You gotta love how activists do things in the Philippines. Here they’re burning an effigy of president Benigno Aquino III after riot cops blocked them from marching to the parliament where he was giving a state of the nation address to the congress–likely recycled from the speeches he’s been giving everywhere about the economic miracle his policies have wrought.

Activists have plenty to protest since under Aquino the Philippines have become a showcase of neoliberal scorched earth economics. Thousands of farmers are being expropriated for agribusiness plantations; thousands of slum residents are being burned out & forcibly evicted from newly-privatized public lands to make way for resorts, casinos, shopping malls; the country is being re-militarized to serve US competition with China in the South China Sea region.

Our deepest respect & fullest solidarity with Filipino activists; we only regret the US antiwar movement is presently too weak to support your work. We are committed to change that.

(Photo by Ezra Acayan/Reuters)

I’m working on a series of posts about the struggle in Kashmir against the brutal Indian military occupation. It is not an exaggeration to say there has long been a news blackout on one of the most important struggles in the world today. Important if for no other reason than India & Pakistan contesting Kashmir in repeated wars are both nuclear powers. But from the point of view of justice, important because Kashmiris are being hammered by human rights crimes & violence at the hands of the Indian military–& this is being hidden from the world.

There were no books in the excellent local library about Kashmir (except tangentially in books on India & the 1947 Partition) & only about 15 in the University of Texas library which has umpteen thousands of books. Another resource is the hundreds of articles written for academic journals.

What is striking about the books & most of the articles, many written by government analysts, is their inability to present a coherent narrative. One can excuse lousy writing; that’s pro forma media-speak. But what’s most remarkable is that so few write from the point of view of what is called the Kashmir Intifada, of Kashmiri resistance to the occupation, about what the occupied feel & think & endure. It’s all analyses of power politics & maneuvering between the competing regimes, including US meddling–as if Kashmiris don’t count & shouldn’t have a voice.

That’s why alternative journalism is so vital–to allow people to speak for themselves, to tell the truth about what is happening, not within the framework of phony agreements & power politics but according to the demands of justice & those demanding it.

There are many photos of Israeli police attacking Palestinian women yesterday at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Media has chosen to call them “scuffles” when the photos clearly depict assaults. The Israeli account of what happened is garbled–in the way all fictitious song-&-dance stories are–but the incident yesterday was a replay of many other provocations by right-wing Zionist thugs protected by Israeli cops who try to reclaim the site of the mosque as sacred to Judaism. That’s why it’s not believable. Even the logistics don’t add up.

Israel claims masked Palestinian “rioters” stockpiled explosives, Molotov cocktails, & other weapons inside the mosque to attack thousands of “Jewish worshippers gathered for prayers at the Western Wall for Tisha B’Av, a day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the first & second Jewish Temples.” Reports conflict on where the worshipper/thugs were–at the Western Wall or inside the mosque compound. The Western Wall is a section of the enclosure around the Al-Aqsa compound known as the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims & the Temple Mount to Zionists & is located in East Jerusalem under illegal occupation by Israel since 1967.

The Noble Sanctuary is 35 acres of fountains, gardens, museums, as well as the Al-Aqsa Mosque & the Dome of the Rock (which has sacred meaning to Muslims). The entire area is regarded as sacred space & is an educational center as well as religious sanctuary. It’s existed in various reconstructions for over 1,300 years. The fallacious media mantra is that the Noble Sanctuary is the holiest site for Judaism but only the third holiest site to Islam. The reason offered for why it’s sacred to Judaism is that it’s the original site of Solomon’s Temple said to have housed the Ark of the Covenant & destroyed in 586 BCE (for which there isn’t a shred of archaeological evidence). There was an actual temple on the site between 516 BCE & 70 CE when the Romans destroyed it. It was renovated by Herod (of Biblical notoriety) & the supposed remnants of the Herodian wall make up the Western Wall (known also as the Wailing Wall) heralded by Israel as the most sacred place of Judaism.

