It isn’t just mercy that refugees require because that has a sense of noblesse oblige & solidarity is a very different thing. But if you substitute mercy with solidarity in this beautiful passage from The Merchant of Venice, the message is the same.

Solidarity is not an act of charity but a recognition that our fates are tied together, that we are bound by economics, politics, colonialism & war–& that social transformation is forged only by our unity as brothers & sisters to end tyranny & make this world suitable for children to live & love in.

This little girl is in Serbia at a locked down Hungarian border crossing. Children may be the future but we are the present & have every obligation to fight for them so their lives are blessed.

(Photo by Darko Vojinovic/AP)

Today, Croatia re-sealed its eight road border crossings after thousands of desperate refugees pushed through police cordons to enter–& of course in such panic & chaos, many fell, were trampled & injured. An estimated 2,000 people were stuck for hours in blazing heat at the train station in Tovarnik, Croatia waiting for transportation to refugee centers. The only heartening part of the story is the Croatian volunteers who set up tables at the station to feed the refugees.

Croatia is now not just directing refugees back to the Hungarian border but is busing them back where they will again be confronted with violence. If this isn’t a confrontation between good & evil, then what is it?

There are now many photos like this of crying infants & children. The chaos, tension, & violence must overwhelm their nervous systems in ways that cause permanent harm. This woman & child are at the Tovarnik station.

We need to do more than have welcome rallies for the refugees; we need to march to the Hungarian border by the millions & demand they end the barbarism. And we need to take those barbarous governments down that do not serve human needs & rights but flout them along with the highest achievements of human civilization.

Immigration is a human right. Open the borders.

(Photo by Marko Drobnjakovic/AP)

The reporter was assured by medical personnel that the children would recover from tear gas exposure but research in fact links both tear gas & pepper spray to serious illness & even death. The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) prohibits both tear gas & pepper spray in warfare for a reason but they are still considered legitimate in repressive policing. Of course no CWC ban is going to deter the US Pentagon from using illegal chemicals nor Israel which used white phosphorus on the people of Gaza.

Unfortunately we know from almost daily exposure to tear gas & pepper spray against the uprisings in Bahrain, Egypt, & Palestine that serious health problems are associated with these chemical agents, especially for those with respiratory problems. Some of the health problems include coughing, shortness of breath, other lung-related disorders, delayed menses, miscarriages, stillbirths, heart & liver damage. And that doesn’t even count the extreme psychological trauma children experience being attacked by groups of riot cops.

The photos show the refugees–who must be starving, exhausted, & stressed to the max–protesting & fighting back against the outrageous human rights crimes being committed against them. It is not irrelevant that before Assad’s bombing, US covert intervention, & ISIS turned Syria into a killing field, there was a revolutionary movement against the the Assad regime which many of these refugees may have participated in.

Neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism, is in profound international crisis. It is driven to countless wars by inexorable pressures & conflicts but it is not equipped to deal with the carnage it leaves in its wake. Actually, they don’t give a rat’s ass about the human suffering they create. We saw that in the Greek austerity program imposed on the backs of working people, with pensioners taking it in the jugular, & we see it now with their callous barbarism against desperate refugees.

Immigration is a human right & we need to shout “Open the borders!” from the rooftops. But the most important political responsibility of our era is to re-build the international antiwar movement to stay the hand of barbarism & militarism.

This photo is taken at Horgos, on the Hungarian-Serbian border.
Horgos, Hungarian-Serbian border

(Photo by Srdjan Stevanovic/Getty Images)

No one expects the reactionary regime of president Erdoğan to champion refugee rights but mostly refugees are transiting through Turkey. So why this crackdown?

For many years Turkey, the second largest military force in NATO, has campaigned to become part of the European Union. Their membership bid is a major controversy opposed by influential political forces–including those who write rubbish like: “Turkey is not a mature European-style democracy.” Of course it isn’t democratic; it’s extremely repressive. But which “mature” European democracies are they talking about? France which persecutes Muslims for wearing a veil & evicts & deports Roma? Greece which is making pensioners homeless? Spain which is evicting thousands to privatize public housing & no longer allows public protests? Or England run by a feudal monarch?

