Mural art in the Egyptian uprising

Cairo mural art (Hassan Ammar:AP) Sept 18 2014
Mural street art flourished & played a dramatic role in the Egyptian uprising of 2011–now so brutally repressed under General Sisi, bankrolled by the IMF & armed by the US Pentagon. The murals were political, irreverent, satirical, iconoclastic, radical–& most of all, magnificent. Under the new regime, the murals could not be allowed to stay & have been mostly painted over by the government. (Murals continue to play a role in Yemen, where the uprising has also been beaten back, at least for now.)

This mural is on a street near Tahrir Square, Cairo, where artists use the whitewashed walls for new art works “with modern & Pharaonic motifs”–whatever the hell that means! Is it an artistic protest akin to samizdat, the dissident, often underground, literature under Stalinism in the USSR which masked social criticism even in detective novels & science fiction? Does that Pharaonic stuff suggest military dictatorship stuff? Or is this just an Egyptian guy evoking ancient history? Or is it an artist being a smart-aleck to keep Sisi’s censors guessing?

The Egyptian uprising against tyranny has been seriously set back–at first outsmarted by the Egyptian military & US Pentagon, but now severely repressed. It was a profound social rupture; a defeat of that scope takes time for people to debate, assess, understand, & come back fighting. But one thing became clear from here: if US working people don’t get off their leaden asses in solidarity to oppose US bankrolling & arming of tyranny, social transformation will take longer & be a whole lot harder to accomplish. Not impossible, just harder.

(Photo by Hassan Ammar/AP)

Eyes are the window to the soul

Elephan eyes in zoo (Oscar Ciutat) Sept 18 2014

Most animal lovers respond viscerally to seeing animals caged in zoos & we are often accused of anthropomorphizing animals who, the accusers say, operate by instincts & not emotions. We can only hope the accusers never have a dog to gnaw on that prejudice based in the outdated schema of “The Great Chain of Being.”

I have always been most struck by caged gorillas confined to settings constructed of plastic & without the smells & sounds of nature. Most often they sit with their backs to the viewing public, picking nits, looking miserable. A zookeeper I once met while viewing a gorilla explained to me the gorilla was not at all as miserable as he looked; in fact, he was intellectually stimulated every Thursday when they hid his food & made him hunt for it. This is when you’re wishing King Kong will show up.

In a local zoo in St. Paul, MN, I’ve seen parrots, high-strung by nature, chained to their perches in noisy, trafficked areas where their nerves must have snapped from overstimulation. I’ve seen giraffes confined during several winter months to cement rooms the size of a toilet stall where they are unable to turn or sit. And we won’t even talk about what we’ve seen in circuses.

This photographer shot these photos of animals at his local zoo because he was struck by the sadness in their eyes. He wanted to see if “the eyes are the windows to the soul” was true for animals as well as humans. The grieving eyes of animals are the dead giveaway to their emotional lives. Many have also noticed that if you coo to an animal–quietly, soothing, even apologetic–they all respond like children do because they feel (not instinct, but feel) empathy.

This is the eye of an elephant–& there is probably no more abused animal than this magnificent creature. If you look at the entire album, you will see proof that animals do indeed have emotions &, like us, their eyes are the window to their souls”.

http://oscarciutat.com/project/caged/#17

(Photos by Oscar Ciutat)

Militarizing police departments in the U.S.

MRAP San diego Sept 15 2014

When the police department in Ferguson, MO, used extreme force & a high-tech military arsenal against the unarmed Black commmunity to prevent them from exercising their rights to assembly & free speech, many public officials (including Obama) & the media acted all aghast & began one of their hand-wringing debates about the militarization of police departments throughout the US. Well it’s about time, even if it is part theater & half-assed, since the problem is not a new one, at least not if you’re Black or Latino.

According to the official narrative in media, the militarization of city cops began with the development of SWAT teams under police chief Darryl Gates in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. SWAT is an acronym for “Special Weapons & Tactics” (originally named “Special Weapons Assault Team”). According to manuals, SWAT teams are to be used for hostage situations, shootouts, when suspects are presumed armed & dangerous, even suicide prevention. According to the media, the US War on Drugs (begun in the 1980s) pushed things out of control so that today SWAT teams execute routine warrants usually but not always under the guise of drug raids. And they do it with battering rams to knock out doors, lobbing grenades & tear gas into homes, & with high-powered rifles. Probably to practice their skills, SWAT teams across the US have performed alcohol inspections on bars; raided bars for suspected underage drinking; performed license inspections at barbershops; raided a gay bar where public sex was alleged; raided Amish farms & food co-ops suspected of selling unpasteurized milk products; raided medical marijuana dispensaries in states where they are legal; raided an organic farm suspected of growing marijuana.

