Brian Williams is having a crash & burn from fabricating a tale about being in a helicopter in Iraq that was fired on. They’re now looking at all his reporting to find other lies, especially in his coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Actually his coverage of Katrina was quite compelling because he forthrightly laid out the government’s refusal to rescue thousands of stranded Blacks for over a week. And forthright & honest is the last thing you expect from a news reader, especially about racism in the US.

He isn’t the first to fabricate personal heroics. Scores of politicians, including JFK & John Kerry, & almost all reporters do. It’s not just a staple in film; it’s an entire genre. Witness John Wayne films. After all, isn’t that what “American Sniper” is all about? TV is doing it now with psycho CIA agents as heroes on several series.

Nobody likes when people invent heroic tales but frankly it’s much more objectionable that Williams reads press releases from the US Pentagon, White House, & State Department as if it was real news & that he covers for US war crimes. That’s when lies count–not whether Williams was actually shot at or not. News readers are hired precisely for their ability to be believable telling lies & if our man gets canned it’s only because he jeopardizes their purposes, not because he wants to be a hero without doing the work. Reading from press releases & attending White House dinners doesn’t allow much opportunity for heroism; it just requires ability to act. Not unlike the US presidency.

Excuse my skepticism, since I grew up when getting the measles was no big deal, but are we expected to panic about 150 cases in a country of 350 million as if it was comparable to the Ebola epidemic?

Sometimes (often) when you see photos of Palestinian resistance either in the West Bank or Gaza, you marvel that for nearly 67 years of violent Israeli occupation they have not ceased to struggle nor bent the knee to colonialism. What can explain such remarkable tenacity & determination?

The struggle against apartheid & ethnic cleansing is necessarily a family & a community affair & while children should be playing games & teenagers courting they are forced instead to take on the Israeli army & prevent Zionist settlers from all over kingdom come moving in & laying claim to Palestinian lands. What kind of life is that for millions of young people? And still they do not bend.

All the media baloney about Palestinian terrorism & the only weapons they have against rubber bullets, live ammo, skunk bombs, tear gas grenades, & bulldozers is slingshots, burning tires, & an immense human spirit of defiance.

These teenagers are scuffling with soldiers in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh to protest the expansion of the Zionist settlement of Halamis on Palestinian land. When you consider that one false move gets them the Israeli gulag, you understand that courage, thy name is Palestine. And when you want to understand how to change the world, you look to them because social transformation starts with scuffles against all odds & ends with triumph over social hatred & injustice.

This is the time to build the hell out of the economic & cultural boycott of Israel, reaching out & explaining the justice of the Palestinian cause. We can no longer allow them to stand alone.

(Photo by Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images)

This protester in Bahrain is demonstrating for the release of political prisoners, especially opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman, arrested in December 2014. His placard reads; “You will get exhausted but we won’t.” That defiance must scare the hell out of the regime & its US & UK allies & certainly explains the extreme violence & repression used against activists.

Our deepest respect & fullest solidarity with the movement that refuses to be beaten into submission.

(Image is screen shot from Press TV video on the protests)

February 14th is the anniversary of the 2011 Bahraini uprising which has not ceased despite massive repression including police assaults on protesters with excessive tear gas & birdshot, massive incarceration of activists, torture, stripping activists of their citizenship & jailing them for life for failure “in their allegiance duties towards the kingdom.” Some activists have life sentences for participation in the 2011 uprising; one young woman is serving a three-year term for ripping up a picture of the king. Others have been jailed for posting “offensive tweets.”

Protest is now daily demanding the release of political prisoners, in particular opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman arrested last December 28th accused of various offenses including inciting hatred, seeking regime change, & collaborating with foreign powers. In fact, Salman is a somewhat conservative political thinker who advocates constitutional monarchy in Bahrain & disagrees with more radical forces who demand the overthrow of feudal monarchy. He has spoken publicly & quite clearly that he wants reform of the regime, not its destruction. And even this is too much criticism for the regime to tolerate.

In international politics silence is consent & in another illustration of why most of the human race hates the US government, the Obama regime has not uttered even a peep of protest against the violent crackdown in Bahrain nor have they demanded the release of Salman & other political prisoners.

Britain has been less silent though not less malignant in response to the crackdown. In December 2014 they announced the opening of a new military base for aircraft carriers in Bahrain funded by Bahrain’s monarchy. The US has long maintained a base in Bahrain for the Fifth Fleet which plays a key role in the Iraq War.

Britain & the US have economic, military, & political stakes in the region & democracy & human rights are no part of the bargain because they represent a direct challenge to neoliberal domination of the region. Feudal monarchs & neoliberal oligarchs are now comrades-in-arms to defend tyranny. The historic irony is only apparent.

This is a protester shielding himself from tear gas & birdshot with an old door at one of the demonstrations going on now in several places in Bahrain. Our fullest solidarity with their struggle.

(Photo by Hasan Jamali/AP)