International Women’s Day came out of the socialist movement & women’s unions. The first march organized by the Socialist Party was of women garment workers in NYC in 1908 but socialist women then organized to take it international. Whether or not you like socialism, that history cannot be denied. But that’s also why it went moribund in the US until the women’s movement of the 1970s resurrected it.

The UN did not make it one of their special ceremonial days in 1977 to maintain the radical history or it’s association with social struggle but to preempt that & turn it into something sentimental, more like Valentine’s Day. Actually the UN & US government (often in the person of Hillary Clinton) continue to wrestle the feminist agenda out of radical & activist hands to make it a ceremonial & ineffectual thing with no relationship to women’s lives except in rhetoric.

The scale of economic, social, sexual, political violence against women around the world is more than most minds can take in with equilibrium. “Discrimination” is too paltry a word to describe the barbarism. The neoliberal elite, whose interests the UN brokers, are dependent on racist & misogynist barbarisms to operate modern capitalism. The whole damn monstrosity would collapse without those twin pillars of social hatred & inequality. That’s why they worked so hard to railroad the women’s movement (& the civil rights movement) into the Democratic Party which has no affinity with social struggle & justice. It’s why they started holding international conferences of elite women & excluding activists which try to make women’s reproductive freedom a population control/eugenics issue. It’s why the UN & regimes around the world try to turn International Women’s Day into a love fest rather than a declaration of war against misogynist policies & practices.

In China, that was played out in the most dramatic way when the regime just arrested five women’s rights activists for organizing a protest against sexual harassment on public transportation but allowed a troupe of belly dancers to celebrate it in Taiyuan. No one objects to cultural celebrations of the day; feminists made that part & parcel of the event because the day is about women’s contributions as well as a political campaign. But pulling a switcheroo to make it cultural & repress the political is an outrageous maneuver.

The US military in Afghanistan, who claim they’re occupying & bombing to liberate women, held the most malignant ceremony in Kandahar province with US-trained Afghan women border police (who to their credit looked miserable) & US women soldiers standing at attention. Presumably they all had their nails done by that salon in Kabul which is the hallmark of emancipation US-style.
Women’s rights activists don’t do well standing at attention. It’s not the style that suits rebellion against violence & injustice. Thank heavens there were protests all over the world organized by women & their character was political because our problems are massive.

This is a photo of Palestinian women holding an International Women’s Day rally (on March 7th) at the Qalandiya checkpoint of the apartheid wall (in the West Bank near Ramallah). Israeli border police are assaulting them with pepper spray, just as they did at the same event last year. That is the real face of UN & US attitudes toward International Women’s Day.

(Photo by Mohamad Torokman/Reuters)

This photo isn’t dated but it’s from the early Civil Rights Movement in Montgomery, Alabama where the 1955 bus boycott against Jim Crow (the US form of apartheid) launched that historic struggle which continues to inspire millions around the world.

Activists here are distributing helmets after an assault on protesters by a “mounted posse.” These so-called posses weren’t vigilantes but were deputized thugs, often including members of the KKK.
This photo resonates with millions of protesters around the world today who come to protests equipped with gas masks & use metal barriers against barbaric attempts to curtail the democratic right to oppose tyranny.

(Photo by Dan Budnik/Contact Press Images)

Today on International Women’s Day, we honor the legions of women who have always led social resistance against injustice & tyranny but are written out of the histories. Since this is the 50th anniversary of the historic civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, we should recognize & honor the role of women in organizing the US Civil Rights Movement.

These are the church women of the Mt. Zion Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Montgomery, Alabama who organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 against the policy of segregation on public transportation. It began in December 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to cede her seat to a white person & ended in December 1956 when the Supreme Court ruled segregated buses unconstitutional.

Parks & these church women helped coordinate transportation for boycotters, spoke to meetings, handed out flyers, & used the phone in the days before social media to build what became the Civil Rights Movement. When Parks left Montgomery for Detroit because of continuing harassment, the church women celebrated her contribution.

During the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965, marchers were given respite at the church on their way to the rally at the state capitol on March 25th. The church building, now part of historic heritage, is decorated with murals depicting Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, & the Selma to Montgomery marches.

What should also be acknowledged is that the political strength of these women inspired many activists to build the women’s movement. Feminism is often ignorantly chastised as a racist movement for excluding Black women. But Black civil rights activists sure as hell didn’t need remedial education by white women to join the struggle against female oppression, just as they had organized the struggle against white supremacy. One could say they wrote the book.

Our deepest respect to the women who played a central role in civil rights & receive so little of the accolades. We celebrate them today.