Millions of people make pilgrimage & fetishistic homage to the old stone wall, the altar of the Israeli state. One would never ridicule even the most absurd religious practice but there is no need to feign respect for a narrative fabricated solely to serve Zionist nationalism & not religious commitment. It’s not inconceivable that there’s a mystique around that pile of stones. But a mystique is not the same as a religious tradition or historic claim.

Far from being an ancient tradition, there is little evidence that Jews, most of whom lived outside Palestine until the late 19th century, held the wall as sacred. Jewish immigration to Palestine was part of the great wave of emigration from Eastern Europe during that time–some driven by economic desperation, some to escape pogroms & persecution, & many as evangelists of Zionism goaded by Zionist organizations as advance guard for setting up a Jewish-only state. And that’s when trouble began in Palestine around Islam’s holy sites, with Zionists creating historic narratives & fabricating religious traditions that did not exist.

In 1948 when Israel was founded on the violent expulsion of Palestinians with the collusion of colonial regimes (especially the UK), East Jerusalem came under the jurisdiction of Jordan through negotiations with the UN; West Jerusalem was under Israeli control. The Noble Sanctuary is in East Jerusalem. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied East Jerusalem & within a matter of three days had flattened the Palestinian neighborhood (called the Moroccan Quarter) adjacent to the Western Wall & Noble Sanctuary & forcibly cleared out the residents. Their property was expropriated for public use & eventually turned into a plaza to receive thousands of born-again Zionists laying claim to a land that wasn’t theirs. That “ancient tradition” of placing messages in the Western Wall doesn’t go back to Herod but began with Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan when they marched into East Jerusalem & he inserted a written prayer into the cracks of the wall.

After the 1967 war, Zionists under the leadership of right-wing Rabbi Shlomo Goren (chief rabbi of the Israeli military & later chief rabbi of Israel) began claiming the Noble Sanctuary for building a third temple. Non-Muslims were forbidden to pray within the compound & so the Western Wall served for a long while as an outdoor & surrogate temple but Zionists have always had their eye on the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque & erecting their temple there. Palestinians frequently claim Israeli excavations under Al-Aqsa are threatening the foundations making it liable to collapse. Israeli rabbis are divided on Jews praying within the compound. Traditional rabbinical scholars regard it as antithetical to Judaism. Right-wing Zionist rabbis are much more flexible with religious principles in service to their rabid nationalism.

This explains the constant harassment & storm trooper tactics by Zionist extremists, police agents, & Israeli troops within the Al-Aqsa compound. This also explains why there is relentless political pressure to reverse the prohibition on non-Muslims worshipping there & why Palestinian males under 50 are barred access to the mosque & must pray in the public streets. In November, Israel ordered the mosque closed down after the shooting of an ultranationalist Zionist who campaigned aggressively for Jewish prayer rights at the site. The entire purpose is to usurp & deny Palestinian religious rights & traditions.

Support Palestinian justice by boycotting all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729); by supporting the cultural boycott of Israel; by demanding “No US aid to Israel!”

(Photo by Mahmoud Illean/AP)

(This post is a slightly edited version of one I posted in December 2014; I’m reposting to clarify why there are constant Israeli attacks & ongoing conflict around the Al-Aqsa mosque.)

Other activists in the US (& around the world) will appreciate this message I received from a friend in Djibouti:

“when we read & follow other activists talking about crises & problems we love the us & american people but when we watch the speech of the president of america or other administration we hate the us government because we know they are lying & not honest.”– Sahal Ali

If it weren’t for social media, we would never have known each other existed. Solidarity in resistance to injustice makes the planet a much more hospitable place.

Who was it made us believe aging was ugly & infirm? Not in societies where they’re still valued nor where they defy the myths & value themselves. This woman has the eyes, & likely the spirit, of youth.

