Turns out the revolution will be televised. Every time refugees get near electrical outlets we see scenes like this. This is on a ferry heading for the port of Piraeus on the Greek mainland but we’ve also seen them in train stations along the way north. Who could have predicted the cell phone would be such an invaluable tool for refugees & immigrants to let their families know where they are & if they are safe.
Selfies are the only thing missing.
(Photo by Iakovos Hatzistavrou/AFP/Getty)
It’s hard to think of an Arab uprising where the analysis has been more mangled & bungled than the Syrian uprising. A large section of the left hails Assad as a champion of democracy & others recognize him as a dictator. Of course those who hail him as a champion can’t explain why he’s been bombing his own people for the past four years, killing an estimated 250,000 people, jailing thousands of dissidents, & driving 10 million into exile.
Some claim the Syrian uprising in 2011 was right-wing elements against a progressive regime. That has become the regrettable narrative of many leftists every time one of their favorite capitalist regimes faces popular opposition. They’ve regressed in analysis of capitalism in crisis to the jejune history of good guys/bad guys taught in US elementary schools.
Things are gonna get bumpy for Assad supporters now that the US has admitted its strategy in Syria of arming anti-Assad paramilitary militias was a mistake. Instead, it’s going to align with Russia, Israel, Australia, Turkey, & the Assad regime to fight ISIS. It would be best if Assad supporters reevaluated their analytical methods but it’s more likely most will engage in some fast talking around their misjudgments & run around like chickens with their heads cut off. What’s important is not who’s right & who’s wrong but what is actually happening in Syria & coming to grips with the complexity of that because it’s shaping up to be a very dangerous military situation for the peoples of the region.
What’s important to watch is the transition we’re going to see in US war propaganda. The US quite correctly–but for its own reasons–assessed the brutality of Assad’s regime. Now they have to pull a switcheroo to ally with his regime & promote that in a convincing way to the American people. There’ll be plenty of fast talking coming out of Obama & the Pentagon too.
In truth, we have to take all our intelligence about what ISIS is, what it’s doing, & what kind of threat it is from media accounts based on Pentagon & Kremlin press releases. That’s as reliable as a Chinese fortune cookie. This is why the voices of reliable Syrian activists are so important.
But we needn’t be scholars on Syria; we needn’t agree on the political character of Assad or of ISIS. We only need organize ourselves to re-build the international antiwar movement to oppose any military intervention into Syria by any country & at the same time demand Assad stop bombing his own people.
This small boy is awaiting treatment for shrapnel injuries in a makeshift hospital in Douma, an area near Damascus which Assad warplanes have been bombing for several months because it’s a stronghold of US-backed militias. We’ve seen months of pictures exactly like this. This is why 10 million have chosen to flee.
No war in Syria! Stop the bombing!
(Photo by Abd Doumany/AFP/Getty Images)
Not to tempt fate, but since Facebook gave so many of us an adrenalin rush by closing us out for an hour, I post this photo from Mark Zuckerberg’s FB wall: it’s him & India’s fascist prime minister Narendra Modi.
It’s not just a case of you lay down with dogs you wake up with fleas. It’s a case of you hang out with Modi your Facebook members wake up with surveillance operatives hanging on their every word. Actually Modi’s regime closed down social networking sites in Kashmir over the religious holiday last week. They were probably discussing how to collaborate on that.
Oh well, the FBI and Mossad already have that covered. What are you gonna do? Stop exercising free speech? No! You use FB to campaign for it.
(Photo stolen from MZ’s wall)
There are reports that Israeli soldiers are using rubber-coated metal bullets, stun grenades, pepper & tear gas against Palestinians at Al-Aqsa mosque & in the adjacent city area. Several have been wounded.
There are also videos of thuggish Israeli settlers physically threatening Palestinian women–storm trooper style–as the settlers continue to try to force their way into the Noble Sanctuary.
Build the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel. Demand no aid of any kind of apartheid Israel.
