Really wish would people would not refer to Clinton as a prostitute because it is outrageously misogynist & repugnant. If that’s the best you can do in anatomizing her politics, perhaps political commentary is best left to others with a broader grasp of her criminality & less of an axe to grind against her gender.
Daily Archives: August 25, 2016
“Opening a space” to blow hot air for Jill Stein
Many socialists argue their support for Jill Stein by saying her campaign ‘opens a space for discussion’. After 50 years in politics, I have no idea what that formulation means. But I do know that by endorsing her without regard or criticism for her conservative politics, they are not opening any spaces but precluding discussion on the essential questions of politics today.
Jill Stein reveals her politics as a left Zionist
After her interview on CNN, it’s hard to understand how Palestinian supporters can still enthusiastically endorse Jill Stein. But of course they do so with the same nonchalance they did Bernie Sanders & by accepting the same discounts on Palestinian self-determination.
In the interview, Stein admitted she is a left Zionist who as a Jew feels “a special connection to Israel” & her entire discussion of Israel argues for its legitimacy as a nation-state rather than a colonizing power. How can someone who understands the political character of Israel feel a special connection to it?
More importantly, she said her campaign has been “very careful to avoid the pit fall of targeting Israel.” Targeting Israel for what? Avoiding discussion of what? Israeli colonialism? Apartheid? Ethnic cleansing?
There are political principles involved in supporting Palestinians. Those who endorse a candidate willing to equivocate & put Israel on par with Palestine have lost their political bearings in deference to expedience. The pity is they do so for a candidate who has no chance of winning.
Interview in full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=mJ-9GRjFe9s
Indian army in Kashmir occupying schools
The Indian military is occupying colleges & schools in Srinagar, using them as barracks. Just as they have targeted youth & children with pellet guns & live ammo.
Long live Kashmiri Intifada. End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.
Gaza’s children are lucky Clinton is a lesser evil bomber
Steven Salaita tweet regarding Hillary Clinton & the Israeli bombing of Gaza: “Israel is bombing #Gaza again. Hillary Clinton will justify it, cheer it, encourage it. Gaza’s children are lucky she’s a lesser evil.”
Let those campaigning for Clinton so she will increase US military intervention in Syria take heed. If she does win & does increase US intervention it will be to destroy the popular forces against Assad–because the one thing for certain Assad & the US agree on is that revolution against tyranny must be destroyed.
How can Clinton applaud the bombing of Gaza but stand for justice in Syria? How can the US, under Obama or Clinton, bomb for peace?
No US, Russian, Syrian, Israeli military intervention in Syria. End the bombing. End the war.
Obama administration “moves on” from Erdogan’s human rights crimes
Let it never be said the Obama administration let massive repression stand in the way of collaboration with a dictator. Here US vice president Biden has an affable encounter with Turkish president Erdogan in Ankara.
Since the July 15th attempted coup, Erdogan has incarcerated over 40,000 people in his gulag, fired over 80,000, including nearly 22,000 teachers, & put the country on lockdown.
Critics of Erdogan who state the obvious say he is using the coup attempt as a pretext to crackdown on dissent. It would be hard to find a period under his rule as prime minister & president when that wasn’t the case.
Media reports Biden was silent during his visit about Erdogan’s brutal repression being carried out as they exchanged convivialities. He said Erdogan officials convinced him by simple assertion that they would adhere to constitutional principles & that the rule of law would prevail. “Let’s give them some time,” Biden said. “I believe they mean what they say. And so let’s move on.”
“And so let’s move on”? From the incarceration of 40,000 people without due process? From sacking & suspending tens of thousands without due process? From Erdogan taking money from the European Union for accepting deported Syrian refugees?
Of course, who is the US to preach morality to dictators?
(Photo from Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Palace/Handout via Reuters)
Western movie genre & racism
A few years ago, I had one of those FB kind of disputes with a local film professor here, a know-it-all kind of guy who loved western movies. As a film historian of rather obtuse intellect, he was impressed by cinematic attempts to reconstruct the genre into manly adventure tales.
I consider westerns irredeemably racist & think it impossible to remodel them without that feature because the history they represent, albeit in a distorted way, is the violent colonial appropriation of North America. They are also a supremely male form of entertainment since women figure so irrelevantly in them–mostly as dance hall girls in saloons.
They already embody the essential lies we are taught, the origin myths we are bred on. So extracting racism from them would mean erasing every last trace of the wars of extermination of Native Americans, usually portrayed as a war of advanced civilization against primitive savagery.
Media must borrow on their misrepresentations of Indian resistance to colonialism for portrayals of Palestinians & Kashmiris because Indian characters are also frequently portrayed as isolated, anti-social, savage mavericks.
Watching an old western movie on TV is what brings this to mind. Studying Native American history is what made me first aware of the problems society has in what to call the oppressed. Every history text seems to begin by justifying the particular name the historian will use for them since it is a disputed issue. Just like what to call Blacks, Latinos, oppressed castes, or women is an issue since for all of us there are hundreds of epithetical insults & a few respectful names that keep getting changed or that many mix up with the epithets. It’s how language embodies oppression.
Israel bulldozes Palestinian homes to build Israeli settlements for foreign mooches
Umm al-Kheir, West Bank: the face of Israeli colonialism bankrolled by the Obama administration & now by China as well.
Behind the clothes line is the rubble of a Palestinian home bulldozed by Israeli authorities because it was built without their permission. Israel is taking down entire Palestinian villages to build Israeli settlements for mooches from all over the world who claim they’re Jewish. But the West Bank is not Israeli territory; it is occupied territory & under international law Israel has no legitimate authority to colonize.
Do you hear the UN volubly protesting? Who is going to enforce international law against Israel & the US? Is international law only toothless sentiment?
Palestinian Intifada supported by international solidarity in the form of BDS, educational forums & debates, & protest rallies alone can end Israeli colonialism.
Build BDS.
(Photo by Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images)
France goes full SWAT to take out criminal sunbathers in burkinis
Here a highly-trained SWAT team from the French Gendarmerie moves in with caution on a criminal sunbather in burkini to demand she undress or be sent up the river for life without parole.
She was spotted & caught red-handed by US frogmen dressed in wetsuits during offshore surveillance operations to scout out terrorists vacationing on the Riviera. They’re participating in Operation Burkini Bust because since the Cannes ban went into effect they’ve been arrested & hauled into jail nearly every day under suspicion of being Muslim.
It is reported that cocaine deliveries to the upscale market in Cannes have increased four-fold since SWAT teams were deployed full-time to rout those burkinis off the beach. Mayor Pepe Le Pew of Cannes has threatened the use of riot police if SWAT teams do not successfully complete Operation Burkini Bust.
(Thank you to Haseeb Rahman for sharing this photo with us.)
Indian troops continue to target Kashmiri children with pellet guns
Most photos of injured Kashmiri kids are too gruesome to show, especially those covered in pellet injuries. This little girl who appears to have sustained less dreadful harm was actually injured last month “in the clashes between police & protesters” in Srinagar.
When an accounting is made of the human rights crimes in this siege, it will be necessary for the Indian army to explain why they shot at unarmed protesters particularly when there were small children anywhere in the vicinity. Or were they out to get them in the first place?
(Photo by Danish Ismail Yaacob/Reuters)