Homeless in India

Homeless in India (Bernat Armangue:AP) Feb 22 2015

Homeless in India: this elderly man lives on the street in Delhi. There have been massive protests of seniors in India against the lack of social security. Dumping seniors however, is not unique to a country without social security. Since the IMF-EU austerity programs hit Europe, there have been hundreds of protests because pensions, along with health care & education, were among the first casualties of the neoliberal assault.

There isn’t much reliable data on the demographics of homelessness in the US but there is disturbing evidence that homelessness is increasing among seniors. It’s doesn’t take a whiz kid to understand why. It’s now nearly impossible for retirees on puny little social security checks to afford rents in metropolitan areas. It’s hard enough for working families with more than one wage-earner. Not only is rent control being eliminated but public housing is being sold off to private investors so they can jack up the rents or sell them at exorbitant prices. The same process that is causing mass evictions of renters in Spain is already in full swing in the US.

Children also make up a huge percentage of homeless people in cities around the world (including the US & India) where they are subject to a great deal of violence. It should be said outright, without coyness or timidity, that when the economic system is incapable of providing the elementary requirements of a human life, it’s time to rethink the options. And we ought to do it before climate change has us all buried in snow mounds up to our asses twelve months out of the year.

Housing is a human right!

(Photo by Bernat Armangue/AP)

Solidarity between Jews and Muslims in Oslo

Oslo synagogue  Feb 22 2015

Now this is where the magic of social transformation begins–with the power of solidarity. Yesterday, in sub-zero temperatures, about 1,000 Muslims formed a “ring of peace” around a synagogue in Oslo chanting “No to antisemitism, no to Islamophobia.” The event was in response to the growing right-wing attacks on both Jews & Muslims throughout Europe.
One of the organizers said, “We want to demonstrate that Jews & Muslims do not hate each other.” Norway’s chief rabbi stood outside before the human chain & sang the traditional Jewish end of Sabbath song.

Israel & media will be in overdrive attempting to thwart such solidarity since distrust, animus, & the acceptance of racism is what Zionist ideology is based on. True to their nefarious commitments, media added an addendum to the report of this solidarity action by claiming the increase in antisemitic incidents began last year “when the conflict between Israel & Palestinian militants in Gaza intensified.” That lie & falsification of history is belied by Europol statistics showing 99% of violent acts toward both Jews & Muslims is primarily from right-wing nationalist groups.

Our deepest respect & fullest solidarity with this action.

(Photo via  Mohammmed Zeyara)

The perfidy of the UN in Gaza

UN school firee in Gaza ( Mohammed Salem:Reuters) Feb 21 2015

This is one of 15 schoolhouses in Gaza which the UN uses to shelter those displaced by Israel’s ethnic cleansing binge last summer. A UN refugee agency claims they house 10,200 people in them–which means the schools are either the size of the Taj Mahal or the agency is lying.

A nine-month-old baby boy died this week at the UN school in Biet Hanoun when an electrical failure caused a fire. The UN can’t make absolutely certain the facilities are safe for human inhabitance when they move in refugees? They can’t hire some unemployed electricians in Gaza to be on site & monitor the facilities safety?

Is this the same school Israel bombed last summer, claiming it was a Hamas rocket bunker? Fifteen people, mostly women & children died & 200 more were injured. The photo & video documentation of children punctured with shrapnel was unbearable to view. But just recently Israeli officials admitted what the world knew all along: there was no rocket nest in the school. It was part of Israel’s campaign to target children by claiming Palestinians use their children as human shields. Even in a refugee center. How many international laws does that break? Beit Hanoun is just a few miles across the border from Sderot, Israel, where lounge furniture was moved in to watch the ethnic cleansing like a spectator sport.

We would ask what Ban Ki-moon has to say about all this since given the scale of carnage & the crying need for shelter, the UN ought to be screaming bloody murder against Israeli carpet bombing & demanding prosecution for war crimes. But for the UN, humanitarian assistance is doled out with an eyedropper. They’re much better at delivering occupation & cholera.

Build the economic & cultural boycott of Israel (barcode beginning 729); demand “No aid of any kind of Israel!”

(Photo of school fire scene by Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

The Duhalar people of Mongolia

Mongolian child with deer (Hamid Sardar-Afkhami) Feb 20 2015

This is a Duhalar child sleeping on the reindeer as her mother milks the herd nearby. Duhalars, who live in northern Mongolia along the Siberian border, are among the last nomadic reindeer herders in the world. They depend on reindeer not only for milk & transportation but also their shamanic spirituality. They are seldom eaten.

There are only about 40 Duhalar families remaining, about 200 to 400 people. The reindeer population has also decreased. This isn’t some sort of Darwinian extinction but bungled social policy by the Soviet Union which interfered with Duhalar tradition, forcing many young to move elsewhere. In the 1970s, the USSR halted the nomadic lifestyle, put reindeer under state control, & forced Duhalars into fishing & hunting collectives. That might qualify more as railroading than interference. The state also began harvesting reindeer antlers to supply the Chinese medicine market which is when the reindeer population declined.

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the state had no money to pay the collective workers so the reindeer were handed back to them & they returned to the nomadic way of life. The loss of traditional herding knowledge took a toll on those remaining & many reindeer were lost to disease.

Much of their income today is from tourism & likely from putting up the anthropologists who come to scrutinize & document their demise.

Would that the tender relationship between child & deer prevailed in the larger world & bureaucrats would leave the Duhalars alone.

(Photo by Hamid Sardar-Afkhami)

The continuing farce of PBS news

If you’re having a weak moment & feeling down on yourself, go to the PBS website & check out PBS news. Their news commentators are all expensively educated leading figures of the Fourth Estate. A Stanford or Yale education costs a bundle. And still their parents must have had to kiss a lot of butts & call in a lot of favors to get their dummkopf kids a prestigious job in journalism. All that money spent to educate them down the tubes!

