Texas Senator Ted Cruz just announced his candidacy as Republican candidate for president. And the first passenger has entered the GOP clown car! Hopefully, they won’t get dopier or more repulsively racist than he is. But don’t bet on it.

The funeral cortege of Farkhunda, the young woman beaten to death in Afghanistan, was attended by hundreds of men chanting with the women mourners for justice. This doesn’t sit well with US war propaganda that portrays Afghan men as savages & the US Marines as a salvation army for Afghan women. That stinking lie is the bedrock of Islamophobia.

The caption to this photo said “Women carry Farkhunda’s coffin amid crowds of men, a rare act of protest in a male-dominated society.” That crap might fly if we didn’t know the rape rates of female soldiers in the US military are sky high & the Pentagon refuses to address the problem. And there are a lot of other damning statistics we can drag out to expose US war propaganda & the male-dominated character of US society.

May Farkhunda RIP. May we use our political energies to demand US out of Afghanistan! & US out of Iraq!

(Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images)

Nenets are an indigenous nomadic people in the northern Siberian region located partially above the Arctic Circle. They have an annual holiday called Reindeer Herders’ Day where they compete in sports & reindeer races in a city about 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) north of Moscow, Russia.

This woman is one of the entrants in the reindeer race. Urban women may think we wrote the book on feminism but this Nenets woman is putting some of us to shame. Many born before Title VII & Title IX of the Civil Rights Act went into effect were completely shut out of sports & had to content ourselves with crocheting. Some went on to notoriety as disco queens. Thank heavens for the little equality we have. Time to move it forward.

(Photo by Dmitry Lovetsky/AP)

In 2011, when I posted criticisms of Slut Walks as racist, exclusionary, & demeaning to the momentous historic struggle against women’s oppression, a male FB friend said my objections were because as a senior, my feminism was no longer relevant. He was too obtuse & misogynist to recognize that women are considered aged out of value in human society when we lose our youth rather than looked to for wisdom & experience, as many men are. Our man was just blubbering old misogyny like it was new thought.

In a recent discussion, my views were counterposed to “contemporary feminists,” which is another way of saying younger feminists. In another discussion, an activist asked me to distinguish between liberal, anarchist, & socialist feminism. Despite being aged out of relevance, let me add there are many currents of thought among feminists, including cultural feminists who eschew politics, & academic feminists. There are no separate currents for young & old except the divisive ones imposed by misogynists who want to weaken the movement.

The thing about a social movement is that nobody owns it theoretically. No one current can claim to speak ex cathedra for feminism on a single question, especially on how best to fight the struggle. Some say lobbying; others say revolution. Academic feminists often consider prostitution as sex work & just another way to earn a living. Others like myself consider it the sexual exploitation of poor women & children. These are differences to be hammered out in struggle within the women’s movement, not decided by a tenured professional.

Those who think me not “contemporary” enough, not enough in sync with current campus trends, will just have to get used to the fact that I ain’t going nowhere. Until the day I die, feminism & the struggle against women’s oppression will remain as fresh in me as it was when I first objected to the rotten disrespect for my gender.

We should take a moment to grieve the loss of another woman to misogynist violence–Farkhunda, the 27-year-old Afghan woman beaten to death by a mob on March 19th. Media accounts are still unable to get the story straight about how she was murdered but it was a monstrous, gruesome crime. Accounts say she was lynched, dragged behind a car, run over by a car, had her body thrown off a roof, set on fire, & dumped in the river. Media reports “Narratives diverge.” Isn’t that always the case at a crime scene!? But cellphone video from the scene was aired on local television. In addition to identifying the perpetrators, isn’t it possible to determine what actually happened?

Those videos might also explain why police stood by & did nothing to stop the assault, which according to witnesses went on for nearly an hour. Afghan president Ashraf Ghani told reporters that security forces are so focused on the fight against the Taliban insurgency they can’t concentrate on community policing. And media lapped that up & repeated it without an ounce of incredulity.

It’s so moving that Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement denouncing the crime & calling for the prosecution of the cops who took no action to stop the killing & of the two government officials who publicly justified the crime. Maybe at some point they may even denounce US-NATO occupation & bombing of Afghanistan since a 2009 study by the Ministry of Public Health reported at least 66% of Afghanistan’s 32 million people suffer some form of mental illness from 30 years of unremitting war. Not unlike studies of Palestine & Iraq.

Afghan police officials are investigating what prompted the mob assault–whether Farkhunda actually burned a copy of the Quran or if the murder resulted from an altercation with amulet-venders. As if either act justifies beating a woman to death. Media reports “Some Afghan officials & religious leaders sought to justify Farkhunda’s killing, alleging that she had burned a copy of the Qur’an.” Could they identify these officials (other than the two cited by HRW) & religious leaders? Or do unspecified assertions suggesting legions of Afghan men are psychotic misogynists better serve war propaganda? If they can’t get the crime straight, maybe they can’t get anything else right either.

