On the social stigma & prejudice of “retardation”

This is a slightly edited re-post from November 23rd 2014. It’s about social prejudice toward those with learning disabilities. I learned all this the hard way through a beloved younger brother tormented by being labeled “retarded.” When he committed suicide at the age of 40 I set out to understand why & looked to the disability rights movement for answers. That meant I had to confront the prevailing ideas about learning & disability which I had a head stuffed full of. I re-post it in commitment to my brother Paul.
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One of the most class-based prejudices is about intelligence. The privileged hold it in highest esteem & learn to use it as a weapon. They use it to ridicule, put people in their place, impress. Any sign of smarts in a “lesser person”–like a janitor or a fast-food worker–is deemed precocious or an exception, especially if that person is a woman, Black, or Latino.

Unfortunately that vanity has led to the most massive prejudice, discrimination, & social hatred of those with learning disabilities. For decades they were warehoused in institutions, including in the most barbaric conditions. They were stigmatized as “village idiots” & treated as though invisible.

The Self Advocacy Movement of those with learning problems, part of the disability rights movement, erupted globally in the 1970s along with all the other social movements. Activists demanded human rights & denounced the use of the epithet “retard” as hateful. They demanded from parents, guardians, & institutions that they not be warehoused or moved around like furniture but be the most persuasive voice in decisions about their lives: “Nothing about me without me” was their mantra.

Their movement emerged along with scientific challenges to “IQ science” showing it to be nothing but a toxic concoction of prejudice & cruelty for purposes of social engineering. So it is always deeply regrettable–not to mention infuriating–that many progressive people are the last to catch on to all this & continue to flaunt IQ as if it meant a damn thing other than privilege.

A few years past, FB was awash with a Canadian study showing progressives have higher IQs than conservatives. Self-flattery is comforting even if self-delusion is pathetic at the expense of vulnerable people. There’s also a 14-year-old article circulating about a man refused employment as a policeman because his IQ was too high. This is all nothing but prejudicial hogwash.

The question is: when will the vanity & prejudice of privilege get caught up with science about intelligence? People, including geniuses, have learning disabilities of all kinds. That doesn’t render them stupid or without dignity, profound sensitivities, awareness, & intelligence. Social contempt toward people who struggle with learning or who can’t ace formulaic exams is about as stupid as one can get.

CBS news reports FB has developed software to censor posts in Chinese in order to curry favor with China’s leaders & enter that lucrative market.

Social media is one of the most important battlegrounds for defense of free speech. Regrettably till now only Israel & Modi of India have phalanxes in the field–fighting of course for censorship of Palestinian & Kashmiri news & solidarity.

The detestable system of castes

Universal Children's Day (Dalit Freedom) Nov 21 2016

This photo of Dalit children in India was posted on Twitter for Universal Children’s Day last Sunday. It’s one of those ceremonial days the UN sponsors, filled with the most maudlin sentiments but not backed up with much action–unless you include counting the victims of war, occupation, genocide to be political action.

It’s an absolutely beautiful photo of children who are considered in the caste system to be inferior. For human rights activists, every day is international children’s day. Every day we wake up & read the dire news, we recommit ourselves to children & to fighting for a world they deserve to live in–free of social hatreds & malignancies of every kind like war, racism, misogyny, & the entire godforsaken belief that some human beings are born inferior & some superior.

Happy children’s day.

(Photo from Twitter of Dalit Freedom)

Wikipedia is a wreck & no reliable source of information

A word to the wise: Wikipedia is generally an iffy source of information but when it comes to the issue of Israel & Palestinians, it is a nearly useless source–so useless that the Zionist founder of Wikipedia was given an honorific by Israel for services rendered to propaganda.

It is also wreckage on the issue of Kashmir, most notably the entries on the Pandit issue, & is pretty much a wash on Rohingya Muslims & the genocide against them.

None of its analyses on those issues can be trusted & were likely written by propagandists.

Genocide in Myanmar

Mama and son

Rohingya refugee (REUTERS:Mohammad Ponir Hossain) Nov 22 2016

What is going on now at the Myanmar-Bangladesh border is a repeat of the refugee crisis of 2012 on a smaller scale. In 2012, the genocidal assault of the Burmese military forcibly displaced over 125,000 Rohingya & other Muslims in Arakan (Rakhine) state. So far in this assault it is estimated that at least 30,000 have been forcibly displaced in the scorched earth genocide led by the military. It’s not certain where that estimate comes from since journalists & human rights monitors are barred from entering the state.

The 2012 military siege was the first time most human rights activists around the world heard about the Rohingya even though the persecution by the military & right-wing nationalist Buddhists has been extreme for decades.

What made it news was that tens of thousands of Rohingya fleeing violence were turned away at the border by Bangladeshi border guards. The photos of their terror were horrifying because they had no recourse but to return to Myanmar. At least 150,000 ended up in concentration camps; an estimated 25,000 fled by boat through the Bay of Bengal & Andaman Sea trying to reach Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand. That resulted in the boat crisis of May 2015 where thousands were abandoned at sea without food or water & there is as yet no accounting of what happened to most of them.

