Dutch moochocracy as cheap as its English cousins

Apparently attitudes toward Europe’s 12 surviving moochocracies are shifting in Europe & that’s good even if it is about 200 years overdue. For God’s sake, is Ireland the only country there who can’t abide a queen!? A UK poll last year showed support for Betty Windsor was at an all-time high due to Willy’s wedding & the Diamond Jubilee. But no need to be alarmed; when they took a close look at the poll they found it only queried the landed gentry & the deranged citizenry who show up at parades.

Nevertheless, moochocracies are taking a page from US oligarchy by starting to lie low & stop flaunting their wealth. In the US the “royals” are so sub rosa you can’t even name them--that’s how they deny they even exist. It’s a version of plausible deniability. This new strategy explains the media rubbish around baby George Windsor--like Willy actually changing the kid’s smelly diapers & being a hands-on, down-home dad when he doesn’t even wipe his own ass.

According to a 2011 poll among the Dutch, 75% supported the moochocracy there. But then it hit the news a year later that the Dutch moochocracy costs taxpayers more than any other in Europe. That didn’t sit well with Dutch taxpayers & a poll this year showed 70% had come to their senses & now thought the new king (as of April) Willy-Alexander, a 45-year-old drifter, should earn less than his mother, Betty. She earned 825,000 euros ($1.1 million USD) plus 100 million euros a year for maintaining estates & holding parades. The suggested new wage for Willy-Al is €250,000 to €500,000, which is a lot for doing nothing.

The media has consulted academics about this new development--albeit, not always the best thinkers--& they think the gossip & entertainment provided by moochocratic conduct is worth the cost of sustaining their lavish life styles. Well they underestimated Willy-Al. He got the message from taxpayers loud & clear. He wasn’t in the throne in all his constipated glory for more than a few months when he laid down some substantial cuts to extravagance. Yesiree bob! He was worth more than a tabloid scandal or two!

Our man, Willy-Al is no longer going to tolerate waste & he’s going after it with a vengeance. Health care & unemployment compensation will be cut; the retirement age is raised to 67 to milk seniors for all they’re worth; & youth & elder care services are being pruned to bare bones. Opulence is no longer acceptable & working people are going to have to tighten their belts. Let them eat swill! Willy-Al says people will just have to “take care of each other” so they can continue to maintain him & his wastral clan in the profligate opulence they claim as their due--being the progeny of deranged trolls in the Black Forest so many generations ago.

(Photo from independent.co.uk)

Zionism's religious imagination

Media reporting on the Palestine-Israel conflict is highly obscurantist; the average reader cannot make hide nor hair of what is going on over there. This presentation of the conflict as inscrutable & too complex for resolution is baloney. The Roman writer, Terence, once said “Nothing human is alien to me,” but our man hadn’t met the Zionist propaganda machine which confounds everything it touches, from religion to politics. Then he’d know what alien means!

Several times a year we read reports of conflict at the al-Asqa mosque in East Jerusalem, a district of the city illegally occupied by the Israeli military since 1967. You’ll be damn lucky if you find a single straight-forward explanation in the media of why the mosque is such a flashpoint of conflict between Palestinians, Zionist settlers, & the Israeli military.

Since there isn’t a shred of political legitimacy to Israel’s claims in Palestine, Zionism had to invent a narrative to justify colonialism, to their policy of forcibly & violently evicting the indigenous population of Palestinians & moving in Zionist settlers from all over Kingdom Come with no historical connections to the land. Since Zionism in Israel serves the geopolitical goals of the US & (along with the UK & other regimes), these regimes bankroll the project & turn a deaf ear to the idiocies of Zionist rationalizations--which are mostly found in the Pentateuch (the Torah). Even Yahweh would be aghast at how this religious tract is used by Zionists.

Since most Jews have lived outside Israel for 2,000 to 6,000 years they celebrate traditional religious holidays at synagogue services where they live. Sukkot is one of three pilgrimage festivals mandated in the Old Testament & goes back to ancient Israelites. In the expropriation of Palestine, Zionists had to invent a political history & re-imagine Judaism to render colonialism legitimate & even messianic. (They aren’t alone in using religion for such ignominious purpose. Christian missionaries elsewhere give them a run for their money.) Part of the re-imagining is cooking up ancient links between Judaism to religious sites sacred to Muslims. This would include the Cave of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron & the al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem. This mythic rendition serves Zionism but hasn’t a damn thing to do with Judaism.

It isn’t a coincidence that the ultra-right-wing Rabbi Shlomo Goren who was an officer in the Israeli military during the 1967 occupations & later served as Chief Rabbi of Israel was the guy who “liberated” both the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron & the Temple Mount in Jerusalem where al-Aqsa sits. What the extremists want is the destruction of al-Aqsa, not just Israeli control of the site. Rabbi Goren didn't beat around the bush about that but called for its destruction. Under the pretense of unearthing archeological evidence of Jewish religious history, Israel has been conducting extensive excavations under the mosque. They have not yet found a single artifact related to Jewish history but they have done considerable damage to the mosque, creating cracks in its walls, removing soil from beneath the structure which weaken its foundation & make it vulnerable to collapse.

It is presently the Sukkot holiday & Zionist pilgrims including thousands of Evangelical Christians poured into Hebron & Jerusalem, not to pray but to invade the place like born-again Knights Templar to reclaim the Holy Land. The Israeli military again put al-Aqsa off limits to Palestinian worshippers. On Tuesday, the military used stun guns, tear gas, mounted police, sound bombs, & blue-colored waste water shot from water cannons against Palestinians demanding access to their place of worship. There are dozens of photos of undercover Israeli cops beating Palestinian protestors or holding them in choke holds. Photos are worth a thousand lies which is why Israeli human rights groups report journalists are being targeted & attacked at the protests & their equipment destroyed. Here a Palestinian protestor stands off against Israeli soldiers at the protest on Tuesday.

