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Defense case for Israeli conscientious objector

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Uriel Ferera May 5 2014

This is the defense case of Uriel Ferera, a young Israeli man jailed & placed in solitary confinement for refusing to serve in the Israeli military because he opposed discrimination against Palestinians within Israel & the occupation of Palestinian lands.

Ferera is a harbinger, part of the advance guard among Israeli youth turning against the fortress of Zionist apartheid. Active solidarity with him is imperative. It serves first to protect him from worse punishment by the Israeli regime & secondly, to strengthen resolve among other Israelis who object to apartheid but are afraid to stand up because of punishment & ostracism. We should never underestimate how terrifying such commitment to justice can be; it proved hard enough for antiwar soldiers in the US Army whilst there was a massive antiwar movement & much more so in a militarized society like Israel with very weak antiwar opposition. Simple acts of solidarity show them they do not stand alone.

This link suggests several easy ways to extend support to Ferera. Please take a moment to send an email voicing your objections to his incarceration, putting the Israeli regime on alert that their conduct toward him is being watched, & expressing your support for this courageous, principled, & admirable young man.

(Photo is of Uriel Ferera from his FB wall)

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/politics/israeli-sosaciety/8014-act-demand-freedom-for-israeli-co-uriel-ferera

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US-NATO war in Afghanistan a war of plunder not women’s liberation

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US-Nato forces are on a righteous crusade to rout Islamic misogyny out of Afghanistan by using one fleet to bomb the hell out of the country & another fleet to fly the opium out for processing & distribution. If you see no reason why women’s rights requires drug peddling or mass murder, or how the marines got all mixed up in feminism, you’re not alone & have put your finger on the despicable irrationalities of war propaganda.

Reports coming out of the Pentagon itself expose horrific statistics on rape & sexual assault in the US military beginning in basic training & military academies. Estimates vary between 26,000 to 45,000 on the number of men & women assaulted every year. According to a 2011 Newsweek magazine report (admittedly not the most reliable source), women are more likely to be assaulted by a fellow soldier or officer than killed in combat.

Now the US Department of Education has released a report that one in five women college students will be sexually assaulted on campus, including at the most prestigious universities in the country.

Will US-NATO forces start bombing universities then or even turn their drones on the Pentagon? Will we hear denunciations of Christian theology which likely dominates most of those schools & certainly the Pentagon? Will they send in the marines to free women from the clutches of such ignominy? Or have we had just enough of this crap?

It’s time for a regeneration of feminism–not one that sucks up to politicians but that is independent & political & hopefully shows up fully clothed so that racism & grandstanding for media do not replace political message. (And yes, I’m taking a jab at FEMEN & Slut Walks!)

US out of Afghanistan! US out of Iraq!

(Photo of Afghan women from aljazeera)

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The right to protest tyranny without assault

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Sooner or later these regimes will have to get it through their heads that you can’t outsmart forever the people who actually make this world go round, who know how to make & do things. There was once a wiseass manager who snorted at his work force that any monkey could do their jobs. “If that’s so,” one worker responded, “how come when we come back from strike we have to scrap the work management did while we were out because parts are built upside down, to the wrong prints, & assembled backwards?” A 10-year-old neighbor boy told this story asked, “If they’re so smart why didn’t they hire monkeys to begin with?”

Of course, in the long run, it doesn’t really matter what those managers & regimes get through their thick skulls. The only thing of consequence is when working people begin to understand & organize & exercise our collective power. And there’s “the rub” of social transformation. But it is our knowledge of how to do things, our massive numbers, & our collective strength that has the power to change the world & make it suitable for children to grow free.

This May Day scene from Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey shows protestors wearing gas masks in preparation for the barrage of tear gas they expected from riot cops. Gas masks have become de rigueur attire at protests today but those who can’t get them improvise with dust masks, protest versions of the niqab, scarves. In Brazil, residents being forcibly evicted from a favela showed up to battle riot cops in barrels & all manner of metal regalia. People who don’t know how to do anything except give orders & deploy troops will find in the long run that they are no match for the creativity of working people who make & move everything on this planet.

