The good thing about the little Toronto girl getting caught lying about a man taking a scissor to her hijab is that she learned young that lies have consequences. The president of the US doesn’t know that & he’s 70-something. Most importantly, the international response showed that outrage was on her side.

It turns out that the 11-year-old girl in Toronto who claimed a man bounced on her from behind & took a scissor to her hijab was making the story up. The little brother she was walking with probably ratted her out. The problem with false reports is that it makes people skeptical about other such incidents. But the girl was eleven & certainly had no idea her lie would set off international headlines. Good that it didn’t happen.

Actress Catherine Deneuve & over 100 other French women in entertainment, publishing, & academia have signed a public letter in Le Monde denouncing the #MeToo movement & its French counterpart, #Balancetonporc (Expose Your Pig). The letter titled “We defend the freedom to pester indispensable to sexual freedom” says it is a “rejection of a certain feminism that expresses a hatred of men.” There is no indication that any of the women have ever had any association with feminism but apparently most of them are “women of a certain age,” so media does not hesitate to associate them with 1960-1970s feminism. Among the signatories is Catherine Millet, a writer best known for a memoir graphically detailing her sex life who last month said she “really regretted not having been raped because I could have shown that you get over it”; Catherine Robbe-Grillet, the author of sadomasochistic writings; Brigitte Lahaie, a 1970s porn star turned talk-show host; & Deneuve who was a Playboy centerfold twice during the 1960s when nudity in film & porn was being shoved on actresses to promote their careers whether they liked it or not.

The deeply embarrassing letter has such a low political level that it could have been written by Huge Hefner or Harvey Weinstein because it mocks unwanted sexual advances, even on a subway, as just men trying to show affection & defends such aggression as “indispensable freedom to offend.” It also associates objection to sexual assault as censorious, puritanical & authoritarian. Since so many know-nothing anti-feminists have attempted to vilify 1960-1970s feminists as “sex-negative” blue-nosed prudes, it is beyond sarcasm that Henri Astier, the male journalist who wrote the BBC article, associates such libertine nonchalance about sexual aggression with older feminists & tries to distance them from younger feminists who he claims recognize sexual assault for what it is. What Astier shares with those who make such imputations against earlier feminism is complete idiocy & ignorance of what 1960s feminism stood for as well as the debates among feminists today about what “empowerment” means.

Let’s set the record straight: 1960-1970s feminism was part of the sexual revolution as part of the fight for reproductive rights which were illegal in most states & to oppose the massive sterilization programs of Black, Latino, Native American, & disabled women. Our work advanced healthcare for women & made inroads against the barbaric treatment of rape victims. We fought sexual harassment in the workplace & put the spotlight on sexual assault of children within the family, which until then had been a dirty little secret where the children were not believed. Freud glorified sexual assault of children as an Oedipal Complex–a masterpiece of blaming the victim. Feminists took that rubbish on head-first despite being vilified as old maids too ugly to get a man or man-hating lesbians.

Catherine Deneuve & the other signers of this French letter do not represent feminism of any generation. They are not standing for freedom of any kind but are groveling before the power of misogyny–maybe for personal problems but more likely to get published. It is not within the realm of possibility that none of these women know the indignities & terrors of sexual assault. There isn’t a woman alive who isn’t intimately familiar with sexual aggression. The letter is an antisocial piece of crap, a shameful capitulation to the hatred of women.

One more thing; there is a massive international effort to distance older feminists from younger feminists, to discredit the former & claim they have aged out of political relevance. This is not based on the politics of feminism–which are anyway very diverse–but on an attempt to shut down debate, vilify older women, including as racists, & divide & destroy the struggle against women’s oppression. The TERF & SWERF crap is part of that. This French letter is part of that. The only appropriate response is to shove such rubbish where the sun don’t shine. Shame on Catherine Deneuve & the other signers. What they need is a good dose of feminism to smarten their asses up.