Show your support for Palestinian religious freedom by boycotting all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729), supporting the cultural boycott of Israel, & demanding “No US aid to Israel!”

(Photo by Marco Longari/AFP)

Donkey's ass offends Egyptian military

There hasn’t been much media coverage of Egypt since the military imposed martial law, including a 7 pm curfew (just relaxed to 9 pm). There have been scattered & sketchy reports of continuing but waning protests by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) & of severe repression against the MB, including prosecutions & incarcerations. The MB protests are the only reported incidents of resistance to military rule which doesn’t mean there is no other political opposition. Media also think it important to note nightclub habitués are squawking about the loss of party time. Many media sources claim the military is riding high in public approval--as if millions of Egyptians suddenly went stupid & forgot 60 years of military tyranny. That would be wishful thinking. Some media even claim there is a “long-standing taboo” in Egypt against criticizing the military. So taboo is the new euphemism for terror!? (When you interpret the news you have to become practiced in the art of euphemism.)

A recent frequently reported incident in southern Egypt must have tickled the media’s funny bone but it is far from amusing on closer inspection. Omar Abul-Magd, a farmer in Qena province was arrested last Saturday for naming his donkey after General el-Sissi & riding the donkey through town in an army cap. The military didn’t take kindly to the rear end of the donkey coming out the better in comparison to the general. Abul-Magd’s political sarcasm may get him a lengthy stay in the Egyptian gulag--& that is no laughing matter.

On the same day in Cairo, eight people were arrested for spraying graffiti against el-Sissi & earlier in the week a military court sentenced five “pro-Morsi protestors” to prison for chanting against the army through loud speakers. The court said the defendants were spreading hate speech & false rumors. We are told three of the defendants were tried in absentia. What does that mean? Are they on the run, in hiding, already stuck in the Egyptian gulag & not allowed to defend themselves?

It is now abundantly clear, including to millions of Egyptians, that the military state of emergency was only clearing ground with repression of the MB & that its real intent was to turn back the clock on the Egyptian revolution. The Egyptian people have shown the world remarkable toughness & savvy in the past few years; if the Egyptian military weren’t still afraid of that there would be no martial law.

(Photo by AFP)

Sweatshop workers strike in Bangladesh

Now this story will have you fist-pumping at the same time as your blood is boiling. Since the Rana Plaza sweatshop factory collapse in April (death toll, 1,129; injury toll, including amputations, 2,500; missing bodies toll, 261) survivors & their families have repeatedly protested for back wages owed & compensation; the protests have mostly appeared quite small. In fact, garment workers & their political supporters have held sizable protests against the government & the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers & Exporters Association (BGMEA) which the media doesn’t bother to report. In June, police actually opened fire on striking garment workers when they should have been rounding up sweatshop owners & closing down the offices of US retailers. Bangladeshis whose fortunes are larded by sweatshop exploitation are not going to bite the hand that feeds them.

In response to protests, factory owners offered a 20% pay increase. On their current monthly wage of 3,000 takas ($38 USD) that would amount to less than $8.00 which garment workers rejected, calling it “inhuman & humiliating.” They are demanding an increase to 8,114 takas ($103 USD). The official poverty line established by the World Bank is about $38.00 a month but that’s likely based on the world economy somewhere around 9000 BCE when they were still trading grain for livestock. Keep in mind that the garment industry in Bangladesh which employs about 4 million workers brings in about $20 billion a year in export earnings. If they aren’t paying the workers, who the hell is getting rich!?

There’ve been a series of massive protests by garment workers like the one pictured here on September 4th. But this past Saturday 200,000 garment workers went out on strike--& they remained out as of yesterday. Between 100 & 150 factories shut down & protestors rallied at plants that remained open in defiance of the labor strike. Strikers are blocking traffic on key highways, throwing rocks at riot cops using rubber bullets & tear gas against them, & even confiscated & destroyed rifles used by the riot cops. Good for them! BGMEA officials are whimpering to the foreign media that the strike is costing them profits. They even accused strikers of torching two garment factories. It’s likely a false accusation but if they did torch them, good for them!

The massive labor uprising has garnered hardly any media attention so as not to draw attention to the fact that despite the many sweatshop factory fires & the collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, US & European retailers like Walmart, Gap, Sears, Disney, & Benetton have not done one damn thing to redress the loss of lives & livelihood caused by their greed & predations. Can you imagine that back wages from April remain unpaid & that these retailers refuse to negotiate, let alone contribute to a compensation fund for those who lost family members & those who lost limbs!

We could not be prouder of our Bangladeshi brothers & sisters for leading the fight against sweatshop capitalism. Our fullest solidarity with your struggle! An injury to one is an injury to all! Your are showing working people everywhere what it takes to end exploitation.

(Photo from firstpost.com taken of Dhaka garment workers strike on September 4th 2013)

Seniors around the world still fighting for justice

There are apparently sociologists who peddle theories of how people grow more conservative with age. According to them, we have bulging stock portfolios, get lavish pensions, buy sit down lawnmowers, & grow stupid with every new medication gerontologists pump into us. Screw that rubbish!

Not only are todays retirees of the 1960s-1970s generation who challenged & transformed social consciousness, but our pensions (for those who have them) are being systematically gnawed on & whittled down to chump change. Many retirees have to look for work at minimum wage--in a labor market where seniors are undesirable. Many are on food stamps. Many have to rely on relatives. Many are eating dog food. Many can’t afford medical care even with Medicare which is being administratively reduced to bare bones.

And here’s how we know the sociologists are talking through their hats. Around the world seniors have been a central part of protests--not just against pension cutbacks but against tyrannies of every kind. In the US they remain the backbone of the antiwar movement. Fighting for social justice transforms people & that is not something you age out of into political senility. Stupidity has never been an age-specific thing.