In May, Erdoğan gave a speech promoting Turkey’s EU membership. He said “The EU needs Turkey more than ever,” arguing that the EU & Turkey need to act together in the face of growing regional threats. “Regional threats” like immigration?

The way realpolitik works, even before the barbarism of neoliberal capitalism, is trade-offs, back-room deals, devil’s bargains at the expense of working people. It’s such a pervasive method of operating that politicians pride themselves on artful manipulation & treachery. They call it diplomacy.

So is it cynical to suggest that Turkey’s aggression against refugees is a quid pro quo bid for EU membership?

Hopefully the continuing democracy movement in Turkey will link their struggles with that of refugees & demand “Turkey out of NATO,” & “Immigration is a human right; open the borders.”

(Photo by Yasin Akgul/AFP/Getty Images)

Incoherent narrative about Israeli aggression doesn’t just mean media can’t put a sentence together or they can’t figure out what the hell’s going on–though there is that–but by using obfuscation they want the conflict to seem intractable, impervious to resolution, ancient in origin. And above all, they want Palestinians to appear irascible & violent disciples of Hamas.

‘Masked Palestinian youths’ barricaded themselves & hurled flares to disrupt a Jewish holiday. How unreasonable can Palestinians be to defend their mosque against aggressive Zionist extremists who have no Judaic reason to visit a mosque on a Jewish holiday. Why aren’t such religious guys at a synagogue praying up a storm? Or at the Wailing Wall outside the al-Aqsa compound? Why are they hanging out at the mosque forcing its closure to Palestinian worshippers if it isn’t as provocation?

Who knows what in the hell happened there when media won’t tell the truth, Palestinian reporters are arrested, & media sources are the Israeli police themselves? But we don’t need to know the details to choose sides because Jewish worshippers & Israeli police have no reason to be at the mosque or within the confines of the Noble Sanctuary compound & are violating about a dozen international laws as well as the mosque charter between Jordan & Israel barring Christians & Jews from worshipping there.

Build the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel & demand the US stop bankrolling Israeli apartheid.

(Photo by Mohamad Torokman/Reuters)

Statistics show that Israel is one of the most irreligious countries in the world with the number of atheists & agnostics near 50 percent. So this isn’t about recovering religious heritage & media should stop repeating the idiotic mantra that the site is the holiest in Jewish tradition & only the third holiest in Muslim tradition. The siege on Al-Aqsa is only about an invented people called Israelis manufacturing historic & religious traditions to render a sense of entitlement to Palestine.

It’s now clear Israel is targeting the mosque for destruction. They began with excavations underneath in order to weaken the structure so it would collapse. They instituted bans on men under 50-years-old from worshipping in the mosque & made them kneel in the streets outside.They’ve repeatedly allowed Zionist extremists to protest at the compound & have ushered Zionist settlers & tourists into the mosque to tour & worship when it is expressly forbidden by the agreement between Israel & the Jordanian foundation that administers the mosque. They’re escalating the assaults now by blacklisting women from the mosque & most importantly are entering the mosque with tear gas & grenades to do extensive physical damage & make it impossible for Muslim worshippers to simply practice their religion.

Israel is trying to impose a press blackout on their siege of Al-Aqsa (a siege which includes violence against women & other protesters trying to defend the mosque) by arresting & assaulting Palestinian reporters & keeping international media out.

As Israel focuses its violence on Al-Aqsa, we must rally to the defense of religious freedom for Palestinians & put political pressure on Israel to stop the destruction of the mosque.

Building the economic, cultural, & academic boycott (BDS) of Israeli apartheid is absolutely imperative along with demanding the US & other regimes stop bankrolling these monstrous crimes.

(Photo by Ammar Awad/Reuters)