As a person who detests how art is debased by constant award shows that turn art into competitive sports like the Kentucky Derby, I must admit I’m delighted at the controversy emerging around the Oscar film awards this year. Black actors are publicly announcing a boycott of the red carpet event because 96 percent of voting academy members are white & male & didn’t nominate even one Black actor out of several noteworthy performances.

Hopefully they’ll do more than just stay away & will do some necessary political campaigning to expose the racism of Hollywood films. If we’re lucky, they’ll have a go at the outrageous misogyny too.

The growing bonds of solidarity between Palestinians & US Black activists that emerged in Ferguson after the murder of Michael Brown is a serious concern to Israel & its supporters–most importantly because it exposes the racist fault lines of Zionism & challenges the apartheid policies of Israel. This turn of events is not one Israel can allow to go unchallenged–& it has not.

Jews in the US have historically played an important role in social justice–including building unions to fighting for civil rights & they did so because of their own history of persecution & pogroms. Many claim such progressive politics are based on “Jewish values” but that’s an exceptionalist claim since all religions teach moral high-ground. (Delivering on it is another story.) The colonial formation of Israel at the expense of Palestinians has undermined that historic role & many liberal Jews now promote the racist & exclusionary ideology of Zionism which in its foundations rejected the broader struggle against racism & colonialism & replaced solidarity with rightwing nationalism. It can no longer claim affinity with civil rights.

In May 2015, a group of rabbis associated with the Jewish Federation, a leading player in the US Zionist movement, organized buses, issued public statements, & posed for photo ops at protests in Baltimore calling for justice for Freddie Gray, the Black man who died in police custody. The group was led by Rabbi Yerachmiel Shapiro whose FB profile picture includes a prominent Israeli flag to show his commitment. Is it conceivable the good rabbi is sincere about civil rights in the US but silent about racist discrimination & violence against the Ethiopian community in Tel Aviv? Does he give Israel a special dispensation for racist assaults on Ethiopians & for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? Because in politics you can’t have it both ways.

The cultural boycott of Israel is an essential element in the BDS campaign because Israel consciously uses musicians & athletes to legitimize colonialism & render a favorable image to Israeli apartheid. Prevailing on performers to honor BDS & refuse to perform in Israel is a primary way most of us can stand with Palestinians.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day & media is saturated with the touching tribute paid him in Washington, DC by two male singing groups–the Maccabeats, a group of ardent Zionists & promoters of Israel, & Naturally 7, a Black group based in NYC. The two groups created a video tribute & this morning held a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where MLK delivered his “I have a dream” speech in 1963.

It’s entirely possible the Maccabeats feel strongly about Black civil rights in this country. But once again, you can’t have it both ways. In 2013, the Maccabeats made a music video called “Aliyah to Israel” romanticizing Jewish colonialism & in 2014 produced a video medley of songs called “Home” about Israel. What about the Palestinians? The Maccabeats have opened concerts for Matisyahu, the American Zionist singer who publicly supported the Israeli commando assault on the Mavi Marmara humanitarian flotilla to Gaza in 2010 (where nine activists were killed) & has remained silent on carpet bombing in Gaza. There isn’t a public peep out of the lot of them about the persecution of Ethiopians in Israel or against the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

They sing pretty but that’s not good enough when you’re croaking for apartheid. Their tributes to MLK are likely part of Israel’s campaign to glorify Israeli colonialism, counter solidarity between Palestinians & Black activists, & have precious little to do with Black civil rights in this country. Because it can never be said often enough: you can’t have it both ways in politics & few are stupid enough to think you can.

This is a Palestinian teen in Gaza practicing his Parkour skills midst the ruin of the Shejaia neighborhood in Gaza City caused by Israeli carpet bombing in 2014. That is the cost of Aliyah.

Build the cultural & economic boycott of Israeli apartheid. Buy nothing with barcode beginning 729.

(Photo by Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

The Iran hostage swap is all over the news: five Americans arrested in Iran in separate cases were just released in return for unspecified concessions from the US. Apparently media hasn’t thought to interrogate that except to point out that it’s a feather in Obama’s cap.

There are however bitter remonstrances that CIA agent Robert Levinson was not included in the deal. He disappeared in 2007 from Kish, the Iranian resort island in the Persian Gulf. There is some evidence coming from the US government (with ulterior motives for the claim) that he was picked up by Iranian intelligence agents. Maybe he was; maybe he wasn’t. There are a lot of people in Iran with a brief against the CIA for its operations in the country going back to the 1953 coup it engineered.

575 thousand people have signed a petition to ban Trump from entering the UK. He can’t be banned from the US because of citizen rights but a committee has formed to investigate alleged ancestry from trolls in the Black Forest which could invalidate his residence anywhere on planet Earth. Through clever morphing the Betty Windsor clan was able to broker that same ancestry into a dynasty but we can nip that Trump thing in the bud. The petition is a promising start to disgracing another fascist troll.

Re-posting this from April 2012 when Trump was fighting Scotland over wind farms to set up golf resorts. They burned his effigy. Way to go Scotland!

In an editorial that went on for miles–trying to compensate in sheer poundage what it lacked in content & throwing up a smokescreen of flatulence–The Nation magazine endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. They’re calling for a political revolution against all that is evil but will never require them to get off their asses to achieve. They huff & they puff. Just don’t ask them to do anything since life under capitalism is going pretty well for them.

In keeping with the lowbrow journal’s usual politics, Sanders’ xenophobia about immigration (which he says will destroy the nation-state), his indifference to the war against Black youth, his support for Israeli apartheid, his support for war & in particular drone bombing do not concern them because he talks a good game about inequality.

To justify their endorsement, they provide a list of accomplishments which he does not possess & will always, win or lose, remain in the realm of campaign rhetoric–& which do not distinguish themselves from Clinton’s rhetoric. They claim “critics of Bernie Sanders dismiss him as an idealist.” What fools such critics be! How do you get from xenophobia & apartheid to idealism?

They say he promotes a “bold agenda”, as did their man Obama before him with all that hopey-changey stuff & look what that led to: several more US bombing campaigns & troop deployments–& Guantanamo is still open.

Perhaps The Nation should give up pretensions as a journal of social criticism since they’re way over their heads when it comes to the criticism part & are so much better at gossip. They can have Bernie Sanders. We’re just so relieved they passed over Scully & Bach.

Just for the record, in response to comments on my post about Obama’s tears for gun victims: it is not racist to excoriate Obama’s hypocrisy & his monstrous policies. It would be racist to abstain from criticisms because he is Black.

It’s been a while since people stopped blaming Bush for Obama’s policies because the latter has been Commander-in-Chief for nearly eight years. If he doesn’t agree with his own policies & is coerced by the ruling oligarchy to carry them out, then he ought to do what any principled person would do & resign his office rather than continue to defend & execute them.

People often want to distance the man with the toothy grin from his monstrous policies. Good luck with that. History won’t be so foolish.

These are children working barefoot & without protective equipment in an aluminum cookware factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Manufacturers hire scientists to sing for their supper & pompously claim there are no proven health concerns from aluminum exposure–though there is no biological need for even trace amounts. That’s to justify it as the most widely distributed metal on the planet. It’s in cookware & utensils, antiperspirants, dyes, food additives, soda cans, vaccines, aspirins, antacids, thyroid medicine (Synthroid), flour, building materials.