Here a senior woman leads striking city workers in Athens to protest public sector job cuts where 12,500 civil servants threatened with layoffs are being suspended on partial pay. Kick ass sister! Our fullest solidarity.

(Photo by Petros Giannakouris/AP)

Lockdown in Hebron, West Bank

Hebron, the biggest city in the West Bank, has long been a flashpoint for conflict between Palestinian residents, ultra right-wing Zionist settlers, & the Israeli military occupying the city since 1967. After an Israeli soldier was fatally shot yesterday the military put the city under complete lockdown on a manhunt for the unidentified sniper who they have morphed into a Palestinian terrorist. Soldiers have set up road blocks, are raiding houses & corralling male occupants at gunpoint into assembling at main junctions, & are preventing Palestinians from leaving the city. Soldiers are also using rubber bullets & stun grenades against Palestinians protesting the lockdown.

A cursory review of more than 130 incidents of conflict in Hebron between Palestinians, Zionist settlers, & soldiers since 1953 (most of them with multiple victims) shows that violence toward Palestinians is double the incidences by Palestinians. Without examining in detail all of the incidences it is impossible to tell if Palestinians were aggressing or were charged with assault when they were defending themselves against military & settler aggression.

What we do know for certain is from published testimony by Breaking the Silence, the group of ex-soldiers, most of whom served in Israeli combat units in Hebron. It’s  similar to Winter Soldier tribunals among US antiwar veterans. The Israeli veterans (who were conscripted) described violent abuse of Palestinians by settlers & soldiers, petty harassment of Palestinians by soldiers, abductions, beatings, torture of Palestinians without provocation, abusing & tormenting Palestinian children, looting homes & shops, & opening fire on unarmed protestors. One young soldier poignantly testified to "losing the human condition" in Hebron. When asked what he meant, he replied: "To lose the human condition is to become an animal." That is the regrettable & most damning legacy of Zionism.

All media accounts attribute the occupation & conflict in Hebron to the presence of what Jews call the Cave of the Patriarchs & Arabs the Ibrahimi Mosque, a religious site sacred to both traditions. According to Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca & Leah were buried there sometime in the Bronze Age about 6,000 years ago. Some even claim Adam & Eve are buried there. It isn’t disrespectful to say that if your claims require carbon dating & major archeological excavations & your documentation is fished out of Genesis or the Kabbalah you may want to reconsider your sources. Only the most conservative religious sects consider the Old Testament a reliable historical document. And there’s a long way to go before mysticism is given historical credence.

According to the Zionist re-imagining of history, Hebron has the oldest Jewish community in the world (since time immemorial, they claim) & is the second holiest city in Judaism after Jerusalem. In truth, if you look at non-Biblical historical records going back well over a thousand years, you find very few Jews living in Hebron. Nor does it appear to be a place of pilgrimage like Mecca. Sephardic Jews fleeing the Inquisition found refuge there 800 years ago but even including them, there have usually been far less than 1,000 Jewish residents compared to several thousand Arabs. When Israel occupied the city in 1967, it attracted ultra-right-wing rabbis from the US who by any standards of mental health are nut jobs. Under the protection of the military, they advertised for settlers & eventually built the Zionist settlement of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron which now numbers about 7,000 residents, most as crazy, right-wing, & dangerous as the original two rabbis.

This is a photo of a Palestinian child watching Israeli patrols during the lockdown of Hebron yesterday. US taxpayers are bankrolling this monstrosity of injustice. Demand "No US aid to Israel!"

(Photo by Nasser Shiyoukhi/AP)

Honoring Leah Tsemel, an Israeli anti-Zionist activist

In the mid-1970s, I lived in NYC & became caretaker of a brownstone owned by a political friend who lived out of state most of the time. As an editor of political publications my friend had many international collaborators who stayed in his home while he was away. Meeting them was quite an education for an untraveled provincial. There was the older man from Scotland I was warned (not by my friend) would be a nightmare of misogyny; I found him charming & shy & a delightful raconteur. There was another prestigious writer I expected to be intimidated by who was a misogynist boor with rude table habits.

Along with the Scotsman my favorite guest was Leah Tsemel, an Israeli human rights lawyer who stayed with me about a week while on speaking tour. She had only been practicing law for a few years then & her clientele were Palestinians before Israeli military courts in cases involving torture, interrogation, incarceration, house demolitions, land expropriations, family reunification. She has remained a champion of Palestinian human rights, still defending Palestinians in the courts & in venues like the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in South Africa (November 2011), & Palestinian solidarity activists (including on the Free Gaza flotillas).

She’s a stylish, brusque, straight-forward, gravelly-voiced woman who I anticipated might be high-handed because of her station in life. On the contrary, she could not have been less elitist, even sweet. There wasn’t a hint of arrogance in her attitude toward me--which probably helps explain not just why Palestinian defendants continue to flock to her but also her continued unflinching commitment to their cause.

She was on shopping missions to the Jewish-owned commercial district in lower Manhattan & she laid out her bargaining strategy for me. I warned her that though they might bargain in Jerusalem they certainly didn’t do so in Manhattan--which she took as a challenge. Every day she came back with packages she unwrapped while gleefully comparing their original price to the one she wrangled.

Many think it’s a pipe dream that Palestinians & Jews can one day live in harmony. Tsemel has often testified to the intransigent hold of Zionist racism on Israelis--which may explain why she came to accept a two-state solution, although that solution becomes more untenable with every new land confiscation & Zionist settlement. Israel has a one-state solution dependent on ethnic cleansing that excludes all Palestinians.

