Things are looking up, sisters! Feminism is attracting new forces despite the sustained attacks on feminism & the wretched attempts to misrepresent it as uniformly white, racist, & pro-war; despite men, including Hairy Windsor, who think they’re going to lead the women’s movement cause the girls just aint cutting it; & despite Antony Loewenstein, the bozo from Australia who wrote a column in the Guardian so chock full of prejudices & idiocies about feminism that it created it’s own smelly vortex. And to think he thought he was being brave by entering the fray denouncing feminists. Does he think he’s original? Bozos like him are a dime a dozen & if he keeps it up, he’ll get picked off just like the rest of them. That would be the forte of feminism.

There are many currents within feminism & always have been; one could call it a cacophony of often competing currents. But it’s portrayed as white & privileged. The participation of working class women is ignored. Black & Latina women have been completely & dishonestly written out even though they held massive conferences numbering in the thousands to address their special concerns as feminists. In that regard it must be asked what is the operative distinction between those who write these women out of feminist history (to discredit the women’s movement) & white supremacist writers who write them out of all history?

In the women’s movement of the 1960s & 1970s the big battalions included counter-cultural women whose feminism was personal transformation & whose social politics were quite frankly insufficient. But they also were the groundbreakers in women’s health initiatives & made pagan goddess worship one of the fastest growing religions of the times.

Lesbian feminists fought for their place in the movement & many allies stood with them. One of the quainter debates in the movement was over separatism, the idea that women could somehow live apart from men like the mythical Amazons. There were ferocious political fights involving extreme red-baiting over attempts to hitch the movement to the Democratic Party. Socialist feminists were a key part of broadening the movement while sustaining constant attacks on their legitimacy as feminists, charges of infiltration, & accusations they were male-dominated. Out of such cacophony a movement was forged & rights long denied were won.

Those who try to discredit feminism betray themselves & their ignorance when they refer to feminism as a “western” thing or a white thing. Feminism was international & touched women in almost every culture & religion & country. This alarmed the ruling elites who quickly moved to co-opt the movement & make it elite. Hillary Clinton led that initiative for the US. She still does.

Third Wave feminism, mostly an amorphous & diverse current of bloggers & academics, got much of that history wrong by relying on media’s version of feminism. Call it naiveté about media, call it sloppy scholarship, but they have done a grave disservice to the history of women’s struggle against oppression. Many women journalists & bloggers, feigning support for women’s rights, attempt to create an unbreachable chasm between white, Black, Latina, & Native American women. There is no “we” in feminism they claim but only us & them. They scorn solidarity, denouncing it as an act of noblesse oblige, of privilege, of supremacy.

The problem with this ‘there is no us’ stuff is that it substitutes guilt-baiting for politics & not for the first time. But more than anything, it treats women’s oppression like a Mickey Mouse operation when it is built into the very structure of society & the deepest psyches of humankind. When we look at the massive & varied forms of violence against women around the world–& in this regard, cut the crap on holding up the US & Europe as standard bearers of female liberation–we understand that challenging that edifice is a monumental, historic task requiring the strongest & unbreakable unity. Those who piss around with the guilt-baiting (like our hapless Loewenstein from Down Under) don’t have a clue what the stakes are for women, have no respect for feminist unity, & a pitiful grasp of the meaning & power of solidarity.

That doesn’t mean Black & brown feminists have to eat it when it comes to racism within the movement; rather it demands they do not tolerate it in any form. Those who have been part of social movements like the civil rights & feminist movements well know their transformative power & ability to overcome the deepest indoctrinations of social hatred.

So things are looking up because we have a new battalion entering the fray & taking up their posts. No they’re not Amazons but they do ride brooms. They also teleport, shape shift, communicate intergalactically, & they have cauldrons where big machista egos get melted down to molten stupidity. Tell us again boys, that you’ve come to save us & you’ll see the inside of one of those cauldrons faster than you can emit a whistle or a fart.

