The Washington Post reported Chucky Windsor has always denied being an IRA member. Wow, good thing that’s cleared up cause the IRA would never live it down. It’s bad enough they have to deal with Gerry Adams & Martin McGuinness crawling on their bellies like a reptile for the Windsors.
There’s nothing more sour than a rebel gone establishment. Better they go into a witness protection program or join the monastery.
Hopefully, at some point media & human rights groups will exhaust their incredulity that Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi remains silent on the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. In 2012, when she received the Nobel prize & the US Presidential Medal of Freedom (an honorific signifying political death) she refused to denounce the violent pogrom against Rohingya driving thousands into exile in Bangladesh. Bangladesh was refusing them entry & when reporters asked Suu Kyi about it, she told them she “didn’t know” if the Rohingya could be considered Burmese citizens. They had been stripped of citizenship in 1982 by the military junta & are treated as undocumented immigrants though Muslims go back centuries in Burma.
When asked, she has also insisted the pogroms against Rohingya, led by right-wing, nationalist Buddhist monks & fomented by the military regime (to facilitate land grabs), are religious, not political disputes & that violence is committed on both sides. That is not silence but outright collusion with the regime & with the pogroms—from a person who claims to be inspired by the non-violent vision of Gandhi & who was feted by the Nobel committee for her “visionary idealism” & abhorrence of brute force.
In the past few years, Suu Kyi has met with H. Clinton, Obama, & Christine Lagarde, the executor-in-chief of the IMF. They’re not meeting with her for social smooch-fests but because the US has immense capital investments in Myanmar. There is also an attempt to transition the economy from a form of crony capitalism controlled by the military to the scorched earth economics of neoliberalism. They want her to help promote that & are as indifferent to genocide of Muslims as she is. US companies were banned from investing in Burma in 1997 but under Obama economic sanctions were lifted & some of the biggest US corporations operate there now, including Coca Cola, PepsiCo., MasterCard, Visa, Cisco, Gap, Inc., & General Electric. During the years of sanctions, most investment, primarily based on the extractive industries, came from China & Thailand. There is now a competition shaping up in Myanmar between Chinese, Indian, & US business enterprises.
In 2013, farmers, villagers, & environmentalists began protests against the $1 billion Latpadaung copper mine project, a joint venture between a Chinese mining company & the Myanmar military. According to protesters, the project was based on massive land grabs (8,000 acres/3,200 hectares), destroying nearby mountains, polluting farmlands with waste products from the mines, destroying schools, homes, & monasteries, creating catastrophic environmental, social, & health problems. They demanded it be shut down. The regime (which Obama & Clinton tout as democratic) took after the protesters, including many Buddhist monks, with water cannons, tear gas, smoke grenades, & white phosphorous incendiary devices. Over 100 were hospitalized with serious burns.
Suu Kyi was appointed to head the official government commission set up to investigate the police violence as well as assess the social & economic sustainability of the copper mine. The regime likely figured that with her reputation as an opposition leader & all her honorifics she was the best person to make pigs fly. The commission ruled in favor of the mining project, pointedly avoided criticism of the government, & did not call for prosecuting those involved in the violence against protesters.
Suu Kyi went to meet with farmers, villagers, & protesters near the mining project to sell these conclusions & argued that Burma should honor the deals with foreign companies because “If we unilaterally break off ongoing projects, we stand to lose international trust.” Stooping to banalities (of the kind that likely go over well with Obama & Clinton), she added “I think we have to deprioritize our emotions & needs when it comes to the greater good.” The dispossessed protesters heckled her out of town. She’s lucky they didn’t ride her out on a rail.
Not just Suu Kyi’s silence on the pogroms against the Rohingya but Obama’s conduct of several wars exposes the Nobel Peace Prize as a fraud—as if that needed any more documentation after Henry Kissinger won it in 1973. It has no more cachet than People magazines “Sexiest Man Alive” award. And for rebels against tyranny, it once again shows that in social transformation there are no gurus, no masters but only teachers—even those of the less edifying kind.
