This woman lives in a widow’s shelter at Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh, India. Like everywhere, India is a country riddled with prejudices against women & reportedly widows are isolated & shunned & expected to renounce earthly joys. They do not normally celebrate Holi, a spring festival also known as the festival of colors or of love, which is rooted in Hinduism but now celebrated all around the world.

There are many photos every year of the wonderful Holi celebrations but this one taken at the widow’s shelter stands out for her beauty & the defiance of the widows by bringing holi happiness into their own lives.

(Photo by Ahmad Masood/Reuters)

Media is circulating this photo of a group of 20 male “Afghan women’s rights activists” who donned burqas & marched through Kabul claiming solidarity with Afghan women as part of International Women’s Day next Sunday.

Burqas play a big role in Islamophobic propaganda worldwide & have come to symbolize the oppression of women under Islam & under Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The Taliban forced women to wear burqas in public during their rule until in 2001 UN-NATO marines & drone bombers moved in to “liberate” women with that beauty salon in downtown Kabul. Now when they’re killed by bombers at least they have their nails done.

The “Afghan women’s rights activists,” who are from a group called Afghan Peace Volunteers (likely a fly-by-night operation) blew their cover by carrying signs reading “Don’t tell women what to wear; you should cover your eyes”. One of the participants stopped giggling long enough to say, “One of the best ways to understand how women feel is to walk around & wear a burqa.” Several said the burqa felt “like a prison.”

It’s been 14 years now since US-NATO marines “liberated” Afghan women so it’s about time they stopped blaming the Taliban for everything. It’s also about time they stopped speaking for Afghan women. If & when Afghan women decide not to veil is entirely up to them. The problem is not the burqa that covers their heads but the bombs raining down on them. War must surely be the first concern of women rather than their wardrobes so why aren’t the “Afghan women’s rights activists” marching against that!? And why couldn’t they get any oppressed burqa wearers yearning to be free to join their charade?

A 2013 UN report noted that most domestic violence against women goes underreported, especially in rural areas. Actually the massive violence against women from the US-NATO occupation goes entirely unreported.

A 16-year-old veiled schoolgirl named Medina Ali who was watching the little parade succinctly expressed the affront: “We don’t need anyone to defend our rights. This is just a foreign project to create a bad image for the burqa & Afghanistan. They’re trying to make those of us who cover our faces feel bad.” Amen, sister! You have the right to wear whatever the hell you want. We don’t care what you wear.
US-NATO out of Afghanistan! US out of Iraq!

(Photo by Mohammed Ismail/Reuters)

We wish it came as a shock that the US Justice Department today cleared Darren Wilson in the murder of Michael Brown. It was as predictable as the sun rising in the east & setting in the west. Though the courts should not be ignored, justice for Michael Brown will be won in the streets.

The Justice Department issued a second report accusing the Ferguson police department of racism & routine violation of the Bill of Rights for Black residents by stopping residents for “driving while Black”, arrests without probable cause, & excessive force. They cited seven racist emails from police & court officials–one saying Obama would not be president for long because “what black man holds a steady job for four years” & another describing Obama as a chimpanzee. That’s the kind of political environment Darren Wilson operated in & they still couldn’t find any cause for alarm!? He followed police procedure all the way? They didn’t object to that travesty of a grand jury? Yeah right!

Let’s be frank: the US Justice Department shames a country that declares itself a democracy, where an unarmed kid is considered a threat against an armed cop. We need an independent investigation of the Justice Department & we need to throw the bums out.

The Michael Brown report: http://apps.washingtonpost.com/…/department-of-justic…/1436/
The Ferguson Police Department report:
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/…/department-of-justic…/1435/

This beautiful child with her classmates is Prashasani Pusham, a school girl from an Adivasi village in India. In the irrational world of racism, caste, & class she is considered inferior. Her sweet little face can be an inspiration to us to make this world suitable for children to live & love in.

The photographer is Umesh Solanki, a free lance journalist who also makes documentaries about Dalit, Adivasi, & Other Backward Castes in India–not as an anthropologist but as an advocate.

One of the most inspiring things about neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism, is the dignity it affords the sick & dying. Often people denied medical care who get sick are just dumped in unmarked, mass graves like they were landfill & not human beings with feelings, dreams, kids, people who love them & will miss them. To neoliberalism they’re just chattel & offal of no consequence whatsoever.

Our deepest regrets we are not yet able to restrain plunder but that day will come & the sound of justice will be thunderous.
This man is a victim of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa & this photo won an international award for 2014.

(Photo by Pete Muller/National Geographic)

Can we put off going all ballistic about Clinton’s email accounts until after she’s prosecuted for shilling war crimes?

To illustrate the advanced state of utilities deregulation in Texas, today electricity went out on my entire block. Deregulation does not promote competition–except in who can charge the highest rates. It creates dozens of companies & makes utilities costs sky high. This is a poorer working class neighborhood where a refrigerator of rotted food would be a big deal. When I phoned the outage in to the city they told me each household had to call their own electricity provider. The way deregulation works, that could be up to twenty different providers.

Capitalism didn’t work that well under regulation; under deregulation, it’s a plunder-bust.

So the bromance is over between Obama & Netanpsycho. And we’re supposed to think the earth moved? It’s probably more than theater but it doesn’t mean squat! All the media is chiming in on this with some speculating the estrangement is from personalities, some say philosophies, some even surprise us by bringing in politics like Iran. They list awkward moments between the two & even analyze body language. Why don’t they just read the White House press releases? Like the one just released titled “Five Things You Need to Know About the US-Israel Relationship Under President Obama” where Obama boasts of his love & all the things he’s done for an ungrateful Netanpsycho. These are just the highlights of a love letter disguised as an itemized bill of goods delivered to Israel:

(1) Israel is the leading recipient of US foreign military money receiving over $20.5 billion under Obama. Of that amount, $225 million went directly to Operation Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza last summer.

(2) The US under Obama has staunchly defended Israel’s legitimacy internationally including voting no on numerous UN resolutions sanctioning or criticizing Israel.

(3) Israel & the US have a multi-billion dollar economic relationship including a free trade agreement & extensive US investments in Israel’s high tech industries. Under Obama the economic entanglements have substantially increased.

Before we get to the final love gesture from Obama to Netanpsycho we should keep in mind that school free lunch programs are being cut in the US; food stamps & medical care for poor families are being slashed; & massive cuts are administratively implemented in Medicare & Social Security.

(4) Under Obama’s regime just in the past six years, the US has donated $140 million to transport Zionist immigrants to Israel. The money is used for transportation, transitional housing when they arrive, & Hebrew language programs. So while the US puts on a dog & pony show of opposing new Israeli settlements they are in fact bankrolling Israel’s settlement program in the West Bank. While our little kids are starving & unable to get necessary medical care & our old people are unable to pay rent & eat too, our tax money is going to teach settlers from Des Moines how to speak Hebrew where the native tongue is Arabic!

Does that all sound like estrangement to you? Netanpsycho probably has the personality of a rattle snake (with all due apologies to the rattler) & his soul is more like worn-out shoe leather so it’s no wonder the bromance has hit the skids. But we’re talking two war criminals in it together & both a threat to human civilization. And though the love may have ended, they’re still in bed together.

(Photo of the jamokes with their mad face from Reuters)

How should we respond to the news that Bill O’Reilly, the blowhard from Fox News, has the Brian Williams syndrome? He was caught lying in the same way as Williams by claiming experience in four combat zones. In El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s he saw nuns get shot in the back of the head; now he says he just saw a photo of that. In Northern Ireland in 1984 he claimed he saw “Irish terrorists kill & maim their fellow citizens in Belfast with bombs.” Now he claims he just saw a photo. In the Falkland War of 1982 he claimed he survived a combat situation but only a small number of British journalists were even allowed near the island. And then he’s claimed something about an unidentified conflict in Israel.

Fox News is standing by him just as they did when he was accused of sexually harassing a subordinate.

The only people who don’t seem to know what an ass he is are red necks & Fox News. Other than that he’s viewed like a white man’s minstrel sucking up to power.

The sometimes contradictory but always remarkable Gideon Levy, Israeli columnist for Haaretz, wrote an article last week titled “Israel is galloping to the next war in Gaza: Israel is heading to the next violent eruption with the Palestinians as though it is some sort of natural disaster that can’t be avoided.” The article was a moving lamentation about the carnage left by Israeli ethnic cleansing last summer & he predicted the next siege will be this summer. It doesn’t take a Nostradamus to see that coming.

Some fear Israel is preparing the endgame against Palestinians in Gaza. When Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon moved the Zionist settlers out of Gaza in 2005, it wasn’t a peace gesture but a tactic to facilitate & make genocide more like shooting fish in a barrel. But the acceleration of barbarism against Gaza & of settlements in the West Bank is not just to outpace the advances of international Palestinian solidarity & the growth of the boycott movement. Israel is a capitalist country where militarism, like in the US, distorts & saps the national budget. As a militarist society & as part of international neoliberalism it is spiraling into crisis & being compelled by irrepressible economic & political forces within Israel to resolve the problems at the expense of Palestinians. Part of this is scapegoating Palestinians to deflect from government culpability for the crisis; part is hoping that the massive inequities & problems within Israeli society will be solved by eliminating Palestinians.

There have been several studies done on the Israeli economy in the past several years, including by Israeli banks, decrying the housing crisis, the growth of homelessness (there are now tent cities for the homeless), the fact that one in five Israelis live below the poverty line. In 2013, the poverty line in Israel was set at 2,392 shekels per month per person. A one-bedroom apartment with utilities rents between 2,926 to 3,460 shekels. Israel has the highest poverty rate among “developed” countries at 21 percent of Israelis & one of the biggest income disparities between rich & poor.

The Taub Center for Social Studies in Israel issues regular reports on poverty in Israel. Last year, they found that 40 percent of Israelis forego dental care & 35 percent do not adequately heat or cool their homes due to cost. Even with universal healthcare in Israel, 38 percent could not afford medications.

Predictably, the Taub study found that 50 percent of Arab Israelis & 57 percent of Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) live below the poverty line due to unemployment. They didn’t include discrimination as a cause but that is beyond dispute. Neither group can afford to heat or cool their homes & purchase medications.

Israel is a colonial-settler state. It cannot induce thousands of freeloaders to move to Israel if it cannot provide secure, affordable housing & they do not expect to come & be housed in huts, tents, & packing crates. But Israel has a bloated military budget to maintain the occupation, crush Palestinian resistance, guard settlements, & protect bulldozers taking out Palestinian lands. This involves heavy expenditures for roads, farm machinery & equipment, bulldozers, tanks, ammunition, & a standing army–expenditures that cannot go to housing.

For the past few years, Israel has been instituting austerity policies cutting back even more on social services & igniting protests throughout the country. The only hope for Israeli working people is if they begin to connect the dots between militarism, apartheid, inequity, & genocide & forge alliances with Palestinians & African refugees against the neoliberal regime long-since capitulated to the barbaric phase of capitalism.

Palestinians cannot wait until Israeli working people come out of their stupor anymore than Blacks, Latinos, immigrants in the US have to wait for US workers to get with the program. The best way to serve working people is to evangelize for the economic & cultural boycott of Israel & demand “No aid of any kind to Israel!” There’s nothing like a little education & pressure to wake a sleeping giant up.

(Photo of homeless man in Jerusalem by Nati Shohat/Flash90 from Times of Israel)