It’s beyond dispute that Kim Jong-un is a Stalinist, repressive political figure. Is he insane, as the US claims? Not likely, & certainly not more so than Trump. Is democratic social change necessary in North Korea? Of course, just as it is in most other countries. But that is for the people of North Korea to resolve.
If the US is forced to pull its nuclear & military forces & arsenal out of the region, the people of North & South Korea can decide their own political fates without US repression. They will likely, in their majority, decide to reunite into one country under democratic rule. What keeps the region at a boiling point is US military occupation.
Let’s get real about the so-called threat of North Korea. For nearly 70 years the US has had thousands of military personnel, war ships, missiles, nuclear submarines surrounding North Korea. It is responsible for the division of Korea into North & South. It is the US that presents a sustained military threat to North Korea. So if they have developed a nuclear arsenal, it is to defend themselves against clear & present danger from the US.
Is it scary that they have nuclear capability? Indeed. Almost as scary as the nuclear capability of the US, UK, France, Russia, Israel, Pakistan, India, & China.
Actor Richard Gere is still getting praise & opprobrium for expressing objections to Israel’s most egregious human rights crimes against Palestinians when he toured the West Bank last March. He was in Israel to promote his film by an Israeli director & despite equivocations about how Israel would use him to legitimize itself.
Gere is a long-time supporter of Israel & since he’s around my age has had decades to inform himself if he’s serious about justice & human rights. What about we hold the praise till we see what Gere does now that he’s witnessed the apartheid conditions first hand? Will he speak out & honor the cultural boycott? Or keep double-talking & trying to play both sides of the street? Is it unreasonable to ask him to take a firm stand? Not at all, since he presents himself as a defender of human rights. You can’t make that claim if you do the equivocating thing about Israel.
There was a video posted on Twitter reportedly from yesterday’s hunt to kill operation at Tral in Kashmir. Indian soldiers were spraying lifeless bodies on the ground with bullets. Whether the persons were still alive or already dead, whether they were suspected of any crime or not, this constitutes several war crimes per person, including denial of due process, summary execution of “war prisoners,” &/or desecration of a corpse.
As stateless persons, Rohingya have a hell of a time finding a place to live where they are not subject to harassment, imprisonment, & extreme discrimination. It cannot be said the UN refugee agency plays a leading role in ameliorating that crisis affecting millions of people.
Does anyone in Canada have any special knowledge of options or ability to help sponsor a Rohingya refugee? Does anyone in any other country? In the past, I have sponsored immigrants but my income is no longer high enough for immigration standards & I have been rejected. Please let me know if you can help
The two puppies I recently rescued (now about 3 months old) pee & poop all over the house. I don’t hit my animals but am at the end of my rope in training them. Or more aptly, am at a loss not knowing how to train them. My sister suggested I swat their behinds with a newspaper (a tap, not a lambasting) & then put them outside. Does anyone know another way? Or is that a surefire way & not abusive?
I’m rather unforgiving in my polemical style, but I do understand that many Assad supporters are not fascists or libertarians moving toward fascism. But many are Islamophobes or anti-Semites who believe in that Greater Israel crap. A good share of them are confusionists who jump on the bandwagon driven by celebrity journalists & writers.
The problem is that whatever political place you’re coming from, it all ends up the same: facilitating the victory of counter-revolution & dictatorship in Syria & setting back struggles for human freedom, especially the Palestinian struggle. Equivocation about where you stand doesn’t make it any better. Either you stand with democracy & the Syrian revolution or you stand with Assad & dictatorship. War & revolution don’t offer any middle ground.
Bashar & Asma al-Assad at a Claude Monet exhibit in Paris so succinctly place Syrian revolution & counter-revolution in perspective–at least as many Assad supporters understand politics. How could people so stylish & au courant, so western & so secular, & by gosh so damn svelte & pretty possibly be guilty of imprisoning, torturing, & hanging thousands, disappearing thousands, carpet bombing millions of civilians?
Why they’re almost as fashionable as the Obamas–the Barack Obama of six monstrous US wars. Justice in war & revolution is not based on what you wear or how classy you look in Paris but whether you stand for democracy & equality or for dictatorship & oppression.
Stop the Syrian, Russian, US bombing of civilians! All foreign military forces out of Syria now!