In the US, the Civil Rights movement faced such cop violence, including truncheons, water cannons, attack dogs, mounted police–but along with the anti-Vietnam War movement helped win the right to protest without assault. Of course, the same wasn’t true in dozens of other countries where (often US-backed) tyranny prevailed. We’re all in the same boat now & must stand together in demanding our rights of free speech, public assembly, & the right to oppose tyranny without being assaulted, shot, or jailed. The more they deny this, the more they prove our need to boot them from here to kingdom come.

The banner here reads “Workers who resist win.” True! And workers who resist respect their own collective power.

(Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images)

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African immigration to Europe: Immigration is a human right! Open the borders!

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The tough one here is not the military cop in riot gear wielding the baton but the unarmed immigrants trying to rush the border fence topped with razor wire to cross from Morocco into Melilla, the north African enclave owned by Spain. They hope that by getting into European territory they stand a better chance of making it to the European continent for work.

Most who get past the daunting impediments arrive with extreme injuries from the razor wire, from being beaten by border guards (both in Morocco & Spain), from falling, & are malnourished since they’ve just spent weeks coming from their own countries. There isn’t a lot of available reporting about how they transit great distances, several borders, & difficult terrains to get to Morocco. If it’s anything comparable to what Central American & Mexican immigrants go through to get to the US, it must be a living hell.

On this occasion (May 1st), 400 immigrants stormed the border fence but only 150 got through. Those who were pushed back will camp in makeshift tents & be subjected to harassment by Moroccon police acting as a southern flank of European immigration policy. Those who do make it are not assured of moving on to Europe & are often deported & dumped back in Morocco.

How did human society come to this? How did such barbarism become the dominant political ethos of our historic era? More importantly, how the hell do we get rid of this social gangrene that forces people from their families & cultures, endangers their lives, & humiliates them as if they were beasts?

The growing combativity of immigrants in staking their rights to immigrate is a development of the greatest importance & ought to make our hearts sing. As the US immigrant rights movement chants, “No human being is illegal.” The only way to make those damn fortresses come down is to stand with them in a solid phalanx of solidarity. Neoliberal predation acknowledges no national borders & neither do we.

Immigration is a human right! Open the borders!

(Photo by Fernando Garcia/AP)

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May Day 2014 protests

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There are so many remarkable photos from around the world of the International Labor Day protests today. They were from Germany, France, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Cuba, Croatia, Russia, Greece, Spain, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Italy, Iraq. Protestors demanded higher wages, safety standards, & worker’s rights. Apparently riot cops don’t have the same appreciation as the rest of us for working people standing in solidarity since they came not to join protests but to attack them with truncheons, tear gas, & water cannons in several countries, particularly in Turkey, Cambodia, & Italy.

In Istanbul workers defied a ban on May Day protests & against gathering in Taksim Square, the venue of last summer’s uprising, by coming out in force. Police violence was extreme, especially the excessive use of tear gas. Many were injured. Cambodia also banned protests but sweatshop workers leading the protests were also out in force & sustained vicious beatings from riot cops.

It should be frankly acknowledged (& not without a certain amount of glee) that in some places riot cops appear to have gotten as good as they gave. Turkish protestors responded to police provocation with petrol bombs, Italian workers matched truncheon for truncheon, Cambodians held their ground despite the attacks. Workers from one labor organization in Manila danced around a burning effigy of Philippine president Aquino. (We’re gonna have to get those Filipino activists over here to teach us a thing or two.) There are no photos so far, as there have been in the past, of Greek workers matching police violence with paint bombs but we hope they’re only delayed in transmission.

Perhaps the most significant thing to note is the role of sweatshop workers who led the protests in Bangladesh & Cambodia. We hope retailers who think of sweatshop workers like oxen to be beaten & driven are terrified by the tsunami coming at them.