Today the number of SWAT team raids are in the tens of thousands per year & the overwhelming majority of them are in the Black & Latino communities. The truth of the matter is that extreme police violence has always existed in the Black community & SWAT teams are part of a police strategy to maintain social control of the Black community. One need only look at the violence used against the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, including water cannons, attack dogs, mounted police. Police brutality is what ignited urban rioting in Black communities in the 1960s including the riots in Watts, the Black neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1965.

The media narrative claims Gates cooked up the scheme of SWAT teams after the Watts riots to deal with extreme situations. But the LAPD under the previous police chief William Parker was distinguished for racist brutality in Watts which is one of the issues that ignited the rioting. Gates first tested SWAT teams in a 1969 raid on a group of Black Panthers but they had previously been tested by police in Delano, California north of LA against striking members of the United Farm Workers union. The experience in Delano was used by SWAT teams in the LAPD to hone skills.

Gates was a particularly foul & unapologetic racist & anti-Semite who was forced to resign in 1992 as a result of his mishandling of the Rodney King incident. In 1991, King, who is Black, was viciously beaten by four white cops. A bystander videotaped the incident which put LAPD violence against Blacks under an international spotlight. An all-white jury acquitted the cops in 1992 which led to further rioting in Watts. Gates who held that casual drug users should be shot & claimed Blacks didn’t fare well in police chokeholds because their physiology was different from “normal people” responded to criticisms of his handling of the King case by saying, “Clearly that night we should have gone down there & shot a few people. In retrospect, that’s exactly what we should have done. We should have blown a few heads off.”

Gates was a loose cannon & a thug & likely not the architect of SWAT teams. It’s far more likely the US government–which was terrified of Black rebellion across the country as well as the Civil Rights & Black Power movements–was using Gates & the LAPD to test & develop a strategy for social control of the Black & Latino communities. The so-called War on Drugs was part of that strategy to justify turning Black communities into martial law zones & preempt the Bill of Rights, particularly regarding illegal search & seizure, probable cause, & due process. As a result thousands of Black teens were railroaded into prisons falsely accused or for minor offenses that deserved nothing more than a “tut-tut” & a wink. Blacks kids were sentenced to life without parole for simply smoking a joint.

When the majority of people in the US bought the narrative about Black narco-terrorist gangs & allowed police to run roughshod in the Black community without protest, they allowed a wholesale assault on the Bill of Rights for everyone. This is where that “An injury to one is an injury to all” thing gets played out in technicolor. Because by 1999, at the Seattle WTO protests, the cops came in full commando regalia. Today you can’t even have a protest sing-along in the park without cops showing up in riot gear. The extreme violence that goes back decades in Watts & other Black neighborhoods is a seamless whole with police brutality under the guise of the War on Drugs, with the violent attacks on Occupy protestors in 2011, & with the violent attacks on the Black community in Ferguson.

This photo is a $700,000 armored vehicle recently given to the San Diego Unified School District for kids from preschool to the 12th grade. They were given the “mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle” (MRAP) built to withstand armor-piercing roadside bombs by the Pentagon under the same program which supplied the Ferguson cops with MRAPs, tear gas, assault rifles, grenades, battering rams. Clearly the Pentagon is being over-funded if it has billions of dollars of weapons to give away. But more likely, the program is a scam & is part of US government strategy to contain the social unrest they got an alarming preview of with Occupy & with Ferguson. Handing this vehicle to school cops is a troubling escalation that needs to be nipped in the bud.

Nothing terrifies the rulers of this country more than the rebellion of Black teens & the politicization of the Black community. Economic policy in this country & US military policy is completely dependent on racism. But to those who want to see a world fit for human beings in live & love in, the development of Black rebellion & solidarity with it, is a cornerstone to social transformation. If you want to know where the leadership of social change in the US is coming from, look to the young woman from Ferguson who knelt in the street against a phalanx of MRAPs & a barrage of tear gas.