This photo is young Muslim school girls in Bayeun, Aceh province, Indonesia, handing food over the wall to a Rohingya refugee girl. Unlike Suu Kyi, they recognize the humanity of Rohingya Muslims. Unlike her, they do the right thing even without honorifics. Unlike her, they are the very best of humanity.
(Photo by Binsar Bakkara/AP)
In a move of staggering barbarism, the European Union (EU) has approved plans for military operations to stop immigration from North Africa. It will begin next month with naval operations & likely proceed to “boots on the ground” in Libya–ostensibly to rout out “human traffickers” but of course to terrorize & deter immigrants. The military siege will almost certainly include the Spanish enclaves of Melilla & Ceuta on the North African coast near Morocco, another entry point for immigrants where Spanish authorities are increasing assaults to beat them back.
In that shell game we know so well for sanctioning war, the EU is lobbying the UN for approval. The UN is now trying to determine how to get their approval past international condemnation & contempt & salvage their tattered reputation from their operations in the DR Congo & Haiti.
The EU acknowledges there will be “collateral damage,” that men, women, & children on immigrant vessels will be killed. But who’s kidding who? They are not collateral at all but the intended victims. You don’t take a navy & an army after a few, or even several hundred “traffickers.”
The crisis in the Andaman Sea has been solved for the moment by Indonesia & Malaysia giving temporary refuge to the estimated 6,000 to 8,000 Rohingya & Bangladeshi refugees starving to death on ships. Thailand refused refuge & it’s certain immigrants would not be safe there anyway–so murderous is the military regime. Leaving people to starve to death was too unspeakable a crime, not for governments to perpetrate, but to perpetrate before public scrutiny & condemnation.
Photos show Indonesian fishing boats towing refugee ships to shore. There are images of refugees bathing, grooming, children playing, people tending to their sick, many looking shell-shocked. But for now, they are on dry land.
The crisis is by no means over for the Rohingya since persecution continues in Myanmar & many will continue to flee. Until they find a permanent refuge without persecution, we must remain on red alert. These governments are only waiting for attention to pass before they start with the barbarism again.
The crisis in the Mediterranean is now a war against immigrants. People of good will around the world must consider ways to put massive & emergency political pressure on our governments & the UN to back off their murderous plans. Not just Europeans but everyone must protest the use of military force against desperate, unarmed human beings in plastic dinghies.
Immigration is a human right! If the EU, Thailand, the US, Australia, & other countries cannot honor it, they have to be taken out. Neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism, has proven incompatible with human life.
Photo is Rohingya boy sitting with his sick mother in an Indonesian refugee camp.
(Photo by Binsar Bakkara/AP)
Media reports that after a year in office, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has cut social welfare spending that will impact at least 300 million poor. The cut in funds for nutrition, clean water, & health programs (stingy to begin with) will instead go to infrastructure projects like roads & bridges to facilitate industry & foreign investment–the neoliberal model used all over the world. Except in the US where they cut social welfare & still do not invest in infrastructure so that bridges are collapsing all over the place.
Modi set up an agency called Niti Aayog (or National Institution for Transforming India Aayog) to execute the neoliberal transition–or rather to accelerate it since it’s been operative in Indian agriculture & mining for a long time. The agency is headed by Columbia professor Arvind Panagariya, a man trained at the World Bank, IMF, World Trade Organization, & a guru of neoliberal scorched earth economics. The agencies mandate is to dismantle the “Soviet-style Planning Commission” which didn’t appear to be working that well anyway for working people & go whole-hog neoliberal.
This child lives in a New Delhi slum & is likely to grow old there unless neoliberalism is decisively routed–which won’t be easy but is possible & necessary if humanity is to survive. Housing is not part of neoliberal infrastructure schemes.
(Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)
Some day, when humanity has cleaned out the monstrosity of misogyny, children will study this red carpet thing as a bizarre practice of primitive people. They will understand this is not akin to ancient goddess worship where women’s beauty does not require prosthetic devices like false eyelashes & fake body parts. Exhibitionism & narcissism are extracted here in return for a glory that aging will undo & idealization is the other side of violence.
