European popular vote: immigration is a human right; open the damn borders!

Thousands greeting refugees in Germany with open arms; 50,000 people in London marching in a “welcome to refugees” protest; massive expressions of solidarity & humanitarian assistance wherever the refugees pass through. We’re the ones who’ll live next door to them, work with them, & whose taxes will pay for any social services rendered so why in the hell should regimes be allowed to restrict them or have any say about the matter at all? If working people think immigration is a human right, then so be it! Open the damn borders.

Is Obama really slated for second Nobel peace prize?

Tom Lehrer once said “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize.” Mary Scully later said with far less eloquence & far more vulgarity that ‘the Nobel peace prize has the value of used toilet paper. Why should we let the damn thing destroy satire which is too powerful a weapon against the sarcasms & obscenities of power to let them walk off with?’

Today I read Obama was to be awarded his second Nobel peace prize & I could hardly believe my eyes–but of course I knew such folly was not beneath the contemptible standards of the Nobel selection committee. Turns out the story is indeed a hoax & that the winner of this ignominious honorific won’t be announced till October.

We wait with bated breath for the actual announcement next month. Could it be Netanyahu this year? Or Adolph Hitler posthumously?

On the electoral victory of Jeremy Corbyn

To be honest, the politics of Jeremy Corbyn aren’t entirely clear to me since I never heard of him before his campaign to head the British Labour party. I was disinclined to follow his campaign since the Labour party has been looking like a political carcass for a long time.

But I knew Corbyn was different than Bernie Sanders, the xenophobe who supports Israeli apartheid, votes for war appropriations, & hasn’t an international bone in his body, because Corbyn has actually participated for years in campaigns against Britain’s involvement in the Iraq & Afghanistan wars & in solidarity with Palestinians.

So while I’m not an authority on British electoral politics or the Labour party, I actually think it’s great news Corbyn won the election. The despicable David Cameron doesn’t agree–& this confirms my judgement. Cameron said on his FB page: “The Labour Party is now a threat to our national security, our economic security & your family’s security.” But he’s probably using the royal we & talking to Betty Windsor & her class, not to working people.

Mayan women lead fight against US gold mine in Guatemala

San Jose del Golfo, Guatemala (Saul Martinez: Sept 12 2015

Over 500 years of colonialism in the Americas where no barbarism against indigenous peoples was too extreme & still the process is not complete. There isn’t a country from the North to South Pole where they are not still fighting for survival & against dispossession by mining & oil companies, & agribusiness conglomerates. And there isn’t a place where they aren’t leading the fight for environmental integrity against deforestation, destruction of rainforest, fracking, strip mining, & predations of all sorts. That’s true not just in the Americas but in both hemispheres.

The opposing phalanxes in this photo are Guatemalan riot police & soldiers facing down community activists from San Jose del Golfo, a hamlet 19-miles outside Guatemala City. The activists are blocking the road to prevent dump trucks, excavators, & other heavy machinery from being moved in for a mining operation. For three years the communities in the area, led by a group named La Puya, have prevented the construction of new gold mines by a US mining company. Ninety-five percent of the families in the region rely on farming for a living & know full well the arsenic & mercury efflux from gold mining would contaminate the water table & their fields, destroy their health, & turn the region into a toxic wasteland.

La Puya started with a Rosa Parks-type action in 2012. A woman from the area became concerned by caravans of heavy equipment moving in for the mining operation & parked her car sideways across the road to stop the convoys. When others joined her, a movement began & till today they continue to block & impede operations despite massive military force against them.

Mayan women, who have taken the brunt of violence for centuries & in the 36-year civil war between 1960-1996, are leading this struggle. As remarkable as they are, there is no purpose to romanticize the odds against them. They can only win this battle against neoliberal capitalist plunder with massive international solidarity & pressure on the Guatemalan regime to back off the military & riot police & lock the country down against multinational marauders.

Our deepest respect & fullest solidarity with these activists. The US environmental movement has largely been coopted by corporations; to play our necessary part in supporting indigenous peoples around the world & in defending the environment, we need to do some Rosa Park-type actions of our own & throw the corporations out of the movement they are trying to destroy.

(Photo by Saul Martinez)

There is no impunity for mass murder in Guatemala

Guatemala recovering disappeared (James Rodriguez) Sept 12 2015

These people are carrying coffins with the remains of some of the 45,000 people “disappeared” during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war between 1960 & 1996. Successive right-wing governments led by former generals directly implicated in the disappearances & murders of 200,000 indigenous Mayans have rebuffed political pressure to exhume & identify those murdered & dumped in mass graves. Exhumations have been going on since 1996 but as of two years ago, less than 1,000 skeletons had been recovered.

All were killed by soldiers & allied paramilitaries trying to wipe out a guerrilla movement using scorched earth military tactics that swept up everyone in its path–not just students, trade union & political activists, but women out shopping for food, children walking to school, people working in fields. According to forensic anthropologists leading the exhumations, victims were often buried with blindfolds, with hands & feet bound, had broken bones, & were often naked. Interrogation at military bases included rape, torture, extrajudicial execution, & secret burial often right near the bases. Many were hurled from helicopters into the sea or volcanic craters.

Because successive presidents of Guatemala have been the generals directly involved in executing the scorched earth civil war, there has been no justice. Former president Efrain Rios Montt was prosecuted in 2013 & has essentially walked on the charges. President Otto PĂ©rez Molina just resigned & was arrested not for his role in genocide but for customs fraud & bribery.

The exhumation process is a gruesome one because the skeletons of most are piled in mass graves & are not identifiable so DNA testing must be done for grieving family members to properly bury & honor their beloved. Most of the clandestine cemeteries are on still active military bases–some which fly the UN flag & where in fact Guatemalan military & police officials stationed there wear the distinctive blue helmet of the UN. Many of the bases of course–then & now–are operated by US military officials & bankrolled by the Pentagon.

Family members continue to demand justice. There’s a political accounting to be made here & exposing the political use of mass disappearance is part of the process of bringing all the guilty parties to justice & of course of exposing & prosecuting all who were involved–including within the UN & Pentagon. There is no impunity for mass murder. As the family members & human rights activists in Guatemala chant, “No Amnesty, No Pardon.”

(Photo by James Rodriguez)

Ricky “Manure” Perry drops out of presidential race

Rick Perry

The first Republican candidate for president has pulled out of the race after his poll numbers dropped to one percent from a high of two percent. Even the cattle farmers he served so well as governor of Texas wanted no part of Rick Perry in the White House. The cattle market still hasn’t recovered. Neither has the English language down here.

He made his announcement in the livestock barn at the Iowa State Fair since heifers & mules are the only crowd he’s been able to gather for quite a while now. They’re in pens & can’t get away. “I share this news with no regrets,” he said. The livestock snorted their approval & were echoed in cattle barns across the state of Texas.

Good riddance, Rick. One down, 15 more idiots to go.