Bassem Tamimi (on the top left in the green shirt) is a leading Palestinian activist–along with the rest of his extended family engaged in weekly protests against Israeli settlements & the military occupation in the West Bank town of Nabi Selah. He’s been arrested by Israeli soldiers numerous times. His cousin Mustafa Tamimi was killed in a gruesome incident in 2011 when he was hit by an Israeli grenade & his brother-in-law was shot & killed in 2012 by Israeli soldiers.
The memorable incident in this photo is an Israeli soldier brutalizing his young son while he, his daughter Ahed (known to many for her defiance against Israeli soldiers), wife Nariman, & others come to the boy’s defense.
He is presently on a speaking tour of the US so many can get an opportunity to hear a powerful voice of the Palestinian struggle.
The link is the schedule of his speaking engagements in the US. He’s presently in the Bay area of California but will proceed to Albuquerque, NM; Boston, Massachusetts; Florida; & Washington, DC.
(Photo from Reuters)
http://bassemtamimi2015speakingtour.weebly.com/locations-an…
There have been a reported 25,000 people disappeared in Mexico in the past decade which the government attributes to the drug cartels. Of course the criminal cartels are integrated into Mexican capitalism & indistinguishable from each other—two flanks of the same rotting system bankrolled & armed by the Pentagon cartel in the US.
Teachers in Mexico have been among the most militant activists & many have had to flee to the US as undocumented workers to escape assassination & disappearance. It’s no accident that the Mexican military, which has 60,000 soldiers deployed along with paramilitary thugs, targeted student teachers when they disappeared 43 activists on September 26th 2014. These protesters are student teachers from Ayotzinapa teachers college in Guerrero state facing off against riot police to protest the disappearance of their 43 classmates.
So many become overwhelmed by the scope of repression & violence in the world & declare the human race a failure rather than see that capitalism has failed human beings. We only need look to these student teachers defying repression & terror—or to the stone-throwers of Kashmir defying the brutal Indian occupation, the Palestinians standing against Israeli terrorism, or Black activists against US terrorism in their communities. They are the hope of the future. If the terrorized & oppressed have not given up on justice, neither can we.
(Photo by Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images)
There’s an important change in photojournalist documentation of the refugee crisis in the eastern Mediterranean. There are now frequent photos of refugees in extreme distress. That would be expected on the Hungarian or Croatian borders where they are being violently assaulted by border guards & denied entrance–at a point in their journey when their psychic energies & resources must be completely drained. This poor little guy is with his family in Tovarnik, Croatia, trying to board a train to northern Europe.
But we’re now seeing photo after photo of distressed refugees in the Aegean leg of the trip traveling mostly in dinghies from Turkey to the Greek islands. Many are swimming to shore from overcrowded or disabled dinghies, are weeping & fainting when they land, some are in apparent shock. More alarmingly, there are more frequent reports of plastic dinghies sinking & refugees drowning.
Media reporting on the crisis is so half-assed that one can’t tell if the situation is worsening dramatically. But the increasing drowning rate along with reports on CBS news that Turkish & suspected Greek coast guard boats are harassing & disabling the dinghies would suggest refugees are more endangered than before & need active solidarity more than ever.
Bernie Sanders expressed opposition to immigration & open borders because it threatened the nation-state. Interesting objection because the European Union is a failed experiment that tried to overcome the limits of the nation-state in the interests of capitalism. It’s apparently working out well for some of the German banks but it’s proving a disaster for working people & proving itself barbaric & xenophobic when it comes to the refugee crisis.
Of course European governments are overwhelmed with thousands of refugees who need housing & social services–especially when they’re operating under austerity policies & can’t provide them for their own citizens. Perhaps it’s time working people decided the nation-state isn’t working for us, ally ourselves with refugees, & come up with a social structure that can serve human needs.
The “gray out” of news on the crisis of African refugees from Libya to Italy continues except for reports that drownings continue. Still no word what the hell those 26 European navies are doing out there.
(Photo by Manu Brabo/AP)
Can people do me a favor & not use that “nobody is perfect” mantra to excuse the political betrayals &/or obeisance to the status quo of prominent figures? My observation is that it’s only used for the prominent & doesn’t cut it for ordinary activists. In the interests of egalitarianism, they shouldn’t be allowed copouts if we aren’t.