The Sanders capitulation is on!

Sanders

The capitulation has begun. Yesterday banner headlines said Sanders vowed to fight to the Democratic Party convention. Today they declare (after a meeting with Obama) that he vows to work with Clinton for party unity “to defeat Donald Drumpf.”

This is where lesser evil support for Sanders bites the dust. It’s all over but the crying. This is always what it was all about & it’s regrettable so many fall for it over & over again. It’s a conservatism in the American political psyche that cannot break with the vicious cycle of lesser evil politics–although the majority of eligible voters don’t even bother to register, let alone vote.

Sanders functioned like Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Jesse Jackson, & so many others before him–like the barker at a circus sideshow to draw in the customers. Ironically, he did not build a political revolution like he claimed but he did expose the profound fault lines of the Democratic Party, its lack of internal democracy, its political machinations, & its complete alienation from the interests of working people in this country & around the world.

As a result of his campaign, the Democratic Party is exposed as a mess when his role was to strengthen it on the high hopes of young people. Feeling berned yet?

Obama has swallowed his pride & contempt to endorse Clinton. Who cares? He’s outta here in seven months & has proven himself a complete lying-assed disaster with too many wars to count, too many drone attacks on civilians, & too many deported immigrants.

Roseanne Barr has endorsed Drumpf because she supports his racist views on undocumented immigrants. She should have endorsed Clinton for their mutual hatred of Palestinians & commitment to Israeli colonialism. But again, who cares? She’s gone from pretending she’s a comedic goddess to hate-mongering the oppressed.

My presidential candidacy has been disappeared

Meme for women candidates (wrong one)

Socialist Meme Caucus on FB has posted this meme with the names of all the women presidential candidates in the US but has neglected to include my name. I don’t like being erased from history any more than the other women do.

Could campaign supporters (or those who like accuracy in reporting) please go to their wall at https://www.facebook.com/socialistmemecaucus/ & message them, asking them to correct the omission.

https://www.facebook.com/socialistmemecaucus/photos/a.261275940655458.58229.261266100656442/952715454844833/?type=3&theater

The Russia & Israel alliance: a devil’s pact at the expense of Syrians

Putin and Netanyahu: EPA:ALEXANDER NEMENOV:POOL

The Russian news agency TASS, owned by the Russian government, posted an article on June 1st titled, “Israel fully supports Russia’s actions to fight terrorism in Syria.”

TASS quoted the Israeli Ambassador to Russia, Zvi Heifetz: “We are not getting involved directly in the operation in Syria. It is clear that we support Russia fully in the fight against international terrorism, against ISIL (former name of the Islamic State terrorist organization banned in Russia).” Heifetzsaid the entire “normal” world supports what Russia is doing: “Russia decided to do something in that regard & it is doing it.”

The article went on to explain that Russian bombers did not break the ceasefire in effect since February 27th because “The ceasefire regime does not cover the Islamic State & Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist organizations as well as other groups ruled terrorist by the Security Council” of the UN. It claims Russian bombers are “delivering pinpoint strikes” on ISIL & al-Nusra facilities at the request of Assad.

Do Russia & Assad include hospitals as ISIL & al-Nusra facilities like Assad apologists do? Can they tell us what & where those facilities are & where those pinpoint bombs are hitting? Is there any “collateral damage,” as militarists like to call civilian deaths? If not them, who does Russia say is dropping those cluster bombs & using white phosphorus? Because if it knows where ISIL & al-Nusra facilities are, it knows what country is competing with it for air space & is guilty of war crimes in Syria.

Photo is Netanyahu & Putin at their April meeting in the Kremlin. Another picture worth a thousand lies. Can Palestinian supporters who support Russian military intervention on behalf of Assad explain this alliance to us without obfuscation?

(Photo from TASS by Alexander Nemenov/EPA/POOL)

Libertarian apologetics for Assad & Russian bombing of hospitals & civilians in Syria

Bombing of Al Quds hospital, Beha el Halebi:Anadolu Agency:Getty Images

An article titled “Syria: Aleppo Doctors Fight Back Against US, NATO False Flags & Terrorism” published last month in 21st Century Wire is circulating on social media by supporters of the Assad regime. It is an interview with a doctor named Tony Sayegh who claims western media has completely misrepresented the Russian & Syrian bombing of Aleppo & that the destruction is mostly caused by terrorist groups like al-Nusra.

It’s so hard to unravel what is going on in Syria but it would be a whole lot easier if those circulating this rubbish spent a moment vetting their news sources. In this particular article, their antennas for propaganda should have gone ballistic at the discussion about the bombing of the MSF/(Doctors Without Borders)-backed Al-Quds hospital in Aleppo last April where several medical staff & patients were killed.

The interviewer says: “As for al-Quds, Tony Sayegh does not believe the media reports. Four years ago there was no such hospital in Aleppo. Whatever it was that was attacked, it was not an established, well-known health facility. Tony Sayegh believes that the images of an anonymous building with sandbags outside indicates that it was a military site.”