(Photo of witches at carnival in Cologne, Germany by Martin Meissner/AP)

Someone has reported with chagrin that Betty Windsor refuses to acknowledge her German ancestry. Do they mean the demented trolls in the Black Forest from whence all European moochocrats derive or the ones who collaborated with Adolph Hitler? Or perhaps her own husband who has uttered more political profanities than any one person should be allowed in a lifetime. He once said ‘in the event he is reincarnated, he would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.’ If he was active enough to get off his lazy ass, he could be declared a deadly virus now & one wonders why the British health authorities haven’t done so.

So now we learn belatedly that Betty is not a rightful claimant to the throne according to the rules of succession. Apparently 500 years ago in a “royal” history that reads more sordidly than gossip tabloids, some “queen” had a son with a lowly plebeian & he became ancestor of the present moochocracy. The real blood line declined into mere aristocrats–lowly earls–& the last man standing migrated to Australia where he became a gruff republican.

English historians of feudal moochocracy share the spirit of celebrity blogger Perez Hilton. It’s all tittle & tattle signifying nothing but nosiness & upscale groveling. It’s as though they don’t know how feudalism operates or in fact how capitalism works. You shouldn’t have to explain to grown men that there is no such thing as royal blood. And there’s no tooth fairy either. So they can get up off their knees, dust them off, & try to act like they have even a shred of self-respect.

Tony Robinson, who narrated the tale of Betty’s plebeian heritage, tries to make it look like investigative reporting by following the story to interview “King Mike” in the Australian outback. One feels more pity than respect. Since he was knighted by Betty in 2013, he’s unlikely to improve. She probably gave him that “Sir” title to shut him up. And quite frankly, we hope she succeeds.

This is photo of either Mike or Betty’s ancestor. We don’t know if he’s royal or plebeian. It was so hard to keep up with all the gambling & liaisons & intrigues of the feudals. But it’s clear Betty came by her addiction to horse racing honestly. She may well be the progeny of a bookie.

(Photo is screen shot from mockumentary titled “Britain’s Real Monarch” narrated by Robinson)

In “Mending Wall”, the poet Robert Frost said, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down!” The demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1989 after 28 years would be the most dramatic demonstration of that. Two years after the wall went up (1963) US President John F. Kennedy stood on a platform in West Berlin & did some Cold War grandstanding by pronouncing “”Ich bin ein Berliner”. 

This is the 25th anniversary of the destruction of that wall & Palestinian activists celebrated it by hacking away & breaking holes in the Israeli apartheid wall which Zionists call the “anti-terrorist fence.” Amongst the graffiti on the apartheid wall you can see “”Ich bin ein Berliner” in a few places. The irony is that now the US bankrolls the wall & lets Netan-psycho do the grandstanding. US politicians are better known as dull-witted than for bon mots but it was Janet Nepolitano who said about the US barrier wall on the Mexican border, “You build a 50 foot wall, somebody will find a 51 foot ladder.” Because “something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

Nevertheless, ignoring the testimony of poetry & history, in the past twenty years barrier walls are having a barbaric resurgence & 6,000 miles have been constructed in the past ten years alone all over the planet. They’re not just eyesores; they are an assault on human freedom. They’re constructed of steel, concrete, razor wire, they’re electrified & surrounded by moats. There are watchtowers & electronic surveillance including underground sensors & infrared night scopes. In short, they are monstrosities. On the Mexican side of the Rio Grande River there are signs posted warning immigrants of alligators & US politicians actually proposing alligators be used to keep the undocumented out. There are no alligators in the Rio Grande but if there were it would be good to throw them some politicians to gnaw on beginning with Bill Clinton who first began militarizing the border as he advanced neoliberal plunder in Mexico. (The more you know about Clinton, the more you want to prosecute him. Actually he makes you want to skip due process altogether & go straight to lynching. But we leave barbarism to the barbarians.)

