It’s really hard to put a good spin on this picture but that didn’t stop Turkish media from trying. The Turkish military is using water cannons to stop Syrian refugees, many of them children, elderly, & infirm, trying to cross the barbed wire border yesterday near Akcakale. They are fleeing intensifying warfare between ISIL, Kurds, the Assad regime, & US bombing. Turkish media said the water cannons were used for “congestion in the flow of people.” So why didn’t they just send some traffic cops? If they remove the barbed wire there won’t be any congestion.

Water cannons are extremely dangerous assault weapons which cause any number of injuries including to internal organs, bones, eyes, skin. That’s why they’re used & not for crowd management purposes.

There are presently an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 Syrian refugees surging at the Turkish border; since the civil war began, an estimated 2.5 million have entered Turkey.

By every definition in international law, these are war refugees & whether they like it or not, countries are obligated to open the borders to provide sanctuary–& that doesn’t just mean a sidewalk to lay your head on. It means shelter, food, water, clothing.

(Photo by Osman Orsal/Reuters)

The more we learn about the incident last Friday in McKinney, Texas, the uglier & more disturbing it becomes. It isn’t just a case of police brutality against a young Black woman–although that is disturbing enough. The cop not only used excessive force & pinned 19-year-old Tatiana Rose to the ground face down for “running her mouth”, but he pulled a gun on other unarmed teens who were present. Apologists on the news said the cop “allowed his emotions to get the best of him.” Police who get overcome so easily with “emotion” (a euphemism in this instance for racism) when confronted with upset teens should really not be carrying weapons. Although the rednecks can be pretty damn scary since they’re usually packing.

McKinney, Texas, a suburb about 30 miles north of Dallas, is 75 percent white. Because segregation in housing remains the norm in US cities, public pools are more often in white neighborhoods. If Black kids want to swim or cool off in a pool, they have to enter mostly white areas. In this instance, Rose was hosting a pool party near her family home in a gated, affluent community & invited her Black friends from outside the neighborhood to use the private pool.

This antagonized the local rednecks who converged to taunt the Black teens with the standard racist fare of “go back to where you came from,” “go back to section 8 housing,” & with all sorts of cursing & other verbal & racist abuse. Young Rose comes out the hero in all this when she came to the defense of a 14-year-old friend being ridiculed by a grown white woman. According to her, the white woman then turned on her & slapped her in the face. Nobody should have to ask why we accept the word of Rose over that of the rednecks using racist epithets. It’s all on video.

White rednecks then called the police who sent a squad car with Officer David Casebolt, the McKinney version of Barney Fife with an attitude & an emotion problem. These were kids at a pool party; there was no pretense of drug use to justify his aggression. The police department suspended him but he’s since resigned & gone into hiding claiming he’s receiving death threats. He’s an emotional guy who can’t take much stress. Someone probably said “boo” to him & he got scared. That’s why he pulled a gun on unarmed kids possibly hiding weapons in their swimming trunks & bikinis.

There have been protests of thousands in McKinney by the Black community & its supporters. It’s all part of the emerging civil rights & Black power movement; it all heralds a new day dawning that will end the US war on Black youth.

(Photo of McKinney protest on June 8th by Mike Stone/Reuters)

There are so many wrenching photos of immigrants around the world, of human beings at their most vulnerable & most determined. This young woman & child are walking with a group on a road in Macedonia on their way to the Serbian border, which has become one of the main transit routes to Europe for thousands of refugees from Africa & the Middle East. By the time they’ve arrived on this road in Macedonia from Greece, they’ve already crossed continents & the Mediterranean Sea.

In its endless parsing of definitions, the UN distinguishes between immigrants & refugees. Those distinctions, though never valid, are rendered insane at this moment in history.

Humane societies would be scouting with vans & buses to pick up these exhausted people & transport them to shelter. But of course, humane societies would not engage in the war, occupation, drone bombing, & plunder which forced them to move in the first place.
Godspeed to these refugees. Immigration is a human right! Open the borders.

(Photo by Robert Atanasovski/AFP/Getty Images)

The immediate reaction to the news of Nobel Peace Laureate Obama’s escalation of war in Iraq is horror & sadness. What the US has already done to Iraq stands as a testimony & condemnation of the killing fields of neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism. The only possible response is to rebuild the international antiwar movement. We cannot be overwhelmed or daunted by the scale of barbarism, but mobilized to oppose it. There should be emergency rallies of protest around the world. Stopping the US military machine is a historic, international mission.

