An older man in Idlib is overwhelmed by nearly three months of Syrian & Russian carpet bombing, including with barrel bombs & incendiary weapons. The Assad dictatorship, its propagandists, & guppy cultists call him an “al-Qaeda affiliated Salafi-jihadi terrorist” for rising up against dictatorship to build a society fit for human beings to live & love in.
Stop the bombing of Idlib.
(Photo from Sy24 via journalist Asaad Hanna on Twitter)
Can someone explain to me the political value in US politics of using the term “neocon”? I know its etymology & political origins but just do not see its use value in understanding the wrenching move to the right in US politics under Trump. What am I missing? Or is there nothing to miss?
Will the journal Counterpunch, which has become a cesspool of Assadist writings, continue to publish the fascist droppings of Paul Craig Roberts now that he came out openly as a supporter of Hitler & a hateful Jewish genocide denier? Roberts’ role as whipped puppy to the Assad dictatorship never bothered the editors of Counterpunch so it’s an open question if they will still take this creep’s writings or consign him to Global Research & Mint Press where all Assad propagandists wind up when they’ve disgraced themselves beyond redemption. Blumenthal, Norton, & Khaled are popping out pod casts to salvage their careers after they hopped on the runaway train of the Islamophobic & anti-Semitic ‘war on terror’. There’s no political future in sucking up to dictators & genocide if you want to be part of ending war, occupation, genocide.
According to Roberts’ recent article titled “The Lies about WWII,” Hitler & the Nazi party are among the most ‘demonized entities’ in human history, “Hitler was a man of the people” who had nothing to do with the Nazi holocausts which Roberts claims were actually carried out by “German political administrators” & “Jewish Bolshevik administrators.” The death camps were just work camps though Roberts doesn ‘t explain why Jews, Roma, the disabled, homosexuals, socialists, were forced to live in them or why so many died in them. The crematoriums were only to ‘dispose’ of those who died from typhus or other diseases in those ‘work camps’, not to exterminate millions of Jews just for being Jewish, Roma just for being Roma, disabled just for being disabled, homosexuals just for being homosexual, or socialists just for opposing fascism.
This is a long investigation of Uyghur persecution by the Chinese government in East Turkistan (what the Chinese regime calls Xinjiang). Since the genocide is being justified or denied by Stalinists & Assadists with a fury, it’s important to understand the Uyghur point of view so that propaganda & genocide denial roll off our backs like water off a duck’s ass. The investigative reporter is Australian Sophie McNeill whose reporting on Syria has enflamed Assadists who call her a committed jihadist.
Not to be shallow, but it’s clear my Facebook friends are among the best looking on social media. Am I just a magnet for hotties or is the whole damn human race (with the exclusion of politicians) a good-looking lot?
“History will remember that the Regime/Russian criminality took mercy on nothing. Not a human being, a fledgling bird nor a rock on the ground….It is our hope that what will shine greater in the annals of history is the respect for life the White Helmets paid every living thing they encountered. Even motherless hatchlings give them a moment for pause & prayer.”
Photo from Kafriya Town, Idlib province, after Syrian airstrikes yesterday.
–Tweeted by the White Helmet rescue workers
How do you like Trump, dumb as a stump, telling two Black women, one Latina, & one Palestinian woman who are members of the US Congress to ‘go back’ to their ‘corrupt’ & “broken & crime infested” countries before “telling the people of the United States…how our government is to be run”? One of the women was born in Michigan, one in Massachusetts, one in New York. Only Ilhan Omar was born outside the US but is a war refugee from Somalia.
His racism & misogyny are only made more detestable by his stupidity & the low level of his nationalism & hatred.
In July 2014, as Israeli bombs rained down on Gaza, BDS activists waged an aggressive education campaign with American rapper Talib Kweli who was scheduled to perform at an Israeli musical festival in August along with other prominent rappers. Kweli honored BDS & canceled his participation though at the time he did not seem well informed about the Palestinian struggle. He is however a political thinker very much involved in the struggle against police violence in the Black community.
He became well-informed about the Palestinian struggle & by 2017 was debating BDS on social media with Remedy, a Jewish Zionist rapper also from NYC. This month, he was asked to renounce BDS in order to perform at the Open Source Festival in Düsseldorf & when he refused his tour of Germany was canceled. Since May 2019, an official statement passed by the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, declares BDS to be anti-Semitic. In response to being disinvited from the festival, Kweli said: “…what they’re saying is support for BDS is hate speech. Well, how? Show me on the BDS platform where there’s hate speech. You can’t, it’s not there, so let’s move to the next point. Are you saying that support for BDS is hate speech because you say that BDS supports Palestinian organizations that have committed terrorism? No, you can’t say that, either.”
In an interview, Kweli compared the pedagogical but aggressive treatment he received from BDS activists in 2014 to those he received from Zionists when he canceled the Israeli performance. He said, “The worst trolling I ever got in my life was when I canceled that Israel show. The Zionist trolls came at me….the pushback from the BDS & the supporters of Palestine that I got was…fierce. People were frustrated with me, people were upset with me, but for the most part, that community was respectful in their critique of me. It wasn’t any, “You’re a n*****, you’re a coon, you’re a monkey.” But when I canceled the Israel show in solidarity with BDS, I got called n*****, & monkey, & all types of sh*t from these Zionist trolls, & it immediately made me feel like I’d made the right decision.”
(Photo of Talib Kweli)
It’s worth reposting this beautiful tribute by Rollie Mukherjee to Kashmiri women’s leading role in the struggle for azaadi. Just a simple google search will show hundreds of photos of Kashmiri women protesting. They lead the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons. They play a leading role internationally in the campaign against sexual violence in war, occupation, & genocide. They are central to one of the most important freedom struggles of our times.
“this painting titled “unframed ‘histories’” depicts a Kashmiri woman with a mike. She is not a mute beautiful showpiece as represented quite often. She is a reminder of the horror & wounds they are made to exist with. She is a speaking agency, speaking aloud to the whole world & thus breaks the patterned “way of seeing” of the Indians. The kashmiri design in this painting acts as a trope for peace & unity on the one hand & on the other hand sneer at how its beauty is relished & their pains are cornered & erased.”
Turkish president Erdogan is a big talker when it comes to genocide, another master of the empty gesture. In 2015, an estimated 25,000 Rohingya refugees were turned away from asylum in Thailand & other countries & left to float in rickety boats in the Andaman Sea. Not a single navy sent a fleet to rescue them although Erdogan in one of his big-talking moments promised some Turkish naval boats. There’s no report that any Turkish boats ever showed up & still no accounting for the lives of thousands of Rohingya refugees. During the height of Burma’s 2017 genocidal assault on Rohingya Muslims in Arakan/Rakhine State–a genocide armed & politically supported by China–Erdogan did some more big talking & sent his wife for a media tour of Cox’s Bazar refugee camps. It’s not certain how much actual aid Turkey has ever delivered.
In February of this year, the Turkish government issued a statement calling China’s forcible “assimilation” & concentration camps for Uyghurs a “great shame for humanity.” On his recent state visit to China, Erdogan told Xi Jinping that Uyghurs are ‘living happily in Xinjiang’. Not even six months & our big talker goes from forcible assimilation in concentration camps to ‘living happily’ in concentration camps. What changed his mind? Realpolitik recognizes no principles, especially those of human rights. In truth, Erdogan heads a regime as repressive as the Chinese regime. His big talking does not express his commitments but the political expedience of the moment. Shame on his sorry ass.
(Photo of Erdogan meeting with Xi Jinping from SupChina)