The Great Wall of China had military purpose. These modern walls are the stigma & hallmark of neoliberalism, which is the barbaric phase of capitalism. They’re intended to keep immigrants out & they seriously endanger, not to mention humiliate them–& they are found on every major immigration route. But they’re also intended to keep people in–like a prison. Like the apartheid wall around Gaza & the one around the West Bank. Or as Robert Frost put it, “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out.” Because that’s what walls are intended for–to wall in or wall out. Unlike Frost’s neighbor, we do not believe “Good fences make good neighbors.” And neither do those who build them.

Those who stand on the just side of history take a stand against these walls, against every impediment to human freedom & free movement. It’s our planet & we need to take it back. The Palestinian struggle is pivotal because they are tearing down those apartheid walls & leading the fight for human freedom. Ich bin ein Palestinian!

This is photo of apartheid wall near the West Bank village of Ezariya near Jerusalem with a Palestinian activist who found the metaphorical 51 foot ladder.

(Photo by Mahfouz Abu Turk/Reuters)

It’s always seemed some of the southern US states have the world’s dumbest & most corrupt politicians–most evident in their immigration policies. But Mexican politicians are giving the US a run for its money–& not in a good way. With the eyes of the world on their response to the disappearance of 43 student teachers in Iguala, Guerrero, MX, officials have managed to blunder every step of the way including President Peña Nieto’s delayed, wimpy, & evasive response to the crimes; a delayed search effort; official’s lies & contradictions about DNA testing on bodies found in mass graves; attempting to bribe the parents of the missing to remain silent with US $8,000 (100,000 pesos); & claiming a recent mass grave of completely incinerated bodies are the missing students without sufficient forensic evidence or investigation.

Truth of the matter is, some of those officials likely know exactly what happened to those students & who did it. Because if there is one thing their blundering has exposed it is the links between organized crime, cops, & the highest reaches of the Mexican government. There’s been a little official re-shuffling, with the governor of Guerrero removed from his post & the mayor of the city of Iguala & his wife arrested for putting out the hit. But in the end, this will all be blamed on corrupt cops on the take from organized crime & most officials will walk away scot-free. Thirty cops have been arrested so far & according to the Mexican Attorney General, the three arrested suspects from organized crime admit to killing the students upon orders from their leader. The question is, who is their leader & who is he taking orders from?

One of the most horrifying discoveries of the search for the students has been the discovery of 60 unidentified mass graves near Iguala since September 26th when the students were disappeared. There are 242 disappeared Mexicans just this year in Guerrero. Since 2007, there are 30,000 disappeared nationally & 100,000 killed. These figures likely don’t include the thousands of Central American immigrants also disappeared, murdered, often dismembered, & dumped in mass graves.

The shadow partner in all this is of course the US which supplies the dough & personnel to counter human rights in Mexico in order to jam through neoliberal policies resisted by Mexican working people & turn the country into a narco-state. Teachers have been in the leadership of opposition for a long time. Many teachers in the neighboring state of Oaxaca were forced to flee to the US as undocumented immigrants to escape being murdered or disappeared.

There have been solidarity rallies around the world, from NYC to Sydney, Australia, to Toulouse, France, to McAllen, Texas, to New Delhi, India. In the tradition of honoring those who gave their lives for justice, the rallies have held up images of the missing students. This young man is at the rally at JNU University in New Delhi, India.

This is a video of the JNU rally which is a simple & powerful act of solidarity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWGneFiEGlE&feature=youtu.be

When US-NATO invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, the rationale was retaliation for 9/11, to hunt down Osama bin Laden hiding in a cave & kill him, & to rout out Al-Qaeda & kill them. We’ve heard several other reasons as the US extemporizes it’s way through an illegal occupation for now 13 years. While Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said the US should “get the people who attacked us” but she never explained why that entailed bombing out the whole country & facilitating drug trafficking. Obama called the war the necessary war but he’s never explained what it is necessary for.