(Photo of Cannes red carpet by Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images)
Breaking the Silence (BtS) is an Israeli group of veterans & soldiers who since 2004 have collected hundreds of testimonies from soldiers in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, & East Jerusalem documenting abuse of Palestinians, vandalism & destruction of their property, & Israeli war crimes.
BtS comes under harsh criticism, of course, from Zionists but they are also frequently criticized by anti-Zionists as soldiers who have committed war crimes or who cover up war crimes because their testimonials are anonymous.
Earlier this month BtS released a report titled “This is How We Fought in Gaza 2014- Soldiers’ Testimonies from Operation “Protective Edge”.” The report includes testimony from sixty IDF officers & soldiers which document Palestinian claims of ethnic cleansing & massive Israeli human rights crimes as a matter of military policy.
It’s quite likely that most BtS activists & testifiers are patriotic Israelis committed to Zionism who sustained the PTSD of soldiers carrying out war crimes under orders. They are psychologically & politically rattled. It’s one thing to hate on Palestinians in cafes & bars; it’s quite another to shoot them down, including children, in cold blood.
Among those anti-Zionists who criticize BtS, there are several motivations. One wants to excoriate all soldiers & veterans for war crimes (even in Israel’s conscript army). Others object to media privileging the testimony of BtS over the voices of Palestinians. And some object to the methods & politics of BtS.
The question of soldiers & veterans is not unique to Israel in Palestine but has been a matter of dispute since WWI, particularly in the socialist movement that saw conscripted soldiers as brothers (& now sisters), not as enemies. Because the US has endless wars, this has been an issue in the antiwar movement–with conscientious objectors believing the only moral policy is to refuse to serve. But the US antiwar movement, under the influence of socialist activists, has always worked closely with veterans & active duty soldiers because their antiwar testimony is so powerful. Anyone who has watched veteran testimony from the two Winter Soldier events (available on YouTube) can see that undeniable truth.
The Pentagon works tirelessly to alienate veterans from the antiwar movement & to convince them we are hostile to them as war criminals. On the contrary. Antiwar veterans are the very backbone of the US antiwar movement, leading off every march as a symbol of the respect we give them.
If media privileges the voices of Israelis over Palestinians, that can hardly be a charge against BtS. The alternative would be they do not gather testimony. And the voices of Palestine would still not be heard.
If there are objections to the personnel, methods, & politics of BtS, how does that distinguish them from hundreds of other political organizations? They don’t pretend to be a party of revolutionists or saints. Nor do they denounce Zionism. Likely most just want Israel to be the country they were told it is with the “most moral military in the world” as it claims instead of the genocidal machine they now know it is.
Tis a shame to denounce BtS or to attempt to discredit their work–no matter what their problems. Instead, their testimony from occupation & genocide should be widely promulgated–not in place of Palestinian voices but documentation for Palestinian claims & strengthening the call for BDS & building Palestinian solidarity.
Photo is Palestinians running from tear gas & Israeli troops on Nakba Day (May 15th), near Ofer prison in the West Bank where Israel warehouses Palestinian activists, including children.
(Photo by Mohamad Torokman/Reuters)
So the Guardian-UK is litigating like crazy to get public access to Chucky’s correspondence with British politicians. Because, after all, the moochocracy isn’t supposed to intervene in affairs of state. But for forty-million bucks a year the state has to get something out of this indolent crowd. Sure there’s some return from the horse track with all their trifectas but not enough to make all their vulgarities worthwhile. That’s where those honorary titles come in.
Betty Windsor will bestow the “rare honor” of honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on Rivka Carmi, the woman president of Ben-Gurion University–ostensibly for her role “in strengthening scientific & academic cooperation between Israel & the UK” by founding the UK-Israel Science Council in 2010. The council is to promote academic collaboration between the two countries. Especially now since the economic, cultural & academic boycott (BDS) of Israel to protest apartheid is making such international inroads.