There are so many wonderful photos from today but this one of garment workers & others in Dhaka, Bangladesh demanding compensation for survivors of the Rana Plaza collapse & calling for workplace safety is one of the most impressive. We can well understand the political opposition to women’s rights when we see them playing such leading roles in social struggles of every kind all over this planet. The future looks brighter already.

US workers appear to be a hopeless lot & historically we are slow to act. We’re not dull-witted, just conservative when it comes to getting off our asses. But when we move we hold our own admirably. Our ancestors have many proud achievements to show for that. We’re not likely ever to put Filipino activists to shame but some of us will die trying.

Hats off to our brothers & sisters around the world! Solidarity forever is not just a slogan but our commitment.

(Photo by Andrew Biraj/Reuters)

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US war mongering against North Korea

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Imagine that! A photo of North Koreans where they aren’t goose-stepping, synchronized swimming, or weeping in chorus over a dead leader!? We should beware though: this smiling group watching a marathon could be shills for the Kim Jong-un regime employing an original form of propaganda: trying to appear human by moving out of lockstep.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) calls North Koreans “some of the world’s most brutalized people.” Amnesty International (AI) & the UN have a whole dossier of human rights crimes against the regime including extermination, disappearance, & imprisonment of dissenters, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions & other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial & gender grounds, forcible mass relocations, & forced starvation. Apparently it’s in competition with the US Pentagon.

But one wonders how they know so much when they also claim it’s one of the most secretive societies in the world? They claim their information comes from satellite images. One wishes they were as assiduous in reconnaisance over US war zones & would make at least a peep of objection if they cannot bring themselves to denounce US-NATO wars.

HRW, AI, & even the UN have objected to Guantanamo; they even periodically address the massive incarceration rates in the US, particularly of Black & Latino youth for drug use or minor offenses. When the US has the highest documented incarceration rates in the world, they’re compelled to say something about it–or completely lose their credibility.

There’s no question North Korea is a tyranny that persecutes dissenters. There’s no question it needs a systemic change. But US nuclear saber-rattling is not the way that’s done. The US military build-up involving South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia is not just eye-balling China but includes North Korea. Getting rid of an authoritarian regime that calls itself socialist but follows the protocols of feudal monarchy & replacing it with a democratic society is the mission of North Koreans, not the US Pentagon.

Hands off North Korea!

(Photo of Pyongyang, North Korea by David Guttenfelder/AP)

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Zionist lies about holocaust and genocide in human history

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Zionism & its supporters have controlled the history of the holocaust under the Third Reich of Hitler & the Nazi party. They have done so in a way to maximize guilt & mystify the political & economic causes for such unspeakable horrors against millions of Jews.

Most importantly in their distortions, they have separated the holocaust of Jews from that of Roma, the disabled, & millions of others exterminated by the Nazi regime & in a grotesque & racist caricature of history, they proclaim over & over again that the Jewish holocaust was the worst genocide in all of human history. Millions of Native Americans throughout the western hemisphere, millions of Africans caught in the Atlantic slave trade, millions of Pacific Islanders & Asians caught in the tentacles of imperialism & colonialism going back centuries are simply brushed aside in the Zionist distortion of history.

Many Zionists are making quite a living out of what Norman Finkelstein calls “shoah business.” But the main purpose of this historic deceit & guilt-baiting is to justify forcibly wresting Palestinan lands, violently terrorizing millions into exile, & making Israel an exception to all of the achievements of civilized society.

Nevertheless, six million Jews did perish in monstrous ways. While Zionism is a contemptible ideology, those six million people were not responsible for that. The holocaust is a monumental human tragedy that should be commemorated–not based on a false history but on a recognition that they were our own & that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” That is not a trite sentiment because it requires a commitment to come to grips with the true causes of the holocaust in order to honor those who died.

Israel is not a solution to pogroms & holocausts; it is Zionism reproducing in Israel the political matrix & methods of the Third Reich.

We should stop a moment or more to remember the six million Jews, the Roma, the disabled, & the millions exterminated by imperialism & colonialism since its ignominious inception. We should bow our heads to their memory & commit ourselves to creating a world where such savagery cannot exist.