Afghan women’s rights activists carried Farkhunda’s coffin at her burial yesterday in Kabul attended by hundreds of mourners. Men formed a protective chain around the pallbearers & women right’s attendees chanted slogans demanding justice. Imagine that! Who knew Afghanistan had women’s rights activists or that the men weren’t all savages!? In fact, there was widespread condemnation of the killing. The funeral was broadcast live & addressed by politicians & senior police officers because if they’re too busy to stop a mob assault on a woman they not too stupid to recognize a political tsunami of outrage coming at them.

To counter the impact of human rights outrage by Afghans, media (including the Washington Post, LA Times, Al-Jazeera) repeated the mantras justifying the US-NATO war: “Women are treated as second-class citizens in Afghan society;” “Violence against women is endemic in Afghanistan;” Afghanistan is “routinely named by international rights groups as one of the world’s worst places to be a woman;” a 2013 United Nations report noted that most violence against women goes underreported, particularly in rural areas. And of course, the piece de resistance of war propaganda: ‘despite constitutional guarantees of equal rights & advances in education since the 2001 US occupation ended harsh Islamic rule by the Taliban, little has changed for women. “Girls are routinely married off as children, traded as chattels & then rarely permitted to leave their homes without a male relative.”

Taliban rule in Afghanistan was from 1996 to 2001. Five years compared to 15 years of US occupation & bombing. How long will the US & its Afghan puppets be allowed to get away with blaming the Taliban for crimes against women? Only as long as it takes the international antiwar movement to mobilize by the millions to bring this barbarous war to an end.

US out of Afghanistan! US out of Iraq!

(Photo of Farkhunda from placard at her funeral by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

This weekend, while the Zionist group StandWithUs holds their conference in Los Angeles titled “Combating the Boycott Movement Against Israel (BDS): Understanding the BDS Movement’s Strategies & Tactics,” the UN Commission on the Status of Women has just given us one more reason to support the economic & cultural boycott of Israel. The UN, which repeatedly covers for Israeli human rights crimes against Palestinians, singled Israel out for egregious mistreatment of Palestinian women in all aspects of life. How’s that for “the only democracy in the Middle East”!?

Such an accusation won’t be comfortable for liberal Zionists so Israel’s UN Ambassador Ron Prosor brought out the Zionist stock-in-trade when they’re nailed for human rights crimes: crocodile tears about being persecuted & demonized. He claimed the UN is being ‘cynically exploited & fed anti-Israel incitement’ by Palestinians. “Honor killings in the Palestinian Authority are a matter of daily occurrence,” he claimed, & Palestinians should take responsibility. If the crocodile tears don’t work & all else fails, drag out Islamophobia.

Another Israeli diplomat, Nelly Shiloh, spoke in Arabic to blame Palestinians for using the UN to blame & attack Israel–the same poor beleaguered little country that has one of the most bloated military apparatuses in the world & leveled most of Gaza with squadrons of bombers last summer.

Forty-five countries participated in the vote on the UN resolution condemning Israel. Predictably, only Israel & the US opposed the censure. Thirteen countries abstained, including (again predictably) the European Union.

In his diatribe Prosor did point out one relevant fact: “There are 193 member states in the UN, & they include countries that butcher men & women, jail both male & female journalists, execute female oppositionists & legislate laws against women.” He was speaking, of course, about the US & its other allies.

Build the hell out of the economic & cultural boycott of Israel. It’s apparently having quite an impact. And demand “no aid of any kind to Israel!”

Enough with the melodrama about the strained relationship between Netanpsycho & Obama! To reduce the politics of Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing to a personality conflict is worse than banal. It’s political deceit.

It is possible the US objects to rhetorical excesses from Netanpsycho opposing the bantustate solution in Palestine & making it clear Israel wants all of Palestine–not because they disagree with Israel’s plans for the West Bank & Gaza, but because US neoliberal capitalism has long-term plans for Israel in the Middle East that Zionist irrationality & incitement threaten.

Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is US policy. The two countries are in cahoots & complete agreement. And the way we know that is because the entire Zionist assault on Palestinians would collapse without massive military & financial backing from the US. Is Obama squeamish about carpet bombing Gaza? After Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, that’s almost a stupid question. And the answer is, not in the least–or he wouldn’t have given millions more in military aid to Israel to carry out Operation Ethnic Cleansing last summer. Does he object to Israeli settlements in the West Bank? Not for a moment, because if he did he would cut off US funding to build them & for the Israeli occupation to make sure they get built. And he’d stop paying for settlers to move there. It’s the old “follow the money” thing. Or more aptly, follow the bombers & the tanks.

Israel is part of the US military phalanx in the Middle East & Netanpsycho understands that very well. He can blow smoke out his ass but the US will not cut the money or weapons flow. So he can blow hot but it’s just the neoliberal version of “good cop/bad cop.” Because in the end, what the US & Israel both want is the destruction of Palestine & the establishment of Israel as a military encampment. And in that regard, not just Palestinians now but Israeli Jews later are only the sacrificial lambs of neoliberal predation.

