War is not just another issue in a litany of social problems; it is the dominating issue

In the political tradition I come from, war is not just another political issue in a litany of social problems but it is the dominating issue governing political action because of the extremes of violence & because it profoundly impacts every other struggle, including racist persecution, women’s oppression, social inequality & poverty.

That’s why it’s not clear to me why no active social movement has developed in India against the occupation of Kashmir. There are so many potential allies in the struggle–persecuted Muslims, Dalits, & other oppressed castes, & the working class whose youth make up the occupying army & whose veterans must certainly sustain the same problems US & Israeli veterans do of PTSD, suicide, mental health problems, high levels of violence.

But then I’ve also tried to understand the collapse of the US antiwar movement for over a decade whilst the Pentagon is engaged in war in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, has troops deployed in Africa, Mexico, Central America, & God knows where else, & bankrolls militarism in Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, etc. It doesn’t help that the US antiwar movement is now led by retired military officers & CIA & FBI agents but it also doesn’t help that the international antiwar movement supports Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians. But how did it come to that? How has it fallen so low after the millions around the world who marched against the Vietnam War?

Academics have been pumping out one jeremiad after another for the past few years expressing a dark malaise about the potential for political action. Meanwhile millions around the world have been rebelling & protesting whilst libertarians vilify the revolutions as orchestrated by the CIA & Mossad & mock the protests against Trump & the Muslim ban because protesters haven’t been out protesting for the past 50 years, because they scorn liberals (who have always made up the majority of protesters), or because they’re women haters with contempt for the millions on every continent who marched in the Women’s March.

Something is going on here that needs to be analyzed & of course a jeremiad is just indigestion writ large & by no means the necessary analysis. If we’re going to reverse this situation, we need to come to an understanding of what is going on.

 

Anybody else ever get a sense when someone gives you the cold shoulder on Facebook? When they don’t give you the time of day or get testy or don’t answer messages? Growing up in Minnesota tunes you in to passive-aggressive. Growing up female makes you intolerant of it. What’s the point of such interactions? Or more aptly, anti-interactions?

Came across a post about how Viet Cong guerrilla forces defeated the US in the Vietnam War. The official name was the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam & it actually embodied both guerrilla & regular army units under a single command structure. They had over 40 years of experience in fighting French colonialism.

Whatever accommodations the Vietnamese leadership has made to neoliberal economics, the monumental achievement by the Vietnamese people of defeating US militarism can never be honored enough. One of its political reverberations was called “the Vietnam Syndrome,” the popular opposition to US wars which lasted years & which media & the US Pentagon worked tirelessly to reverse.

When I took the 90-pound male dog to get him fixed & medically checked, I promised to return him to the business place where he hangs out as an abandoned dog. For some reason they want him back but not his sister & her pups.

He’s been here near two weeks, gets regular meals, gets in line for treats & petting with all the rest, lines up next to my bed to get kissed & hugged in the morning when I awake. He knows how being in a family feels now & will not willingly go back to being homeless & alone. Somehow I have to persuade them to let me find him a home.

Aung San Suu Kyi regime denies visas to UN investigative commission; doesn’t want ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims exposed

Aung San Suu Kyi July 1 2017

In a move as predictable as the sun rising in the east & setting in the west, the Aung San Suu Kyi regime announced that the UN commission will not be granted visas to enter Myanmar to investigate charges of murder, rape, & torture of Rohingya Muslims by the military in Arakan (Rakhine) state.

It’s often pointed out that Suu Kyi does not control the military which actually runs Myanmar. That’s true, but with complete gusto she fronts for the military’s ethnic cleansing & publicly denies & scoffs at charges of human rights crimes against Rohingya.

We stand in full solidarity with the Rohingya for full democratic, human, civil, & refugee rights. The UN may be debarred from entering Arakan state but in the meantime they can proceed with the investigation by interviewing some of the 75,000 Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh since October 2016.

(Photo is the human face of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar)

“Extrajudicial killings by the police & the lynchings of the Indian Muslims by the extensions of the State are now a routine in India.”

–Khurram Parvez