Despite never evincing the least interest in working people, they go all proletarian with discussions about employment & poverty in the US. So when Sanders completely, hopelessly crapped out on the question of civil rights for the Black community under violent siege, his dialecticians try to weasel their way out of their own & his contradictions by talking about class distinctions within the Black community–as if they’re making theoretical inroads instead of asses of themselves.

They retreat to their phony ecumenism & aspersions about identity politics because when you scratch their pompous asses you will find a xenophobe–usually a tenured white one–terrified by independent Black political power.

“Blacks lives matter” should not be that hard for Sanders to say & it does not scare the hell out of those who agree & want to be part of the emerging civil rights & Black power movement.

John Kerry also negotiates military aid to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, & a dozen other countries. He shills for US wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, drone bombing in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, & sweatshop economics everywhere.

This whole fiasco reminds me of when people like Glenn Greenberg lobbied for Chuck Hagel as US Secretary of Defense, guided by the lesser evil syndrome. There are no lesser evils nor largesse associated with US militarism. The deal that looks so good in obfuscation will prove to be full of loopholes leading to more war.

Code Pink needs to smarten up about the Pentagon & not shame the US antiwar movement with this stunt.

https://www.facebook.com/CSPAN/videos/vb.21472760578/10153685783875579/?type=2&theater

Syria had about 600,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria with the Yarmouk camp near Damascus being the largest. Since April, the Yarmouk camp has been under siege by both ISIS & the Syrian army. Lebanon has around 250,000 Palestinian refugees living in squalor & poverty in 12 officially recognized camps. This man outside the Sabra camp near Beirut is throwing trash on a roadside dump covered with white pesticide blowing freely in the wind, creating health hazards for people already living in poverty. Unemployment, overcrowding, lack of ventilation, inadequate garbage collection, poor water & sewage systems make the camp a breeding ground for disease. The Sabra & Shatila camp is the site of a 1982 massacre by right-wing Lebanese paramilitaries & the Israeli & Lebanese armies. An estimated 3,500 Palestinians were slaughtered.

One Zionist source claims the refugee issue has “been deliberately exploited by Arab & Palestinian politicians in their war with Israel.” There’s hardly a need to “exploit” an issue that is the very heart of the colonial conflict with Israel & the creation of a Jewish-only state. Colonialism speaks for itself. Seven million Palestinians are living in stinking refugee camps subject to massacre while Jews living anywhere in the world can claim Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return & take up residence on Palestinian land. The Palestinian refugee problem isn’t going away soon & will remain at the heart of the conflict until Israel is forced to abandon its colonial project.

Support Palestinian refugees by building the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel (BDS).

(Photo by Bilal Hussein/AP)

This has made Afghanistan one of the most contaminated countries in the world from mines–including in cities not just strategic military targets like airports, government installations, & power stations. Kabul is the most heavily mined city in the world.

This alone should give pause in lauding the USSR’s occupation as an emancipatory event. You can quote Mao Tse Tung till the cows come home, but power doesn’t always come from the barrel of a gun. That’s the mantra of a fool who doesn’t want to do the hard political work necessary to change the world.

US out of Afghanistan! US out of Iraq!

(Photo by Alexander Koerner/Getty Images)