Donald Drumpf more & more resembles Chucky, the psycho doll in horror films. Anyone else notice the similarity? Maybe it’s more a psychological profile. But the deranged hand gestures & hair are the same.
Daily Archives: June 15, 2016
CBS news gave a brief tutorial on Islam & homosexuality as an adjunct to the report on Omar Mateen. The relevance was not explained. While it focused on repression in countries like Iran, it did point out that it was legalized in some predominantly Muslims countries in the 19th century but only recently here–where civil rights are still not complete.
Let me give a tutorial on the Catholic Church & homosexuality which my homosexual relatives have suffered unbearably from, including depression, alcoholism, shame, & suicide.
This is not to excuse intolerance in any religion but to object that Islam & ISIS have no more relevance to the Orlando investigation & reporting than the Vatican & the Spanish Inquisition.
The local TV station & food bank consortium are holding a fundraising event for children in the region who go hungry after school closes for the summer & they have no access to school meal programs.
This situation has prevailed to extreme degrees since the 1997 destruction of welfare by Bill Clinton & heralded & promoted by Hillary Clinton–the candidate who peddles herself as a champion of women & children. Monthly state allocations for food stamps are stingy & about half of what each person requires according to estimates from the US Department of Agriculture.
Half of public school children qualify for school free meal programs & when school ends, they have to scrounge food banks & dumpsters. The problem is massive.
Food banks do their best with what they have but often the poor are offered foods inappropriate to their cultural cuisine; such things as can goods & cake mixes in place of living food; & have to survive on an unbalanced, starch-heavy diet setting them up for lifelong health problems.
It would be good, in the interests of full disclosure in place of self-promotion, if Clinton would detail for us what exactly she has done for poor & working class women & children. Or are most of her accomplishments in that regard for the women & children of Wall Street bankers?
Refugees at Calais photographically document who they are
You know those “western values” that Obama & European politicians are always talking about? In addressing the massacre at Orlando, Obama described them as the “fundamental values of equality & dignity that define us as a country.” Actually, that probably isn’t how the US & Europe are characterized by other peoples–especially the ones being bombed. The real character of those vaunted ‘western values’ is made crystal clear in the barbaric treatment of refugees.
This image from Camp Jungle at Calais is part of an exhibition where refugees photographically tell their own stories. Unfortunately in doing so they expose that highfalutin ‘western values’ crap as sentimental drivel.
This photo is titled “Raw Heart” by Abraham. No further damnation is required of US & European refugee policy & their flouting of international law.
Immigration is a human right. Open the borders.
(Photo by Abraham/Jungleye)
(For those interested in viewing the exhibit: Through Jungle Eyes runs from Friday 17 June to Sunday 19 June, at The Stables, North Melbourne)
It hasn’t been a week & already conspiracy thinkers are raising the specter of Orlando being a “false flag” operation & are circulating videos they purport to be evidence the entire massacre was staged by actors.
If you trace the videos back to sources, inevitably you will end up on one of those libertarian FB sites that obsess about the Illuminati & 9/11 truth. The Illuminati stuff is classic libertarian conspiracy crap explaining how the world operates under the control of Jewish bankers. It does not distinguish itself from the theoretics of the Nazi holocaust & has no place in progressive political discussion.
Along with false flags claims are the unsubstantiated claims that Mateen & his father are CIA operatives. It’s even suggested Mateen the younger was associated with Mossad because he worked for an Israeli security company. You can’t just circulate scurrilous stuff because they’re juicy stories. It might be added, Israel is not behind every criminal act–a suspicion which derives from Jewish banker theoretics.
This rubbish is going viral & unfortunately showing up on my wall from those who are not vetting sources. If there is one thing committed political activists must take seriously, it is carefully doing the research, vetting sources, & not talking through their hats, or in worst cases, through their nether regions. That means not circulating unsubstantiated allegations, especially those that can harm or vilify someone. It means not being reckless about what can be known from what is wild-eyed speculation.
(If the false flag stuff shows up on my wall, it will be booted without further ado. I detest the stuff chiefly because it is so politically dishonest & has become politically debilitating.)
More & more calls for military intervention into Syria: aren’t there enough bombers flying there already?
More & more we’re seeing calls for military solutions in Iraq & Syria–whether it’s to destroy ISIS, counter Assad, or defend Assad. It’s the new rendition of the old “humanitarian intervention” schtick.
Some, ignoring the repressive political character of the regime, call on president Erdogan of Turkey to enter the battles against Assad. But what are Erdogan’s credentials as the leader of a salvation army? Is it because Turkey has the largest military force in NATO after the US? Or because Erdogan has so much military experience against democracy protestors & Kurds in his own country?
Others, again ignoring the repressive character of the Saudi regime which beheads people, call on it to enter the battles against Assad. Would the Saudis do that at the same time as they are bombing Yemen to smithereens or would they wait until that country is nothing but rubble before they go to bomb Syria for Assad?
The majority of libertarians & well-known leftists are cheering on Russian bombers as the salvation army for the Assad regime. Actually they deny either Assad or Russia are bombing civilians & blame it on ground paramilitary groups armed by the US. But they’ve never been able to explain those barrel bombs or use of white phosphorous. Nor can they explain the Russian alliance with Israel. Nor can they explain why Assad should be defended since his own people tried to take him out of power in 2011.
There are even some who see US bombers as the salvation army. Here’s where things really get messy. They claim the US is there to take out ISIS & Assad but that the presence of US bombers makes the place a whole lot safer. Have they not paid attention to the past 25 years of US intervention in Iraq & Afghanistan?
Everyone has a hard time understanding what is going on in Iraq & Syria but it is scraping the bottom of the barrel theoretically to look to bombers to resolve the problems created by military intervention in the first place. Military intervention is not the solution to the problem of ISIS or to the dictatorship of Assad. It should be apparent that every bomber that enters the skies over Iraq & Syrian increases the possibilities for a massive war that will bring even more hell to a region which is already a killing field. Those who see bombers & military might as the political solution really ought to withdraw from political life & join a monastery lest they face the charge of being politically dumb as a stump.
The alternative to bombers is not candle light vigils up the wazoo & another rendition of “Kumbaya.” The alternative is rebuilding a massive, powerful international antiwar movement where millions around the world demand every foreign country withdraw from military involvement & let the Syrian people work out their revolution against Assad. That may sound like romanticism to some but it beats to hell the killing fields created by bombers. It is nothing but a pipe dream to think militarism is the answer when it is the problem.
(Photo is Russian nuclear warplane flying over Syria near Turkish border last month)
A conundrum: Clinton, Drumpf, & Sanders all called for bombing ISIS to smithereens over Orlando. Which one is the lesser evil?