Today is the 48th commemoration of the June 5th to 10th, 1967 Six-Day War when the Israeli military routed the armies of Jordan, Egypt, & Syria. It is a watershed & deeply tragic moment in history. Israel’s victory demonstrated its value to the US as a fortress for US hegemony in the Middle East & US military aid has been increasing ever since. The war altered the relationship between the US & Arab countries to the disadvantage of the Arab peoples & altered the relationship between Arab regimes & the Palestinian people.

In violation of international law, Israel militarily occupied more of Palestine, including Gaza, the West Bank, & East Jerusalem & launched an aggressive settlement program moving Zionist settlers from all over Kingdom Come to claim Palestinian land in the occupied territories.

Many politicians & liberal Zionists call for Israel to remove its troops & go back to the 1967 borders. That’s essentially the unworkable, unacceptable bantustate solution. The only possible resolution, as long as we have nation-states, is a democratic secular state for Jews & Palestinians with the 1948 borders, including all of Palestine before Zionist paramilitary terrorists dispossessed them.

On a personal note, I was a student at the University of Minnesota & deeply troubled by the media hysteria in support of Israel. I could not have pointed to Israel on a map but knew we were being played. Walking across the campus one day, I saw a lone Palestinian student walking in front of the student union with a placard & asked him why he was marching. In those days, the Exodus mythology was riding high along with the David vs. Goliath nonsense. He was probably afraid of being assaulted & answered quite gruffly, “They stole our land.” Not much of an explanation but enough to know there was more to the story behind the media manipulation. I went looking for answers, found the Arab student group, & have been a Palestinian supporter ever since.

Today, there are millions of Palestinian supporters across the globe & I’m honored to be still among them. I never met that Palestinian student again but he remains for me a symbol of the power of public protest. Massive protests against Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing combined with the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel (BDS) have the power to help bring justice to Palestinians, peace to Israeli Jews, & an end to US militarism in the Middle East.

So Incubus & Suzanne Vega both ignored the cultural boycott of Israel & croaked for Israeli apartheid. Vega said she never even considered canceling & actually added a show. They can join the wall of shame along with Elton John, Madonna, Lady Gaga, the Rolling Stones, & other political lowlifes.

Just got off the phone with my older sister who first got me involved in politics with the Civil Rights Movement. She has remained deeply political & radical–except when it comes to elections where she’s a lesser evil voter. Like many progressives who can’t stomach Clinton’s corruption, she’s eyeballing Bernie Sanders as the lesser evil candidate.

We could quibble all day over whether Sanders’ rhetoric is worth its weight in horse manure. But what is not arguable is his staunch commitment to Israel. That isn’t a dispensable, throw-a-way commitment compared to all the positive things he stands for. The struggle of Palestinians is of historic importance, of consequence to suffering humanity around the world. For 67 years they stood nearly alone defying colonialism & the combined militarism of Israel & the US–against all odds. Their struggle has been singular in its intransigence & courage.

Imagine the power of a movement that ends Zionist colonialism & builds a democratic secular state where Jews & Palestinians live as brothers & sisters! Consider what that would mean for others around the world suffering the barbarisms of racism & colonialism under neoliberal capitalism! Such a specter haunts the nightmares of those who run this world. But it is what justice demands.

That’s why Sanders’ support for Israel is something that cannot be dismissed as a regrettable lapse. It is a fatal flaw, a condemnation because he is taking a stand with tyranny & calling it justice. He’s not the lesser evil; he’s the same old crap & we’d sure as hell like him to stop claiming he’s a socialist. We have enough problems with our own.

(Photo from bustle)

There’s been some wrangling going on lately on Facebook among solidarity activists. Usually that stuff crops up when movements are at low points & people turn frustrations inward on other activists. It’s usually very personal with back-biting & gossip. If you’re the target, it’s quite upsetting & the tendency is to retreat from activism. That’s the very purpose of it: to weaken the movement by driving people out.

After nearly fifty years of activism, I have some insights about all this stuff & how to handle it. First of all, stay clear of it; don’t get involved in it. Refuse to listen, especially to gossip. Don’t be naive, but judge others by what they do, not by what you’re told about them. And beware the messenger. Those who peddle the gossip & accusations are troublemaking. Because at all times, minimizing personal conflicts which are bound to erupt is a fundamental movement-building ethos.

