Kashmiri kids: once again children speak the most eloquently to the demand for freedom from military occupation.

(Photo by Aasif Shafi)

Thousands marched in Gaza against the Israeli bill allowing military courts to impose the death penalty on “terrorists” by which of course the Knesset means only Palestinians, including little kids who throw stones at the occupying army. Or Ahed Tamimi who is still in jail for righteously slapping an Israeli soldier. This death penalty bill takes Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing to new levels of degradation & violence & must be opposed.

Video of protests in Gaza: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLCRejpnXn0

These protesters in photo are at Khan Yunis, Gaza.

(Photo by Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images)

This Syrian couple mourn the death of their child Amir who was killed in Russian carpet bombing of the town of Saqba in eastern Ghouta. Do you think this young mother & father agree with, or at least understand the position of the debased antiwar movement which claims bombing of civilians is necessary to defend Assad’s national sovereignty? Do you think their misgivings about such rancid politics will be overcome when debased socialists throw those quotes from Lenin at them? Or when they blame this carnage on Israel & US regime-change schemes?

Our deepest condolences to this young couple & to all civilians suffering because the antiwar movement has been coopted by political degenerates & is led by comfortably ‘retired’ CIA & FBI agents & military officers.

The only principled demands are that Syria, Russia, & the US-coalition stop bombing civilians & for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo by Hamza Al-Ajweh/AFP/Getty Images)

No one is more giddy about Harry Windsor’s nuptials than US media. They have their own role to play in legitimizing feudalism, long past its time in the barbaric phase of capitalism–& they can’t keep themselves from groveling before power. Love is grand. But Harry is still a nimrod.

Little Rohingya kids at Cox’s Bazar refugee camp: their beauty speaks for itself & to the demands for asylum with full refugee rights.

(Photo from Imran Mohammed on FB)

The term “immigrant” doesn’t seem appropriate anywhere since the distinction between economic & war refugees is a false one designed to deny asylum to millions of desperate & poor people. The thousands of people on the US & European borders are refugees & should be called that in campaigns to win them asylum. Mostly, we should call them our own under the rubric that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” Screw Donald Trump.

The American actor/comedian Chris Rock has landed in Israel & will be performing in Tel Aviv tonight despite appeals asking him to honor the cultural boycott of Israel because of apartheid & ethnic cleansing. We’ll avoid any cheap shots about the decomposition of his excoriating wit because his career fortunes depended on reining it in. But shame on Chris Rock. Another one bites the dust.

Trump wants 5,000 more US Border Patrol agents for the southern border but the Border Patrol has a morale & detention problem–& not because the pay is low or their lives are endangered by refugees. Last year, the head of the Border Patrol told Congress there were 7,542 assaults on agents since 2006 & 30 agents killed in the line of duty since 2003. No offense, but our man is going to have to justify those figures which are anyway dwarfed by the number of refugees who die trying to cross the militarized border. By the US government’s own accounting, between 300 & 500 refugees die every year at the US-Mexico border from exposure, including heat stroke, dehydration, & hyperthermia. It’s a gruesome & bereft way to die. It’s entirely possible that young recruits to the Border Patrol can’t stomach being foot soldiers against desperate & poor refugees looking for work & a better life.

Bangladesh says it is unlikely that forcible repatriation of Rohingya refugees to Burma will start on January 22nd as scheduled because the logistics are not in place. What logistics would those be? Hasn’t the Suu Kyi government finished building the concentration camps in Arakan state to warehouse the refugees? Is Bangladesh having trouble recruiting goon squads to roust refugees from their camps & drive them back across the border with their sick & hungry kids? Let’s get real. There is no procedure that makes forcible repatriation back to the killing fields of Arakan anything other than barbaric.

There can be no decisions made about the lives of Rohingya refugees without their direct participation. They are human beings, not livestock, & where they can live safely is for them to decide.

“Ethnic Politics and Myanmar’s Anti-Democratic Transition

“We need to organise a big 2-days-gathering of engaged scholars, intellectuals & activists concerned about Myanmar genocide & racist wars to build an international political force to challenge the lies of policy-makers about Myanmar ‘democratic transition’.”

–Burmese dissident in exile Maung Zarni