(Photo is Kalash woman from Pakistan)

These are immigrants in Macedonia on a train en route to Serbia. It has to be an absolutely wrenching experience to travel hundreds of miles through uncertain territory, eluding border patrols & criminal gangs, while trying to protect small children–not just from dangers but from illness & disease. The worst was Rohingya parents stranded on boats drifting for weeks with no food or water. Of course most are fleeing war & genocide. That doesn’t even address the women traveling alone with kids or the children traveling unaccompanied.

Children are the faces of immigration. They are the faces of war & of genocide. Not an inch can be conceded to regimes & right-wing xenophobes & racists who want the borders sealed. The false distinctions between immigrants & refugees can no longer be respected in any way at all.

The forces for human & immigrant rights have huge battles on our hands in every country. While thousands cross borders in desperation, regimes & politicians play with immigration rights to serve their own ends. In the US, the Obama regime held out hopes for amnesty–long enough to get the addresses of the undocumented. Then in a foxy political move, had a court withdraw the possibility, so now immigration officials know just where to pick them up, along with their undocumented parents. Jeb Bush & Hillary Clinton are promising the moon again for the undocumented so they can garner the Latino vote for the election.

Immigration rights will not be won through trust in politicians. That’s a fool’s game. They will only be won by working people carrying a banner emblazoned with “An injury to one is an injury to all.” Such an international movement would transform the ground we stand on & shake the very foundations of racism & social hatred.
Immigration is a human right! Open the borders!

(Photo by Boris Grdanoski/AP)

Muhammed Muheisen is an award winning photojournalist who has covered events all over the Middle East, including the Iraq & Syrian wars. He is most renowned for his images of Afghan child refugees in Pakistan. Muheisen is a Palestinian, born in 1981 in Jerusalem & schooled at Birzeit University near Ramallah in the West Bank. He is now a Jordanian national.

One judge honoring his work with Afghan refugee children said “He caught the hope, desperation, & tragedy of the faces of the oppressed.” That he does. Because the children he photographs are living in squalor. But what’s magical & powerful about Muheisen’s work is how he captures the beauty, vibrance, & humanity of children living in the most desperate circumstances.
His method isn’t just waiting for a candid, poignant moment to happen. He says he works slowly with his subjects to earn their trust–when they open up to him & the moment unfolds. That relationship is what transforms his images into something wondrous.

These are Syrian refugees (many who were Palestinian refugees in Syria) in a camp on the outskirts of Mafraq, Jordan near the Syrian border. The little girl skipping rope is 10-year-old Zubaida Faisal. There’s no question these kids have been through hell. What’s wondrous is not that Muheisen hides that reality from us but by showing us their spirit tells us something about what it means to be human–& why the human race is worth fighting for.

(Photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP)

Some of the ugliest sarcasms of neoliberal economics are played out in the mining industry which runs operations on a scorched earth business model. There are many multinational corporations involved–US, Mexican, Canadian, Australian, Indian, Russian, Chinese. Their strip & open-pit mining practices have deforested & chemically contaminated millions of acres on every continent. Their recklessness has made entire regions uninhabitable for flora & fauna; destroyed migration routes for birds; contaminated rivers with acids, arsenic, mercury & other toxicities; created neurological & congenital health problems for thousands; destroyed the livelihoods of tens of thousands of farmers; & are making this beautiful planet a monstrous eyesore.

Peru’s economy, completely warped by mining, is a case in point. Peru is more than 60 percent Amazonian rainforest vital to controlling climate on Earth, but deforestation & land conversion for mining are turning it into a wasteland. Short-range profiteering is a fatal flaw of the neoliberal business model. Under scorched earth policies, Peru now depends on mining for 62 percent of its export earnings because the government has bent over backwards with incentives to mining companies. Investment in mining is now near $9 billion a year according to official figures.

