Turkish & Greek coast guards attacking refugee boats

Syrian & child in Aegean (REUTERS:Alkis Konstantinidis)  Sept 15 2015

There are many poignant photos from this historic refugee crisis no matter where you look. But this one is simply overwhelming. A Syrian man in carrying his baby in a rubber tube while he swims to shore after their dinghy deflated about 100 meters (329 feet) from the Greek island of Lesbos. One can only imagine the terror he feels.

CBS news crews are reporting that Turkish coast guard boats are attacking the dinghies to disable them. They also reported speed boats coming fromGreek waters where men are pointing guns at refugees & disabling the fuel lines on boats.

We can be overwhelmed with all this or we can take an active stand against it. Overwhelmed will get us nowhere so we have no choice but to demand “Immigration is a human right! Open the borders!”

(Photo by Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters)

Antiwar protests against re-militarizing Japan

Japan anti-security bill protest ( Kimimasa Mayama:EPA) Sept 15 2015

There have been weekly protests in Tokyo of “tens of thousands” of people opposing legislation being railroaded through the Japanese parliament to legalize the re-militarization of Japan & allow the country to deploy troops abroad for the first time since WWII. The proposed law would reverse Article 9 in the constitution outlawing the use of military for war. It’s essentially a “no war” article & isn’t a pacifist commitment but was imposed by the US after Japan’s defeat in WWII.

The reversal of Article 9 has been in the works for a while. Part of the railroading is coming from the US who want to incorporate Japan into an offensive naval & troop force as US competition with China heats up in the South China Sea & as the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership goes into effect. This is openly acknowledged in media, including by Forbes, a voice of US capitalism.

Japanese working people have nothing to gain & so much to lose by re-militarizing. But the regime is hellbent on it not just because of political pressure from the US but because war is built into the capitalist system as a way to resolve internal crises & conflicts. Fukushima is only one indication that plenty of those exist in Japan.

The most imperative political need is to re-build the international antiwar movement that collaborates to maximize power in opposing militarism from Afghanistan & Iraq to Pakistan, Palestine, Yemen, Kashmir, DR Congo, Somalia, Guatemala, Mexico, & all the rest. Nothing is more urgent.

Antiwar forces are assembling, most notably in defense of Gaza & in the emerging antiwar movement in places like Japan & the Philippines. We need to reach out to work together before the forces of militarism turn this planet into a killing field & create millions more refugees with no place to go. That is not an overstatement but the historic mission of our generation.

Our fullest solidarity with the antiwar movement of Japan who carried placards saying “No war, No nukes,” “Scrap the war legislation.”

(Photo by Kimimasa Mayama/EPA)

More on that “Je suis Charlie” crap

CH cartoon Sept 15 2015

What puts defenses of Charlie Hebdo to shame is that when they were brutally assassinated last January we were supposed to do that “Je suis Charlie” schtick and go all alligator tears. Even though for years they had been producing inflammatory cartoons against Muslims in a political climate repressive & violent toward Muslims. Some could interpret that as sucking up to power.

If cartoonists had come up with this kind of crap while their families grieved they would have been vilified from here to Kingdom Come. Twenty-five thousand refugees & immigrants have drowned in the Mediterranean in the past several years. Hundreds only yesterday. Baby Aylan Kurdi’s father is bereft with grief at the loss of his wife & two boys–two of whom he can’t even bury because their bodies are not recovered. And Charlie Hebdo chose just this political moment to do a “satire” on the European response to the refugee crisis?

Cut the crap!

Photo is second cartoon CH did on the refugee crisis. They would be advised to put “satire” behind them & move openly to war propaganda.