(Photo of MRAP from San Diego Unified School District)

Announcing the birth of a new welfare chiseler

Willy & KKKKaty Sept 14 2014

The Twitter-sphere & social media are a-sputter with indignation at news that Willy & KKKKaty are having a second child who will be raised on the dole, paid for lock, stock, & barrel by taxpayers. Now indignation is a virtue, not an indulgence–& certainly not an emotion to be frittered away every time we’re run around the block by excesses of the 1%. So the question is, what made this news? Because moochocracy has never ever been anything but a glorified welfare class. Their very survival is testimony to the largesse of the welfare system. For those living in nations that trounced feudalism a few centuries ago, it is also testimony to the need for political modernization in England.

The time for indignation over Willy & KKKKaty might be somewhat belated since last year it was announced renovation costs on their four-story 20-room palace were already at $6.6 million & rising. A Buckingham minion explained the renovations weren’t reckless or extravagant since the palace was their one & only “official residence” where they plan to stay for many years to come. A few questions arise: (1) Tell us about those “unofficial residences”. (2) Does Buckingham expect this romance to be unfettered with the nonsense that beleaguered so many earlier dynasts in the same clan? We’d leave gossip to the tabloids except that $6.6 million moves the matter from dishing gossip to grand larceny.

Here’s where indignation might come in handy. While renovation costs were adding up, the British government was making access to welfare benefits much more stringent to trim “widespread abuses” of the system–cleaning up the old “welfare chiseler” scam. Part of the reforms included eliminating benefits for those in public housing who had more living space than government bureaucrats deemed necessary–like an extra bedroom. The so-called “bedroom tax” reform would have evicted thousands, including elderly & disabled people. So in the interests of public accountability, another question arises: Why wasn’t Willy & KKKKaty’s palace included in the bedroom tax reform? Because by the new welfare calculations, they have 16 rooms over the limit & their welfare check an overage of at least $6.5 million. What’s up with that England!?

In this news of the birth of a new welfare chiseler there is a silver lining: the less than redoubtable Harry will be one more step removed from taking over Betty’s role as chief hand-waver of the nation.

U.S. looks to fundamentalists to fight fundamentalists in Iraq

Kerry in Saudi Arabia Sept 13 2014

Despite overbearing & patrician manners, Kerry always looks clueless carrying out his schtick as secretary of state. Many, fooled by his dapper attire & head of hair, think highly of him but most of his achievements in life amount to little more than showboating.

He’s a typical US politician, born to immense privilege which allowed him to thrive way beyond his natural abilities. If he wasn’t the son of privilege he’d only be employable as assistant to a toilet cleaner. Think of him as our own Charlie Windsor.

Here Kerry is in Saudi Arabia looking for allies to beat back The Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL) in Iraq & Syria. And this is where the you-know-what of Islamophobia & US foreign policy hits the fans. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy run according to Sharia Law. Most Saudis are Sunni Muslims & while only a minority identify with Wahhabism (an austere fundamentalist & puritanical form of Sunni Islam), that interpretation of Islam remains the basis of dynastic rule in the country.

The Islamic State (IS) are Sunni Muslims of the Salafi movement, described as synonymous or a hybrid of Wahhabism, who want to establish a fundamentalist Islamist state in Iraq, Syria & other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean region.

And this is where the treacheries of US foreign policy begin to manifest. US & British covert operatives are directly involved in coordinating & arming IS & other Islamist paramilitary groups in an elaborate strategy of divide & conquer to create & manipulate divisions among adversaries in order to maintain economic & political control in the region. So while the US & its nefarious allies escalate Islamophobic propaganda against ‘Islamist terrorists’, the US is allied with Islamist Saudi Arabia & sponsors Islamist paramilitary groups. Something’s gonna give. And not just because the narrative doesn’t add up but because the US is playing a very dangerous game.

Not left out of this strategy is the conflict between Israel & the Palestinians. IS members are twitter activists & refused to support Gaza against Israeli ethnic cleansing because Hamas was the wrong kind of Muslim. Fighting Hamas, they claim, is a priority to confronting Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing. This might be called a “dead giveaway” to who IS really is & what they stand for. Some commenters have tried to root this in Salafist theology just like some try to root Christian Zionism in the Old Testament. The roots are much more shallow & can be traced more reliably to propaganda coming out of think tanks & the Pentagon.

Who can keep up with all this chicanery!? Who can wrap their brains around the intriques & malignancy of US foreign policy? We only need know that US occupation & carpet bombing has never served humanitarian purpose but only colonialism & continue to stand steadfast against it.

No US-NATO war in Iraq & Syria! US out of Afghanistan!

(Photo by Brendan Smialowskil/AP)

PS: And not to be catty or anything, but Kerry really does have to hang off the Botox. He’s looking more & more like a Madame Tussauds exhibit.

