Hoping the denunciation period after the election will calm down soon. Everybody’s in for it: liberals, “the left,” Sanders supporters, low-paid white workers, white women, even farmers. This is not a demographic analysis but blowing off steam.
It’s not a real good sign when you go all ballistic because people don’t agree with you. If you don’t like democracy (such as it is under capitalism) consider what it’s like under a dictatorship.
Ziaur Rahman, a Rohingya refugee in Malaysia & Jannatun Nayeem Nayeema, an activist in Bangladesh are reporting that the Burmese military are conducting helicopter airstrikes to destroy Rohingya Muslim villages in Arakan state.
Human rights activists around the world must respond to the appeals of Rohingya activists, many in exile, & begin to organize a solidarity campaign to demand the end of genocide against our Rohingya brothers & sisters. We can begin by contacting Myanmar embassies & our own governments to demand they stop the bombing.
The iron law of social transformation is “an injury to one is an injury to all.”
End the genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar. Full human & democratic rights for Rohingya in Myanmar & where they are in exile.
(Photo of airstrike from Jannatun Nayeem Nayeema)
Those concerned about the Trump Apocalypse must be heartened to see how fast Trump is retreating on his campaign threats. Just in two days he’s retreated on destroying Obamacare, has forgotten his threat to stick Clinton in prison, & is looking at Wall Street bankers for his attendants.
Doesn’t mean things will go smoothly with this lowlife slime-ball as president but it does suggest the president does not have final authority over US foreign & domestic policy. That’s just how a capitalist system works.
Incidents of racist harassment since the Trump election matter. So do the massive protests against the emergence of such politics in the US.
The violence against the Black community has been going on under the guise of the war on drugs since at least the 1980s. The prisons are full of Black & Latino kids for minor offenses. Racist incidents did not just erupt on November 9th.
When the OJ Simpson verdict came down October 3rd, 1995, media began a vitriolic campaign claiming “racial polarization” after the verdict meant Blacks & whites could not be reconciled. White racists were emboldened & felt confident joining the media chorus, shaking their heads housing their pea brains & denouncing Blacks. It was a terrifying thing to be surrounded by.
Serendipitously, on October 16th, there was a Million Man March organized by civil rights organizations in Washington, DC where nearly that number of Blacks from around the US came to protest around a rather conservative agenda. It wasn’t just men but included women & youth.
The media croaking & the accompanying chorus of pea brains stopped on a dime. No exaggeration.
Political power is a mighty force, a daunting force that can drive racism back under its rock–just like the civil rights movement of the 1960s did.
If you’re panicked about those racist incidents, start organizing against them.
This is another scene last Monday in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria: an older man is trying to extinguish a fire caused by Syrian airstrikes.
Once again it must be asked: is bombing a city of 100,000 civilians, including children, elderly, disabled, sick & infirm, an appropriate military strategy? Is there any worthy justification to convince human rights & antiwar activists that bombing civilians is necessary in defense of democracy? Because when US-NATO forces use that argument, only the most backward, racist, & reactionary forces in the world buy it.
Principled antiwar forces demand the immediate cessation of Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians & demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces, including paramilitary militias, from Syria.
(Photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images)
The rebel-held Douma neighborhood of Damascus, Syria has 100,000 civilian residents forced to live most of their lives in underground shelters because of heavy shelling from Syrian ground forces & Syrian airstrikes.
The justification given by the Assad dictatorship & his supporters is that the military bombardment is to take out “throat-cutting jihadists.” It must be asked by serious political people if bombing cities with 100,000 civilians is an appropriate military strategy for destroying paramilitary militias bunkered there? Or is the opposition to Assad broader than the paramilitary groups?
How does this small girl injured in a Syrian airstrike last Monday figure into such a barbaric military strategy?
Principled antiwar forces demand the immediate cessation of Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians & demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces, including paramilitary militias, from Syria.
(Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)
Trump Apocalypse alarmists need be reminded of the parable of Chicken Little. Similar tales go back centuries in many cultures because prophecies of doom are such effective gimmicks for social control & also provide so much fodder for satirists & comedy clubs.