We don’t read much about anti-Zionist opposition among Israeli citizens because the persecution & censure against them is so severe. For defending Palestinians, Tsemel has been called a traitor, a whore, a self-hating Jew & her children have sustained harassment. But beside tough-minded individuals like Tsemel, her husband Michel Warschawski (founder of the Alternative Information Center), & many others, there are emerging forces of resistance within Israel including former soldiers (of “Breaking the Silence”) testifying about the military occupation; protestors against the bombing of Gaza; people opposing house demolitions; & human rights groups documenting & opposing the treacheries of the Zionist regime. The opposition may not be massive & it certainly isn’t strong enough yet to stay the hand of Israeli oppression but it reveals the potential for another kind of world. It’s far too early either to give up on the Palestinian movement or on emergent Israeli anti-Zionism.

(Photo of Leah Tsemel from video of her testimony at Russell Tribunal in Cape Town, November 2011)

Israeli bulldozers demolishing entire Palestinian villages

You wish you could say Israel really blew it when Israeli soldiers manhandled diplomats from the European Union (EU) yesterday as they tried to deliver tents & emergency aid to Palestinians made homeless when Israeli bulldozers demolished the village of Khirbet Makhoul in the Jordan Valley, West Bank. You wish even more you could say this confiscation of Palestinian lands finally brought an end to the charade of peace talks between Palestinian & Israeli officials. But you can’t.

Since its military occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Israel put 90% of the Jordan Valley off limits to Palestinians who hold deeds on the land & forced many to leave their homes & villages. Only 70,000 Palestinians remain out of a population of 250,000 before Israel’s occupation. The latest expropriation scheme is to designate areas as military zones, bulldoze the homes & animal pens, confiscate the lands, erect a military encampment, & finally begin Zionist settlement construction.

Last Monday morning, army bulldozers escorted by Israeli soldiers & officials arrived in the village of Khirbet Makhoul & without prior demolition notices began razing Palestinian homes, stables, & a school. Despite this residents refused to leave, insisting they have lived there for generations & hold deeds to the land. The next day the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) attempted to set up tents as temporary shelters but the army forced the ICRC to take them down.

Yesterday when EU diplomats from several countries showed up with more tents & emergency supplies a dozen Israeli military jeeps converged on them & ordered them not to unload the truck, calling the aid a provocation. A French diplomat on the delegation was dragged out of a truck & forced to the ground with no regard she protested for her diplomatic immunity or international law. Respect for diplomatic immunity!? The Israeli government has no respect for anything! Her indignation comes about 65 years & 5 million refugees too late. The EU is going to have to do a lot more than deliver tents to stop Israeli land grabs; it has the resources & authority to conduct an international campaign supporting the Palestinians & forcing Israel to back down--but this the EU will not do.

Residents of Khirbet Makhoul applied to the Israeli High Court of Justice to prevent the demolition but the court ruled they did not have proper building permits. Residents claim their repeated efforts to get building permits from the Civil Administration were denied every time. The High Court is clearly a party to the Israeli land grab using the permit scam to zone Palestinians out of legal residence on land which they own.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator in the current Israel-Palestine talks, put in his two-cents on the demolition of Khirbet Makhoul, pointing out that Zionist settlements in the West Bank are land theft & are growing at seven times the rate of housing in Tel Aviv. Feigning bewilderment, he said, “Is this the behavior of someone who wants to reach an agreement? Is this the trust that is required to achieve the two-state solution?" No it clearly isn’t Dr. Erekat--which is why an Israeli official accused you quite rightly of grandstanding; the rest of us wonder what the hell you’re doing holding peace talks when Israel is on a land grab rampage.

There is nothing to talk about & no possibility for peace nor for a two-state solution when Israeli policies are directed to a one-state solution excluding all Palestinians. The only possible solution includes the end of military occupation, stopping the Zionist settlements, ending the land grabs, tearing down the barrier walls, ending the blockade of Gaza, freeing all Palestinian prisoners, allowing Palestinian refugees to return & eliminating the infamous Law of Return allowing every Jew legal residence. That requires dismantling the Zionist regime & establishing a democratic, secular state where Palestinians & Jews can live together as brothers & sisters. If you’re not discussing those issues, Dr. Erekat, you can only be horse-trading the Palestinian terms of surrender. And that’s betrayal.

Show your support for Palestinian justice by boycotting all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729), by supporting the cultural boycott of Israel, & by demanding “No US aid to Israel!”

(Photo of French diplomat, Marion Fesneau-Castaing, being assaulted by Israeli soldiers on September 20, 2013, by Abed Omar Qusini/Reuters)

Persecution of Roma

In 2012 scientists from Estonia, India, Switzerland, & England published a study where they compared Y chromosomes in DNA samples of European Roma men with those of 10,000 Indians. Based on that Y chromosome they concluded Roma are descendants of Dalits in Punjab who fled caste & the spread of Islam to India about 1,500 years ago by way of Egypt & North Africa & migrated north to Europe. That’s a pretty talkative little chromosome just cholk-full of historical speculations. And golly what an interesting history it is but one wonders if that link to Dalits is supposed to explain why after a millennium & a-half later Roma are still not integrated into European society & remain among the most universally persecuted ethnic groups.

Media analysts complain that despite European integration strategies, EU funds & political & diplomatic efforts, Europe has been unable to integrate the Roma people. Presumably they’re not referring to the police raids, forcible evictions, & destruction of Roma communities in several European countries or France’s strategy of giving Roma immigrants €300 ($390) & putting them on a plane back to Romania.

The Roma go back over 800 years in Europe & are not all native to Romania; they’ve lived for generations in most countries including the Americas. There are no reliable figures on how many Roma live in Romania but it is at least a few million, making them the second largest ethnic group & the most socially disadvantaged (i.e., persecuted). When Romania acceded to the European Union in 2007, many Romanians, including Roma took off for other countries to try to make a better life. What they found was persecution even harsher than that in Romania.

