Long live Palestinian Intifada

Free Palestine flag in tear gas (July 30 2017

Posted in respect to the toughness & intransigence of Palestinians after 69 years of struggle against colonialism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, carpet bombing, occupation, & being vilified as terrorists, without surrendering to superior military force.

Long live Palestinian Intifada. Palestine will be free.

(Photo from Twitter)

Smug & smarmy Max Blumenthal moves further right

Smarmy Max Blumenthal

Max Blumenthal who tried to build his career off the backs of Palestinians, is now chasing honoraria on Assadist circuits & fame on Fox News defending Putin. Give him a few years, he’ll be doing Infowars, Global Research, Consortium News, Counterpunch, & will be a regular on Fox News. Tucker Carlson talks the same game. His trajectory is not good but it is a well-trodden path shysters before him have taken.

Now pitiful Max has tweeted objections to The Syria Campaign raising funds for medical facilities in Idlib, Syria. Last August, an MSF/Doctors Without Borders hospital in Idlib was completely destroyed by Syrian or Russian bombers & in April of this year they destroyed two more hospitals in the region. A principle of international law is the neutrality of medical facilities, including hospitals, clinics, field hospitals, medical personnel, & ambulances–although that is flouted habitually by US forces in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, & elsewhere, by Israel in Gaza, & by Syria, Russia & the US in Syria.

If smug & smarmy Max has objections to providing medical care to the 165,000 civilians being bombed to smithereens within the Idlib district, he should take it up the Geneva Conventions & see if he can persuade them to legitimize barbarism. Otherwise he should stfu.

(Photo of the contemptible parvenu)

Mehbooba Mufti, the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir & a flunky for India, called on Modi to “replace Azadi {freedom} with something better.” Not content to leave idiocy alone, she went on to groveling: “I feel Modiji is the man of the moment & he has the potential to rise & become the man of history. His leadership is an asset which needs to be harnessed…& take Kashmir out of this present mess.”

Imagine the depths of political corruption to call on a nationalist rightwing politician implicated in pogroms against Muslims, now orchestrating the rightwing shift in Indian politics, to replace the Kashmiri call for freedom with something better. He has replaced azadi with the occupation of 700,000 troops.

Fox News progressives (those who claim they’re revolutionaries but talk like Tucker Carlson) refuse to criticize Trump unless we go back to George Washington & itemize complaints against each of the other 44 presidents. That’s just a cagey way of supporting Trump.

Now he has come out publicly encouraging police brutality against those arrested for suspicion of a crime. And that in a climate when police violence against the Black community is a major issue. Police departments came out opposing his statement because it discredits them, encourages thuggish, illegal misconduct, & makes them no better than criminals. If you will not condemn this kind of politics from Trump, you side with racism, gestapo politics, injustice. Don’t call yourself a champion of democracy. Don’t make a bigger ass of yourself.

After being publicly humiliated, both Reince Priebus & Jeff Sessions groveled & sniveled their respect & loyalty to Trump. Despite a stinking elitism, they have no sense of dignity or worth in service to one of the most detestable & stupid figures in US political history. This is abnormal psychology.

Most minimum wage workers wouldn’t put up with that crap because they have a sense of self-respect, not just before power but especially before power.

Violence against mosques by occupation forces a constant in Palestine & Kashmir

Friday prayers July 14th, Ananatnag District (Aasif Shafi) July 28 2017

Aggression against Palestinian religious freedom focuses on the Al Aqsa mosque compound but that is by no means the only religious institution coming under Israeli attack. The extremes of such violence are in Gaza where just during the seven-week carpet bombing siege in July-August 2014 Israel destroyed 64 mosques & damaged 150 others. Ten Muslim cemeteries were also bombed out.

In the West Bank, such incidents are a constant where settlers vandalize Christian churches & mosques with graffiti like “Muhammad is a pig,” enter mosques to vandalize & torch holy books & prayer rugs, & there are cases when they outright torched mosques beyond repair with complete impunity from Israeli authorities. There are also Israeli attempts to claim Muslim holy sites like the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron by inventing prior religious & historic claims for Judaism.

