Those who oppose Bernie Sanders as a progressive alternative to Clinton don’t do so because he’s not the perfect candidate but because on most political questions, he’s on the wrong side. Even if you consider him an advocate of working people in the US, he has turned his back on the working people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Mexico, Central America.
It’s not simple-minded to say that in politics “whose side are you on?” is the essential question of solidarity & social transformation.
Bernie Sanders, the voluble man of the people, went through a candidates debate with Clinton (the other three jamokes present might as well be mannequins) without mentioning US wars–after 24 years of deployment & barbarisms in Iraq & on the 14th anniversary of the occupation of Afghanistan. And people who call themselves socialists campaign for him!?
“Sewer socialists” is an old derogatory term from the early 20th century used against socialists elected to local office who boasted about the public sewer system in their cities & neglected other questions in national & international politics–like war. Without US investment in war, there would be funds for all sorts of essential infrastructure programs–like re-building the bridges that are collapsing all over the country.
No one would ever deny the absolute necessity of public sewer systems but one should try not to draw their politics from the same source. How does that distinguish you from India’s fascist prime minister Narendra Modi who’s on a clean-up program in India while leaving the occupation of Kashmir & caste oppression in India solidly in place–& still half of India’s cities have no sewer system?
In politics, one should be able to connect things & Sanders can’t connect war to our paychecks. But much more damning, he has no sense of shared humanity with the people of Afghanistan & Iraq. There’s another socialist tradition, long since buried in the debris of these pretenders, that considers war the first priority to address. That tradition was reflected in the anti-Vietnam War movement where participants were encouraged to link their concerns & form contingents as women, Latinos, Blacks, Native Americans, LGBTs, immigrant rights, Palestinian solidarity activists & other pressing social issues to the expenditures on war.
Sanders can’t lead that because he supports war & apartheid. No matter how loud he shouts, he can never make up for the provincialism, racism, & xenophobia of his views.
Niall Ferguson, the prestigious fiction writer who passes as an historian at elite universities (not the first bonehead to do that) is trying to top his previous idiocies & intellectual debaucheries defending colonialism. He’s now written “Kissinger’s Shadow,” an attempt to rehabilitate the legacy of Henry Kissinger. When it comes to singing for your supper, Ferguson takes the cake. No depths are too low. No criminal too despicable & psychotic to rehabilitate.
Ferguson, a smug, pompous fart who thinks he’s “all that,” (which makes him ideal for writing Kissinger’s biography) cites his father for instilling in him ‘a strong sense of self-discipline & of the moral value of work’, while his mother encouraged his creative side. Unfortunately for all their work, they ended up nurturing a smarmy sycophant who works tirelessly at rewriting history to suit the power elite & gets well-remunerated for it. In the process, he’s made an ass of himself. Instead of inspiring respect, he makes you want to slap the crap out of him & look forward to writing his obituary.
No one would want to do depth psychology on the professor (the term “can of worms” comes to mind) but surely what resonates with him in Kissinger is their shared & profound lackeyism to power. Kissinger called power “the ultimate aphrodisiac” but there is no one less appealing than those who earn their livings groveling before it.
(Photo of Ferguson by Murdo MacLeod/Guardian)
Political halfwits continue to parse the idiocies & irrelevancies of the debate between Clinton & Sanders–who are indistinguishable in banality if not in criminality. The misnamed talking heads (since they mostly talk out of their butts) parse the irascible style of Sanders versus the wooden style of Clinton as if it mattered a rat’s ass.
The talking butts never noticed that after 14 years of US-NATO occupation–including recent exposures of US war crimes & the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital–the issue of Afghanistan never came up in the Democratic Party debate.
According to anonymous senior officials in the Obama administration, he will soon announce plans to maintain the current force of 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of next year, then draw down to 5,500 troops in 2017 when he leaves office. No mention of what they’ll do with the thousands of mercenaries.
ABC news tonight spent ten seconds on Afghanistan, reporting only that Doctors Without Borders were pressing accusations of a US war crime & never mentioning continued occupation. They dedicated more time to reporting the condition of Lamar Odom (speaking of who gives a rat’s ass!). PBS spent 30 seconds showing photos of US soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan. The news is even more paltry when it comes to US occupation of Iraq. It’s impossible to figure out how many US troops are deployed there.
This news blackout is intended for one purpose & one purpose only: to undercut opposition to the US wars in Afghanistan & Iraq & preempt any possibility for the development of a massive, international antiwar movement.
Let the talking butts ignore politics & continue their flatulent debate. Our historic mission is to re-build the international antiwar movement demanding the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US forces & mercenaries in both countries. Out now!
Our fullest solidarity with the peoples of Afghanistan & Iraq. We are on your side & regret deeply this historic failing which we commit to changing.
Photo is six-year-old Afghan refugee Kharzarin Zirgul, holding her 3-month-old cousin Zaman who live in Pakistani slums now being cleared by the Pakistan government. Many Afghans, including unaccompanied children, are among the refugees making the dangerous trek to Europe.
(Photo by Muhammed Muheisen)
Media is improvising up a storm to provide an alibi for Israel’s rampage against unarmed Palestinians. They have to explain the striking discordancy between the number of Israelis killed & injured in the alleged Palestinian stabbing spree in occupied-East Jerusalem (as of today there are 7 fatalities & 5 injuries reported) & the number of Palestinians killed & injured in “clashes” between Israeli soldiers & Palestinians (as of today there are 30, including children).