Now we’re told the US continues to run thousands of drone sorties to help the Afghan government build up their own military & build Afghan institutions so the country has good governance–because we all know from the Pentagon that Afghanis are too primitive to do it themselves without the prod of massive bombing. That also explains why US military planes fly tons of drugs out for processing in other countries.

Switch & bait has become an invaluable propaganda device; during Israel’s Operation Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza Zionists beat it to death asking why over a million people around the world marched in solidarity with Palestinians but paid little heed to Syria. They emphasized their point by comparing death figures between Gaza & Syria. This was not an expression of solidarity with the people of Syria either against Assad or the US but an attempt to make Palestinian solidarity activists appear anti-Semitic.

Although Palestinian solidarity protests dwarfed those against US wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, & elsewhere, the antiwar movement never made such detestable comparisons but was among the most active builders of Palestinian solidarity. There was no axe to grind, no ulterior motives involved, no second-guessing of political movements, but only an understanding of the connections & the need for solidarity.

The important question of why the antiwar movement is so weak when the need is so great has not been sufficiently addressed in any political venue so that activists can understand & not be discouraged. But Palestinian solidarity forged new allies, new collaborations, & brought in tens of thousands of new forces who can help regenerate not just the antiwar movement but the entire movement for international solidarity. The gospel & iron law of social transformation is “An injury to one is an injury to all!”

This photo of a bombing victim in a Kabul hospital shows the price Afghanis are paying not to keep the streets in the US safe from Al-Qaeda but to keep them flooded with illegal drugs from the international drug trade which the US government facilitates. That is not a matter of conspiratorial speculation but is fully documented, including by Congressional hearings held by John Kerry.

(Photo by Steve McCurry)

Our man Rove looks like an overgrown Boy Scout & a complete putz. In the words of another Texas putz, Senator Lloyd Bentsen, “Karl Rove, you’re no cowboy!” Now you know why in Texas dumb-assed Democrats look so good in comparison. It answers all your questions about George Bush–& then some. But it does raise other questions better left unanswered about the political character of Texans.

Somebody is always badgering me about ridiculing the elite, whether it’s Betty Windsor’s mutant clan or politicians. I like to pretend it’s political satire when it’s just plain old garden variety scorn. But hey, what’s fair is fair! Or should I frankly say, we have reason to be alarmed. These two bozos–& there’s no way anyone can call them handsome–are US senators Boehner & McConnell. I’d say this calls for a lot more than ridicule; I’d say we have reason to panic. These guys are what some refer to as “lesser evils” but they’re indistinguishable from Beelzebub & Lucifer–or more aptly, circus clowns. Beam me up Scottie!

(Photo by J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Although Hong Kong protests for democracy continue after nearly a month & a half, there is relatively little coverage & almost no photojournalism of a very significant movement for democracy directly challenging Beijing control. Thousands of protesters continue an Occupy encampment blocking traffic in key sections of the city.

China, for obvious reasons, is conducting a campaign to smear the movement as bankrolled & orchestrated by the US & various left groups have made a mockery of theoretical analysis by echoing this campaign. This has been reflected in media reports also.

It is not inconceivable that Beijing, in league with the Hong Kong tycoons, would attack protesters even more aggressively than they already are. Solidarity with protesters is essential & the vicious & misguided political campaign to discredit their cause cuts across that.

This issue of baiting social movements & even the Arab uprisings is important to understand. Because if international solidarity is destroyed with slanders, there is no hope for social transformation. I repost my response to these slanders to discredit those who don’t know their ass from their elbows about political movements:
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“Many articles insist the Hong Kong democracy movement is orchestrated by the US State Department, because the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)–which is a US government agency likely chock full of CIA operatives–fed money to some organizations & activists. Those who make these allegations have read too many John LeCarre novels or listened too much to Alex Jones–& have participated in politics too little. Of course the US government is involved; they have vested interests in the outcome. But suggesting these protests are CIA street theater rather than a profound social movement for democracy is politically shabby & plays into the hands of reaction.

