“Let’s be clear, when you see people on boats like this in the #Mediterranean you have only two options: you rescue them or you rescue them.”

–tweeted by MSF Sea @MSF_Sea

If we’re talking Wonder Woman, it isn’t a woman battling evil in a bustier & high heels. It’s Palestinian & Kashmiri women standing with their kids against occupation; Rohingya women sheltering their kids from ethnic cleansing; women of the Arab Spring who led social revolutions, many in niqab; the women revolutionists in Syria.

That comic book parody of women’s power doesn’t come close to reality where women fighting injustice have wrinkles, frown lines, & sun-baked skin, sometimes extra pounds, even cellulite, God forbid. That idiotic parody is actually used to deny the leading role millions of women have always played in resisting oppression & making this world suitable for human beings to live & love in.

Thank heavens for social media because now we watch history unfold before our eyes & won’t let it be rewritten excluding the role of women.

I talk to a Kashmiri teenager, I feel like I just fell off the turnip truck politically.

US-led coalition forces bombing civilians in Mosul, Iraq & Raqqa, Syria are being accused of using white phosphorous. It wouldn’t be the first time despite international law banning its use against civilians.

It has been used by the US in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria; by Israel in Lebanon & Gaza; by Russia in Syria & the Ukraine; by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

The only principled demand for the antiwar movement is the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US, Russian, & foreign military forces from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya. Out now! No to war!

Photo is affects of white phosphorous on human skin.

Gal Gadot, the Israeli actress who plays Wonder Woman, with now dead Israeli president Shimon Peres in 2015.

“Western feminists” are being criticized for honoring Gadot but that would be to confuse individual feminists with rotten politics for a social movement that does not exist & thus cannot endorse her. However, the UN has made Gadot an Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women & Girls. Sends shivers down your spine when you know she accused Palestinians of using women & children as human shields.

As for any questions about whether the Wonder Woman movie should be boycotted as part of the cultural boycott of Israel (BDS)? It should be boycotted & picketed by BDS activists with signs saying “Don’t try to hide Israeli apartheid behind the banner of feminism.” Feminism is an emancipatory program, no matter that some have tried to hijack it to the service of Islamophobia & Zionism.

Honor the cultural & economic boycott of Israel. Buy nothing with barcode beginning 729.

(Photo of Gadot & Peres from Gadot’s FB wall)

Is this right? No, it isn’t. We’re not like the oppressors. But is it funny from a revenge point of view? Immensely. And not bad when it comes to justice either.

–photo tweeted by Salute Kashmiris

“The most disappointing thing about the UK election is there wasn’t even a hint of Russian interference. It’s like we don’t matter at all.”

–tweeted by Karl Sharro @KarlreMarks

So many speculations about why Qatar was iced by the Saudis & other GCC nations. So many attempts to portray Qatar as a victim of plots hatched in the White House. That’s what happens when you don’t distinguish regimes from the working people they lord it over.

Qatar is a damn monarchy & was part of the military operation against Yemen which has been a merciless slaughter. Just because Al Jazeera publishes a progressive point of view every once in a while, so what? So does the Russian propaganda agency RT & Iranian propaganda agency Press TV.

This disunity in the Middle East is important because working people in Qatar will be made to pay a heavy price. But please spare us the delusions that the monarchy is being punished for some supposed righteousness. Be assured the royal mooches won’t miss a single meal.

Those who begrudge Comey’s testimony because of the “Russia thing” don’t do so because they love Russian music or literature, supported the revolution or the dissidents against Stalinism, or don’t care about Russian interference in US politics. They don’t do it because they oppose the FBI’s pernicious role in US politics. They do it solely to buttress their support for Russia’s counter-revolutionary role in Syria.

The Comey hearing is more boring than chasing dust bunnies under your furniture. Right now the Texas Republican John Cornyn is interrogating Comey. He’s the despicable guy who campaigned for expeditious deportation of undocumented Mexican & Central American children who he associated with prostitution & drugs. The very sight of him makes my skin crawl.