In the fable, Chicken Little is a dim-witted, low-paid white worker who once attended a Bernie Sanders rally. When an acorn falls on his head, he is convinced by Foxy Loxy, a manipulative conman with an MBA from the Wharton School, that the sky is falling.
Without advanced degrees to bring him to his senses, Chicken Little runs around like a chicken with his head cut off working the other animals in the farmyard into mass hysteria. Even though Foxy Loxy is a funny looking orange guy with a bleached comb-over, he manipulates the hysteria to his own benefit & gets the animals to vote him Grand Poo-Bah ruling over them with an iron paw.
There’s been no word heard from Chicken Little & his mates since Foxy Loxy took over but many scholars believe they will be found when North Korea is finally liberated by a coalition of Russian & US bombs.
But it’s just a parable.
Most people are deeply & justifiably troubled by what the presidency of Trump will mean for human rights in the US & for war in the Middle East. The rightward shift in US politics will accelerate. Of that we can be sure. Our perspectives must be to join the youth already protesting against that shift, to help build that movement, & to rebuild the international antiwar movement to reverse this rightward shift—as the antiwar & social movements of the 1960s-1970s attempted.
There are analysts claiming Trump’s attitude toward Putin, endorsement by Assad, & collegiality with Netanyahu forebode a more aggressive US military role in the Middle East, especially in Syria & toward the Palestinians. That view is based on middle-school social studies lessons, not an understanding of how the US government is run, & is an especially embarrassing credulity, coming from sophisticated commentators like Gilbert Achcar.
Since the president does not formulate US foreign policy, it will likely stay the same until events on the ground in Syria dictate a change in policy. US policy is determined in think tanks, in special advisory bodies, in consultations with the Pentagon & CIA & other government agencies & experts, & collaboration with bankers & corporate heads. Trumps relationships with political figures like Putin will play no role whatsoever except to serve if necessary as a pretext for changes in policy.
There are differences emerging among US policy makers about what to do in Syria but that has been true of most, if not all wars, going all the way back to Vietnam in post WWII history. Differences & debates among them about complicated wars are a certainty & sometimes get reported publicly. Not always. The US is in a quagmire in Syria because it isn’t the military calling the shots & is in an unstable collaboration with Syria, Russia, & Iran.
US policy for now is sub rosa cooperation with the Assad regime to pulverize the popular movement against dictatorship. That opposition is not just among the paramilitary groups of conflicting political character but is a mass phenomenon, which is precisely why Assad & Russia are bombing civilians & cities.
The US & Russia are part of the Syrian counterrevolution. The US is running a treacherous operation & using its intervention to maximize conflict in the Middle East. That will include continuing intervention in Syria & military support to Israel in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
The historic mission remains: rebuild the international antiwar movement:
All foreign intervention & military aid of any kind to Syria must be actively opposed, whether by the US, Russia, Iran, Hezbollah.
All military intervention in Yemen by the Saudi-led, US & UK-backed coalition must be actively opposed.
All US-NATO intervention in Afghanistan must be actively opposed.
All military intervention in Iraq must be actively opposed.
All military aid to Israel must be actively opposed.
What’s with the mouth thing here? Do we need a body language expert or do our politicians all have constipation problems? Given their politics, that would be understandable. Given their policies, we have our own health problems to worry about but without insurance coverage.
From Clinton/s concession speech to this meeting with Obama, the US establishment is trying so hard to make Trump look presidential. They could start with making the orange & bleach job go away & wiping that sneer off his face. But there’s no way such a vile & contemptible swine could ever feign dignity–either as a president or as a porn star. That’s the way it is.
(Photo of Obama & Trump by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters; photo of Ryan & Trump by Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
Have the sore losers & Trump Apocalypse crowd considered that the elections might have been rigged? That it wasn’t third parties, Sanders supporters, or low-paid white workers at all? Or does that suspicion get too close to criticizing the US government?