A Facebook friend posted this statement by the boxer Muhammad Ali, who in 1967 risked his career & championship title to resist the draft for the Vietnam War. Now that he has Parkinson’s, they are trying to morph him into a whipped puppy & an icon of patriotism. But he was a fearless & outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War & they can never take that away from him.

“My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. … Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd9aIamXjQI

This should be the purpose of photojournalism in war & occupation: to show the experience of civilians. To show what war is really all about. If they do their job right, they will make us hate war.

This photo from January 1966 is Vietnamese civilians being “escorted” by US paratroopers & reportedly taking cover from Viet Cong fire in an area outside Saigon,

How many photojournalist accounts of civilians do you recall from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Kashmir? There is very little from over a year of bombing in Yemen, more from Assad’s bombing in Syria, & nothing from Israel’s recent incursion into Gaza.

It’s been 41 years since the Vietnamese defeated & sent the US military packing in April 1975, But for millions of antiwar activists around the world who went through that war it will always remain one of the most wrenching political experiences of our lives. It signaled the end of illusions about our government, dealt a mighty blow to the racism that justifies war, ended (until after 9/11) years of films & propaganda glorifying war under the banner of democracy, & overcame the political repression of the McCarthy era of the 1950s.

The CBS show “60 Minutes” had an interesting retrospective on the journalistic career of Morley Safer who is retiring. A segment on his coverage of the Vietnam War showed his report & video of US soldiers torching a village to punish them for collaboration with the Viet Cong. Safer said it was part of the “pacification” program employed to win the hearts & minds of the Vietnamese & made a mocking comment about that in the segment.

Does anyone remember where such reporting appeared in US media? The US government allowed more media coverage of the Vietnam War than of previous wars. But the Pentagon considered the restrained coverage of Vietnam so damaging that reporters were put on lockdown thereafter & embedded up the ass of the military.

Reposting from three years ago today; it’s one of the rare instances when media reported the monstrous details of US occupation. This incident was reported one & a-half years after Obama announced an end to the Iraq War. Obama will go down in history for his toothy-assed grin & his diplomatic stunt of declaring ongoing wars ended.
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“The US war against Iraq again provides a compelling answer to the question, “Why do they hate us?” Wasn’t it the Nazis who introduced tattooing numbers on Russian POWS & at Auschwitz & other extermination camps? The barbaric practice has always been seen as dehumanizing & ignominious.

The controversy over Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degrees & educational qualifications—whether he has any, whether they’re authentic–is really an elitist tempest in a teapot. Degrees have become more a measure of social status than of political understanding or wisdom. For heaven’s sakes, white supremacist David Duke has a PhD. It’s just not a controversy most working people can identify with. So I was immensely pleased to find this devastating criticism of the row by Meena Kandasamy:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/uphold-international-law-stop-shielding-dow-chemical-accountability-corporate-crimes-bhopal-india

This is the petition initiated by Bhopal activists demanding the US government abide by international law & stop shielding Dow Chemical from criminal charges in an Indian court–probably to shield itself from criminal culpability in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, & elsewhere.

The people of Bhopal have fought against insuperable odds for 32 years & new generations of their children bear the brunt of corporate criminality & impunity. They have exhausted so many legal options because US & Indian courts have also shielded Dow.

Human rights activists in London may be interested in this important & impressive event next Saturday, May 21st. The Jaipur Literature Festival is a prestigious annual event in India which is holding an event in London sponsored by Vedanta. Because of Vedanta sponsorship, human rights activists are calling for writers & others to boycott the festival & will be holding a rally against it. It isn’t the festival that is impressive but the opposition to it.

Vedanta is a metal & mining company owned by an Indian billionaire & headquartered in London with operations in India, Australia, Zambia, & South Africa. It has been developing commercial power stations in India. According to a 2015 article in the NY Times, Vedanta is “known in some parts of the world for having left financial & environmental problems in their wake.” If you read the introduction to this event, you will see that is an understatement covering a multitude of labor & environmental crimes.

The steady drain of Facebook unfriendings continues apace. If this keeps up I’ll have an entire new set of friends in a couple years–or maybe a decade. It used to be anti-Semitism was the chief cause for parting ways in rather inimical ways. Now, who knows? Is it Palestine? Kashmir? My politics? Or just my lousy personality?

All’s well though. I’m extremely grateful for my Facebook friends who I admire for their insights & as activists & solidarity supporters in many areas of work–fromthe struggle against caste in India; to the struggle against occupation in Kashmir; to the struggle for self-determination in Palestine & Kashmir; to the campaign for justice for the people of Bhopal; for women’s rights around the world; for Black Lives Matter in the US; & for so many other struggles. I have learned more than I can ever say.

There’s some dispute if this is President Drumpf’s presumptive cabinet or the US Congress in session. In the end, does it really matter? They’re all Bozos.

(Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)