Someone sent me a video of “Don’t Lie to Me,” the lead single from Barbra Streisand’s newly released album titled “Walls.” The entire album is apparently a criticism of the political climate in the US & of Trump’s presidency since she is a longtime Democrat. The title track “Walls” refers to her opposition to a wall on the southern border with Mexico. Call me unforgiving, call me sectarian, but I just cannot get past Streisand’s almost evangelical Zionism, her unconditional support for Israel & for its apartheid wall. She has been a troubadour of my generation since we were in our twenties but in respect to the Palestinian freedom struggle, I boycott her work. If she doesn’t include Palestinians in her vision of a humane society, there are other singers that speak more to my heart. Don’t lie to us, Barbra.
The World Bank & Canada will provide a $25 million education grant for 350,000 Rohingya children ($71 per child) living in the Cox’s Bazar area of Bangladesh. Sounds like largesse but it’s chump change when you consider what the World Bank is pulling out of Burma from its joint investments with the military & what Canada is pulling out from its joint mining projects with the Burmese genocidaires. Burma is a military form of capitalism where the military, its families & cronies control the economy. But to overcome economic stagnation & sanctions imposed after its suppression of the 1988 uprising, the military is introducing neoliberal economic policies in joint enterprises with foreign investors. With the massive profits & plunder involved, the World Bank & Canada are doing little more than handing over their petty cash drawers to Rohingya kids who deserve so much more–like the withdrawal of investments in protest against the genocide.
What’s happening in the US with all the hate mongering is absolutely terrifying. But it is demonstrated over & over again that the haters are a minority emboldened by Trump. The only reason they sound so clamorous is because there are insufficient mobilizations to counter them with political power. But there have been & there will be again when the elections show that Democrats are not the vanguard for social change. It is mass political power alone that can defend democracy.
Gaza News corrects Al Jazeera on death & injuries at the Great Return March. Just a reality check for those who claim voting for Democrats is a do or die proposition: to a person, Democrats support Israel against Palestinians & are not a lesser evil for them. Palestinians are not an ‘international issue’ or an accessory in progressive politics but are among the most important freedom fighters of our times. If you stand against them you are part of the problem no matter what the hell you say against Trump.
Recent victim of pellet munitions in Kashmir: if we do not stand with Kashmiris in their fight against pellet guns, protesters will be facing them in our own countries. Solidarity is not just the iron law of social transformation; it is the rubric of self-preservation .
The young Palestinian in the iconic photo was injured by an Israeli sniper today. What do you bet they were gunning for him & hoping to disable or kill him?
A Palestinian couple with special needs whose home was demolished to make room for Zionist settlers: such is the heritage of the Oslo Accords which legitimized occupation & colonial dispossession. Beware US-brokered ‘peace negotiations’ which have only ever opposed Palestinian self-determination.
t is absolutely pernicious how FB is using the Rohingya genocide to justify censorship & the sweeping deletion of accounts. When it deleted the accounts of Burmese generals (leaving Suu Kyi’s several walls intact), it was not to silence lies & hate mongering but to set the stage for censoring Rohingyas & other freedom struggles. It is important to know what the genocidaires are claiming & social media made that easily available. Now we have to hunt for such information. We have nothing to fear from freedom of speech, even for mass murderers & rapists like the Burmese generals. But mostly, we cannot let the powers-that-be trick us into supporting censorship on social media when the primary targets are those fighting war, occupation, & genocide. That isn’t a naive largesse toward the oppressors but protection for the oppressed.
Am I wrong, or has India killed more militants just in the past few months than there were militants when they began these nightly hunt to kill operations several months ago?