Mumble-mouth David Brooks, the resident expert on Islam who can’t distinguish ISIL from the local imam, is only the worst of them. The rest of them waste those educations on parsing the latest speech from Obama; discussing the latest moronic utterance from Giuliani; & trying to find ways to dance around the snow-job the Obama regime just pulled on undocumented immigrants–getting them to identify themselves & their location to the government on the hope of amnesty, & then getting a federal court to annul Obama’s executive order. Now immigration knows just where to pick them up.

Privilege does not serve society one whit. It only jangles our minds & makes us think we’re stupid when what they say doesn’t make a lick of sense. Down with privilege! But in the meanwhile, use it to buoy your spirits when you’re feeling low.

Racist profiling in Alabama: the case of Sureshbhai Patel

PBS news reported that in Madison, Alabama on February 6th, a 911 call came in alarmed about a “tall, skinny Black man” walking in the neighborhood. The caller did not report he was engaged in suspicious activity but a patrol car was sent to check out why a Black guy was walking down the sidewalk. Fifty-seven-year-old Sureshbhai Patel had just arrived in the US from India to visit his son & care for his 17-month-old grandson. He didn’t speak a word of English.

When the two cops confronted him, he was not a suspect in any crime, was not armed, & was unable to understand their questions. He said “no English”, & repeated his son’s house number. He made a slight movement & one of the cops took him down. Mr. Patel is now partially paralyzed from a spinal injury & faces a very long recovery.

In the tradition of PBS, they brought on two experts for comment. One was a woman from an Indian civil rights group in the US who spoke cogently about racist profiling, making connections to Ferguson & Staten Island. The other guy was a criminology professor from the University of Missouri & also a former cop. He became quite agitated in response to the Indian activist, insisting it was just a procedural mistake, having nothing to do with racism.

Half-witted legal eagles are questioning the criminality of this act & suggest it may be only a civil liability. Racism makes you think funny, approximating derangement.

Please consider contributing to the medical expenses of the Patel family while they pursue litigation against the Madison Police Department:

http://www.gofundme.com/m757pw

The 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center and international intrigue

1994 AMIA bombing mark the anniversary of the attack in 2006. (photo credit- AP:Natacha Pisarenko)  Feb 20 2015

Media is filled with reports about the January 18th death of Alberto Nisman, an Argentine prosecutor scheduled to testify the following day to a congressional committee about the role of president Cristina Fernandez Kirschner & foreign minister Hector Timerman in covering up the role of Iran & Hezbollah in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center (AMIA). Nisman alleged the cover-up was brokered in exchange for favorable oil deals with Iran.

Throughout this story one has to keep in mind that 85 people were killed & 250 injured. Two years earlier, the Israeli embassy was bombed, killing 29 & injuring 242. After the AMIA bombing, Israel immediately sent teams of Mossad agents, IDF personnel, & a forensic team & Argentina’s intelligence service went on red alert, sealing up the borders against terrorists. After that initial info we need a squad of forensic detectives, legal eagles, & masters of espionage to figure out what the hell happened.

It’s almost impossible to find a coherent narrative of how the Argentine government mangled the investigation & prosecution of this crime. The government has been accused of incompetence but accusations of cover-up are much more likely. The mangling was so egregious that in 2005 then president Nestor Kirschner called the investigation a “national disgrace.” The confusion compounds with Zionist accounts competing with nut-job & antisemitic libertarian conspiracy theories. And unfortunately, it’s possible Nisman’s allegations are also dubious.

Early on, Argentina, Israel, & the US claimed Hezbollah executed the attack master-minded by Iran officials, though both of course denied it. Nisman, a federal prosecutor who worked on the investigation, formally accused Iran & Hezbollah in 2006 (during the term of Nestor Kirschner) & in January 2015 came up with a 300 page indictment against president Cristina Fernandez (widow of Nestor Kirschner) & foreign minister Hector Timerman, alleging the oil deal. That is what Nisman was scheduled to testify about when he died from a gunshot wound. What the current protests are about is suspicion that he did not commit suicide but was taken out to prevent his testifying. Not improbable at all.

The problem is that Nisman does not appear to be a disinterested party. Santiago O’Donnell, an Argentine journalist, alleges that Wikileaks documents show Nisman colluded with the US State Department to charge Iran & Hezbollah with the bombing. That, combined with the framework of Israel’s conflicts with both Iran & Hezbollah, gives serious cause for doubt about Nisman’s allegations. Israel & Zionist media are involved in whipping up protests in Argentina alleging Nisman was murdered. That does not make Nisman a Zionist stooge but colluding with the US does.

We’re not likely to learn the truth about who bombed the community center because vested interests have big stakes in controlling the evidence. But it should be said that while Iran & Hezbollah do not have a history of terrorist acts outside the Middle East, Mossad & the CIA do. That’s not an allegation but Nisman would have to explain the anomaly & the motive of Iran & Hezbollah bombing a community center in Buenos Aires.

Behind all this espionage, double-dealing, & treachery, there are those who died & were injured in the bombings. Whoever did it should be hunted down & prosecuted but regrettably that won’t be done under the corrupt regime of president Cristina Fernandez Kirschner. The death of Nisman should also be investigated & not by the Argentine government, which is tainted. Human rights groups in Argentina are calling for commissions independent of the regime to do just that because those who were murdered & their families have a right to justice & for the perpetrators to be held accountable.

The photo is from a 2006 protest in Buenos Aires marking the anniversary of the 1994 bombing & demanding justice. The photos are those who died & their images will haunt justice until it is delivered.

(Photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP)