One of the places I’ve been looking for work is home health care agencies where you work with seniors in their homes doing cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc. On a tip, I phoned one agency called Helping Hands to ask if they were hiring. The woman on the phone said they had one position in the home of an elderly man & without asking me to come in & apply, without vetting my references or work history, she gave me his address & said to just drive over & interview with him. She could not phone him since he had no working phone. So if I was a predator–& preying on the elderly is a serious social problem & booming industry in the US–I now know where a vulnerable old man lives without access to a phone for emergencies or calling the police. After her recklessness sunk in, I phoned her back & read her the riot act, threatening that if I reported her, the agency could be in serious trouble with the state. Those agencies get paid at least $25 an hour by families or the state to protect the elderly, not throw them to the wolves.
This is the burial service of Fayaz Ahmad Wani, a 30-year-old Kashmiri student & the youngest son of a farmer, who was gunned down on Monday by Indian occupying forces after one of their hunt to kill operations in Pulwama. He was getting ready for work when the operation began & remained indoors until it was over. He was not a part of any demonstrations but when he stepped out of the house & joined several friends from the area, soldiers directly fired live ammunition at them. He was taken to the hospital but could not be revived.
Since, in violation of international law, the Indian occupying army has impunity for such monstrous human rights crimes, no one will be charged or prosecuted for his death. May he Rest In Peace.
Go back India, go back.
(Photo by Basit Zargar)
An American Zionist laid a pile of bird manure on my wall to protest my post about the rightwing political character of Zionism. He did the usual song & dance about anti-Zionism being anti-Semitic, blithered incomprehensibly about how Arab regimes were more repressive of Palestinians than Israel, & then said the only resolution between Palestinians & Israelis requires Palestinians to “finally look inward & stop blaming the local scapegoat for the conditions created by their so-called allies & themselves.”
It’s not clear how he thinks Palestinians looking inward to examine their navels or the workings of their souls will address the issues of Israeli apartheid, genocide, the embargo of Gaza, the desecrations of the Al Aqsa mosque, the illegal settlements, land expropriations & home demolitions in the West Bank & East Jerusalem. Such is the derangement of Zionists that they cannot get past their racism toward Palestinians even if they talk a good game about civil rights in the US.
One could see in the man’s long-winded comment how Zionism, like nationalism & white supremacy, corrupts the intellect making cognitive dissonance & political imbecility a way of being. Anti-Zionists have always said that Israel, as a Jewish-only state, is a death trap for Jews who get sucked into its vortex. They can only be liberated from such intellectual & political corruption by standing up against racism against Palestinians, opposing apartheid & genocide, & fighting with Palestinians for the democratic, secular state long ago proposed by Palestinian activists where Palestinians & Jews can live in harmony with each other. Bantustates for Palestinians are not a solution but a part of apartheid, colonialism, & genocide.
This photo circulated by Palestinian activists now is children in the West Bank forced to sleep in a car & in the rough because of Israeli home demolitions to make room for Zionist settlements. This information is as available to every Zionist just as it is to the rest of us. How they make an accounting of this is a matter of conscience. If there is anyone who needs to look inward, it is Zionists who need to decide where they stand on genocide.
(Photo from several Palestinian sources)
A 90-year-old man & his 9-year-old granddaughters dancing to Saturday Night Fever: it doesn’t get cooler than this.
Some schnook showed up on my wall to insult me in rather ugly terms for not eulogizing McCain the war criminal. He claimed it was my white privilege that didn’t allow Syrians to “clutch at straws” with hope in US militarism. Don’t stick your bullshit on unspecified Syrians. Enough with the guilt-baiting. There’s nothing wrong with being white but there is something wrong with being delusional about the character of the US Pentagon. I am absolutely certain that many Syrians harbor no such foolish delusions after Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, & over 25,000 US bombs in Syria. As for that white privilege thing, we can spend hours swapping privilege charges. After all, I’m white but you’re male or you’re rich & I’m poor & all that baloney. It’s a political method that goes nowhere. If you haven’t more cogent reasons for defending McCain the war criminal–& of course you haven’t–then that privilege thing makes you look pathetic. Don’t try to pawn it off as the voice of the Syrian revolution.
Both supporters & opponents of the Assad dictatorship anticipate a Guernica scenario in Idlib, Syria as the final defeat of the Syrian Arab Spring uprising by the counterrevolutionary alliance of Syria, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Hezbollah, & the over 60 member US-coalition. The 1937 bombing of Guernica, immortalized by Picasso, was requested by Francisco Franco & carried out by the German Luftwaffe & Italian air force. The complete bombing destruction of Guernica is the model for terror bombing civilians which Syria, Russia, & its other allies are preparing for Idlib where an estimated 3-million civilians live, most of them displaced by other military sieges in Syria.
