CBS news is reporting FBI claims of a surge in “homegrown ISIS supporters” in the US. Is that a measure of social angst & alienation from the system? Of the scale of criminal insanity in the US? Of the paranoid imagination of FBI operatives? Or just another justification for the surveillance state? Color me skeptical as all get-out.

Reposting this from May 2012 just because the relationship between the orphaned elephant & his caretaker is so tender & endearing:
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Elephants are deeply emotional & loving animals & form intense bonds of love with their rescuers & caretakers. According to the caretakers, the love goes both ways. As one caretaker said, “It’s not for the wages. The more you’re with them, the more you satisfy yourself. You just love them.” That bond is more than evident here between caretaker & orphan at the Sheldrick orphanage in Kenya.

(Photo by Michael Nichols/National Geographic)

Who doesn’t like to nail corporations for malfeasance? But it’s positively embarrassing that a federal judge has allowed two Starbucks customers to pursue a lawsuit against the coffee chain for under-filling lattes. Who has the kind of money it takes for such a frivolous lawsuit? Nobody likes to be stiffed but why didn’t they just find another coffee shop?

Any woman who has ever pursued litigation for sexual harassment by a corporation faces an obstacle course of legal requirements & maneuvers just to file the lawsuit & will be lucky if it even gets that far.

Pardon me if it fries my ass that US jurisprudence gives stinking lattes priority over women’s right not to be abused & to be treated with respect.

The Wall Street Journal is using the Orlando massacre to ramp up a scurrilous campaign against Muslims. Of course it’s the voice of Wall Street which makes fortunes from war & Islamophobia is the battle cry of war-mongering. They’ve run a series of articles with titles like “Jihad in Orlando” & “Islam’s Jihad Against Homosexuals,” the latter by professional & well-remunerated Islamophobe Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

To pull that off, you have to assume your readers will either swallow any rubbish you publish, are politically dumb as a stump, or that they’re all Episcopalians who don’t know their own catechism. All religions have conservative denominations that condemn homosexuality & most of them, except Catholicism & some other Christian groups, have progressive denominations that accept it as part of human life.

This photo is my friend Elena Ledesma Rashid & her husband, both Muslims. They traveled over 1,000 miles to Orlando to meet other Muslim friends & participate in the solidarity gathering yesterday of 50,000 people.

Does their journey to Orlando prove that Islam does not have a jihad against homosexuals? Of course not. That’s why there are history books that examine the subject–history books that don’t have an axe to grind against Muslims. That’s where you learn Islam has a long history of tolerance, that in the 19th century homosexuality was decriminalized in the Muslim Ottoman Empire which controlled vast parts of Europe, Asia, & Africa.

Historical investigations also show that criminalization of homosexuality was instituted under British colonial rule. In 2014, The Washington Post looked at data from 185 countries & reported that British colonies in South Asia, Africa, & the Middle East were much more likely to criminalize homosexuality than colonies of other European nations & they claim that almost 70 percent of states with a British colonial past continue to criminalize homosexual conduct.

This would suggest homophobia in many countries has a political heritage rooted more in British colonialism than in religion. But religion did play a role in the sodomy laws. However, it was not the Quran & Islam but the Bible & Christianity that led to the sodomy laws in the overwhelming majority of countries.

The WSJ’s tendentious editorializing about Islam & homosexuality is the same kind of sloppy stuff passed off about Islam & women when the scholarship on Islamic feminism is ten miles high.

There’s no denying some denominations of Islam & many countries with reactionary Muslim leaderships have serious problems with homosexuality that are just as repressive as those of the Vatican & umpteen other Christian denominations. But how many actual massacres of homosexuals by Muslims can the WSJ cite to prove this alleged jihad?

There are unspeakable human rights crimes against homosexuals in many countries–from Russia to Kenya. But have the Islamophobes examined the role of US Christian evangelicals on sexual politics & homophobic legislation in several African countries run by Muslims & in countries like Russia? Highly unlikely because such realities interfere with war mongering.

Enough with the Islamophobia! Enough with using people’s cherished religious beliefs to justify bombers. Religious freedom is a historic acquisition that the war-mongers cannot be allowed to usurp. On the other hand, LGBT rights are yet to be realized in the overwhelming majority of countries, including the USA.

A tip of the hat to Elena, her husband, & the millions of other Muslims, Christians, Jews, & others who stand with the Orlando victims.

Rebuilding the international antiwar movement is the imperative of our era but it is weak, if existent at all, in most countries. However, with the US military buildup against China in the Asia-Pacific region, the big battalions of the antiwar movement in the Philippines & in Japan are leading the way. They are leading the way because US military operations & bases in their countries have created social & cultural havoc for generations of wars.

This is a demonstration in Okinawa yesterday where an estimated 65,000 people protested to demand the US permanently remove its 26,000 troops from the island–that is more than half of the 47,000 US troops & 70 percent of all US bases in Japan. Their placards read, “Our anger is past its limits,” “Pull out the US Marines,” “Don’t rape Okinawa.” Reuters called it “one of the biggest demonstrations in two decades.” There were also an estimated 10,000 protesters in Tokyo, 500 in Sapporo, & 1,000 in Nagoya.

Many Zionists take umbrage at the comparison of Israeli apartheid to German Fascism. Actually just as apt a comparison is to ISIS in Iraq & Syria. Take umbrage if you like, but can you define the operative distinctions? At least in Gaza?

Yesterday, the Israeli government approved $18 million (16 million euros) to fund additional settlements in the occupied West Bank. According to Haaretz newspaper, that amount is in addition to an already allocated $88 million. An estimated 600,000 Jewish settlers now live in the West Bank & East Jerusalem which are Palestinian territories occupied by the Israeli military in 1967.

Netanyahu said the funding was to “assist small businesses, encourage tourism, & strengthen security.” What that boils down to is that Israel is going to strengthen its military occupation to pull off thousands more settlers moving in & taking Palestinian lands against Palestinian resistance.