A top officer in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF)–counterinsurgency troops who are part of the occupying army in Kashmir–said today that the force was fully prepared to meet any challenge. That’s more than evident from the arsenal this soldier is carrying on the way to a hunt to kill operation. The officer added that “There is a need to change the mentality of youth.” By shooting rockets at them?
End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.
(Photo by Basit Zargar)
These are family members of Kashmiri prisoners sustaining torture in Tihar jail near New Delhi. They are protesting in Srinagar against the torture, demanding their loved ones be shifted to prisons in Kashmir, & calling on international human rights groups to act on behalf of Kashmiri prisoners in Indian jails.
Tihar jail claims it is an avant-garde prison facility using yoga, meditation, & spiritual practices to rehabilitate prisoners but for Kashmiris it is a torture center of the Abu Ghraib/Guantanamo kind. It probably isn’t much better for Indian prisoners.
Stop the torture. Send the prisoners home. End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.
(Photo from Rising Kashmir)
“Even birds die under the bombing”
Said by one of these little girls examining a bird killed in the several week bombing siege of Ghouta, Syria.
An estimated 400,000 civilians have been under siege by Syrian bombers for over four years in an attempt to break the revolution. Earlier this year, Russia, Syria, Iran, & Turkey designated Ghouta as one of the four de-escalation zones but Syria resumed bombing last month, including with cluster bombs. Bombers have targeted water supplies & medical facilities & prevent the delivery of humanitarian aid. This is causing mass starvation, malnutrition, & death from preventable diseases, especially among children. Amnesty International has called this Syrian policy “surrender or starve.”
According to one Amnesty official: “While the Syrian government’s stated aim has been to vanquish opposition fighters, its cynical use of ‘surrender or starve’ tactics has involved a devastating combination of sieges & bombardments. These have been part of a systematic, as well as widespread, attack on civilians that amounts to crimes against humanity.”
This is the full Amnesty report on Syria’s “surrender or starve” tactic to destroy the revolution against Assad’s dictatorship: file:///Users/user/Downloads/MDE2473092017ENGLISH.pdf
(Screen shot from video tweeted by Noor And Alaa @Noor_and_Alaa)
Trump is going after the FBI on Twitter. Finally that ass got something right. The FBI is an agency which spies & denies democratic rights though that is not Trump’s objection to them. In 2000, the FBI falsely accused me of using a Weapon of Mass Destruction, making it impossible for me to work many jobs–though they never questioned, arrested, or prosecuted me for using an WMD. In fact, I have never used any kind of weapon, if you exclude a sharp tongue. The FBI agent who authorized this charge on my criminal record is Coleen Rowley, now a leading figure in the US antiwar movement, an ardent supporter of Assad’s dictatorship & defender of Putin.
If we’re lucky, before Trump is bounced or fakes a cardiac event so he can get back to Mar-a-Lago, he’ll have discredited every agency of the corrupt US government.
A mourner at the funeral prayers for Mahmoud Odeh, the 48-year-old Palestinian farmer fatally shot by an illegal Israeli settler while he was cultivating his land in Qusra in the occupied West Bank.
Support Palestinians against colonialism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing by honoring & promoting the economic & cultural boycott of Israel (BDS). Buy nothing with barcode beginning 729 & check the label of every product. Attempts to outlaw BDS in Israel & around the world speak to its negative impact on apartheid Israel.
(Photo from Eman Qasim on Twitter)
Pope Francis thinks his trip to Burma was a diplomatic tour de force. Suu Kyi & the Burmese generals could not agree more. Those who don’t mistake cowardice for diplomacy think his visit legitimized a fascist military regime & colluded to deny genocide. There will be those parsing his kind of diplomacy to prove it moved democracy forward in Burma, as he claims. They will claim his patronizing gesture toward a small delegation of Rohingya refugees in Dhaka showed his love for suffering humanity. How about calling it what it is? Stinking mendacity & collaboration with the Burmese military at the expense of the Rohingya people. Belated mea culpas don’t cut it. Not when you consider what his support for the Rohingya people could have done to build solidarity.
Photo is little Rohingya kids around a bonfire in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar.
(Photo by Susana Vera/Reuters)
Alice Walker, the author of “The Color Purple”, is praised & often asked to speak because of her support for Palestinians despite her public, unapologetic association with David Icke & his anti-Semitic political ideas. Icke believes the world is run by extraterrestrial reptiles incarnated as Jewish bankers called the Illuminati. Apparently Walker agrees with that rubbish. To my mind, Palestinian solidarity should disassociate from Walker just as it does from David Duke, the KKK white supremacist who publishes videos supporting Palestine. He is motivated solely by hatred for Jews. We don’t know what Walker’s problem is but it doesn’t matter. She compromises Palestinian solidarity with the political syphilis of anti-Semitism. She should be told to take a hike until she severs her relations with Icke, his hatred for Jews, & his association with fascism.
A distinct snobbery more than evident on social media is that academics, including socialist academics, only participate in discussions with other academics or prestigious people. They don’t lower themselves to discussion with lesser beings who don’t have advanced degrees. Activists & working people in general have great respect for intellectuals who contribute understanding to our struggles. But it’s not a respect that goes both ways. That dislocation between academics & activists is central to the crisis in transformational politics today & speaks to the alienation of academics from actual political struggle. If you don’t respect the actual struggles of working people, how can you make any useful theoretical contributions? More importantly, what’s the point of your politics?
“Muslim attacks four British youth.”
Fake news?
(Tweeted by Michael Tisserand)
A Texas school called police to accuse a 6-year-old Muslim boy with Down Syndrome of being a terrorist. A substitute teacher reported to the principal that little Mohammad, who cannot speak, said “Allah” & “boom boom boom.” This prompted a police investigation & child protective services were called in. The father, who is not taking this lying down, said his family has been turned upside down because of this. This is not the first instance of a Muslim school child being called a terrorist. It should be considered child abuse & the school, police, & child protective authorities involved should be prosecuted.