Anyone else having trouble distinguishing the left from the right in politics & then just giving up & calling yourself liberal so everybody can hate you?
February 11th is Maqbool Bhat Day in Kashmir. Maqbool Bhat was a leading figure of the Kashmiri freedom struggle who was executed by hanging in a New Delhi jail in 1984 at the age of 46. Indian authorities still refuse to return his body to Kashmir for respectful & honored burial. Refusing to return his body is not just politically vindictive but indicates the Indian government’s fear of the scale of tribute by Kashmiris to such a monumental figure. He stands among the greatest freedom fighters in human history & should be honored by all humanity. He once said “For us, azadi means not just getting rid of foreign occupation of our beloved motherland but also to remove hunger, poverty, ignorance & disease & to overcome economic & social deprivation. One day, we shall achieve that azadi.”
In this video, Kashmiri musician MC Kash dramatized a brilliant 1974 “I have a dream” agitational speech by Maqbool Bhat calling for self-determination.
(Photo is placard with image of Maqbool Bhat from 2017 protest in his home town)
So let’s get this straight: the Trump regime–which kidnapped thousands of little kids from their parents & locked them up in warehouses; which hermetically sealed the US border against thousands of desperate refugees; which is bombing & starving out civilians in several countries; which has close personal & political relations with the head-chopping Saudi government; which bankrolls the genocide of Palestinians, didn’t lift a finger to stop the genocide of Rohingya, & sells military equipment to India to maintain the occupation of Kashmir–is sending humanitarian aid to Venezuela? It’s a provocation & could be called an act of war. Those who buy into it should talk to Trump about buying swampland in Florida right next to Mar-a-Lago. Those who buy into it to rah-rah for war against Venezuela stand on the side of tyranny & are no friends of the Venezuelan people.
This photo is a February 2nd protest against the Maduro government in Caracas. The placard reading “No solos Putin, ni solos Trump, somos pueblo unido contra el opresor” means “We are not Putin, nor are we Trump, we are people united against the oppressor.” To stand with Venezuelans does not mean whitewashing the political & economic policies of Maduro, blaming the austerity & repression all on US sanctions, calling the capitalist Venezuelan government socialist, or vilifying protesters–as Assadists, Stalinists, fascists did all the Arab Spring uprisings–as US-orchestrated. It means opposing US military intervention so Venezuelan working people can settle the score with their own government without foreign interference.
No US war against Venezuela!
(Photo from Local10.com)
Some academic socialists define women who support Kamala Harris or Kristen Gillibrand as “neoliberal feminists.” So how do they define themselves for supporting Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, both of whom are committed Zionists & supporters of US militarism? If you ask my opinion, neoliberal has no meaning here at all except to obfuscate & distinguish the Zionism & militarism of the former two from the latter two. What such false distinctions lack in principles is made up for in sophistry.
A video by Kashmiri researcher Basharat Amin documenting the affects on families when one of their family members is forcibly disappeared:
https://www.facebook.com/unheardkashmir/videos/vb.600113410092350/547998242373943/?type=2&theater
Granted the distinction is a subtle one, but some people should not comment on politics until they can tell the difference between farce & electoral politics. The nomination of Thai “Princess” Ubolratana as a candidate for prime minister is actually more shameful than farcical. She’s a pop singer, game show host, soap opera star, & Instagrammer. More to the point, she hasn’t a single credential making her appropriate as a political candidate in a country with a military dictatorship & a monarchy. Politics are serious business, not spectacle. To show how serious her nomination was, the party nominating her withdrew it as soon as the current monarch (her brother) objected. Not the kind of political leadership needed to bring a junta to its knees.
Giles Ji Ungpakorn, in exile after being charged under Thailand’s lèse-majesté laws, calls this “the politics of the sewer.”
https://uglytruththailand.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/politics-of-the-sewer/?
This is to commemorate the hanging of Afzal Guru by the Indian State on February 9, 2013. Afzal Guru was a surrendered militant who wanted to lead a normal life. The Indian State, without any concrete evidence & with inadequate legal representation, hanged him in secret for the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. Omar Abdullah, who is trying to resurrect his image as a born-again champion of freedom, was India’s Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir at the time. The body of Afzal Guru is buried at Tihar jail in Delhi where he was hanged. His family are denied his body for respectful burial.
The anti-Assad crowd campaigning for US “humanitarian intervention” into Syria is really showing their rightwing character by campaigning for US intervention in Venezuela. When you endorse the bombing of civilians to oppose repressive regimes, you fall right into the trap of fascists, Stalinists, confusionists who reduce politics & war to “regime change operations.” But do the anti-Assad pro-war crowd really have to sell Palestinians down the river by endorsing the Zionist views of Financial Times writer Philip Stephens who denounced Palestinians for extremist violence in order to make the case for US intervention into Venezuela? Have they no shame? Have they no concern about the hundreds of thousands of civilians who will be harmed by war? Have they so little damn sense that they trust the US Pentagon & the presidency of Trump? Beware the clarion call for war.
This photo is a protest in Caracas on February 2nd against Maduro’s policies. Protesting against Maduro is not an endorsement of US military intervention. It is Venezuelans exercising their right to oppose government policies that impose repression & austerity on them. It should also be said that protesting for Guaido is not an endorsement of US intervention but speaks to the bankruptcy of electoral options in Venezuelan politics.
(Photo by Meridith Kohut/NY Times)
This is a long but quite good Australian documentary about Israel’s abuse & torture of Palestinian children. It has its weaknesses, in particular the ending which equates Palestinian resistance with revenge that could lead to undefined extremism. It features Zionist Daniella Weiss, a leader of the settler movement, claiming Israel was promised by God to Jews so Palestinians will have to be systematically removed one way or another. Weiss is the daughter of two American Zionists who were part of the Stern Gang, a paramilitary terrorist group that sought alliances with fascist Italy & Nazi Germany in order to set up a “new totalitarian Hebrew republic” in Palestine.