https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFnqn-UL518

Reposting this video from May 2, 2011 of millions of Yemeni protesting their US-backed dictator. These are the people US Drones were then bombing, claiming they were al-Qaeda operatives.

This vision of millions of Arabs fearlessly defying tyranny struck terror into US, European, & Middle East regimes; this is what they are trying to bomb to smithereens in Yemen & Syria, prevent in Iraq & Afghanistan, & violently repress in Bahrain, Egypt, & Palestine, & elsewhere.

Love this video about parkour, a combination of athleticism & resistance politics prominent in Kashmir, Palestine, Afghanistan. This video beautifully weaves that relationship together with commentary by Khurram Parvez & Zahid Shah.

Zahid, who learned parkour on YouTube, introduced it in Kashmir & trains others in this remarkable physical discipline.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSuUSUMoF0M

My 4-year-old cell phone died so I got a new one but have no idea how to turn the damn thing on. Poking, shaking, turning it upside down don’t work.

My resident IT specialist is a 7-year-old kid I have to visit to show me how to call home. Kind of what Modi’s government should have done before that internet ban in Kashmir.

Is misanthropy a psychological trait of the barbaric phase of capitalism? Or have there always been so many haters?

To the misanthrope, nothing liberals do is ever good enough. Not even when they protest wars, climate change, mobilize for civil rights or women’s rights. Not even when they’re making revolutions like the Arab Spring & trying to make the world suitable for human beings to live & love in.

Give me a thousand righteous liberals over one do-nothing misanthrope any day.

A Kashmiri friend asked me to read his description of the brutalities & criminalities of the military occupation after the July 8, 2016 execution of the man whose name & image cannot be put on FB (without accounts being suspended or shut down permanently) but whose funeral was attended by over 600,000 mourners.

The terror he described is overwhelming. The extraordinary toughness & character of Kashmiri resistance is unforgettable. It more than explains why India wants the news blackout restored but mostly it is a call for international solidarity to mobilize.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

CBS is airing parts of the John Dickerson interview with Trump to evoke interest for the full interview special. Have we ever sufficiently addressed the utter banality of Donald Trump? The mind-numbing vapidity?

The more they try to clean up Trump’s image, the more they discredit the office of the presidency. Not a bad outcome.

But is Ivanka running the White House now? Was that the imaginary Deep State’s idea of a soft coup?

Satire is the art form of the oppressed, the social protest of the powerless, the voice of rebellion. When sarcasm & ridicule are used by the social elite, it is nothing more than an attempt to have a laugh at the expense of the oppressed.

Mark Twain is a writer who tried to have it both ways. In “Huckleberry Finn” he wrote a white savior novel demeaning Blacks that always makes white people feel proud but has never fooled Black school children who despise it.

No one knows the charade of having a laugh at our expense better than women–starting with the mother-in-law jokes. Even rebuttals to our objections are stock-in-trade: “Can’t you take a joke?” “Lighten up!”

Satire needs to be rescued from the damage Charlie Hebdo is inflicting. Ridiculing & demeaning others is not the point. Giving voice, emboldening the powerless, & social protest is what it’s all about. Otherwise it’s just oppression in a joke. Horse manure served as gourmet food.

(Reposted from May 1, 2015)

In his second invitation to Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte for a state visit to the White House, Trump openly endorsed Duterte’s death squad campaign against the poor. This should be included as documentation in impeachment proceedings against Trump who has not divested himself of business interests in the Philippines, including particularly Trump Tower Manila.

Trump has a vested economic interest in Duterte’s policies of slum clearance through arson, forcible evictions, & death squad vigilantes.

Just as the US establishment is trying to clean up Trump’s demento image, there is clearly a campaign to establish serial killer Duterte as a statesman. He is scheduled for a state visit in the coming months to Russia & to Israel. He has already visited Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, Xi Jinping in China. To complete the rounds of tyrants, he has yet to make a state visit to Modi, Assad, Erdogan, & al-Sisi.

Duterte cannot be allowed to enter this country without battalions of human rights activists out protesting his death squads along with the US military buildup in the Philippines.

(Photo is Demento Duterte from AP)