In 2009, Myanmar built a concrete & razor wire barrier wall along about 40 miles (70km) of the 120 km Naf River on the Bangladesh border. Those Rohingya fleeing the epicenter of the genocide at Maungdaw must travel about 60 miles (95 km) to Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh where there is a registered refugee camp & tens of thousands of undocumented living in unregistered camps.

They have to travel from Maungdaw about 5 miles (8 km) to the crossing point into Bangladesh on the Naf River which is between two & three miles wide & then proceed the remaining 52 miles to Cox’s Bazar on foot. They cross the river in boats at night to avoid detection; some try to swim across. Hundreds are reportedly stranded there, unable to cross.

Just as in 2012, media is reporting that they are fleeing from “escalating violence,” “sectarian conflict,” & “communal clashes” because if they call it what it is–genocide–then foreign investors might be deterred by the political instability. It can never be forgotten that as the 2012 genocide unfolded in Arakan, the European Union, US, Australia, Norway, Britain were suspending sanctions on Burma imposed since 1988 for decades of human rights crimes. “Development” money & foreign investments flooded into the country. Capitalism never lets a thing like genocide interfere with profiteering.

The same kind of scenes we saw in 2012 appear again as Bangladesh closes its borders to the refugees fleeing for their lives. Both of these photos are weeping Rohingya refugees intercepted by Bangladesh border guards at a check point in Cox’s Bazar.

Immigration is a human right. Asylum from war & persecution is not only an ancient tradition in human civilization but embodied in international law. Bangladesh has every obligation to open the borders & provide sanctuary. If it claims it is unable to handle the numbers entering the country, it should allow the UN to register Rohingya & humanitarian organizations to provide aid to them. Most importantly, it should demand Myanmar end the genocide & demand other countries immediately reimpose sanctions until Rohingya receive full citizen, human, & democratic rights in Myanmar.

(Photo by Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuter

The White Helmet mannequin challenge

Facebook friends have asked me what I think about this video circulating among Assad supporters which they are calling “the White Helmets caught in a mannequin challenge.’ Some found it quite persuasive in discrediting the White Helmets. To my mind, Assad supporters should be embarrassed to circulate it.

The source of the video is the FB wall of Mimi Al Laham who calls herself Syrian Girl. She has 35,000 followers & has been an ardent Assad supporter for a long time. She lives in Australia but spends a lot of time on the international pro-Assad speaking & media circuit, particularly libertarian media.

If you look at the video, you will see there is no identifying information to prove its veracity as a production of the White Helmets. The very fact that it’s on her FB wall should give serious-minded people pause. If the White Helmets have the kind of political connections they’re accused of, they could certainly come up with a better propaganda production than this. What’s up with that “frozen” clip at the beginning? It’s an insult to their intelligence to try to stick it on them. It’s more Al Laham’s speed.

Al Laham has an active social media presence including her own YouTube channel with frequent posts about Syrian politics. She also discusses US politics & produced a video endorsing Trump for president. To give you an idea of her theoretical approach to politics, she posted this regarding her opposition to Clinton:

“I can’t imagine people still voting for Clinton after her obvious involvement in occult rituals such as spirit cooking sex parties & worship of Moloch which was revealed in March this year, all revealed in Wikileaks emails. New York Times trying to white wash this into some kind of artistic dinner party ignoring all other evidence of the occult hub in the White House. From sacrificing a chicken to moloch, to being involved with a child sex trafficking ring in Haiti while performing a voodoo ritual in Haiti with her husband. Bohemian grove. Clinton & the people around her are satanic & why should we be surprised after all we have seen them do to the nations they destroy?”

If you want to take the word of someone who writes that kind of nonsense, that’s your right in a democratic society but it is an embarrassment to serious discussion of the war in Syria, one of the most momentous political events of this era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MA83pJsmH0

The genealogy of ISIS

One of the hardest questions about what is going on in Syria is the political character of the paramilitary groups. There are countless numbers of them including those trained & armed by the CIA & US special forces; there are mercenaries & foreign fighters from Iran, Hezbollah, & elsewhere.

Assad supporters describe them all in the Muslim-hating & war-mongering language of the US Pentagon. It’s a fundamentally racist attitude toward groups who they revile to defend Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians.

As operatives for the US, Iran, Hezbollah, they are a treacherous crowd but they are not all “throat-cutting jihadists” as Assad supporters call them. Nor do the militias represent the scope of the popular movement against Assad’s dictatorship. They are not bombing cities only to kill the militia fighters but to destroy the popular opposition to Assad–as the Saudi-US-UK coalition is doing in Yemen.

Their presence & activities in cities do not justify the bombing of civilians. By one estimate, Aleppo has 8,000 militia fighters but 250,000 civilians live there.

My knowledge of the militias is insufficient & I have found no reliable sources but this article by a Syrian revolutionist, once a political prisoner & now in exile, discusses the development of these groups in a political way & takes it out of the realm of Islamophobia, fear-mongering, & demonization.

http://aljumhuriya.net/en/daesh/the-geneology-of-isis