“Do you hear the people sing” from “Les Miserables” is an anthem of rebellion against persecution & exploitation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpDbvlAI_A0

Rod Stewart is scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv on June 14th, for the second time defying the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel.

Please like this Facebook page prevailing on him to do the right thing this time & stand with Palestinians against the razing of their ancestral villages to build settlements for Jews from all over kingdom come who have no claims to Palestinian lands.

https://www.facebook.com/Rod.Stewart.Cultural.Boycott.Israel/?pnref=story

Please also sign this petition:

https://www.change.org/p/celtic-fans-ask-rod-stewart-not-to-play-in-israel

It’s the anniversary of the Arab Spring uprisings which all began about this time in 2011. Cynics like to think they’ve written the last words on them, often in sneering or jubilant requiems. But if you want to understand such tectonic social upheavals, you don’t look to cynics. They don’t know squat about such things. You look to the working people who put their lives on the line to end dictatorship & make this world a better place to live.

If you want to understand why hating on Muslims is such a feature of war-mongering & right-wing politics, look at the places where the most enduring & momentous struggles against tyranny & colonialism are: Palestine, Kashmir. the countries of the Arab Spring, including Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, & elsewhere too. They certainly aren’t all Muslim populations, but probably are in their majority.

We should take a moment to pay tribute to the millions of revolutionists, so maligned in propaganda, who fight so intransigently against insuperable odds & to the thousands who lost their lives. They show the best humanity is made of & are the vanguard of social transformation.

Those who look at the Arab Spring with scorn have missed some of the most remarkable & titanic events in human history. The Arab revolutions have not ended & those of us who want to create a suitable world for human beings to live & love in are wise to look to them to understand the complexities & problems faced in the struggle for social transformation.

(Photos are participants in the Egyptian Revolution)

Only time I’ve ever been arrested was in Minneapolis protesting against experimenting on live animals. It’s barbaric to do what they do to living creatures who helplessly suffer. I became opposed to it while a student at the University of Minnesota when I saw medical labs experimenting on living dogs & heard them whimpering in their cages.

Putting them through suffering for cosmetic testing? Even if it’s for cancer research, find another way to test your damn drugs than making helpless animals suffer. Say it’s overdramatic, but if you can do this to rabbits & dogs or even mice, you can do it to humans.

Please sign & share this petition.

https://www.change.org/p/tell-neutrogena-to-stop-all-animal-testing?

There are so many “leftists” turned libertarian who openly support Trump & also post about Standing Rock. They’ll have to make a choice now since you can’t have it both ways.

Political degeneration is hell to watch.

Do you think they’re trying to have Trump wipe out the Bill of Rights through Executive Orders in the first few weeks before criminal & impeachment charges catch up with him?

Do we need a revolution this week?

Yesterday was the 2nd anniversary of the death of 33-year-old Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, a socialist activist from Alexandria, Egypt who was peacefully marching with a group of less than 20 people to Tahrir Square in Cairo to lay a wreath in tribute to the thousands of activists killed in the 2011 uprising which had been decisively reversed by the military in July 2013.

As soon as the memorial procession set out behind a banner, masked riot police blasted the group with tear gas & pellet guns from across the street to disperse them. Sabbagh was shot in the back of the head, neck, & side of her face & died from shotgun pellet injuries to the heart & lungs & bleeding from the chest. Other participants also sustained pellet injuries but no one was killed.

The man frantically holding Sabbagh up is Sayyid Abu el-Ela, a personal & political friend of hers. He carried her across the street out of the line of fire & placed her on the sidewalk as she died.
Since the defeat of the revolution in July 2013, the killing of protesters has become a regular occurrence. The day after Sabbagh’s death was January 25th, the 4th anniversary of the uprising, & at least 20 more protesters were killed; several others were killed across Egypt on following days.

Since her death, Shaimaa al-Sabbagh has become a symbol of continuing opposition to Egypt’s military junta. It is far too early for libertarians & cynics to write their jubilant requiems for the Arab revolutions against dictatorship. The seething & continuing defiance may explain the extreme barbarism & attempts to destroy the revolutions in Yemen & Syria by carpet bombing & by extreme repression in Bahrain.

Long live the Arab revolutions. Our tribute to those who died in the momentous struggles for democracy.

(Photo by Islam Osman/Reuters)

Today is the 6th anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution which overthrew Hosni Mubarak 18 days later on February 11th after 30 years of dictatorial rule.

The very next day after Mubarak’s ouster Global Research began its campaign against the Arab Spring denouncing the uprisings as funded by US agencies & staged by undercover US operatives. Their right-wing treacheries became full-blown in denunciations of the Syrian Revolution, which began March 2011, & continue till today. They’ve never been able to explain how the US got millions of Egyptians, Bahrainis, Yemenis, Syrians to play revolution, to get their heads beat in or submit to torture, incarceration, disappearance, execution.

It is Egyptian working people who will write the next chapter of their revolution. Did they ever say it was over? No one underestimates the weight of General Sisi’s counter-revolution–the toll it takes on the human spirit & that repression takes on political action. A force as powerful as the Egyptian Revolution may be set back, even for a while, as they recoup & assess the reasons for the defeat. But it will rise again more aware of the treacheries used to defeat them & more steeled in battle.

General Sisi’s regime clearly does not share libertarian cynicism about the future of the revolution or regime repression would not be so extreme & violent. Nor would he have marked the 6th anniversary of the revolution by closing the Sadat metro station leading to Tahrir Square.

The photo is Tahrir Square on January 25, 2011. Was there ever a more glorious sight for the oppressed around the world?

Right-wing sneer against the Women’s Marches of over 3 million people on every continent: So they march against Trump but didn’t against Obama’s wars?

Righteous left sneer against the new surge of activists since Trump’s election: So they march against Trump but didn’t against Obama’s wars?

That’s what happens when cynicism replaces wisdom & patience in politics. People move when they’re ready, not when you snap your fingers.

Whose judgement of Duterte carries more weight? Those from other countries who also support Assad? Or that of Filipino human rights activists?

Salvador Cariaga, whose Facebook wall is committed to campaigning against Duterte’s extrajudicial killings (EJK), posted this on his wall (Digong is a nickname for Duterte):

Digong: “My god I hate drugs.”
God: “I am God, I hate killers.”

(EJK meme from Salvador Cariaga)