already know exactly who he is.

So do we, which is why we value his exemplary work & role; his support for Palestinian justice is tough-minded & uncompromising. We need to assemble our forces on social media & get Miko Peled’s original Facebook account reinstated. Can those who lead the campaign for reinstating the account of Hamde please let us know the best way to proceed? Can everyone please share this post & information far & wide to solidarity activists in defense of Miko & of civil liberties on Facebook.

Petition site: http://mikopeled.com/2015/02/03/1085/

(Photo of Miko Peled)