(Photo is Deneuve by Maurizio Gambarini/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images)

This child is actually from Gaza during Israel’s 2014 carpet bombing siege that lasted seven weeks. It’s one of the least gruesome images of the 495 children killed in that offensive. I misidentified it as children from east Ghouta in Syria during Syria & Russia’s current bombing siege of civilians. It is profoundly sad that the little ones could be from any number of countries today facing war, occupation, or genocide.

When Assad propagandists justify Syrian & Russian carpet bombing of civilians in Idlib & eastern Ghouta to rout out mercenaries & “head-chopping jihadists,” keep in mind that these little kids are who they’re talking about.

Our demands must be that Syria, Russia, & the US-coalition stop the bombing of civilians & for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo from Nino Fezza)

It’s reported that yesterday Syrian & Russian bombers hit civilians in Douma with a chlorine gas attack. Several victims, including children, were treated for asphyxia.

It was estimated in July 2017 by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that nearly 20,000 children had been killed by Assad forces since 2011. Other estimates are as high as 50,000 children. That doesn’t include the several hundred children arrested, tortured, & murdered in Assad’s prisons or at schools used as detention centers. According to Syrian & international human rights groups, children have been targeted by Syrian & Russian forces. Since this mass murder is in the interest of Assad’s national sovereignty, it’s likely that when the debased antiwar movement led by ‘retired’ CIA, FBI, & former US military officers explain that to the families, they will understand the slaughter of their children is for the better good. When debased socialists come in with their Lenin quotes justifying Assad’s dictatorship, that will more than persuade those grieving parents that ‘all is well is this best of all possible worlds’.

The only principled demands are that Syria, Russia, & the US-coalition cease the bombing of civilians & for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military operations from Syria.

Photo is Syrian child in east Ghouta injured from Syrian & Russian bombing.

(Photo tweeted by Muhammed Najem)

Mosul, Iraq, “liberation” by bomber:

The US-coalition battle to retake Mosul from ISIS forces lasted from October 2016 to July 2017. No explanation has ever been given of who arms ISIS so that it can sustain control of cities or how those arms are delivered whilst the US is bombing cities under ISIS control. According to a 2017 US Pentagon report, over $1 billion of US arms has landed up in ISIS hands.

The US has never, in any war, made an accounting of civilians it has killed whilst ostensibly trying to liberate them by carpet bombing. Such an accounting would more than condemn the US for war crimes. But Iraqi civil defense authorities reported that 2,585 bodies of civilians were recovered from under rubble six months after ISIS forces had been routed from Mosul. That would explain why so many reporters spoke about the ‘smell of death’ that permeated Mosul after the “liberation.”

According to an Associated Press survey among Mosul’s gravediggers, morgue workers, & volunteers who retrieved bodies from the rubble, between 9,000 & 11,000 civilians were killed, mostly crushed to death, in the carpet bombing siege of Mosul. They have no idea how many hundreds remain buried in the rubble. The morgue estimates were over ten times higher than official death tolls by the Iraqi government & US-coalition forces.

The survey says it can’t be determined how many deaths each side was responsible for–whether civilians were killed & buried by US-coalition mortars, explosives, & carpet bombing or ISIS mortars & explosives. The question of where & how ISIS gets its weapons whilst being bombed becomes more imperative.

Photo is Mosul, Iraq being “liberated.”

US out of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Yemen.

(Photo by Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP)

Astonishing fact: there has been no reporting of any kind for months, in some cases years, about US wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, & relatively little about Iraq & Syria. There has been no reporting of any kind about the millions of refugees from the Mediterranean to the US southern border. News is all about Trump’s tweets, that stupid book, or the porn star.

If media reported appropriately on the struggles of Palestinians, Kashmiris, the Rohingya or the several barbaric US wars, there would be no need for me to post so many things every day. But US media is so caught up with Trump & the porn star that the rest of us have to fill the breach. If I trim out my protests about Trump the Lump, then I can decrease the amount I post & I will try–except for occasional outbursts of ridicule & contempt.