I remember when Tariq Ali was a leading voice on the left. He’s been inertial for a while; that can happen when you get guru status. But something happened on the road to Damascus.

Now he posts videos of Eva Bartlett & allows comments like this to stand on his wall unchallenged: “Assad has been vilified purely because he won’t play along with the Rothschild banksters?”

Life moves on. People change. The lesson is: no gurus, no masters, no groveling. Find teachers, learn to listen carefully, study & don’t be glib, keep your dignity & most of all learn to think for yourself.

Did you ever think you’d see the day when people who think they’re progressives stand in phalanxes of solidarity with Russia pumping their fists in anger at the US over emails whilst cheering on Syrian war planes bombing civilians in the Wadi Barada valley?

It gets worse: they aren’t just cheering on Syria but are acting as its propaganda ministry on social media by claiming those civilians are all Al-Qaeda who poisoned the water supply to Damascus with diesel. Civilians & rebels in Wadi Barada have allowed government engineers to maintain & operate the water pumping station in an area they’ve controlled since 2012. They say government bombers damaged the pumping station. Doesn’t that explanation make a hell of a lot more sense?

But this is the era of post-truth truthiness & zombie politics–& the most unspeakable betrayals of principles & human solidarity where the “anti-imperialists” swear allegiance to war planes, special forces, dictators, & death squads.

Give us a liberal any day–who holds human life in the highest esteem, who can distinguish between healthy skepticism & paranoia, who hasn’t lost their bearings & their marbles groveling over gurus who’ve long since grown jaded & dull–over ten-thousand “anti-imperialists” on the march to the right.

There’s a guy on Twitter says Eva Bartlett wears an “I love Bashar” bracelet. Actually she has that tattooed on her ass. The poor thing’s a real groveler.

It’s very sad to hear John Berger died today at the age of 90. He was introduced to me in the late 60s by a Palestinian artist friend & I can barely remember now when his writings were not a part of my life.
He’s been writing since the 50s & was still publishing work this year. My favorites were his books on Picasso, on cubism, on the role of artists in society, on ‘seeing’ animals, & all his books on looking & seeing.

He was unlike any other: always revelatory, visionary, & profoundly humanist. His critiques never sucked the life out of art as so many do but only enriched understanding. He gave us new ways of seeing art but also insight into the very nature of human perception which I have found invaluable in art & in politics.

He was a marvelous writer who I loved but was never nosy enough to learn much about. I honestly know nothing about him personally except he was English, a socialist, & lived somewhere in Switzerland.

May he Rest In Peace. He left an enduring, extraordinary legacy.