Socialism has been fighting an uphill battle for 80 years against association with the brutalities of Stalinism, Maoism, & National Socialism. Now it is smeared by association with Assadism & libertarianism.

Anyone who considers it a viable way to organize society seems like a flower-child avatar from the 60s. Or an idiot. Before I abandon socialism as a possibility, someone will have to elaborate an alternative solution to neoliberal capitalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism, & that has not been forthcoming.

Capitalism has so profoundly corrupted human society & created such massive inequality & suffering that it cannot be ameliorated or tinkered with to improve how it operates. Nihilism, cynicism, misanthropy are not a political program.

Journalist Gowhar Geelani on India’s internet ban in Kashmir:

“Movements, revolutions & public mobilisations have happened throughout human history. The Russian Revolution. The French Revolution. All Freedom Struggles. These will continue to happen in the future, too. Mind you, with or without Internet.”

Sarcasm is less appropriate than outright contempt for the socialists (morphing into right-wing libertarians) calling for self-determination for the Assad regime & supporting his carpet bombing of Syrian civilians & revolutionists.

Famous people are weighing in on Trump’s first 100 days. This is the plebeian response: he stinks. Like a sewer. We need a revolution.

What’s taking that imaginary Deep State soft coup so long

Kashmiri photojournalist Yasin Dar stopped documenting to rescue a student protester injured by occupying forces at Nawa Kadal.

This is an act of courage that should not be underestimated since India routinely engages in violent harassment against Kashmiri photojournalists & their families. In one incident last year, Indian troops surrounded the home of a photojournalist while he was away & terrorized his wife & child.

This 2015 article by Gowhar Geelani describes the harassment & dangers journalists face in Kashmir. As he says, “journalism is a dangerous business.” Those who pursue it deserve the highest respect. (Once they get embedded with the military, it’s an entirely different matter. That is not journalism, but propaganda.)

http://www.thehoot.org/media-watch/regional-media/between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-8783

(Photo by Faisal Khan from Kashmir Today)

There is unrelenting resistance to occupation in Kashmir. There is ever-present grief for the tens of thousands forcibly disappeared, injured, blinded, disabled, beaten, tortured, incarcerated, murdered.

Kashmiri women here cry watching the funeral procession of Younis Maqbool, a young man killed by Indian occupying forces.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Photo by Basit Zargar)

Has the imaginary Deep State accomplished it’s soft coup against Trump? Cause he hasn’t tweeted obscenities for a while & is now chatting with US astronauts in space about how they drink their own pee.

Libertarians, now is the time for you to shine with an explanation of where that Deep State coup stands.

Kashmiri right-wingers seldom hang around my wall; the wannabe Ayaan Hirsi Ali writer called me names & then split vituperating all the way against women who wear the veil. Even Indian nationalists have abandoned their siege of my posts since the trip to block hell is so swift.

Social critics are seen as cynics by those who support the status quo. But those who are oppressed or stand with the oppressed know the necessity of criticism. It’s not a one-up-man ship or superiority thing but a necessity for social change & solidarity.

Found this comment in a post about Kashmir from a-year-ago today. I’m honored the fellow tried to elevate me to the level of a stone pelter but I’m more a graffiti artist trying to build international solidarity with those fighting the historic battles against occupation & for self-determination:

“While i appreciate your support for our cause Mary but i am sorry your writing is also one sided & completely smacks of arrogance & hatred for establishments everywhere. I for sure am not sure what good have you done to this world other than standing on a pedestal & crying that every thing that this world is doing is wrong. Why dont you propose solutions Mary rather than throwing stones at whatever you see.”

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Photo from Yasin Hassan)

The fact that Peter Ford is the former British ambassador to Syria & Bahrain would signal to most intelligent observers that he isn’t a particularly credible commentator. But Assadists have been dragging his pasty, bony ass all over media to deny that Assad gassed civilians or could possibly be guilty of any human rights crimes. (As an aside, he’s so pasty & zombie-like he may well be inspiration for David Icke’s theory that political leaders are extraterrestrial reptiles–at least before they became political allies on Syria.)

Ford is a guy whose political allegiances are as commercial (that is, for sale) as his way with words is regrettable. One wonders whether he got his diplomatic posts through aristocratic connections rather than his diplomatic skills after he compared British intervention to “a dog returning to its own vomit.” Hard to recall a single committed antiwar activist who would express outrage at bombing & gassing civilians in quite that language. Genuine outrage uses another language & other metaphors drawn from international criminal codes, not bodily functions.

Now it’s reported that our man-for-sale Ford was named director of the British Syrian Society on February 28th, just weeks before the Syrian gas attack on civilians at Khan Sheikhoun on April 4th. The British Syrian Society was founded in 2003 by Fawaz Akhras, the London-based father-in-law of Bashar Assad the dictator. Akhras reportedly plays an active role in advising Assad how to crush the revolution & has done so since it erupted in 2011.

The British Syrian Society became well-known in 2016 when it invited Rania Khalek to speak at a conference in Damascus. The furor about her speaking at a regime-sponsored event is the hallmark event which discredited Khalek as a journalist & signaled her degeneration into an abject, sniveling apologist for Assad.

She did not speak at the conference because of the furor but instead of leaving bad enough alone, she took a road trip to Aleppo (then under siege) embedded with Bartlett & Beeley up the ass of the Syrian army. On the return trip, she tweeted an accusation that Assad agents poisoned her food which has permanently severed her possibilities of getting on his payroll & damaged collegial relations with Bartlett & Beeley.

The words of Shakespeare come to mind: “Oh what a hell of a mess we make when we try to pull a fast one in the era of social media.”

(Photo is Peter Ford)

Took Sophie, the Schnauzer smart enough to go to college, to the vet yesterday for a low-grade infection. Good care, affordable vet about an hour drive from here.

Chatting with the vet’s wife/office assistant, she told me she chose to live in this area rather than Dallas to avoid “the problem.” So of course I asked, “What problem?” She leaned over & whispered in a voice loud enough for others in the waiting room (all Latino ancestry) to hear, “The Blacks.”

Can’t imagine anyone more relieved to hear of her redneck decision where to live than Blacks in Dallas, Texas, but I resented her assumption that I share her antipathies, & not just politically. A good share of my friends & family, including nieces, nephews, countless cousins are Black. Beautiful, wonderful, loving Blacks.

Desegregation of education, as fragmented & badly managed as it was, brought working class white & Black kids together & familiarity broke down the social hatreds, built friendships, created love, made babies. Many of us are the grateful family of those wonderful kids.

Not smart to make racist assumptions about whites nor to exercise your ignorance at other people’s expense.