The CIA & other US agencies have a long-standing policy of intervening in political movements all over the world. There are volumes written on this, some books now decades old. All the most important social movements (including the US Civil Rights, women’s, labor, antiwar, & socialist movements) are/were infiltrated by provocateurs using bribery, blackmail, & other corrupting practices. It’s what undercover operatives do. That does does mean the entire movement is compromised nor does it render the entire movement bankrupt.

Too much has been written by conspiracy thinkers claiming the Arab uprisings are a sting operation of Mossad & the CIA; many circulated rumors that the Brazil anti-World Cup protests of millions were taken over by fascists; competing political forces have made a cacophony of dissenting analyses of Syria & the Ukraine. Now, based on a shred of evidence & massive speculation, some are on a band wagon denouncing the Hong Kong movement because the NED dished out dough to some participants. Does it surprise anyone that Beijing is making the exact same claim?

Some people who make these claims about the Hong Kong protests are Maoists, shamelessly attempting to cover for the undemocratic regime in China. Many are libertarian thinkers who have no respect for working people as the agents of social transformation & think they are only pawns in international espionage. Where will this nonsense end!? Those who don’t recognize the compelling realities of a mass social movement demanding democracy need to get out of the game & take up crocheting. Conspiracy models of social uprisings serve reaction, not justice. In many ways it’s just a shade away from the Zionist claim that Hamas rockets are the problem in Gaza rather than Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing.

In 1968, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia to suppress the movement for democracy called the Prague Spring. Both Soviet & capitalist media reported the movement as anti-socialist–of course because that deceit served the interests of both. It justified suppression for the USSR & it discredited socialism for the US. But what the movement was demanding was democracy; they wanted democratic freedoms & the end of a police state. The point of the comparison is that misrepresenting & discrediting progressive movements is an old game that always plays into the hands of reaction, undercuts solidarity, & buttresses continued tyranny.

So who are these protesters in Hong Kong? They’re students, union organizations, & unaffiliated working people. Likely a section of them are even anti-communist & identify capitalism as democratic. Call it heresy, but that doesn’t invalidate their struggle for democratic suffrage one iota. They’ve been out on the street now for nearly three weeks (since Sept. 28th), setting up an Occupy encampment in Admiralty, the central business district & venue of financial institutions & government buildings. They also set up encampment in Mong Kok, a major commercial district with high end retailers & catering to the tourist & entertainment industry, particularly the sex industry, with brothels, massage parlors, nightclubs, & bars run by criminal cartels.

Democracy activists paralyzed commerce & traffic in both districts with makeshift metal, bamboo, & umbrella barricades. Since billions of dollars of business are transacted in Hong Kong & at least 44 banks were closed due to protests, business analysts are worried about the negative economic impact of the protests. Some alarmists speak of the need for financial markets to move to Singapore to escape the instability; some are concerned foreign investors will shy off. A few expressed indignation at the illegal character of the protests which defy a local ordinance that protests of more than 50 people must have police permits. It’s a good thing those analysts are good are making money because they stink at politics.This could be taken as a petulant & pissy complaint. But of course, it’s because they answer to the capitalist tycoons who run Hong Kong like a mafia. What’s regrettable is they differ so little from the Chinese “socialist” regime.

The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese government, issued a condemnation on October 1st which also calls the movement “an illegal gathering” which is “disrupting social order & harming Hong Kong’s economic livelihood.” It goes on to threaten that if the protests continue the “consequences will be unimaginable.” When you have the untenable situation of Hong Kong called “one country, two systems” & you can’t tell the difference between the two political systems, & when you have ostentatious wealth juxtaposed to thousands living in basement chicken coops, you gotta ask, ‘just where does the socialist side of that equation manifest’? And you have the cauldron that foments revolution.

