Wherever did the Guardian-UK acquire its reputation as liberal media since it’s proven itself an inexhaustible source of foolishness when it comes to Palestinians? The caption to this photo last week said, “A Palestinian man stands on the roof of his house which was damaged by what witnesses said was Israeli shelling during last year’s 50-day war.”

Are those witnesses sure the damage was done by Israeli carpet bombing? It could have been done by evil fairies invading from outer space. In fact, other witnesses are certain they saw what appeared to be Martians invading Gaza.

Emancipation US-style: 14 years of US-NATO war in Afghanistan–first under the guise of chasing Osama bin Laden dragging his dialysis equipment through the caves of Afghanistan & then under the guise of liberating women. One nail salon, several CIA torture prisons, a thriving drug trade, several unspeakable war crimes later, & despite Obama’s announcement the occupation ended a year ago, the war continues.

This little girl in Kabul is one of between 683,000 & 900,000 homelessAfghans according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). Millions are living as refugees in Pakistan & Iran. When the Pakistani government cracked down on Afghan refugees a few years ago & began demolishing their encampments, the UNHCR paid some of them chump change (about US $150) to move back to Afghanistan, knowing there would be no housing or schools. Thousands, including unaccompanied children, became part of the trek to Europe through Turkey & Greece.

When you’re sick in bed, you’ll watch anything to relieve the tedium–including Bernie Sanders being interviewed by Barbara Walters. Both have come a long way in life for being such nonentities.

Walters asked Sanders if he was against capitalism–a system that’s barbarism endears itself only to profiteers & psychos. Sanders answered no, he favored a mixed economy–an entirely fictitious economic entity which is capitalism with a few social services kicked in. He didn’t specify which country usually identified as a mixed economy he preferred to model. Whether China with its sweatshops & child labor, the US & UK with their massive inequality & endless wars, or Sweden with a multi-billion dollar defense industry.

The caption to this photo in the Guardian-UK read, “Rafah, Gaza Strip: A Palestinian boy, carried on his father’s shoulders, holds a toy knife during a rally organized by the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine.” The photo is a subtle but pernicious piece of propaganda against Palestinian children playing on the hogwash about a “stabbing Intifada.”

Toy weapons manufacturing just in the US is a multi-billion dollar a year operation including guns shooting laser beams, fake bullets, & simulated machine gun fire. Toys simulating casual ways to blow up the world using nuclear explosions are flying off the shelves. It’s estimated that 83-percent of electronic games have violent themes & 58-percent are war games. It’s of course symptomatic of an aggressive culture derived from a government engaged in endless barbaric wars for well over one hundred years now. From the point of view of the Pentagon, it’s desirable that children who will grow up to be soldiers get inculcated with aggression & violence.

I apologize to my readers for my several day absence but I was down for the count with the flu.

Military veterans play a central & invaluable role in the antiwar movement, not just in the US but in the UK & other countries. The photo is of war service medals discarded by veterans at a recent protest against UK intervention in the Syrian war. The gesture of veterans discarding medals became prominent during protests against the Vietnam War, which was an international movement involving millions.

John Kerry, who rose to prominence grandstanding against the Vietnam War, now shills for US wars as secretary of state. He once publicly claimed on TV that he discarded his several medals at the April 1971 march of over a million people in Washington, DC. Since his political career as a senator in 1984, he began to admit he still has the damn things & only threw out his ribbons. He was always a lying-assed weasel & has the perfect job for his character.

It used to be so much fun to ridicule Trump because his politics seemed improvised from narcissism & idiocy. He clearly understands nothing & knows less.

But now we see that under that foolish head of hair is a cesspool of racism, xenophobia, & reckless social hatred. Combined with his stupidity, it’s a boiling potpourri of horse manure. But he does have a political program & it is very dangerous indeed. So he’s not funny anymore & memes that focus on his idiocy should be replaced with images of a horse’s rear end.

When we google “Trump” we should get his real portrait. Which flatters him.

Someone has privately chided me for describing Trump as fascist & thus misunderstanding the character of fascism. The political nature of fascism has been cogently analyzed, particularly in Germany, Italy, & Spain, by Leon Trotsky & less brilliantly by others. It has a different character than military dictatorship, the Stalinist & Maoist forms of autocracy, military occupation, or other forms of political repression–although of course, they all manifest in the same ways using repression, coercion, brutality.

They are all forms of tyranny used to save capitalism in crisis & reestablish the social equilibrium where capitalist rule is unquestioned. It’s preferable to oligarchy that they rule behind disguises–particularly parliamentary disguise. These distinctions matter because while fascism is bankrolled by big capital, it involves a plebeian mass movement with a distinct alignment of classes, including the leadership of the professional classes. Military dictatorship substitutes tanks for a popular movement.

Trump is a fascist demagogue but as filthy rich as he is, he is not part of the ruling oligarchy in the US. He’s more of a parvenu wanna-be. He’s not the first fascist demagogue in US history, nor certainly in world history. The portrait on the left is a Roman Catholic priest named Charles Coughlin, a Detroit radio talk show host in the late 1930s who supported Hitler & Mussolini & spouted all their crap about Jewish bankers ruling the world. He played a similar role to what Trump is doing now in whipping up popular panic & fostering social hatred.

Trump (the portrait on the right), is a fascist demagogue who is correctly reading signals from the US oligarchy which is using hatred of Muslims to whip up support for wars, crack down on civil liberties, & use alarmism to garner support for right-wing policies against immigrants & refugees. His tempo & recklessness may outpace the oligarchy’s timeframe but do not conflict with their agenda.

It’s entirely correct to identify Trump as a fascist demagogue because he is trying to mobilize a popular movement against Muslims, refugees, & immigrants & undermines the US Bill of Rights in doing so. There is evidence all over Europe & the US of growing “counter-jihad” groups & activities. The group Hope Not Hate found 920 anti-Muslim groups in 22 countries, many of them well-financed by private foundations through which oligarchs funnel money. The head of Hope Not Hate said hatred of Muslims “was moving from the margins to the political mainstream.” Under fascism, that leads to genocides so it is an extremely dangerous political development which Trump is tapping in to. How far he succeeds depends entirely on our ability to out-mobilize the forces of reaction & hatred–& not just in the US.

The political imperative remains: rebuild the international antiwar movement, honor & build BDS & Palestinian solidarity, support immigrant & refugee rights.

(Photo of Coughlin on left by Craine, Detroit, Via Library of Congress. Photo of Trump on right from local barnyard.)

You can call me moralistic, but there is something amoral about American television–beyond the baloney they peddle on newscasts. They had Trump cohost Saturday Night Live after he made comments impugning Mexicans in the most despicable & racist ways. Tonight that Seth Meyers creep has Sarah Palin come on & rant in defense of Trump’s comments on Muslims as if she has coherence. That Stephen Colbert creep has had Kissinger on & any number of other war criminals for little jokefests. It isn’t just politically reactionary but absolutely amoral to allow criminality & racism to be treated as a source of humor rather than a social disorder.

It’s been news for a few years that suicide rates among US military personnel surpass combat deaths. The Pentagon attributes the alarming statistic to family or relationship issues. Everybody has relationship issues so that’s no explanation for why soldier suicides are higher than those of the general population. For the US–recognizing the Pentagon isn’t entirely forthright about such matters–the average is 300 soldier suicides a year. That does not include veteran suicides or those who drug or drink themselves to death.