Media now says the 30 Palestinian fatalities included “children & assailants.” They neglect to add, Israel doesn’t make a distinction between the two because every Palestinian is a “terrorist.” The inclusion of “assailants” is a very deft move because it justifies the discordancy. It stands to reason if Palestinians are on a stabbing spree that many would be executed on the spot, right? So where are the forensics on these shootings? Where are they taking place? In East Jerusalem or the West Bank? What about the six shot dead in Gaza across the fence? Are the streets of Jerusalem strewn with stabbing victims? Is this affecting tourism?
Media doesn’t ask for evidence any more than Obama when he condemned Palestinians as terrorists. They know exactly what’s going on but it’s their job to provide the propaganda soundtrack to ethnic cleansing.
We can expect this kind of media rubbish to continue & work itself into a white heat because BDS is gaining ground. If the Israeli colonial project is to survive, they must regain control of the narrative about Palestinians–the old apartheid song & dance about terrorists.
Palestinians have weapons on their side now–beside their slingshots, that is. They have international solidarity, which uses social networking, educational events, & public protests to tell the truth–which is the least justice demands.
Israel talks about shivs but all we see are slingshots. All we see are Israeli troops occupying East Jerusalem, the West Bank, & bombing Gaza with tanks, tear gas, & assault weapons.
These activists are fighting the illegal occupation near the West Bank town of Bethlehem. We cannot let them stand alone against one of the most barbaric armies in the world.
All out in defense of the truth, of justice, in defense of Palestinians!
(Photo by Mussa Qawasma/Reuters)
The media narrative explaining what’s going on between Israeli troops & unarmed Palestinians is absolutely appalling. Their simple-minded explanation for the cause of the “clashes” is that Palestinians were driven to a stabbing rampage by ‘anger over perceived changes to the status quo at Al-Aqsa.’ “Perceived changes” would suggest a difference with reality & that a misconception led Palestinians into initiating “clashes” with police.
Things move fast in media but not so fast that we forget what happened a few week ago at Al-Aqsa. Men under 50 years-old were refused entrance to pray on high holy days; there was a blacklist of women not allowed to enter; Israeli police moved in to the Noble Sanctuary with tear gas, grenades, & rubber-coated metal bullets; Israeli police escorted extremist thugs & “tourists” into the compound to vandalize while excluding Muslim worshippers; extremist goons with bats were allowed to menace Palestinian women without police interference; Israeli police launched a dragnet of Palestinian kids all over East Jerusalem & put the area under lockdown. Looks like Palestinian perception is on to something. But you’d have to be completely obtuse not to see that Israel is attempting to take over the compound to destroy it. When media plays stupid, it’s to cover for Israeli violence & occupation.
The second part of this narrative is the stabbing rampage part. Reportedly, the past few weeks have seen ‘the worst spell of street violence in Israel’ in years. But media reports only point to three incidents: one where two Palestinian men allegedly boarded a bus in Jerusalem & began shooting & stabbing passengers; a second where a Palestinian assailant rammed a car into a bus station before stabbing bystanders; in another one two kids from a settlement were stabbed.
According to the BBC a couple days ago, five Israelis have been stabbed, one critically, & four Israelis have died. Not really what you’d call a ‘spell of street violence.’ In fact, relatively calm compared to Friday nights at corner bars after college football games in the US. And the jury is still out on who the actual assailants were. It could be Palestinians affected by PTSD from relentless Israeli persecution & violence; it could just as well be Israeli agents provocateurs because now it has been exposed that Israel relies on them in the West Bank.
On the contrary, as of a few days ago, 29 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli police & troops & over 2,000 have been injured. And not only that but Israeli soldiers have reportedly shot at over a dozen Palestinian ambulances & assaulted paramedics; under Israeli police protection settlers are torching Palestinian homes & fields; Israeli soldiers kidnapped 562 Palestinians (since September), including children, in Jerusalem, & mass arrests continue.
There’s a spell of violence all right but it is not coming from Palestinians with slingshots or shivs; it’s coming from Israeli police, soldiers, armed settlers & extremist goon squads armed to the teeth with tear gas, grenades, & assault rifles.
This is the funeral–at the Dehiesheh refugee camp near Bethlehem which was attended by hundreds–of 27 year-old Moataz Zawahara killed in one of those “clashes” where Israeli soldiers shoot down unarmed Palestinians.
May our young man Rest In Peace. Our deepest condolences to his family & friends. May we mobilize to demand Israel stop the violence & end the occupation. Build the economic, cultural, academic boycott of Israel (barcode beginning with 729)
(Photo by Nasser Nasser/AP)
ABC news tonight reported on the Israeli rampage against Palestinians. But of course that is not how they presented it. As they report the story, Palestinians are running amuck in Jerusalem with knives. The parallels in narratives about Palestinian youth in Jerusalem resonate powerfully, & not coincidentally, with that about youth in the US Black community. Racism is of its essence.
One very striking comment in the report is that “disturbing videos circulating on social media are fueling the unrest.” What the hell does that mean? That showing images of Israeli violence against Palestinians is provoking Intifada!? Aren’t Palestinians too engaged in defending themselves against tear gas, grenades, & rubber bullets to be hanging out on Facebook or Twitter?
The sole concern about the gruesome images is that they counter Israeli propaganda passed off as news reporting. Just the fact that they mentioned it means they are concerned that the Palestinian side of the story is being heard. There’s another way to counter the lies & that is to join one of the solidarity rallies being held around the world demanding Israel stop the violence & end the occupation.
Photo on top is Palestinian activist at Howara checkpoint near Nablus, in the occupied West Bank; photo on bottom is Israeli soldiers he’s facing off with at Howara. We can all judge for ourselves who is inflicting the most murderous violence: those with slingshots? Or AK-47s?
Long live Intifada! Take it international in solidarity.
(Both photos by Alaa Badarneh/EPA)