The most imperative historic mission is to build the hell out of the economic & cultural boycott of Israel & to demand no aid of any kind of Israel.

(Photo of the two schnooks from archives)

My neighbor stopped me today when I went to get the mail & told me she saw me she saw me interviewed on Spanish language television. This was news to me. At the Tuesday rally for the Aotzinapa 43 in front of the Mexican consulate I was interviewed & talked about the need to build international solidarity. The part on TV in English said “these parents are never going to see their kids again” but cut off as I continued with “without the broadest international solidarity” but in Spanish the reporter finished that thought.

I am hardly the center of this clip; it’s a very important event protesting at the Mexican consulate with the family members speaking and being interviewed here. It’s the first of many such rallies that will be held across the US as part of Caravana 43 to build the necessary solidarity movement.

I don’t believe I was so vain as to mention my blog www.maryscullyreports.com but the reporter must have googled it & showed it on the news segment. This is good.

Here’s the news segment: http://www.knvotv48.com/incrementan-las-llamadas-de-auxilio-en-la-ciudad-de-palmview/

(Photo is still shot from the video)

Media (& not just the lowbrow tabloids) are reporting the gruesome murder of a mentally ill woman in Kabul, Afghanistan yesterday for allegedly burning a copy of the Quran. It was such a monstrous crime that one wishes they could get the story straight. She was beaten to death by a mob, set on fire, & dumped in the river. Most accounts say she was also lynched. Was she lynched before she was beaten to death? Or after she was set on fire? Some accounts say the mob included “thousands” despite video evidence to the contrary.

The photo of the Shahi Doshamshira mosque accompanying the story seems to have no relationship to the crime except proximity & use value in war propaganda. Weren’t there other landmarks in the neighborhood? Why couldn’t they just describe the crime since it wasn’t ordered by the imam?

There isn’t much value in comparisons pointing out that of the fifty cities in the world with the highest homicide rate, none are in Afghanistan while the US has four. It’s not even useful to point out that according to the World Health Organization the cost of personal violence in the US is more than $300 billion annually. Violence is so routine here it no longer makes the headlines. Such comparisons, however, do not minimize the horrors of this crime against a young woman.

What’s not irrelevant is the $642 billion (only up to 2013) the US has spent in Afghanistan bombing the place to smithereens & terrorizing the people under the guise of emancipating women. Isn’t that beauty salon in Kabul working for them? Reportedly, Kabul police have arrested seven of the perpetrators. There weren’t over a thousand but there were several more than seven, including those psychos who took videos while the murder was going on. One only wishes media was as assiduous in reporting US war violence as they are in operating as crime reporters in Kabul.

Our deepest condolences to the family of this young woman. And our continued opposition to the US war in Afghanistan.

US out of Afghanistan! US out of Iraq!

(Photo by Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images)

Neoliberal waste management in Cambodia: this is Seu, a 13-year-old boy who earns 25 cents a day scavenging the Anlong Pi dump site, the main landfill for the city of Siem Reap. In the US you can’t even buy a piece of candy for 25 cents; he’d have to work four days for a gum drop. In Cambodia he’d have to work two & a half days to buy a liter of water, five & a half days to buy a potato. And child labor may not even be the worst of this story.

Anlong Pi has become one of the pity stops on the colonial slum tour cycle & everyday bus loads of voyeuristic tourists show up from around world to snap photos of the scavengers. A lot of photojournalists show up too. One of the more obtuse who might better stick to photographing flowers said: “They can’t seem to understand that a better life is possible. In that world where Jasmine flowers cannot grow, nothing has any worth but the daily wage. Poisoned environment, rusty nails, or buzzing flies don’t bother them.” In what universe is that cement-headed photographer living!? Does he think poverty means you’re too stupid to distinguish the smell of flowers from rotting food & feces? “Buzzing flies don’t bother them”?

In fact, in 1998, when Taiwan dumped a mountain of mercury-laden toxic waste in Cambodia, residents began protesting & fled their homes en masse. Several hundred of them had fallen sick from mercury poisoning after scavenging. Cambodian government officials who had accepted bribes from Taiwan for the dump then arrested & imprisoned the two human rights activists who alerted residents to the danger. They were both charged with inciting riot.

This dumping of hazardous waste, including radioactive & hospital waste, is often illegal according to country laws. But there is an entire international industry built on it, not of mafia enterprises but multinational corporations. By bribing government officials, fraud, & flagrant criminal irresponsibility, plundering countries dump megatons of toxic waste in the plundered countries. There are established routes: the US to Mexico & Bangladesh; Japan to the Philippines; Hong Kong to China; Taiwan to Cambodia; Italy to Somalia, Nigeria, Lebanon; the UK & other European countries to Nigeria & other African countries. Just to cite a few.

Criminal irresponsibility is here indistinguishable from the most stinking malevolent racism & elitism that considers some human beings inferior & disposable. The only toxic waste dump worth a damn is the one where we quarantine neoliberalism, the barbaric, toxic phase of capitalism.

(Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)