Roma are forced to live on the outskirts of cities often near garbage dumps; they have to live in makeshift housing without water, electricity, access to sanitation; their children are in segregated, substandard schools without sufficient teachers & their children often tracked into special needs classes; they are denied access to health care; they face mountains of racist prejudice. And now governments are raiding their communities, burning down their shacks, & forcing them into homelessness.

One of the most intractable social problems of modern capitalism is racism & the persecution of ethnic minorities. Many believe this is just the way things are & have always been. (For evo psychos this is a tenet of their version of genetics. Because evo psycho genetics are so amenable to the status quo, they get all the best tenured posts at prestigious universities.) Racism may now be integral to capitalism; it certainly cannot function without it. But it is a relatively late development in human history directly related to colonialism. White supremacy is an odious ideology, stinking with treachery & mendacity. The only possible way to address it is not through guilt-trips & breast-beating  but by supporting the oppressed in their struggle for social, political, & economic power. If capitalism cannot sustain democracy & human justice for all it has to go--& it is quite certain it’s demise will be led by the untouchables of modern times.

This photo is from Ponorata, Romania where about 500 Roma live in squalor without electricity. Nearly 95% if them are illiterate & unemployed & were forcibly returned to Romania from France where they earned a living through begging & scrap metal collection.

(Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Fighting fascism in Greece

Media is reporting violent clashes “broke out” in several Greek cities after a member of the country’s far-right Golden Dawn party was arrested in the fatal stabbing in Athens of Pavlos Fissas, a 34-year-old musician & anti-fascist activist. All that means in media lingo is that cops attacked unarmed protestors. Golden Dawn, which has strong links to the Greek police (meaning much of the membership is interchangeable), has already been involved in repeated attacks on & intimidation of undocumented immigrants. Squads of Golden Dawn vigilantes vowing to “rid the land of filth” terrorize immigrant neighborhoods carrying clubs & swastika-like symbols. Human Rights Watch, the conservative human rights group, reports that xenophobic violence is of alarming proportions & accuses Greek officials of not doing a damn thing to stop it. In fact, the regime doesn’t even bother to record incidents or the numbers of immigrants threatened & attacked. Police discourage victims from filing complaints or try to charge them fees for doing so. According to Greek immigrant rights groups, there are hundred of reports of immigrants beaten while cops stood by doing nothing & of immigrants being attacked by cops in police stations while attempting to file a complaint.

The widespread condemnation & protest at the murder of Fissas may be attributable to alarm & recognition that Golden Dawn is now broadening its assaults from primarily immigrants to include immigration rights activists. In this photo a riot cop uses his shield to attack an anti-fascist activist holding a banner (yesterday). There is plenty of political experience of both the positive & negative kind for how to organize to oppose fascism. It includes out-mobilizing them & scaring the hell out of them since terror is their stock-in-trade.

Greek unions have presently called a 48-hour general strike against the austerity measures & opposition to Golden Dawn has been incorporated into the protests. Greece is in a crisis & the union leadership needs to stop with the one-day & two-day strikes to blow off steam; they need to keep the work force out until the regime is brought to its knees & Golden Dawn brought to justice & prosecuted.

(Photo by Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

Egypt's stingy "humanitarianism"

When Mohamed Morsi became Egyptian president in June 2012 many expected his regime to solidarize with Palestinians against Israeli apartheid. It was hoped he would ease Egyptian border restrictions on Gaza to alleviate the hardships of Israel’s blockade which has a stranglehold on Gazans. Instead, after an initial relaxation of border controls, Morsi continued Mubarak’s policy of collaboration with Israel. Of particular importance were the tunnels between Gaza & Egypt, a commercial lifeline where tons of medical & food supplies, rebuilding supplies, & fuel are smuggled into Gaza. Under Morsi’s regime, the Egyptian military went on a rampage to flood the underground tunnels with sewage water & make them inoperable.

When Morsi was ousted in early July, the military regime accelerated their campaign by closing the Rafah crossing where thousands pass back & forth between Gaza & Egypt for study, travel, business, & medical treatment & by continuing to flood the tunnels. There is no significant distinction between the policies of Mubarak, Morsi, & the Egyptian military because they were/are all beholden to the same political & economic forces ruling Egypt & all bankrolled by the US Pentagon. Even the most conservative human rights groups denounce Israel’s blockade of Gaza as barbarism; the most straight-forward call it ethnic cleansing. The Egyptian government is party to this.

Under pressure & certainly not motivated by humanitarian concerns, Egypt’s military regime agreed to open the Rafah crossing on Wednesday & Thursday four stingy hours a day for patients seeking medicare care in Egypt & for students studying in Egypt. This largesse will reportedly allow passage for about 400 people when there are thousands stranded on both sides of the crossing.

This is a photo from yesterday of Palestinians waiting to cross into Egypt. Solidarity with the right of free passage for Palestinians can be expressed by boycotting all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729), supporting the cultural boycott of Israel, & demanding “No US aid to Israel,” “No US aid to Egypt.”

(Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

Where goest thou fashion?

The fashion world continues to display the vaunted creativity of capitalism by no longer dressing but obliterating women. All that’s left of us of now is knock knees on stilettos. Meanwhile, the political world--especially France, the center of haute couture--is all atwitter about the niqab, which at least leaves an eye-hole. One doesn’t know where the planet is going; it looks like it’s headed for perdition & if that’s where it’s going, it’s certain fashion will get there first.

(Photo of design by Agatha Ruiz de la Prada at Madrid’s fashion week by Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP)

Protests continue in Turkey

The Turkish protests that began in May in Taksim Square, Istanbul have long-since been driven to other parts of the city by police aggression, especially the profligate use of tear gas against unarmed protestors--although activists still frequently brave riot cops to retake the Square demanding freedom of assembly & speech. The many grievances that compelled tens of thousands to protest Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government last summer are exacerbated & by no means redressed.