It’s not certain which of the two systems governs Hong Kong’s riot cops because they act just like the ones at Tiananmen Square in 1989 & those we’ve experienced in all the political uprisings around the world. Starting last Tuesday, police using pepper spray & tear gas moved on the Admiralty & Mong Kok encampments, drove out the protesters, & armed with bolt cutters, chainsaws, & sledgehammers, dismantled the barricades.

Media has been reporting about scuffles between democracy activists & disgruntled local residents or supporters of the Beijing regime who counter-protest, attempt to remove the barricades blocking the streets, & attack the protesters. Let’s get real! They’re more likely to be goon squads hired by the brothel owners or bouncers at the local strip clubs than neighborhood people or political reactionaries. Multinational businesses can’t ply potential clients with booze & prostitutes if they have to traverse barricades & encampments to get to the brothels.

Protesters using the umbrellas that have come to symbolize their movement as weapons & shields against pepper spray & tear gas battled with riot cops & retook Mong Kok on Saturday morning. They retook Mong Kok, but do the protesters stand a chance of forcing the regime’s hand? Will political power in Hong Kong remain in the hands of a tiny elite of capitalist tycoons in league with the undemocratic regime in Beijing? Maybe for now they will only squeak out minor concessions; maybe Beijing will continue to let capitalist tycoons run the place. But a movement has emerged, the forces of social transformation have assembled. If that wasn’t making Beijing & the tycoons sweat bullets, Beijing would not have put up an internet firewall to prevent millions of discontent Chinese on the mainland from witnessing the undoing of the monstrosity called “one country, two systems.”

For our part, we salute the protesters in Hong Kong & extend our fullest solidarity.”

(Photo from BBC; the movement expresses itself in street art using the umbrella, iconic of their movement, as a motif)

There’s a very special artistic genre called “selfies” & you never view them without admiring the vanity of human beings. Which apparently is immense, as it is hilarious. Before the selfie, who knew this closet vice was so extreme?

These are Bahraini Muslims in the village of Sanabis posing for their selfie. They’ve just been through a few years of wrenching social upheaval & extreme police repression but why let that stand in the way of vanity?

You’ve gotta love the follies of the human race.

(Photo by Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP)

Tens of thousands continue protests across Mexico demanding the government find the 43 student teachers disappeared on September 26th. They chanted: “They took them away alive & alive we want them back.” In Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state where the students disappeared, protestors blocked all three highways leading into the city for several hours. Protestors elsewhere plan to “seize” toll booths on federal highways. Classes were suspended at universities across Mexico including 52 campuses in & around Mexico City. This is only the first of three days of planned protests.

Yesterday federal cops arrested the fugitive mayor of Iguala (where the assault & kidnapping took place) and his wife who have long been suspected of ties to organized crime & are now accused of ordering the hit on the students. Of course the drug-associated corruption doesn’t stop there but goes all the way to the top where pretty-boy president Enrique Peña Nieto presides over what is quickly becoming a narco-state & a model of neoliberal catastrophe.

The US is up to its eyeballs in bankrolling & providing logistic support to the Mexican military–which has killed over 60,000 civilians & disappeared over 26,000 people in the past 8 years under the guise of the war on drug trafficking. We don’t know if those figures include the thousands of undocumented immigrants from Central America murdered & disappeared. The Mexican regime can’t explain why in the same period drug production & trafficking has increased substantially. Marijuana production alone is reportedly up 35% since the beginning of this travesty.

Because the US is so involved in Mexico, it is important for people here to rally in solidarity with the disappeared & beleaguered students & teachers who are in the leadership of this struggle.This photo is a solidarity rally held today at the Mexican Consulate in McAllen, Texas on the border with Mexico. Once again, honor was paid to the disappeared by holding up their photos & lighting candles for each one.

(Photo by Gladys Ornelas)