If you’re the subject of the gossip it’s very hurtful but it can’t be allowed to interfere with your commitment. Women get it the worst by a long-shot. I’ve listened to a drum beat of accusations my entire political life from being impossible to get along with, factional, & sectarian–just for disagreeing & not deferring to men. When I worked with right-wing men I was accused of prostitution with Black coworkers; but for considering prostitution the exploitation of poor women & children, political activists call me a “sex-negative feminist” & the demeaning epithet “SWERF.” There’s no accounting for slander.

Get the crying out of your system, avoid the troublemakers, & keep your commitment to justice uppermost in your mind & heart. Let nothing deter you. Don’t retreat because thinking good thoughts is not the same as social activism. Many activists–& they’re often the same as the troublemakers–get confused by the Che Guevara quote about ‘revolutionists being moved by great love.’ They think if they work up a lather of love for those persecuted then they don’t have to do much. But idleness can be the devil’s workshop in politics too.

And one last thing, sometimes the troublemaking is caused by difficult, jealous people or grandstanders. Sometimes it’s by agents provocateurs. Sometimes it’s just from do-nothings. That’s why you keep your nose clean & your politics honest: don’t double-deal, don’t gossip, don’t spread rumors about someone. This is hardly a low point in politics; the need for solid, committed activists has never been greater. Gaza, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Kashmir, the Rohingya, African, & Middle Eastern refugees demand solidarity. Nothing else matters. Especially our hurt feelings.

I could say “develop a thick skin”–but I never have. I’ve stayed in politics not because I have rhino-hide but because I refuse to be bullied out by chumps or deterred by gossip. I just keep looking for others to work with. As for the troublemakers that made my life difficult? They’re more boring now than ever & I’ve learned from nosing around FB are no longer political. Gossip is the venue of the do-nothing; committed activists shun it like the plague.

Now here you have it! In just one portrait of a little girl from an island most of us never heard of in the middle of the Nile River in Cairo. The reason why the world’s worth fighting for. To make this beautiful planet suitable for all children to live & love in.

(Photo of child from Dahab Island by Mahmoud Khaled)

Here’s a few more things you learn from nosing around Zionist Facebook sites where it”s really hard to see even unintentional sarcasm: Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google & one of the richest people in the world, recently visited Israel with other executives of the investment firm, Innovation Endeavors, which he heads & “which has been one of the most active investment funds in Israel in recent years.”

Zionists continue to use right-wing Palestinians like Bassem Eid & Mudar Zahran to attack the boycott (BDS) movement & Palestinian solidarity with claims it is antisemitic. It’s really not certain both fellows are not deranged as well as traitorous. Zahran gets interviewed as an expert on BBC, Al-Jazeera, Israeli radio, & elsewhere & is often described by media as “the leader of the Palestinians in Jordan” even though he hasn’t lived in Jordan most of his life. He was forced into exile in 2010 after getting nailed reporting, as an employee of the US embassy, on the Jordanian regime to several US agencies, including the CIA & FBI. He writes frequent screeds against Hamas for Gate Stone Institute, a Zionist propaganda tank.

There is an accelerating campaign to make Jerusalem the capital city of Israel & cleanse it of Palestinians–including a FB wall named Countries of the World: Move your embassies to Jerusalem. Zionists are enraged by the US Supreme Court ruling yesterday that a boy born in Jerusalem & now living in the US cannot list “Jerusalem, Israel” as his birthplace on his passport because the US declines to recognize sovereignty over Jerusalem (at least formally). Of course, the question remains, how did such a trifling case ever get to the Supreme Court when more substantial issues are refused a hearing?

There is a fair amount of open war-mongering against Palestinians on these sites & a hateful & near-rabid frenzy against BDS. On one post titled “How do we fight hate?” about a Palestinian solidarity rally in Canada, there were hundreds of positive responses to the ridicule of a young BDS activist who was heavy-set.

What one sees more than anything on these sites is the corrupting influence of Zionist ideology that can sever people so markedly from social & political reality & make them so misanthropic & hateful–& not just toward Palestinians.

The only possible solution is to continue to build the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel as a force for social justice & an alternative to social hatred guided by the vision of a democratic secular state where Jews & Palestinians can live as brothers & sisters.