Erdogan is likely blistering at recently losing the Turkish bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics partly due to the protests. The Olympics committee was exposed & embarrassed by the massive protests in Brazil against their drain on public funds to entertain the monied elite while education & health care are bled dry. They wouldn’t want a repeat of that in Turkey. If social rebellion keeps up the Olympics won’t be able to find a hospitable national venue anywhere on the planet--or the rich will have to pay for their own parties.

After being driven out of Taksim Square, activists organized an Occupy-type open-air headquarters in another municipal park in Kadikoy (on the Anatolian side of Istanbul) where they hold meetings, forums, workshops, & sponsor childcare for activist parents. On September 10th, riot police in the city of Antakya shot 22-year-old activist Ahmet Atakan in the back of the head with a tear gas canister. Despite many witnesses & the official autopsy, officials refuse to take responsibility for young Atakan’s death, claiming he fell from a building. US media report Atakan’s death was “under disputed circumstances.” (US media places more stock in official lies than eye-witnesses.) Ahmet Atakan is now the sixth person killed in the Turkish uprising.

Thousands of protestors in Istanbul, Ankara, & Antakya have clashed with riot cops every night since then chanting Atakan’s name. US media reports say protestors “have taken on a harder edge” with protestors now launching projectiles & using burning barricades to provoke riot cops using tear gas, grenades, & water cannons. Since the entire world witnessed the extreme aggression of riot cops against peaceful protestors in Taksim Square last summer, we can take this as just another rendition of media accounts that protests around the world “turned violent” when riot cops attacked unarmed protestors. Imagine that the exercise of free speech now requires wearing gas masks like this protestor in Istanbul! Protestors have a right to demand freedom of assembly & speech & to defend themselves when attacked. That is called defense, not provocation.

(Photo by Ulas Yunus Tosun/EPA)

Privilege can make you stupid

It’s a little recognized fact that privilege can make you stupid. So it’s a damn good thing we have graduate schools to continually remind us of that harsh reality. Usually the subjects of research forays are women & we always come out on the short end of the stick. There are 40 years of this crap with every idiotic study dutifully reported in the media. Susan Faludi wrote an invaluable book on the subject (Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women); I myself have written an exposé or two--though my damnations are considerably more epithetical than Faludi.

Who else but a behavioral economist at Harvard could claim being broke taxes the brain so much that it “perpetuates the cycle of poverty”--& say that like he was uttering profundities rather than idiocies? It might be worth mentioning here that behavioral economics (which you can only major in if you have a trust fund backing you up) deals with social & emotional factors in financial decisions. Which leads to the question “why don’t they study people with dough rather than those of us without any?” Cause when you don’t have dough you don’t make financial decisions; you make disaster recovery plans.

Unfortunately our good man doesn’t know when to keep his trap shut before he exposes what a complete moron he is. Last year, our behavioral economist (shall I reveal his name & bring even greater shame on Harvard than E.O. Wilson & Steven Pinker?) published an article in Science showing that when people have an urgent financial problem like no money & an unpaid utility bill “they develop tunnel vision & ignore their long-term goals.” You bet your sweet ass they do! Especially if it’s winter & they need heat--not to mention light. Double that if your long-term financial horizons are just as bleak as your present.

To see if this tunnel vision was universal & could be used to damn the poor wherever they are, the Harvard researchers traveled to India to IQ test sugar cane farmers who get paid once a year. They tested the farmers a month before harvest & one month after when they’re rolling in dough. Our man was stunned to find you act smarter when you can afford to eat & pay the utility bill. And this floored him! And what floors us is that research grant money is used to bankroll this halfwit. For half the dough those sugar cane farmers could explain the fluctuation in IQ between when they’re eating & when they’re starving. But not even a steady diet of chateaubriand can help that economist.

To make sure you know just how damn stupid our man is he compared the sugar cane farmers to shoppers in a New Jersey mall. What do the New Jersey equivalent of Valley Girls have to do with Indian sugar cane farmers? But he really didn’t have to go all the way to New Jersey; he could just have strolled around Harvard Square & interviewed the well-heeled shoppers there. Lord, you’d like to say “you just can’t make this stuff up” but that’s exactly what our man does.

The researcher (who should remain anonymous to avoid ridicule) concludes pompously that many behaviors linked to poverty like lack of preventive healthcare, high obesity rates, being less attentive parents, & making poor financial decisions may be caused by poverty rather than the other way around. And he thinks he’s on to something!

Sendhil Mullainathan, the researcher, is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation genius grant so presumably he is eating well & has his utility bill paid up to date. This photo accompanied article in the LA Times. We don’t know if it is before or after the farmers have eaten & paid their utilities bill. It’s not easy putting on your smart face carrying a 100 pound bag.

(Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images)

Solidarize with sweatshop workers

Survivors & family members of the Rana Plaza collapse protest (on July 31st) at the headquarters of The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers & Exporters Association (BGMEA), the trade group promoting & running interference for sweatshops. Protestors are demanding compensation. They have a long & difficult political battle ahead but guided by the mantra “an injury to one is an injury to all” we can actively solidarize with them by getting the word out about the human rights crimes of US & European retailers & demanding compensation from these cut-throat predators with manicured fangs.

(Photo by Mohammad Asad from Demotix.com)

Sign on to protest sweatshops!

Anyone recall the flurry of mea culpas by US & European garment retailers after the Rana Plaza garment factory collapsed in Bangladesh last April? The retailers pledged to demand safety standards & contribute to a compensation plan for victims who lost family members (sometimes sole wage earners) or lost limbs in the catastrophe & are unable to work. Their contrition is so histrionic (in the sense of shallow & attention-seeking) when media focus is on them--which is why media, so compliant with exploitation, moves quickly to the next catastrophe.

