This is the 22nd anniversary of my younger brother Paul’s suicide at the age of forty. This photo of him from grade school is before he was stigmatized as “retarded” & socialized into a debilitating sense of social inferiority. The term retarded & all derivatives from it (like retard & fucktard) are now considered insults & those with learning difficulties actively campaign against their use.
Paul’s life & death are a tragic testimony to the social character of most suicides when people are taught to hate themselves for what they are. That’s why suicides are sky high among the oppressed. He was a wonderful person. May he Rest In Peace.
A video about Parveena Ahangar, a Kashmiri human rights activist who has led campaigns against forcible disappearances of Kashmiris by Indian occupying forces. She began her work after her own son was disappeared. She has never found him.
Just a little background on John Cornyn, the second Texas US senator who met Trump & Cruz at the US southern border today: in 2014, he & a local US congressman Henry Cuellar campaigned to deport (without offering asylum) unaccompanied refugee children coming across the border by the thousands. They monstrously associated the children with prostitution & drug trafficking.
When they held a press conference here to promote mass deportation of the kids, many Latinos who looked like they might be protesters were prevented from entering the room. Using the old white lady card, I pretended to be press & when it came time for questions took a chance to challenge them. They blithered in response since malice, much more than intelligence, is the sine qua non of US politicians.
This video is the press conference. If you go to 12:30 you can hear me challenging the two nimrods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Photos of protest on Thursday, January 10th, in McAllen, Texas against the Trump wall. The protest was near the airport since he was flying in to grandstand at the wall with senators Cruz & Cronyn. We outnumbered the pro-wall protesters by at least four to one. Near end of album, you can see Trump’s plane landing with his press & security entourage.
This makes the role of Kashmiri solidarity activists all the more important. Since Kashmiris have so brilliantly used social media to educate about their struggle, they will be under even more constant surveillance & censorship to prevent the growth of solidarity. After Kashmiris on social media made the use of pellet guns & hunt to kill operations so notorious, regular media was compelled to report about them & the Indian occupation came in for some drubbing. Without Kashmiri activists as an essential source functioning as a source of information & conscience, media attention will disappear. Kashmiris have to know we have their backs as they continue their struggle for azaadi, with or without media attention & even sustaining censorship.
Since The NY Times is so ardently pro-Israel & has some of the most detestable reporting about it, it’s unclear why it would do such a forensic analysis of the execution of Palestinian medic Rouzan al-Najjar at the Great Return March last June. The likely explanation is that it’s playing the loyal opposition, signaling to Israel to tone down the excesses of genocide so as not to undercut the narrative of Israeli victimhood against Palestinian terrorism. Note how the video subtlety justifies Israeli aggression against Palestinians. Perhaps not so much subtlety as detestably.
The video ends with the Israeli general saying “accidents happen” about the sniper execution of Rouzan al-Najjar. But what about the hundreds of other unarmed Palestinians killed & thousands injured & disabled by Israeli snipers & bombers? Genocide is not an accident. It is Israeli policy & the political logic of Zionism
Facebook archives reminds me that on January 8th, 2018, a Bangladeshi court upheld a ruling by the Sheikh Hasina government banning Bangladeshi citizens from marrying Rohingya refugees–a ruling intended to prevent refugees from acquiring citizenship through marriage, as if love didn’t happen between Bangladeshis & Rohingyas.
