Anyone else remember the days when women reporters were censured & publicly excoriated for participating in women’s rights, especially abortion rights, marches? Now they’re boasting of their activist days.

Just to set the record straight when the Trump crowd led by Fox News claim undocumented immigrants have a high violent crime rate: several studies done by reputable research organizations going back 100 years prove conclusively that the crime rate of immigrants is significantly less than that of native-born US citizens.

While on his state visit to India, Netanyahu made sure to suck up to Bollywood, knowing how vital Hollywood has been to fostering Exodus mythology & vilifying Palestinians & Arabs in general in the most racist stereotypes. One satirized moment is when the Netanyahus posed for selfies with Bollywood actors. This collage is a brilliant mockery of that agitprop moment. The photoshopped backdrops are of course Palestinian children killed by Israeli bombing & the last one of the young boy manhandled & arrested by Israeli occupying soldiers.

(Tweeted by Aasif Shafi)

A little Kashmiri girl & an Indian occupying soldier: a picture worth a thousand lies. What concerns Indian Army General Bipin Rawat is not nuclear & chemical weapons falling into the hands of Kashmiri terrorists but the resistance of children, teens, & adults to occupation & their demand for self-determination. The Indian government has a monopoly on weaponry but it still cannot control the demand for freedom.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Photo from Sabzar Ahmad Mir)

This is a very moving story by Kashmiri Faizan Bashir about not being defeated by adversity. Writ large, it can also be applied to the forging of determined international solidarity.

https://kashmirreader.com/2018/01/19/hope-and-determination-amidst-adversity/

This is Indian Army General Bipin Rawat speaking at the Raisina Dialogue conference in New Delhi about nuclear & chemical weapons falling into the hands of terrorists in Kashmir & about shutting down the internet so the rest of the world doesn’t know the extremes of violence India is using against unarmed civilians.

He looks somewhat demented in this screenshot from his speech but it is apparently a reflection of his persona whose corruption goes all the way to his stone-cold heart. At some point, even posthumously, he will have to be prosecuted for his monstrous human rights crimes in Kashmir.

This is Modi, Sara Netanyahu, & Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj feigning rapture at the inaugural address given by Netanyahu to the Raisina Dialogue conference in New Delhi. It was 20 minutes of excruciating banalities spoken in Netanyahu’s white noise monotone oratorical style. But the guy didn’t go to India for six days just to give a narcotic speech to a bunch of technocrats. When Modi initiated the Raisina conference in 2016 as an international geopolitical forum it was attended by 120 delegates from 40 countries. This third year, it had 150 speakers & over 550 delegates from 90 countries. Speakers & delegates were top Indian government officials; scientists & think tank operatives from Europe, Asia, the US; top military officials, including Indian Army General Bipin Rawat, the commander of the US Pacific Command, & the Joint Forces Commander of the UK, along with other top military officials & politicians. Judging by the Twitter posts of the Raisina Dialogue, FB was all over the place at the conference.

The only thing of substance that Netanyahu said in his speech is his boast of Israel’s growing stature in the world because of increased political, economic, trade, military, & cultural relations with several countries. Israel is still fundamentally a colony whose existence is based on militarism & ethnic cleansing. The Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions movement is having a profound destabilizing impact on Israel & undermining its legitimacy so deepening the connections to countries like India, China, & Russia are critical to its survival. And of course, Israel & India also share military affinities when it comes to occupation & controlling & breaking the political will for self-determination shared by Palestinians & Kashmiris.

This Raisina Dialogue conference is a scary operation because it shows the alliance & confluence of international forces & their determination to exert control, particularly over Palestine & Kashmir. General Bipin Rawat was one of the keynote speakers on the issue of terrorism where his remarks were very threatening to Kashmiris, not just militarily but on the issue of social media & snapping the internet.

We can be daunted by this show of military muscle by these 90 governments or we can respond by forging solid bonds of active solidarity, come hell or high water, with those fighting war, occupation, genocide. The future of humanity depends on our choice.

(Photo is screenshot from Netanyahu’s speech)

What remarkable dissonance that Chelsea Manning has chosen to run for the US Senate as a Democrat. So admirable as a dissident; so otherwise conformist.

Posted to show the level of political discourse employed in defense of Assad’s national sovereignty & his secular right to torture & hang political prisoners, forcibly disappear political dissidents, bomb & gas Syrian civilians. This was posted on an Assad supporter’s wall after he called me a “dirty whore” on one of my posts about Assad. The political rancidity of Assadism speaks for itself. The only thing they’re packing in defense of tyranny is hate & amorality.

There will be hundreds of thousands of women marching today & tomorrow across the US & in countries on every continent for the Women’s March 2018. Last year, between three & four million women marched on every continent raising countless specific demands related to the struggle for women’s rights. Since the organizers of the events in the US are associated with the Democratic Party, including Linda Sarsour, they have again raised no specific political demands but have titled the march “Power to the Polls” & focused the US marches on getting women to register to vote for one of the two bankrupt major parties.

No one owns those women’s marches & no one can suppress the voices of those who think the electoral arena too corrupt & constrained to address women’s oppression. No one can stop protesters from showing up in contingents with placards raising concrete demands against war, occupation, genocide–even specifically addressing Palestinians, Kashmiris, Rohingya, Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis– along with demands for women’s reproductive freedom, against impunity for sexual assault, for immigrant & refugee rights–all of which are women’s issues.

This is our movement & the Democratic Party has no rights to determine or limit its political focus–even in the US. The movement dictates to government & politicians; not the other way around.

This is a list of US protests: https://www.facebook.com/pg/womensmarchonnyc/events/

This is a list of international marches: https://www.womensmarch.com/sisters/

(Photo is Women’s March 2017)