Betty knows horses. She wouldn’t know from science if it came up & bit her in the ass. If she’s dishing out awards for science it’s at the behest of Israel or British politicians to contravene BDS & that means Betty is intervening in affairs of state. She should be placed under immediate arrest.
Here’s another one of those things you learn from snooping around Zionist websites: Israel welcomed Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, for his tenth visit to the country to give him the $1 million Dan David Foundation Prize–which we learn from Wikipedia has been given every year since 2000. Dan David is a Romanian-born businessman in Israel whose foundation partners with Tel Aviv University in the prize.
Our man Wales was chosen for “spearheading” the “information revolution.” If anyone ever uses Wikipedia for research on Palestine & Israel you will know that spearheading is less the appropriate term than inventing history wholesale. What an imagination his hasbara team employs! With his new connections to Tel Aviv University, he will render that encyclopedia absolutely worthless. That’s why there’s an academic boycott of Israel as part of BDS.
There’s just a mountain of lies (of the omission kind) in the Guardian-UK caption to this photo: “São Paulo, Brazil: A boy takes part in a protest against police violence.”
It’s a charming photo of this little fellow & if it was part of an album of photos from the tens of thousands protesting in São Paulo, it would be a real crowd pleaser. But it’s not just one of the only photos; it is the only report allowed to break the media blackout on protests in Brazil for the past several months that (by police estimates) number in the millions.
Massive protests have gone on all over Brazil since 2013 opposing exorbitant government expenditures on stadia & infrastructure for the 2014 World Cups & 2016 Olympics. Protesters marched against austerity & growing impoverishment, land dispossessions of Indigenous tribes, military occupation of the favelas, police & military violence against Indigenous people & against the protesters. And for the past several months, millions have marched against corruption scandals in the Workers’ Party of President Dilma Rousseff & demanding her impeachment.
All those millions of protesters for months on end & all media can produce is this charming little picture of a child? A panoramic view of the March protest would have been quite a shot. Estimates by police went up to 3 million people. You don’t see that very often. The estimates of the April march went up to 1.5 million people. And these events weren’t front page news? Is it because such news would unsettle the plans for the 2016 Olympics & deter attendance?
The political PR about Dilma Rousseff being a radical visionary is running out of steam. Her brief youthful flirtation with socialism isn’t holding water when she’s nothing but a two-bit neoliberal operator. Politicians play populist all the time. We’re watching that spectacle unfold with Hillary Clinton in the US. But PR isn’t keeping up with plunder on the ground.
As for this photo: protesters don’t usually bring children to small protests likely to be assaulted. So we might speculate that around this boy there are tens of thousands of protesters demanding the end of neoliberal austerity, the end of police violence, & the removal of Dilma Rousseff.
Our fullest solidarity with the protesters.
(Photo by Nacho Doce/Reuters)
This is the Shah of Iran. He thought he was a blue-blood royal like some people believe in fairies & unicorns. He’s in that loathsome panoply that includes Pinochet, Omar Suleiman (the torturer), Henry Kissinger, Generals Sisi & Mubarak, Ferdinand Marcos, Netanyahu, Felipe Calderón, & several others. This is how you live & dress if you play ball with the US & its torture agency, the CIA.
His power rested on SAVAK, the secret police trained in torture by the CIA, using methods so extreme & barbaric they couldn’t be described in detail lest readers be overwhelmed with not grief but terror before power.
Under the man who called himself Shah, thousands were tortured using electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass & pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, beating the soles of the feet, extraction of teeth & nails using pliers, & torturing children in front of their parents. There were special torture techniques for women. Thousands were also murdered. That is why the CIA exists; that is what they are doing to thousands of prisoners in their secret prisons now.
We can’t bring this detestable criminal back from stinking up hell. (The title of Shah doesn’t hold much cachet down there.) But we can commit ourselves to demanding the abolition of CIA prisons, the dismantling of the CIA, the prosecution of all its officials & agents, & we can chase their asses off campus when they come recruiting. Rebuilding the international antiwar movement is part of the process of doing that.
(Photo by Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos)