According to my older sister in Minneapolis, a longtime activist now involved in protests demanding justice for George Floyd, there is some documentation that the first act of vandalism in Minneapolis was a middle-aged white guy all suited up with a gas mask who torched an auto parts store. When I was arrested, after being tear gassed, along with 90 others by the Minneapolis police in 2000 for peaceful protesting, I was put in a holding cell for several hours with about fifteen other arrestees. Their antipathy toward me was aggressive & I assumed that as an older protester they might suspect me of being an undercover cop. Later in all the legal proceedings, I learned that almost half of those arrested were undercover cops & in fact one of the witnesses at my trial was an undercover cop who testified that I engaged in illegal activity. All of them were in their twenties to fit in with the protesters. The antipathy toward me was analogous to being the only human at the vampire’s ball.
It’s not conspiratorial to suggest that the looting & vandalism going on is not just misdirected expression of political anger nor actions of a small criminal element but fomented by carefully placed undercover operatives. Most of the Black community are hard-working, law-abiding citizens, not vandals. It’s that cui bono thing. Who benefits from making the Black community look like lawless vandals rather than having justified outrage at the murder of George Floyd? The middle-aged white guy could just be a nut case or the police department could have chosen their personnel for this operation unwisely. But if I were a gambling woman, I would lay odds that undercover operatives are chockablock at the events today not just to impugn the protests but to keep peaceful protesters like my sister & her family away.

May 28, 2020

Kashmiri Mirza Saaib Beg highlighted this mind-boggling & insular comment by Indian liberal Vinayak Sankaranarayanan:
“In these times of difficulties for migrants, Hindu hating, India despising Kashmiris should understand that the vast majority of Indians neither are aware or care about whether India rules Kashmir or not. Migrant workers are the real oppressed & not the elitist, educated Kashmiris.”
Who but a halfwitted nationalist would counterpose the oppression of migrant workers in India to that of brutally occupied Kashmiris rather than recognize their commonality as victims of the same oppressors? This is another case of ‘they have eyes but see not’, as the bible puts it. Our man Vinayak has as much access to information about the occupation, the lockdown & telecommunications blockade, the economic plunder of Kashmir as someone in Texas or Toronto. The worst thing of all, other than his belligerent ignorance, is his expression of sociopathic indifference to the suffering of eight million people for over 72 years. Is he boasting that the vast majority of Indians are indifferent to the thousands of Kashmiris injured, killed, arrested, tortured, raped, forcibly disappeared, & that children grow up under lockdown & surrounded by jackboots? Does this jackass represent the ethos of Indian liberalism? No wonder there is no anti-colonial movement in India.
Stand with Kashmiris & demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir.
(Photo of Kashmiri children & Indian occupying soldier from Free Press Kashmir, October 2018)

Posted on May 28, 2020

Facebook censors covered the photo of the pellet gun victim & the Kashmiri man being run over by a military vehicle. But according to a a CBS News report, it allows organ traffickers to freely solicit refugees to sell their organs for the black market. Who is elaborating community standards for FB that its vision is so unbelievably warped?

Are we supposed to go all condemnatory about the looting & vandalism in Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd? I’m no anarchist & seriously don’t like property damage by protesters having had many political fights over my lifetime to keep protests peaceful. But I’ll be damned if I’ll join the chorus condemning the protesters until the outrage about fires & broken windows at the police precinct is drowned out by thunderous opposition to the murder of unarmed Blacks. Vandalism & looting are used by the powerless & politically unorganized as a substitute for political power. This is not a defense of lawlessness. It is support for a new civil rights movement that will preempt looting with Black political power.

The Bernie Sanders socialists & other so-called Marxists are lining up to vote for Howie Hawkins of the Green Party. Why won’t they vote for me, an avowed socialist, since I am also running for office? Is it because I’m always making fun of them for talking out of both sides of their ass?
It’s true that due to politics I’ve been unable to run a proper campaign but I have as good a chance of winning as Howie Hawkins.
Vote for Mary Scully who does not compromise on human rights.

https://www.facebook.com/maryscullyforpresident2020/

“As the killing machine decides to distribute roses, we remember the roses they crushed staining the roads crimson and the countless blossoming rosebuds (adde phael goulaab) we had to bury.”

–Tweeted by Kashmiri Uzma Falak (@Uzma_Falak)

(The photo, taken by Pulitzer winner Dar Yasin on June 1st, 2018, is a Kashmiri man shouting for help as an Indian military vehicle runs him over during a protest in Jamia Masjid, Srinagar. Three people were injured, one of them seriously, after they were hit & run over by military vehicles.)