CBS news commented on Clinton’s support for a No Fly Zone (NFZ) in Syria. A NFZ is an act of war & Clinton damn well knows that–& so do many of those who promote a US-imposed & enforced NFZ in Syria.

The media, so pilloried as deceptive by Assad supporters, laid it out: a NFZ in Syria would directly pit US bombers against Russian bombers & both countries have an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Cut the crap on that NFZ & demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military operations, overt & covert, air & ground in Syria. That is the only principled demand of the international antiwar movement. Let the Syrian people finish off Assad–which without foreign military intervention, they certainly would.

One hates to agree with anything Trump says about anything. But as to whether US elections are rigged or not, Clinton’s Panglossian response that “everything is right” with US democracy doesn’t cut it.

–US election laws are extremely restrictive making it nearly impossible for third parties & independents to compete. Third parties have to gather tens of thousands of signatures, often cannot get ballot status, have hefty fees to even get write-in status, & are excluded from debates if they do get on the ballot.

–30 states require photo IDs to vote & 15 of them require government-issued IDs which are expensive & exclude tens of thousands of mostly poor voters.

–What else is a gerrymander (moving electoral boundaries) for except to exclude voters & control the outcome of elections?

–No one really questioned the legitimacy of the balloting process until that little matter of chads on the Florida ballots in the 2000 presidential election & the Bush vs. Gore Supreme Court decision.

–The Voting Rights Act was initially adopted in 1965 to address the systematic disenfranchisement of Black & Latino voters especially in the South.

–In 2011, the NAACP petitioned the UN over what it considered a concerted effort to disenfranchise Black & Latino voters in the 2012 presidential election.

Are US elections rigged? They are certainly not democratic. That’s why the majority of Americans eligible to vote don’t even bother to register.

For a long while I had a Thai FB friend who I admired & who seemed quite progressive. Then she defended the military junta for bringing law & order to Thailand. That scary revelation was soon followed by her support for the junta refusing to send out search & rescue operations for the 25,000 Rohingya adrift in the Andaman Sea & its refusal to accept Rohingya refugees. Some political differences go bone deep.

Now she protests my post about the death of King Bhumibol, claiming he was beloved by ‘his people” & that my post was insulting & ill-mannered because he’s not as bad as Betty Windsor. When it comes to feudal moochocracy, the only comparisons are invidious so don’t give me that business.

The obituary I posted was not by me but by a Thai political activist who had to flee the country to avoid prosecution for demeaning & insulting the old boy. Which affections for the guy are real & which feigned are hard to distinguish when snarling in his direction can get you arrested.

One thing you learn on FB: some friendships were never meant to be. Now I understand why that guy dumped me in college for making fun of Hubert Humphrey. Who is Hubert you ask? A corrupt politician not unlike old Bhumibol politically.

Found this post (now slightly edited) in memories from October 20, 2014. As you see, my objections to the analytical methods of libertarianism go back a long way. They’re not any better on Syria than they are on “Satanic feminism” or Jewish bankers (i.e., the Illuminati) running the world.
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In a regrettable discussion group on FB where I had no place being, a fellow with a pointy head said, “Mary Scully’s face is the epitome of Satanic feminism.” Another fellow who resembled a Martian said “Feminism was manufactured by the Rockefellers to disempower women.” They didn’t mention the feminism invented by the Bolsheviks but that’s coming.

I asked myself, “should I be concerned?” Then I scrolled down the wall & found lengthy treatises claiming the Ebola epidemic is a hoax complete with face makeup & phony hazmat suits; the Protocols of the Elders of Zion quoted like scripture to prove a point; articles on sex orgies with aliens; & another charge associating me with the Illuminati.

Libertarians have one toe planted tenuously in reality & the rest of them breaking through thin ice. Their heads are stuffed full of paranoia, antisemitism, devils, evil Bolsheviks, & promiscuous feminists–all with the patina of anti-establishment & progressive politics. Where crazy ends in their scenarios of reality, hateful reactionary politics fill the breach.

Not for one moment have I forgotten this is day 104 of the military siege in Kashmir. I am trying to catch up with events from the past several days, particularly the numbers arrested in home raids, injured or killed in protests.