(Photo of Jewish children in concentration camp by unidentified photographer)

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Environmental and health catastrophes in India from tannery industry

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This woman named Saida is a tannery worker in the Indian city of Kanpur. She is one of many tannery workers, farmers, & local residents suffering serious skin conditions caused by contact with toxic chemicals used in leather manufacturing. Her small home is just steps away from the Ganges where tannery water is dumped. “That is the water we drink,” she said. “Because it is such a bad environment, this is why all the diseases are here.”

All the other diseases she refers to are respiratory (including tuberculosis), neurological, digestive, dermatological, severe mental & physical disabilities in newborns, blindness, cancer, & numerous other life-threatening illnesses.

Recognition that neoliberal policies are incompatible with human health & well-being is wide-spread. All that’s left is an understanding of how to rid this beautiful planet of its scourge. Our strength resides in numbers, in commmitment, & an understanding that “an injury to one is an injury to all.”

(Photo by Sean Gallagher, 2013)

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Undocumented immigrants in state of Georgia oppose segregation in education

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Nothing will give you a massive headache faster than trying to unravel the chicaneries & congressional misfortunes of the US DREAM Act giving conditional residence to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US as children with their parents. And when you add Obama’s election year stunt of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), you’re working toward a nervous breakdown.

The DREAM Act has never made it out of congress; DACA is a con game. It’s a deferred deportation program where you register your name & address with the federal government so they know where to pick you up when the deference ends. It gives all immigration agencies “prosecutorial discretion” toward those who came to the US as kids but doesn’t define the limits of that discretion–which means these agencies can continue to go hog-wild, just as several states have. Arizona, Texas, & other states have taken discretion to mean non-compliance & continue to deny driver’s licenses, financial assistance for college, food stamps, & other public benefits like Medicaid to the undocumented.

A striking & promising development in many countries, including the US, is that undocumented immigrants are risking deportation by public opposition to denial of immigration rights. In 2010, the Georgia Board of Regents governing universities in the state ruled that undocumented immigrants were barred from the top five public universities & would be required to pay out-of-state tuition at all other schools. Out-of-state tuition is three or four times in-state tuition, which is hefty to begin with. One of the lesser-recognized advantages of educational segregation is that it narrows the competition, which is the nature of higher education under capitalism. It makes the privileged look real smart when you eliminate thousands of people.

Undocumented students in Georgia didn’t take all this sitting down & crying in their beer. They’ve had repeated protests since 2010 & when you consider that “prosecutorial discretion” thing, you understand how courageous their political opposition really is.

This protest of undocumented immigrants (on Monday, the 28th) is at the University of Georgia in Athens, one of the schools denying access to the undocumented. The bully-boy police chief is going after Alejandro Galeana Salinas, who seems to be standing his ground without flinching. Notice the cop in the background who is not taking selfies but recording the participants for the future exercise of “prosecutorial discretion.”

(Photo by AJ Reynolds/Athens Banner-Herald)

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Filipino antiwar movement burns Obama effigy to protest his war mongering

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Filipino antiwar activists gave Obama the royal bum’s rush during his state visit Monday to sign a military agreement giving the US access to Philippine bases for ten years. Even though the agreement is part of a more bellicose stance toward China in the region, Obama claimed in mind-numbing rhetoric that his foreign policy is more cautious than previous administrations.

Let’s see now: when Obama entered office the US had two major wars; now under his tenure, it has Iraq & Afghanistan; frequent drone sorties in Yemen, Somalia, & Pakistan; military interference in Libya & Syria; new troop deployments in Mexico, Uganda, Guatemala, Australia, & now the Philippines.

The Filipino antiwar movement is known for militancy, not subtlety. They responded to his rhetoric by burning his effigy. Their placards read “Obama you are not welcome,” “Ban the bases; US troops out now,” “No to US meddling in Asia,” “No to US plunder, intervention, & war,” “US warships out now.”

Our fullest respect & solidarity with the Filipinio antiwar movement.

(Photo by Aaron Favila/AP)