That same situation prevails in Kashmir where most media attention focuses on Jamia Masjid in Srinagar but mosques & religious institutions in other parts of Kashmir have also been under military siege for decades. Since there are no settlers yet in Kashmir, India uses its troops to enter mosques & vandalize, ransack, desecrate the premises. Worshippers have been beaten & killed, imams have been arrested & killed, mosques have been blown up, barraged with mortars, rifle grenades, open fire, & torched to the ground.

All this to strike at the heart of a culture by denying people the freedom to worship according to their traditions & deepest commitments. This photo is from July 14th in the Reshi Bazar area of Anantnag district in Kashmir when occupying forces attacked worshippers after Friday prayers. One young man sustained critical injuries & at least 14 others were arrested during the protests. There is no report on what happened to those young men–whether they were released or held in custody for torture or incarceration under administrative detention without any form of due process.

Freedom of religion is a fundamental democratic right. Defending it in Palestine & Kashmir is central to the struggle against occupation & for self-determination.

Long live Palestinian & Kashmiri Intifada.

(Photo by Aasif Shafi)

Since Trump operates like the Godfather & probably has connections to the Russian mafia, I’m waiting for a St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in the West Wing with Scaramucci playing wingman to Trump. It won’t be the first time in gangster history that requiems will be hosannas.

A belated anti-obituary for Charlie Ruiter

Someone said my post about McCain was gloating over his terminal cancer. No it was not. I wouldn’t stoop that low to wish evil on anyone, even those I detest or those who imperil healthcare for working people. Except maybe in the case of Henry Kissinger. But I’m no sentimental fool & don’t care what happens to him in the afterlife.

Once before in my life, it happened that a union official got me fired for several months because I campaigned against his union busting compromises. I was escorted off the premises by armed guards & had no income, no help to get rehired from the union, & had to pay hefty for a private attorney to get my job back. The union official worked with the company to get me declared mentally ill so I would be forced on medications & would not be rehired. After I was rehired under threat of a lawsuit against both the union & company, he sabotaged the arbitration hearings, not allowing my witness to speak nor me to defend myself, so that I could not recover lost income. Then he had the effrontery to tell me he was given early retirement in return.

Within a few weeks after the arbitration he dropped dead. Many coworkers asked me what I thought about that. What should I have said? “Wah wah wah. Now that he’s croaked all is forgiven”? I haven’t got that level of dishonesty in me so I answered what I really felt: “I can’t make up my mind whether to dance or to piss on his grave.” Then I made a good act of contrition & any lingering guilt disappeared.

Max Blumental & Glenn Greenwald now hanging with Tucker Carlson

It seems astonishing that most of the celebrity journalists & so-called intellectuals have tanked over the issue of Syria, siding with the Assad regime rather than the revolution of working people against his dictatorship. Their capitulation to the fascist right becomes farce when they blither about a new Cold War because of the investigations into Trump’s connections to Russia. They’ve completely discredited themselves as intellectuals & don’t exhibit the investigative skills required in a 7th grade book report.

This is not some new phenomenon in intellectual & political history. This kind of mass exodus to the right has often occurred among progressives during war, most notably WWII. The courage to stand one’s ground does not flow naturally from being able to write. It comes hard to people when they realize great poets were cheeseheads & often scoundrels in real life. It comes harder to learn that people who talk a good game to earn a living are actually deeply conservative thinkers on the make & not committed activists for social justice. How else do you explain that Max Blumenthal & Glenn Greenwald now find common cause with Tucker Carlson who is one of the most racist & stupid commentators on Fox News?

Denial of freedom of religion in Srinagar by Indian authorities

Jamia Masjid, Srinagar July 27 2017 (Basit Zargar) July 28 2017

Throughout the siege & occupation of the Al Aqsa compound, Kashmiris have over & over again used social media to express solidarity with Palestinians. They understand the denial of religious freedom & desecration of Muslim holy sites because Indian occupying forces are engaged in the same aggression at Jamia Masjid in downtown Srinagar.

For the sixth consecutive week, Indian authorities have padlocked the premises to disallow congregational Friday prayers at the mosque. Denial of the right to worship is fundamental to the occupation & part of the international onslaught against Muslims. Standing with their right to religious freedom is part of the struggle against war, occupation, ethnic cleansing from Srinagar to East Jerusalem to Syria & Myanmar.

(Photo of Jamia Masjid by Basit Zargar)