The defense of Khurram Parvez also has to be updated. On Saturday, I was scheduled to be part of a program commemorating the 2014 disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa student teachers in Mexico. Because of that damn root canal I was unable to attend but had hoped to send solidarity greetings & photos from that event to Khurram’s defense.

His work included collaboration between organizations against forcible disappearance from South Asia to Latin America & Mexico where tens of thousands have been forcibly disappeared. His mission is a work in progress & it rests now with helping get him out of indefinite detention so he can proceed.

#FreeKhurram.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is calling for a full investigation into the crackdown against Rohingya in Arakan State, Myanmar. But it is grandstanding about the extrajudicial killings & arbitrary arrests of Rohingya & the torching of Rohingya homes by the Myanmar military.

The OIC is a coalition of 57 countries, 56 of which belong to the UN, with large, not necessarily majority, Muslim populations. Some of the member states are under military siege–like Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia. Palestine, under Israeli occupation, is more bantustate than nation-state. Several of the members are part of the problem: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria, Bahrain, Turkey. There isn’t one that could be called a bastion of freedom.

But when it comes to Rohingya, the OIC ought to hang its damn head in shame. Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia are all members of the OIC but in May 2015, whilst an estimated 25,000 Rohingya were adrift in the Andaman Sea without water or food, all three of those countries refused to search & rescue & admitted only several thousand after fishermen brought the boats to land.

Many OIC member states are landlocked & may not have navies but what stopped them from chartering rescue operations, offering search & other logistical help, & from taking in refugees? There is still no accounting of what happened to most of the 25,000 Rohingya. Were they just allowed to drown or starve to death? Has the OIC used its massive resources to find out what happened to them? Or do their lives not matter?

The OIC intended to present a resolution condemning the genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar at the September 2016 UN General Assembly but then pulled back after the vague blitherings of Aung San Suu Kyi that Kofi Annan would look into things in Arakan State. None of those countries would be so rich if they were so damn stupid in negotiations as to take her word.

Rohingya deserve international solidarity in their struggle against genocide but it won’t come from the OIC. It will come from working people around the world.

End the genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar.

These are Rohingya kids in Kutupalong Refugee Camp in Bangladesh. Thirteen-thousand refugees from genocide in Myanmar live in the camp. The man in the middle is Mohammed Imran, an elected refugee representative at the camp.

An investigation of the widespread persecution & genocide of Muslims would almost certainly expose direct links to British & European colonialism. It is beyond dispute in the genocide against Rohingya in Myanmar. Unraveling & elaborating that historic connection is an important part of ending the violence & damage of colonialism–which is by no means historically defeated but is emerging in the form of neoliberal capitalist economics.

Racism is not inherent to human nature. The ideology of social inferiority is a political contrivance, coming fairly late in human history, to justify slavery, colonialism, massive inequality. “A People’s History of Science: Miners, Midwives, & Low Mechanicks” by Clifford D. Conner is one very good source that explains the origins of the ideology of racism. That rancid creed that afflicts all of humanity in one way or another was developed in German universities. It doesn’t come full-blown out of human DNA.

Racist persecution continues because it has become integral to the world economy. Capitalism is built on it & could not survive without it. Racism is so irrational that its strength can only be measured by the value it returns to those who would be gods in how they run this world. Every struggle of oppressed people against racism, casteism, persecution is a struggle of all humanity for a world free of such monstrosities.

What purpose does genocide of Rohingya serve the military & their entourage of nationalist Buddhist thugs in Myanmar? The answer to that needs elaboration, especially after the end of colonial rule. But judging from recent comments by Aung San Suu Kyi to Obama, to the UN General Assembly, & to media, the Burmese generals in collaboration with the IMF, World Bank, multinational corporations & investors have their eyes set on “development” in Arakan State where the majority of Rohingya live. That means land grabs, ethnic cleansing, cultural devastation (i.e., neoliberal plunder) just as it means all over Africa, South Asia, Latin, Central, & North America.

For working people, racism is not measured by the value it returns but by the damage it inflicts on our children–whose happiness & well-being are to us the only value worth consideration.

End the genocide of Rohingya in Myanma

I was laid out for several days due to root canal surgery. I’m back.