While mining is a bonanza to the Peruvian elite, it is a disaster for farmers who are engaged in ongoing battles with riot police defending open-pit copper mines like the $1.4 billion Tia Maria operation contaminating fields, groundwater sources, crops, livestock. The company running Tia Maria is Grupo Mexico, the outfit that still hasn’t cleaned up its 2014 catastrophic spill from a copper mine in Sonora, Mexico.

For the past couple years, the Peruvian regime–while sending riot police to defend Tia Maria & other mines–have conducted police operations against illegal gold mine operations in the Amazon Basin of Madre de Dios bordering Brazil & Bolivia. Like storm troopers, they’ve burned down over 55 mining camps, blown up & confiscated equipment, closed down businesses in the area which serve miners. Most of the 40,000 wildcat miners are poor immigrants from the Andean highlands displaced by multinational mining operations going on there, most notably by a Chinese consortium.

No one ever said capitalism functioned rationally. In many African countries, the World Bank fosters artisanal & wildcat mining. Dispossessed & impoverished miners use low-tech methods to extract gold which they sell dirt cheap to an agent who sells it on the world market. Everybody makes out like a bandit–except the miners who suffer extreme health conditions.

Reports are vague about how wildcat mining operations in Madre de Dios are run. It’s likely that small companies hire workers to operate low-tech mines & then broker the gold for export because certainly the miners aren’t profiting–& illegal gold is now 20 percent of all gold exports from Peru, making it the world’s fifth biggest gold producer. Customs officials estimate the value at about $3 billion–more than export of Peruvian cocaine. Forty thousand miner shares of $3 billion would be a substantial income which the miners are not receiving but thieving brokers are.

There’s no question these mines should be closed down. All of them–not just the wildcat mines. It isn’t the environmental & health catastrophes, nor the displacement of tens of thousands of farmers that concern the regime, but that they aren’t getting their cut of the plunder from the wildcat operations.

Peruvian farmers & workers aren’t on this planet to serve as chattel for multinationals & they do not serve that role compliantly–which is why police repression is so severe in Peru. As long as there is continuing resistance to mining in Peru, there is hope. Our fullest solidarity with that resistance.

Photo is Peruvian riot police in La Pampa after one of their recent wrecking operations against wildcat mines whilst their comrades-in-arms defend the “legal” mines.

(Photo by Ernesto Benavides/AFP/Getty Images)

There have been protests of thousands for weeks against new military legislation being railroaded through the Japanese parliament. The proposed law would reverse Article 9 in the constitution outlawing the use of military for war. It’s essentially a “no war” article. It isn’t a pacifist commitment but was imposed by the US occupying regime after Japan’s defeat in WWII.

The reversal of Article 9 has been in the works for a while. Part of the railroading is coming from the US who want to incorporate Japan into an offensive naval & troop force as US competition with China heats up in the South China Sea & the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership goes into effect. There is no shyness about acknowledging all this in the media. Forbes, a voice of US capitalism, & other media sources lay it out quite bluntly.

The question is, what does Japan have to gain from re-militarizing since, even with US military aid, costs & affects on society will be immense? There are no glib answers to that. Japan is not an impoverished country but one of the strongest economies in the world. It is however facing economic, social, & political crises like every other neoliberal capitalist country. They’re not re-militarizing only to address regional conflicts with Korea or only to buttress US military might but because war is inherent to capitalism. The need is built into the system to try to resolve its internal crises & volatilities–like Fukushima–through war. There’s an economy to war that serves the ruling elite but devastates the lives of working people.

These protesters in Tokyo are denouncing the proposed militarization of Japan. Why should they send their young people abroad to fight when their real dispute is with their own regime?
Our fullest solidarity with them.

(Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Hillary Clinton who earns between $200,000 & $300,000 for one of her wooden speeches & has all sorts of conditions attached (like private jet & full rights to the video), declines to endorse a raise in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15.00 an hour. And she still has the chutzpah to play the populist card.