Immigrant workers in Kashmir flooding

Kashmir flooding homeless migrant Sept 12 2014 ( Dar Yasin:AP)

This is one of those things we don’t think about when we think about catastrophes like flooding. These men are immigrant workers in Kashmir, many from states in India. Thousands, including their children, were stranded by the flooding & waited days to be evacuated. They are here sitting out torrential rains on the side of a highway in Srinigar because the area they lived in was inundated by floodwaters.

Once again, maybe FB friends from Kashmir can suggest trustworthy places for relief donations.

(Photo by Dar Yasin/AP)

Massive flooding in Kashmir

Srinigar flooding Sept 12 2014 (Adnan Abidi:Reuters)

Many scientists aren’t quite ready to say record flooding on every continent (which at any one time has about a fourth to a third of the planet under deluge) is linked with global warming. Many studies do not find any link between melting Arctic sea ice & extreme weather patterns–or for that matter between massive deforestation & melting polar sea ice. Studies would however find a direct financial link between those scientists still scratching their heads about global warming & the corporations causing it by neoliberal plunder. Science has more than its share of people willing to sing for their supper–nearly as many as the US Congress. If we wait till the water is up around their ankles for these scientists to change their tune, we’ll be facing the Genesis Deluge without an ark.

These floods across Asia, South Asia, Europe, the Americas, Australia, Africa have caused catastrophic loss of life, livelihood, & property. This is not a matter of just calling for massive investments in flood & coastal defenses–although it most certainly includes that–but of altering the way neoliberal capitalism does business. They’ve proven they can’t steward the planet without taking us all out so their system is going to have to bite the dust. And time is becoming of the essence.

Right now one of the hardest hit areas is Kashmir & parts of Pakistan (which has been hit with at least five massive floods since 2003). As of September 7th, nearly 200 people in Kashmir & 205 in Pakistan have died in the floods. Several thousand Kashmiri villages have been hit, with 390 submerged under water. Most parts of Srinagar are submerged under 12 feet (3.7 m) of water. So far, 1,300,000 have been rescued, including 87,000 from Srinigar city.

We see the same images we saw during Hurricane Katrina: people standing on rooftops waiting to be rescued, people clinging to ropes & trees so as not to be carried away by flood waters, people fleeing in makeshift rafts. But mostly we see photo after photo of people evacuating seniors, disabled, children, animals. In this photo evacuating residents are holding up a man falling off a tractor trying to get out of Srinigar. One hates to think catastrophes are humanity’s finest moments but they certainly do show the glory human beings are made of.

Flood waters are a toxic brew of chemicals, sewage, & other pollutants & besides causing massive infrastructure damage (including devastation of farm land & livestock), raise the risk of waterborne diseases including typhoid, cholera, giardia, cryptosporidium.

The people of Kashmir are appealing for emergency aid & perhaps FB friends from Kashmir can suggest reliable agencies to contribute.

(Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)

Satire in the age of neoliberal barbarism

Colbert and Kiss-ass Sept 11 2014

What has happened to satire in the age of neoliberal barbarism? Are Stephen Colbert & Jon Stewart the best we can do? Neither provides enough laughs to compensate for the amount of groveling they do before the status quo. They have guests like Paul Bremer (an architect of Iraqi destruction), Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, & others nearly as odious who they never think to challenge but only swap a few jejune quips that even canned laughter doesn’t respond to.

Satire is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, & ridicule to expose & criticize stupidity, vice, treachery; it shouldn’t be used to kiss ass. If all you want to do is grovel, a few knock-knock jokes will cut it.

Colbert, in the persona of a naive ultraconservative, reduces satire to an amorality play. In 2006, when the world held George W. Bush in utter contempt for war criminality, Colbert hosted his “roasting” at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. After all, the destruction of Iraq & the deaths of hundreds of thousands had to be worth at least a few laughs.

But the most despicable Colbert of all is the one who repeatedly includes Kissinger in skits on “The Colbert Report.” More than once, this international mass murderer has appeared in Colbert videos as an avuncular elder-stateman. Last night, Colbert interviewed him about his new book & referred to him as a “grandpa figure”. A “grandpa figure” responsible for massive bombing, assassinations, torture, coups, & mass murders with a death figure in the millions.

Satire is a wonderful art; sometimes it’s the only thing to take the edge off tragedy & sorrow. To reduce it to amorality & indifference to criminality is unspeakable. And that is why Colbert is no longer even remotely funny but just a parody of his own idiocy.

