My apologies to Muslim & Kashmiri friends for not always catching the hateful rants of half-baked nationalists. I delete & block them since you should not be subjected to such rot & we have nothing to learn from hate. Plus they’re mostly real psycho & irrational & I can’t offer services for the criminally insane here.

It is necessary to respond to Stalinist attacks on the Hong Kong protests drawing crowds from 400,000 to 1.7 million. It should surprise no one that the same political hacks who denounce popular protests in Nicaragua, Venezuela, & Russia, support the Assad regime & bombing of civilians, deny the Uyghur & Rohingya genocides, support Duterte’s vigilante war on the poor, are now denouncing the Hong Kong protests as “an attack on socialism.” They’ve been denouncing them since the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests.

One of the main demands of the Hong Kong movement is opposition to China’s Extradition Law where those charged with a crime can be extradited to, prosecuted & jailed in mainland China. Stalinists support the Extradition Law, presenting it as a law where accused rapists, murderers, robbers, & other common criminals would be prosecuted on the mainland. For what reason they would have to be prosecuted hundreds of miles from the scene of the crimes is not elaborated. In fact, those China would be extraditing are political activists from the 2014 protests; those who protest & demand justice for the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989; those who annually honor labor organizer & dissident Li Wangyang who was jailed for 21 years of hard labor, torture, & solitary confinement, charged with ‘counterrevolutionary propaganda, incitement, & subversion’ for supporting the Tiananmen Square movement. During imprisonment, he lost his sight & hearing from torture & was released to a hospital for treatment of diabetes & heart disease. Although unable to stand on his own, he was found hanged in his hospital room which Chinese officials declared a suicide. He was an extraordinary man & should be honored. But Hong Kong protesters who honor him every year & demand justice would be arrested, extradited, & prosecuted in mainland China where they would face the same fate Li Wangyang did. Let’s be clear. It isn’t that Stalinists are obtuse & really believe common criminals are the target here. It’s that their politics support political repression, gulags, mass murder of dissidents.

As for that rubbish about the protests being “an attack on socialism”? Let me just say that if the people of Hong Kong do not like the kind of socialism that China is–the sweatshop, child labor, Uyghur genocide, Tibet occupation, neoliberal plunder of Africa, politically repressive, gulag, environmentally reckless, working people living in dog kennels kind of socialism–then they are exactly the kind of socialists that the world needs, especially in contrast to the thugs that lead the Chinese Communist Party. But even if the protesters do not want any kind of socialism, they have a right to protest for that point of view whether Stalinist hacks like Freedom Road Socialists, Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton think they do or not.
Photo of Hong Kong protest today estimated at 1.7 million.

(Photo by Apple Daily)

#MyPalestinianSitty hashtag is trending on Twitter in honor of US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s grandmother Sitty Muftiya. Hundreds are posting photos of their own Palestinian grandmothers, many who are older than the colonial settler state of Israel. If you’re on Twitter, it’s worth checking out

This child is one of several killed by Syrian & Russian bombers last Friday in Idlib. The work of Kashmiri activists on social media, including expressing solidarity with the Syrian Arab Spring, generated the emergent international solidarity movement that will help stay the aggression of the Indian government. There has been no such movement for the Syrian Arab Spring because of the corruption of antiwar & progressive forces who instead used social media to support the Assad dictatorship & the bombing of civilians. This is a political catastrophe & betrayal of epic proportions.

As we stand with Kashmiris, they would not want us to be silent on the suffering & struggles of the Syrian, Palestinian, Rohingya, Uyghur, Yemeni, Afghan, Iraqi, & Somali people.

We demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir & the immediate release of all political prisoners. We demand the immediate cessation of bombing & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign forces from Syria & the immediate release of all political prisoners.

(Sketch from an eyewitness photo by artist Marc Nelson)

Fascist propagandist Eva Bartlett returned from Russia claiming “I did not see police brutality” against protesters. Actually, there has long been considerable video & photographic evidence of Russian police violence against protesters, including while she was there. Since Bartlett supports Russian bombing of Syria, including the murderous campaign in Idlib right now, she would not be the one to judge what constitutes violence against unarmed civilians or protesters.

Through Modi’s Twitter & FB walls titled “PMO India: Report Card,” the National Investigative Agency (NIA) of the Indian government is requesting “If you come across any social media post in any group, page, handle or wall containing propaganda, hatred for India or its Army on the issue of Kashmir or any other topic you may report to NIA.” & they attach a link to the NIA report form.

India, which calls itself the largest democracy, is turning fascist right before our eyes. Hundreds of thousands of Indians agree so anyone is free to report me for saying so.