It is unspeakable that not a one of the US retailers who made such exorbitant profits from the labor of these workers have paid any compensation into a plan or even participated in negotiations to do so. There’s no point in waiting for Walmart or the other companies to grow a conscience & do the right thing out of shame. Those are cultural refinements sweatshop capitalism isn’t capable of; barbarism is the height & hallmark of Walmart culture. They have to be bludgeoned with public exposure for their human rights crimes.

Students & activists around the world have been forming anti-sweatshop groups & showing up at stores with placards. It looks like chickens are coming home to roost at least for Walmart since workers are beginning to organize against its rotten labor practices here. 

Please take a moment to sign these two petitions & learn how you can join the campaign in solidarity with Rana Plaza & other sweatshop workers & their families.

http://walmartdeathtraps.com/

http://orphansplace.com/

(Photo from orphansplace.com)

Bangladeshi workers forced to work for chump change

This Bangladeshi worker is on the work force restoring a ferry at a dockyard near Dhaka. For welding, cutting, & painting, workers earn less than $4.00 USD per day. By comparison, US workers doing the same work earn from about $16 to $30 an hour. Note the absence of protective gear in highly-toxic labor.

Bangladesh has an old shipping industry but when freight containerization hit the industry it created an international slump in shipping. Visionary predators within the Bangladeshi government & ruling oligarchy realized that if they extended the incentives (tax exemptions, warehouse facilities, cheap labor) provided to the garment industry to the shipbuilding industry they could attract foreign investment for joint ventures. That required lowering labor costs & lack of workers’ rights--the sweatshop writ large! As these “visionaries” saw it, a refurbished shipbuilding industry built on super-exploitation could strengthen their “export diversification strategy,” making shipbuilding even more profitable than garment sweatshops.

Designing ships to accommodate containers meant old fleets had to be scrapped. The scrapping or ship breaking industry breathed new life into the industry in Bangladesh. Asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), & lead paint were used heavily in ship construction until they were banned in the 1980s. Until 15 or 20 years ago, breaking down ships for recycling was mainly done in UK & US shipyards but environmental regulations on the disposal of toxic substances forced the industry to move to countries without such encumbrances as required protective equipment, workers’ health claims, or personal injury lawsuits.

Bangladesh is a signatory to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes & Their Disposal, an international agreement designed specifically to prevent the movement of hazardous waste from what are euphemistically called “developed” countries to “developing” countries. The Basel Convention became international law in 1992. (The US is a signatory but refuses to ratify it.) Of course as we know, international law has never impeded a single transgression when profits & plunder are at stake.

The Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) exposed flagrant violations of the Basel Convention & took shipyard owners to court. The Bangladesh High Court ruled in 2009 & 2010 that only toxic-free ships could lawfully enter Bangladesh but under pressure from the government & shipyard owners the High Court reversed that decision in 2011 & toxic ships are once again polluting beaches in Bangladesh & creating massive health problems for residents & workers. Human & workers' rights cannot be allowed to interfere with visionary plunder.

The central bank of Bangladesh recently reported a three-fold increase in the number of billionaires in the country just in the past decade despite an increasing level of poverty. This phenomenon is inexplicable to bank economists & has them scratching their heads, suggesting the government “look into the matter deeply.” These are the banalities that pass for analysis in capitalist media.

Ahmed Akbar Sobhan, now the richest person in Bangladesh, is one of those billionaires whose wealth is based in part on the shipbuilding industry. Shipbuilding workers earning $4.00 USD a day will be inspired to know he is an advocate of corporate social responsibility & works tirelessly for the poor & underprivileged of Bangladesh. This news will be especially heartening to workers suffering severe chronic or acute toxicity from asbestos, PCBs, & lead or occupational diseases such as mesothelioma. Family members of workers killed in accidents due to fumes, fires, & explosions caused by flammable gases & oils left in tankers will also be moved.

Sobhan’s PR troupe attribute his wealth to his visionary character combined with diversity in business. Closer examination without the handsomely rewarded sycophancy will reveal that plunder & exploitation are a far better explanation. What is inexplicable to bankers is crystal clear to those who don't get paid to kiss butt.

Our fullest solidarity with the working people of Bangladesh in reversing the “export diversification strategy” which is impoverishing them for the despicable likes of Ahmed Akbar Sobhan, Tommy Hilfiger, the Walton family, & other visionary creeps.

(Photo by A.M. Ahad/AP)

Bangladeshi workers forced to work for chump change

This Bangladeshi worker is on the work force restoring a ferry at a dockyard near Dhaka. For welding, cutting, & painting, workers earn less than $4.00 USD per day. By comparison, US workers doing the same work earn from about $16 to $30 an hour. Note the absence of protective gear in highly-toxic labor.

Bangladesh has an old shipping industry but when freight containerization hit the industry it created an international slump in shipping. Visionary predators within the Bangladeshi government & ruling oligarchy realized that if they extended the incentives (tax exemptions, warehouse facilities, cheap labor) provided to the garment industry to the shipbuilding industry they could attract foreign investment for joint ventures. That required lowering labor costs & lack of workers’ rights--the sweatshop writ large! As these “visionaries” saw it, a refurbished shipbuilding industry built on super-exploitation could strengthen their “export diversification strategy,” making shipbuilding even more profitable than garment sweatshops.

Designing ships to accommodate containers meant old fleets had to be scrapped. The scrapping or ship breaking industry breathed new life into the industry in Bangladesh. Asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), & lead paint were used heavily in ship construction until they were banned in the 1980s. Until 15 or 20 years ago, breaking down ships for recycling was mainly done in UK & US shipyards but environmental regulations on the disposal of toxic substances forced the industry to move to countries without such encumbrances as required protective equipment, workers’ health claims, or personal injury lawsuits.