(Photo by Dan Budnik/Contact Press Images)

This man is one of thousands of unknown civil rights activists. Outside of this spread in the March 19th, 1965 issue of Life Magazine, little is known about him. The caption says his name is Freddie Bennett who turned up for the second Selma march on March 9th with bandages from being beaten in the first march on March 7th.

We should take a moment to honor him & the thousands of activists who were beaten & sometimes murdered but whose fearlessness & determination ended Jim Crow (US apartheid), changed the US profoundly, & inspired freedom movements around the world–in Northern Ireland, India, & African countries, & also the feminist movement.

Our deepest respect for their contribution to the cause of human freedom & social transformation.

Children were an active & vital part of the US Civil Rights Movement but they were also often the target of racist hatred–particularly in the violent struggles around school desegregation.

Every new generation of Black children poses a problem for white supremacy since they must be socialized to accept inferior social status. Very often children accept that degradation least of all & rebel in many different ways.

This is 10-year-old Quintella Harrell (center) demonstrating with other students in front of the county courthouse in Selma, Alabama at the time of the historic Selma marches in 1965. Fifty years later, when interviewed, Dr. Quintella Harrell said, “We heard there was a possibility that things could get better, that we could go to better schools. We shared that vision.” In 1967 she became one of six Black 10th graders in the first integrated high school class in Selma.

(Photo by Dan Budnik/Contact Press Images)

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first of three historic Selma, Alabama marches in 1965 as part of the voting rights movement for disenfranchised Blacks & the broader civil rights movement. Activists planned on walking the 54-mile highway to Montgomery, the Alabama state capital, but George Wallace, the rabid segregationist governor of Alabama denounced the march as a threat to public safety & said he would take all measures to stop it.

The first march which began March 7th is nicknamed “Bloody Sunday” after the 600 unarmed marchers were attacked at the Edmund Pettus bridge as they were leaving Selma. State troopers & a posse deputized that morning by the county sheriff (made up of all white males in the county, including members of the KKK) attacked the marchers with billy clubs, tear gas, & mounted police.

The second attempt, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., was on March 9th with about 2,500 people but because they were under a court order not to march, they stopped at the bridge leaving town where the first protest was assaulted & turned back.

The third attempt, also led by MLK, Jr., began in Selma on March 21st with 8,000 activists from around the country. A federal judge had ruled that the Bill of Rights could not be denied Blacks by the state of Alabama & protection along the route by federal & military troops was pledged by then president Lyndon Johnson. By the time the march arrived in Montgomery on March 25th, there were 25,000 protesters demanding Black voting rights.

Photo is Selma marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge where they were first attacked by state cops & the county posse. It’s the cover of Life Magazine which included a spread on the march.

I’m not one for using language like “scum” to describe even the worst political lowlifes (like Dershowitz, the Clintons, & Netanpsycho), war criminals (the list is too long to itemize), or child & women traffickers (again, like Dershowitz & maybe Clinton). I object to it not because they deserve a more elevated description for what they are, because they don’t, but because it dehumanizes & substitutes epithet for analysis. It’s no longer just an epithet but an alibi for unspeakable criminality. A dirt-ball just can’t help themselves. But those creeps can.

Many prefer the more direct route to excoriation, which works when you’re preaching to the choir, but not with others who are critical-minded & need analyses. For the latter, it’s better to lay out the brief against them & let their crimes indict & hang them in the annals of politics & history.

My objection is not from a dispassionate regard of their crimes (I can hardly bear to think about them) but a desire to nail them for their crimes. We can’t control if they go to hell but we can shame them for the suffering they’ve imposed on so many.

These Israeli soldiers are in the West Bank city of Hebron taking photos “during clashes with Palestinian stone-throwers.” If you didn’t know the score & just relied on media, you’d think Palestinians frequently erupted into bouts of senseless stone-throwing & the Israeli military had to occupy these uncivilized barbarians & beat them back with tear gas & high-powered rifles.

Could it be the Palestinians they’re taking surveillance photos of (they certainly aren’t taking selfies) are again protesting the occupation of Hebron; the closure of Shuhada Street, an important market center closed to all Palestinian pedestrian & vehicular access since 2000; the attempts to claim the city as a historic holy site in Judaism based on Zionist fairy tales?

There are 250,000 Palestinian residents with historic & familial roots in Hebron & somewhere between 500 & 850 Zionist settlers from all over Kingdom Come speaking different languages. And still Israel’s godless leaders claim Jewish history in Hebron goes back to the Old Testament written somewhere around the 2nd century BCE. You have to have rocks in your head to make such a claim. And even bigger rocks to believe them.

Israeli president Reuven Rivlin visited Hebron last month for a ceremony at the “Hebron Heritage Museum” trying to establish that Biblical claim as something other than nonsense. If the claim has even a shred of validity, Americans of Irish ancestry can lay claim to the Rhineland from whence our ancestors came.

