My Schnauzer & two Rhodesian Ridgebacks have been under the house all day despite cement block barricades I set up to keep them out so they don’t move the house off its foundations. It’s nearly midnight & they won’t come out except to deposit the body of another dead baby possum. Living up close & personal with “nature red in tooth & claw” is beyond me. It may be their nature but it ain’t mine. When I finish my article, they’re on the next caravan going north for adoption. Come hell or high water.
Daily Archives: August 13, 2017
There are rallies across the US, including NYC, at the White House, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Seattle in tribute to Heather Heyer & to take a stand, as she did, against the white supremacy incited by the Trump presidency. These will continue; they will crescendo in size & number.
Will the libertarian rednecks denounce & ridicule them because they haven’t yet marched against George Washington & all the other 44 presidents? Does it count that some of them stood against the Nazis? Or will some of the rednecks smarten up & break with the headlong rush to the right under the banner of Putin & Assad?
Photo is woman at protest today in Union Square, NYC.
(Photo from Seth Lemon on Twitter)
A tribute to Heather Heyer: may she Rest In Peace after a life well lived
We should take a moment to pay our respects to Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman killed when a white supremacist rammed into counter-protesters with a car. She worked as a paralegal in Virginia.
Violence at protests is not new but social movements have developed effective marshal systems for self-defense to protect protesters. The greatest defense is to out-mobilize the racists & haters because they’re loathsome cowards at heart.
The last thing Heather Heyer would want for her legacy is that protesters for social justice be intimidated against standing for what’s right. Her legacy is to stand up for what is right to make this world suitable for all of us to live & love in.
May she Rest In Peace after a life well lived.
(Photo is Heather Heyer)
Watching these violent racists on the rampage in Charlottesville & Seattle is chilling, even terrifying, but it is not unique in US history. The Black community is more than familiar for generations with such vigilante & state violence.
Al Sharpton, the media spokesperson for Blacks since he’s so damn compromising, said he “would think twice before going out to one of these rallies” because of the racist violence. This isn’t the first time Sharpton has been dead wrong. The only way to defeat the white supremacy unleashed by the Trump presidency is to out-mobilize their ugly asses. They use violence because they are a minority. We use massive numbers because we are a majority & we don’t care if those who march with us against racist violence are liberals, Democrats, Republicans, apolitical do-gooders, or Wahabi Muslims. Whoever they are willing to stand against racism, we will march with them. Nobody checks credentials in social movements of such political consequence.
As a postscript, it wasn’t long ago that many in the Palestinian solidarity movement had to be sharply criticized for circulating the anti-Israel videos of KKK leader & white supremacist David Duke who was leading the rampage in Charlottesville. Many younger people honestly didn’t know who Duke was & were confused; others knew exactly who he was & shared his anti-Semitism which he strutted out as anti-Zionism. As long as he’s a hater of Blacks, Latinos, & Jews we don’t give a rat’s ass about his feigned support for Palestinians–which is only a way for him to hate on Jewish people; we don’t go near his ugly ass with a ten-foot pole. He’s now also–of course–an ardent supporter of Bashar Assad’s dictatorship in Syria. You lay down with dirty dogs you get up with fleas. You march with the devil, you’re headed straight to hell.
India to introduce stink bombs in Kashmir
Just read a report in Indian media from May 2017 that India has purchased stink bombs (also known as skunk bombs) from Israel for use against protesters in Kashmir. Stink bombs, which smell like decomposing bodies & raw sewage, can be dispensed from water cannons. India already uses purple dye shot from water cannons against strikers in Kashmir to identify them with color; since the odor of stink bombs takes days to disperse from persons & things, it will be another way to identify protesters & to isolate them.
There are other later reports that say Indian “perfumers” & scientists have developed a distinct non-lethal stink bomb with an “unbearable” odor that will not affect the health & lives of protesters. Just like they promised about the pellet guns which have killed, disfigured, blinded thousands of protesters.
The CRPF, the Indian paramilitary force, says it has 60,000 personnel deployed in Kashmir out of the total Indian occupying force of 700,000. An Indian official said: “We have used chilli grenades, plastic shell tear smoke, stun grenades, colour-smoke grenades, rubber bullets, dye-marker grenades with skin irritant & multi-tier teargas launchers, but they did not yield the desired result. Let’s see how the stink bombs work out.” He forgot to mention pellet guns & live ammo also used against unarmed protesters. Or are they claiming such an extensive & lethal arsenal is necessary against stone pelters?
There are no reports from Kashmir that stink bombs shot from cartridges or water cannons have yet been put in use but Indian officials claim they have already been tested in India–& of course they will be used in India against protesters once their use has been practiced & perfected on the protesters of Kashmir.
(Photo of Indian officer shooting tear gas by Danish Ismail/Reuters)
If you find yourself agreeing with the nimrods who respond to the attack in Charlottesville by denouncing liberals rather than by denouncing white supremacist violence & the backhanded support for it expressed by Trump, you are a libertarian redneck. Do me a favor & unfriend me.
Any friends have the names of high-powered lawyers specializing in international law from a human rights perspective?
A valuable article about the use of music as resistance in Kashmir:
http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/QjaZpx1ldnOWY08phRjIVI/When-stones-turn-to-song-in-Kashmir.html
Ain’t No Stopping Us Now
“Ain’t No Stopping Us Now,” which came out in 1979, was considered a Black national anthem in disco form. The song is an assertion of Black optimism about ending racist oppression–though it came out several years after the US government launched the so-called War on Drugs which criminalized drug addiction & eventually led to the incarceration of tens of thousands of Black & Latino youth for drug use–many for life without the possibility of parole for smoking a joint.
It was an extremely successful bait & switch operation by attributing drug dealing to Black youth “narcoterrorist” gangs & taking heat off international bank money laundering & CIA & government officials up to their eyeballs in trafficking. It was a political campaign that effectively reversed many consequential gains of the civil rights movement.
Civil rights for Blacks, Latinos, American Indians & other persecuted nationalities remains one of the most important struggles in the US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDVuAZTWGfQTs&v=VuAZTWGfQTs
I wrote this originally in 1992 for a Harvard student publication & updated it in 2007 for a Black community newspaper. At the time it was published, it was mocked as naive hogwash but it is now accepted as political reality:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/mary-scully/the-war-on-black-youth/267267043287137/?hc_location=ufi
Perhaps we should allow refugees to describe what is redeemable in the European Union (EU). But then so many thousands of them can never speak since they have drowned in the Mediterranean. For working people fleeing war & sweatshop economics, the EU doesn’t so much broaden international cooperation as it proves a death trap.