(Photo is still shot from 2013 video of Colbert dancing in Kiss-ass-inger’s office)

Obama beats the drums of war–again!

Obama mug shot Sept 11 2014

All of the caricatures of Obama emphasize his big ears; none have captured the essence of him which is his Pinocchio nose. So this mug shot-like photo is the most suitable–because he should be on trial in an international tribunal for war crimes against the peoples of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Somalia, Yemen, & several other secret military deployments.

His announcement last night was chock full of lies (he does his tutor, Kiss-ass-inger proud) but clearly the Pentagon intends to escalate war against Iraq using massive bombing & now incorporates Syria into their military program. Nothing could be more alarming. They are not introducing troops (at least for now & only covertly) because they want to undercut antiwar opposition.

He emphasized in his pack of lies that this is a “coalition” effort–which means he has the collusion of European & other bellicose nations in this aggression. This is a turning point in military escalation; this is another escalation in barbarism of the kind we just witnessed in Gaza. It is also a call to arms for men & women of good will to stand defiant against this onslaught.

Many are confused & believe the Pentagon will liberate the Syrian revolution from Assad. Just like the US liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein? And Afghanistan from the Taliban? When the Pentagon & its allies are through with Iraq & Syria there will be only rubble, not revolution against tyranny.

Antiwar rallies will be called around the world. Grab a placard & join the international chorus demanding “No War in Iraq!” “No War in Syria!” “US-NATO out of Afghanistan!”

(Photo of Obama from 2012 campaign–intended to be flattering–by Terry Richardson)

Neoliberal healthcare in the Ebola epidemic

Liberia Ebola epidemic Sept 8 2014

In this photo taken in Banjol, Liberia, neighbors of an Ebola victim watch medical workers carry away his body. There’s a lot of emotions written in their faces–from confusion to anxiety to defiance–& then there is the stench of death. Whole neighborhoods have been put under military lock-down but we see photos of crowds gathering within a few feet while workers suited in protective gear spray down the bodies of those who dropped dead in the road.

Media commenters express incredulity that Liberians are so distrustful of government & health officials & are rebelling against the forced quarantines. But what’s new about that? More importantly, what’s foolish about that given the racism of public health programs–especially those administered by US agencies? Well-heeled white parents in the US don’t trust ingredients in vaccinations & parents in Pakistan are refusing polio shots because they suspect nefarious CIA involvement. Women in many countries have every reason to distrust population control programs where forced sterilization is part of the package–or don’t those commenters know the score? The Gates Foundation is criticized in many countries, including Lesotho, because they undermine primary healthcare to dish out vaccinations to people weak from hunger whose systems can hardly withstand exogenous drugs in place of food.

The reported costs of fighting the Ebola epidemic continue to rise from $70 million several weeks ago to now $600 million. US & European officials announced they would commit $250 million. The Gates Foundation, who have given billions ostensibly to fight malaria & polio in African countries, gave a measly $1 million last month to UNICEF to fight Ebola. Curious because four years ago, Gates gave Liberia a $5 million grant for a recycling & garbage pick-up program. Just hours ago he raised Ebola aid to $50 million. Gates’s Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen gave $2.8 million to the American Red Cross last month to fight Ebola & donated another $100,000 to a matching fund. The problem is US health officials admit none of those funds have arrived in West Africa yet. The always thieving American Red Cross admits to dispersing only $100,000 & that for computer systems, not health services–which explains why people are dropping dead in the roads & in their homes & are not being cared for in hospitals.

Financial media–always the ones to put first things first–are concerned that quarantines are delaying mining projects & slowing rubber & palm oil output in Liberia, as well as cocoa, peanut, & rice production in Sierra Leone. The African Union objects to the border closures, flight bans & mass quarantines in West African countries. They claim they can’t send in more health workers because there isn’t enough protective gear & flight bans are making it difficult to get the protective suits. All that dough & they can’t figure out how to deliver gear after several weeks of epidemic. Meanwhile, according to a US health official, the Ebola epidemic is now “completely out of control.”

What’s also out of control is neoliberal plunder which extracts immense wealth from these countries & drives down the standard of living so that people get sick because they cannot afford food, much less healthcare. In many ways, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is a replay of the cholera outbreak caused by UN troops in Haiti in 2010. They share all the same elements: corrupt regimes, neoliberal plunder, racism, treating human beings as dispensable.

Those of us who live in the plundering countries regret more than anything we have not yet sufficient political strength to stay the hand of plunder. It is our commitment to change that.

(Photo by Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images)