The museum is also to commemorate Jews massacred in Hebron in 1929. Zionists completely misrepresent that horrific event to make Palestinians seem like savages when it was a result of Zionist colonization that intentionally fomented conflict between Jews & Palestinians who long lived in the area in harmony. Descendants of the Hebron Jews who lost family in that violence have publicly repudiated Zionist claims & have described how Jews were sheltered & rescued by Muslim neighbors.

There was a more recent massacre in 1994 when the American settler Baruch Goldstein, a fevered Zionist, murdered 29 Palestinian men & boys praying at the Ibrahimi Mosque, a site which Zionist myth-makers claim is the burial site of Biblical patriarchs. Yeah sure.

Palestinians greeted Rivlin, not with rocks, but with placards saying “Rivlin is not welcome,” “No occupation,” & “Open Shuhada Street.”

And now we know, by Obama’s own admission in a recent press release, that his regime is bankrolling this myth-making apparatus & settler project. He stated forthrightly (something we’re not accustomed to from him) that the US donated $140 million to transport Zionist immigrants to Israel. The money is used for transportation, transitional housing when they arrive, & Hebrew language programs. So all that hand-wringing over Israeli settlements for the credulous media is nothing but show.

Please note the graffiti on the stone: “Welcome to apartheid.”

(Photo by Mussa Qawasma/Reuters)

Some peoples deserve a special place in history because of their refusal to be broken even when it looks like they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. Their political spirit is something to behold. Those peoples would certainly include Palestinians & Haitians–though many others come to mind. Protests in Haiti have been going on for three months to bring down the corrupt, venal regime of Michel Martelly who has been ruling by decree since January after parliament was dissolved.

Sweet Micky, as he used to be known, was a pop singer who often performed in diapers & ran a nightclub patronized by army officers & members of Haiti’s ruling elite. He wasn’t just another party animal though; in his youth he was a member of the Tonton Macoutes, a death squad under dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier who was responsible for the death & torture of thousands of Haitians & who made his money in trafficking drugs & body parts from dead Haitians–thereby turning his monstrous crimes into a profitable enterprise.

Micky was closely identified with the 1991 military coup that ousted democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide & he socialized with members of FRAPH, a paramilitary death squad orchestrated by the CIA against the Aristide regime & who engaged in gang rapes & murder.

The Obama regime spent nearly $15 million to get Micky elected in 2010 & he received another $6 million from an anonymous donor in Florida–& still it required massive election fraud to get him elected. But where there’s a will, there’s palms to grease or threats to make. Hillary Clinton herself flew to Haiti to ensure Martelly came out top dog in all the wrangling over fraud. Martelly refuses to say who funded his campaign since he may need US special forces to evacuate him some day.

To show their commitment to popular democracy, the UN occupying army in Haiti & US State Department ignore the massive protests & continue to stand by Micky. He’s probably worth a few laughs, does everything they tell him, & doesn’t squawk about that cholera epidemic.

Haitians are also continuing protests against fuel increases. More than six million Haitians (about 60% of the population) live on less than two dollars a day, according to the World Bank, but petrol is $4.25 a gallon. You’d have to work half the week to buy one lousy gallon. Micky’s regime lets the US plunder & then tries to solve the problems created on the backs of working people.

Last month when bus drivers went on a 2-day strike, media was filled with concern about the resentment felt by Haitians. Many Haitians are too poor to own their own autos so workers & school children were stranded without public transportation. It’s just so curious that in concern for passengers getting to work & school media never mentioned that fuel prices affect the cost of housing; lower fuel prices are to everyone’s advantage so those stranded passengers might not be as put out as media claims. That’s why along with bouncing Micky out on his ear Haitians are demonstrating to get the fuel prices cut in half.

After the 2010 earthquake, price gouging on necessary items, including gasoline, water, food, was through the roof–in the midst of devastation. There wasn’t a fuel shortage in Port-au-Prince but prices tripled from pre-earthquake levels. When media cries crocodile tears over the inconvenience suffered by Haitians, they aren’t thinking about the same Haitians as the rest of us.

(Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images)

It isn’t necessary to utter a word of condemnation against the treatment of elephants in the circus. One only need post this photo of a languishing elephant in his pen at the sarcastically named Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation in Polk City, Florida. The circus says it will phase out its elephant acts by 2018. What’s wrong with today?

Comparing the loving treatment of orphaned & rescued elephants in animal rescue reserves in places like Kenya & even Kentucky to this monstrosity of so-called conservation highlights the immense crimes committed against these magnificent animals in the name of entertainment.

Close down the zoos! Shut down the circuses until they release the animals to shelter!

(Photo by Chris O’Meara/AP)