Tony Sayegh responds: “Doctors Without Borders is also not a clean organization, they have their financiers & receive outside support. Doctors Without Borders have previously admitted that field hospitals in the Syrian opposition areas that the organization supported primarily cared for rebel fighters & not civilians. This is not mentioned in the media reports.

“And it is not mentioned that the al-Qaeda group Jabhat al-Nusra in Aleppo has taken over health facilities & used them for other purposes. Already in April 2013 New York Times wrote that al-Nusra “..has set up camp in a former children’s hospital & has worked with other rebel groups to establish a Shariah Commission in the eye hospital next door to govern the city’s rebel-held neighborhoods”.”

Now if that does not set off alarm bells–especially how strongly it resonates with Israeli justifications for bombing hospitals, apartments, schools, refugee centers in Gaza–then there is no hope for misguided Assad supporters.

That’s why you have to vet media sources–to get the story straight & to understand what political forces they represent. The 21st Century Wire says it is inspired by libertarian sites like Infowars which is a political melange of conspiracies, racism, misogyny, xenophobia. The 21st Century Wire was launched in December 2009 at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, “initially as a vehicle to expose the mythology behind global warming & climate change, & has since expanded coverage to include exposés on intelligence, foreign policy, the war on terror, technology & Wall Street.” So by its own admission 21st Century Wire is libertarian. Or when it comes to reliable news, complete horse manure. The journalistic style is, if you can’t justify barbarism, then deny it happened.

With some improvisation, the article appears to draw on an earlier piece in Telesur titled “The ‘Aleppo Hospital’ Smokescreen: sometimes it’s okay to bomb hospitals,” by Assadist Tim Anderson, which is a sophisticated & sleazy attack on MSF/Doctors Without Borders & “western corporate media.”

Anderson claims hospitals in Syria are militarized zones in the same way as Israel claimed Hamas stored missiles in apartment buildings, hospitals, schools. That would of course suggest that MSF is an adjunct to terrorist groups–although doctors have an obligation to treat the injured without asking their political affiliations. Anderson says: “There is some debate as to whether clinics or hospitals run to service banned terrorist organisations have protection under international humanitarian law. Certainly US law does not allow it. A few years back the United States jailed US doctor Rafig Sabir for 25 years after it emerged he had been ‘on call’ to treat al Qaida fighters in Saudi Arabia.” Since when did the US Pentagon become the standard bearer of international law?

Actually there is no debate but only arrant flouting of international law by the US, UK, Turkey, Syria, Russia, Israel, & the Saudi Arabia-led coalition bombing the hell out of Yemen. Hospitals, all medical facilities, & ambulances are protected under international law. When apologists for Assad find themselves using the same arguments as Israel & the US Pentagon, they are giving their reactionary loyalties away.

If you want to shill for Assad’s dictatorship, you’ll find yourself among some very unsavory allies.

(Photo is bombing of Al-Quds Hospital in April by Beha el Halebi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Am at my wit’s end trying to outsmart my wily Chihuahuas. Once again–& you cannot imagine the lengths I go to to prevent this–they broke out & took off. I scoured the neighborhood & found all but two. As a last resort, after an hour of looking, I decided to drive in a canal zone with mile-high grass near an expressway. Of course, I prepared for the worst.

They were there, since it’s where I often take them walking. All the anger & panic felt at losing them subsided when I saw their fear & confusion at being lost & their overwhelming relief at being found.

We’re going to be whipped into paroxysms of outrage & condemnations at the shootout in the Tel Aviv market. Allegedly (& if Israeli authorities can be believed), the shooters were Palestinians. It is a profoundly misguided politics to take out civilians in this kind of action. But it would be unthinkable to damn them after what Palestinians have been put through: repeated bombing sorties over Gaza; a brutal military occupation; settlers moving in & expropriating their lands; mass evictions & the razing of their villages; thousands, including children incarcerated–many without charge; impunity in violent crimes by Israeli settlers & soldiers against Palestinians.

There’s plenty of outrage & condemnation to go around but none of it is directed at Palestinians who have the right to oppose apartheid, ethnic cleansing, & colonialism by any means necessary.

After Sanders crashes there’s still a lesser evil candidate in the field: Vermin Supreme

Vermin Supreme (Zuri Davis : Rare Politics) June 8 2016

There’s no need for anyone to despair about our electoral options in the US. There is still a lesser evil candidate in the field. Vermin Supreme is a veteran of US politics & of every political party from the Republicans to the Democrats to the Libertarians. Believe it or not, he’s always been the lesser evil.

His program is very straightforward & does not distinguish itself in simplicity from that of Bernie Sanders: mandatory tooth-brushing laws, free ponies for all US citizens, time-travel research, & preparing for the zombie apocalypse.

You think him too deranged to be president? Really!? More so than Drumpf or Clinton?

(Photo of Vermin Supreme by Zuri Davis/Rare Politics)

For the record, Hillary Clinton is not the first woman presidential candidate. Both Jill Stein from the Green Party & myself as an independent socialist declared our candidacies months ago. We didn’t need a cabal of old guys to rig & approve our candidacy.