Nobody can write a jeremiad quite like John Pilger, the journalist-turned-propagandist for Assad. The end of the world is always just on the horizon for our man if we don’t see things his way. His latest titled “How the World May End” for Consortium News, a media source for Assad apologetics, will have you torn been weeping & rolling on the floor laughing. Pilger has a real flare for melodrama that works well in propaganda, not so well in serious journalism.
According to Pilger, Trump & Putin are the maligned saviors of human civilization & to prove his case he pulls one of his non sequiturs & quotes unreconstructed Stalinist Luciana Bohne who thinks opposition to our two saviors is because of “liberal brains pickled in the formaldehyde of identity politics.” Like the fights against Islamophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, women’s oppression, dictatorship?
Pilger is about as cogent in this piece of rubbish as he was in his excoriation of feminism. But to be fair to him, this is a much more cogent piece of rubbish than his writings on Syria have ever been.
Detainees crammed into a jail cell near Caracas, Venezuela (December 2016): whatever these young people were arrested for, whatever the charges against them, is subjecting them to subhuman conditions acceptable just because the regime calls itself socialist? Does that Bolivarian Revolution stuff exempt a government from human rights in the treatment of youthful offenders or those at least alleged to have committed a crime?
Because if this is what Bolivarian socialism looks like, if this is how it treats young people, if you can’t tell the difference between Bolivarian socialism & barbarism, then no wonder there are massive protests in the streets against it.
A young man among protesters defending Jamia Masjid in downtown Srinagar after Friday prayers when Indian paramilitary attacked with tear gas, pellet guns, & marbles shot by slings.
End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.
There have been reports for the past several months that Indian soldiers are introducing a new weapon: glass marbles catapulted by slingshots. They are not an alternative but in addition to pellet guns & are as lethal if a person is hit in the head or face where it can cause broken bones or blindness. They are less likely to penetrate internal organs than lead pellets but not less likely to maim, disfigure, or kill. It’s only a matter of time before they introduce methods for bombarding protesters with glass marbles from guns or other projectiles.
The paramilitary forces here are shooting at protesters in Srinagar with tear gas, pellets, & marbles after Friday prayers today when people gathered to defend their right to freedom of worship.
An Indian defense specialist has suggested the Indian army take lessons from the Israeli army by employing skunk spray dispersed through water cannons or hand-held canisters “to avoid the odium of using excessive force on stone-pelters.” Skunk spray which Israel has been using on Palestinians for several years smells like a combination of excrement, noxious gas & decomposing animals & the stench lingers for days on property & those persons sprayed with it. Actually, Indian officials are already debating the use of skunk spray not just in Kashmir but against protesters in India.
It’s a hard lesson to learn but if you do not stand with those your government oppresses, the same weapons will be used to suppress democracy at home.
End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.
Demonstration yesterday against Assad dictatorship in region of Idlib: the revolution Assadists claim does not exist & which the antiwar movement, with utter political bankruptcy, approves of bombing to smithereens.
Such is politics today in the era of alternative facts & post-truth truthiness, where the left in indistinguishable from Fox News.
Long live the Syrian revolution. End the bombing of civilians in Syria. No US, Russian, Iranian, Saudi, Hezbollah, or other foreign military forces in Syria to buttress the Assad regime. Out now!
There is not an iota of difference between TV coverage of US wars by Fox News & the so-called liberal networks like CNN & MSNBC. There is no actual war reporting except occasional references to deployment of more troops, not a scintilla of concern about those peoples the US is bombing, & unquestioning support for all wars.. Call it conspiracy thinking, but I think it’s a way media cooperates with government to minimize popular opposition to war.
The drama they play out constantly is Democrats versus Republicans as if the world revolved around that switch & bait operation when US war policy remains the same under either party.
Remember all the melodrama & crying like a baby Justin Trudeau did welcoming refugees? He was lauded as a real man of the people despite Canadian warships deployed to obstruct Syrian & other refugees crossing from Turkey to Greece. Now we hear Trump the racist ass modeled his anti-immigration policy on Canada & Australia’s elitist systems: professionals welcome; working stiffs need not apply.
(Photo is cry-on-demand Trudeau welcoming Syrian doctor)
Trump’s smug snotty-assed spokesman with the pointy snout claims the new immigration policy allowing only well-educated English speakers into the US is a way to protect low-paid US workers. He’s lying through his ass. This policy is anti-working class through & through, intended to undercut human solidarity & strengthen racism, xenophobia, competition in American workers at the expense of working class refugees.
If the Trump gang is concerned about US workers & low wages it can pull out of the sweatshop economy overseas, stop exploiting foreign workers & moving work overseas so it can be done by children & workers with no rights.
The Trump Justice Department is going to sue colleges over affirmative action because they claim it discriminates against whites. The essence of Trump’s politics is racism in all of its malignant forms. White people are favored in every single institution in every single way in this country. There is nothing wrong with being white but if you go along with this crap & refuse to condemn Trump in no uncertain terms, you are a white supremacist. Live with that ugly reality while people of good will mobilize to oppose his racist policies.
Trump’s new immigration rules will favor those with high skills & who can speak English. How do you spell E-L-I-T-I-S-T? Of course, by those standards, Trump isn’t eligible for a green card, & he fits the criminal disqualifiers too.