Over the past few years there have been protests by the corrupt remnants of the US & UK antiwar movements demanding ‘Hands off North Korea’ & Hands off Iran’ but nary a peep of opposition to the actual massive bombing of civilians in Syria. Now they remain dead silent as Russia deploys thousands of troops to Idlib & preparations are being made for an all-out aerial assault. US “antiwar” activists trying to cover their asses for support to the Assad dictatorship now provincially argue that their responsibility is only US bombing, not that of Syria or Russia. Meanwhile, anti-Assad activists are beating the drums for US humanitarian military intervention & parsing imaginary distinctions between the US bombing bloodbaths in Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, & those in Syria.
There is an existential crisis in international, not just western, politics when erstwhile progressives are marching with fascists, Stalinists, Islamophobes, & anti-Semites in support of the bombing of civilians & a brutal, murderous regime & their opponents are marching with militarists & the US Pentagon. The international left has been moving to the right for at least 50 years, since the Vietnam War ended. Their endorsement of a genocidal war against the Syrian Arab Spring uprising signals their ultimate corruption & demise. From such ignominy it is not possible to regenerate.
Ultimately, both those who support & those who oppose Assad have looked to militarism & have shown themselves to be completely bankrupt politically. There is no regeneration of the left, there is no left any more when they have aligned themselves against one of the most important social & antiwar struggles of our times. It’s too late now for either side to come to their senses. They both must be replaced with new political forces who will not compromise an iota on militarism & the bombing of civilians. That is not pacifism but the fundamental principles of antiwar solidarity.
Photo is Syrian activists at protest in London.
(Photo from Independent newspaper)
Were it not for the soldier uniforms, we would not be able to tell if these were Palestinian or Kashmiri kids on their way to school past razor wire barricades. Such are the affinities between the military occupations of Palestine & of Kashmir.
(Photo of Palestinian children from Basem Naim on Twitter)
It’s important to understand the political character of Zionism, especially at a time when its liberal proponents are attempting to salvage it from the wreckage of discredited Exodus mythology. With the rise of Palestinian solidarity in the past 50 years & especially with the growth of BDS in the past 13 years, many anti-Zionist progressives, from liberal to radical, moved to the right & now argue the necessity for a Jewish-only state to address the persecution of Jews. It isn’t at all that the persecution of Jews has increased but that Palestinian resistance & solidarity are more threatening to Israel’s founding myths & thus to its legitimacy.
At its most basic, Zionism is the belief that Jews have a right to take over Palestine & expel the indigenous Palestinians to establish a Jewish-only state. The US-brokered Oslo Accords which legitimize Israeli occupation & expropriation as well as proposals for a bantustate (two-state) solution are fully a part of that perspective which is being exposed by the acceleration of Zionist settlements in the West Bank & of genocide.
Zionism is not a religious ideology rooted in the Old Testament or any fictitious Biblical claims to Palestine; the Bible is a religious text, not a land deed. Zionism is a secular ideology rooted in a belief in the superiority of Jews & the rejection of any kind of assimilation like modern nation-states entail. It is a rightwing ideology akin to nationalism which originated in the late 19th century in response to the persecution of Jews in Europe. It emerged in an era when the savageries of European colonialism in Asia, Africa, the Americas, & Pacific were starting to be addressed by progressive political forces. Dividing up the world & competing for plunder was the fundamental conflict between nations which led to the first World War. The socialists & progressives of the day believed racism & colonialism should be intransigently fought & historically vanquished or they would destroy humanity. In this historic combat against colonialism, Zionist ideologues, based on their privileged class, chose to side with colonialism, adopted its methods & perspectives to set up a Jewish-only state, & rejected the broader struggle against racism & colonialism.
There have always been strong objections by progressive Jews to the rightwing proposals of Zionists. Some of the most powerful writings & critiques are by Jews who detested the stinking elitism, wanted to ally the struggle against antisemitism to the struggle against racism & colonialism, & considered it treachery to ally with the forces of reaction. Many of them died in the holocaust which Zionists exploited to peddle their nefarious scheme.
It’s important to distinguish among Zionists, between ideologues who accept any measure of barbarism against Palestinians for a Jewish-only state & those who are growing alarmed by the scope of Israeli genocide against Palestinians. We cannot write off the possibility that the latter can be won to the perspective of a secular, democratic state where Palestinians & Jews will live as equals, even as brothers & sisters. Demonizing them or treating them as pariahs does not further that campaign any more than making concessions to their elitism or racism against Palestinians.
You cannot reason with racism. As the US civil rights movement demonstrated, it is political power that ends the violence, silences the haters, & persuades the equivocators. Standing unequivocally with Palestinians through rallies, educational forums, demanding no military or other aid to Israel, building BDS, helps them build political power against colonialism, apartheid, genocide. Palestinian political power is the only solution for both Palestinians & Israeli Jews.
(Photo of Great Return March, August 31 2018 by Anadolu Ajansı/Ali Jadallah)
There’s a video on Twitter of Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps in East Turkistan where the women are forced to remove their head scarves & sing the Chinese national anthem. Shall we have that boneheaded discussion now about how the head scarf is a symbol of male & religious oppression?
More than 171 Palestinians have been killed & 17,500 others injured by Israeli snipers since the Gaza border protests called the Great Return March began on March 30. The protests call for ending the 12-year-long Israeli blockade of Gaza & for the right of return of Palestinian refugees.