My mother was a deeply political person & just as deeply conservative until the day she died at 87. She took to the McCarthy witch-hunt with a vengeance, seeing pinkos & reds everywhere, even in the weather reporter. She was by no means a stupid woman; she was well informed from a rightwing point of view. But behind her views was a rock-solid edifice of misanthropy. She liked people–she wasn’t a hater–but was disappointed in the human race.

Misanthropy, distrust, disappointment, & paranoia are so evident when you read the stuff pumped out by Islamophobes, anti-Semites, libertarians, Assad & Putin supporters, rightwing nationalists, fascists. It’s the very basis of white supremacism, racism, misogyny. You can’t build movements for social justice if you don’t believe in the human race, if you don’t think humanity is worth fighting for & with. If your commitment falters, keep your eyes on the kids & you won’t go wrong.

Rohingya solidarity rally in Jakarta, Indonesia on September 4th. This photo accompanied one of the countless articles describing the political eclipse of Aung San Suu Kyi’s reputation as a human rights champion. There is a petition with thousands of signers demanding she be stripped of her Nobel Peace Prize. Why dignify a prize won by Henry Kissinger & countless other war criminals? Let her keep the damn thing.

Exposing her human rights crimes as a front for genocide is part of standing in solidarity with the Rohingya people in their struggle for full human, democratic, civil, & refugee rights.

(Photo by Darren Whiteside/Reuters)

For some, anyone opposing war, occupation, genocide while being Muslim or having brown skin = Al Qaeda or ISIS. As in Syria & Kashmir, so in Burma.

“Replace the words “crusades” & “Cold War” with anti-“Terrorism”. You get the manufactured paranoia & ruling class delusions.

–tweeted by Maung Zarni @drzarni, Burmese Buddhist activist & dissident in exile

Like a forensics investigator, I went hunting down those fake photos that Aung San Suu Kyi is denouncing with such hauteur. All I found was documentation of human rights crimes in Burma, Syria, Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq. What’s fake is that I found none from Afghanistan after 16 years of human rights crimes.

Rohingya solidarity protest in Pakistan (top photo) & in Halabja, Southern Kurdistan (bottom photo). There have been protests in Kashmir, Moscow, Chechnya, Los Angeles, Ireland, Indonesia, Germany, London, & elsewhere.
(Photos from Documenting Oppression Against Muslims DOAM)

Rohingya solidarity protest in Pakistan (top photo) & in Halabja, Southern Kurdistan (bottom photo). There have been protests in Kashmir, Moscow, Chechnya, Los Angeles, Ireland, Indonesia, Germany, London, & elsewhere.

(Photos from Documenting Oppression Against Muslims DOAM)

Solidarity rally at Burmese embassy in London

(Photo by Ro Nay San Lwin)

This photo so simply & so powerfully captures the exhaustion of a mother after she & her little girl crossed the border into Bangladesh. Not just physical exhaustion but emotional depletion & trauma from the nightmare they have lived through, fled from, & survived.

Our deepest sympathy & fullest solidarity.

(Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

There are many photos of Rohingya men, young & old, carrying their mothers, presumably for days, & certainly endangering themselves by being slowed & weighted down. Such is the glory of the human being even in the worst of circumstances.

Stop the genocide against the Rohingya people. Full solidarity with their struggle for human, democratic, civil, & refugee rights.

(Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

Aung San Suu Kyi is trying to get some mileage out of the fake photo claim. But how does she explain why, according to MSF/Doctors Without Borders, 146,000 Rohingya have now streamed into Bangladesh arriving extremely traumatized & with violence-related injuries?

The MSF mission head in Bangladesh said, “We’ve not had something on this scale here in many years.”

Nidal Ezeddin, board member of White Helmets, with members of Irish Syria Solidarity Movement after White Helmets receive Tipperary Peace Prize.

Never been prouder to have ancestors from Tipperary.