Bangladesh is a signatory to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes & Their Disposal, an international agreement designed specifically to prevent the movement of hazardous waste from what are euphemistically called “developed” countries to “developing” countries. The Basel Convention became international law in 1992. (The US is a signatory but refuses to ratify it.) Of course as we know, international law has never impeded a single transgression when profits & plunder are at stake.

The Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) exposed flagrant violations of the Basel Convention & took shipyard owners to court. The Bangladesh High Court ruled in 2009 & 2010 that only toxic-free ships could lawfully enter Bangladesh but under pressure from the government & shipyard owners the High Court reversed that decision in 2011 & toxic ships are once again polluting beaches in Bangladesh & creating massive health problems for residents & workers. Human & workers' rights cannot be allowed to interfere with visionary plunder.

The central bank of Bangladesh recently reported a three-fold increase in the number of billionaires in the country just in the past decade despite an increasing level of poverty. This phenomenon is inexplicable to bank economists & has them scratching their heads, suggesting the government “look into the matter deeply.” These are the banalities that pass for analysis in capitalist media.

Ahmed Akbar Sobhan, now the richest person in Bangladesh, is one of those billionaires whose wealth is based in part on the shipbuilding industry. Shipbuilding workers earning $4.00 USD a day will be inspired to know he is an advocate of corporate social responsibility & works tirelessly for the poor & underprivileged of Bangladesh. This news will be especially heartening to workers suffering severe chronic or acute toxicity from asbestos, PCBs, & lead or occupational diseases such as mesothelioma. Family members of workers killed in accidents due to fumes, fires, & explosions caused by flammable gases & oils left in tankers will also be moved.

Sobhan’s PR troupe attribute his wealth to his visionary character combined with diversity in business. Closer examination without the handsomely rewarded sycophancy will reveal that plunder & exploitation are a far better explanation. What is inexplicable to bankers is crystal clear to those who don't get paid to kiss butt.

Our fullest solidarity with the working people of Bangladesh in reversing the “export diversification strategy” which is impoverishing them for the despicable likes of Ahmed Akbar Sobhan, Tommy Hilfiger, the Walton family, & other visionary creeps.

(Photo by A.M. Ahad/AP)

Bahraini activists continue to defy tyranny

Oppressive Arab regimes in league with their malignant & mightily-armed allies in the UK, US, Saudi Arabia, & elsewhere have been able to disorient the Arab uprisings & in some places derail them (at least for a while). But in Bahrain the popular movement has continued with democratic ferocity against extreme police violence & political repression--despite the absence of media coverage under the rubric “if we don’t report it, it isn’t happening”.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights reported 89 deaths as of February 2013--with the regime continuing to blanket villages & protestors with tear gas & using torture, disappearances, incarceration, house raids, beatings at checkpoints, & denial of medical care to deter social protest. 


Of course the deaths didn’t stop in February 2013; they’re just not being reported. In the past week alone two funerals were held for protestors killed by riot cops. In Bahrain, funerals for those who defied tyranny become political protests--which has always been true in democratic uprisings from Chile to Northern Ireland to Palestine. The gravity & solemnity of a funeral does not deter riot cops from attack because “wherever two or more of you are gathered” in the name of democracy threatens tyranny.

Here Bahraini protestors clash with riot cops at the funeral of 20-year-old Mohammed Abdul Jalil in the village of Daih (near Manama) on Thursday. May young Mohammed RIP. Our fullest solidarity with the protestors of Bahrain.

No US aid to Bahrain!

(P.S. Those who denounce the niqab should note that women leading the Bahraini uprising are not deterred in rebellion by its use, that it has proven invaluable in hiding their identities from police & in protecting them from the excessive use of tear gas. It is being adapted for combat by protestors around the world, including the young man here.)

(Photo by Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP/Getty Images)

Guerrilla murals in Ireland

Last week, the local authorities of County Clare, Ireland removed a mural of Che Guevara after a couple right-wing blokes from the US griped about it. We know those kind of local authorities well in the US; they run (into the ground) many of our cities. We know those kind of blokes even better & are inured to their complaints. The mural was to commemorate Guevara during the upcoming Latin American cultural festival called the Che Do Bheatha festival held in Kilkee on the west coast of Ireland.

Well in the spirit of Che Guevara’s call for the oppressed to “Create two, three, many Vietnams,” residents of Kilkee have replaced the destroyed mural with two more & the head of the local Chamber of Commerce anticipates at least four more will be painted on private property where the authorities can’t remove it.

This is defiance & guerrilla mural art of which Che would be so proud. He would eschew any cult of personality because social transformation is much more epic than a single heroic figure; & we might eschew guerrilla warfare as a strategy because it gets too many people killed without defeating power. But only small-minded bureaucrats & right-wing blokes could imagine that removing a single mural would undo the honor working people around the world give to a champion of the oppressed.

(Photo of new mural in Kilkee by Eamon Ward)

Cultural fusions & confusions

Popular culture in the 1940s & 1950s was dominated by the easy listening style of Italian crooners (Sinatra, Como, Martin, Darin, Boone--there were dozens of them); even Black singers rooted in jazz like Nat King Cole became noted in the genre. But in the 1960s, the US Civil Rights Movement broke the segregation of Black music from a subculture into the most dominant cultural genres of the era--including jazz, R & B, gospel, soul, blues, & rock & roll. Motown ruled! (Though as Michael Buble, Julio Iglesias, & Harry Connick, Jr. prove, crooning is still holding its own.)

Though it is not disputed rock & roll originated in the US South, many cultural critics claim rock & roll is a hybrid of Black & white musical genres. It’s possible Irish country & folk music & instrumentation had influence on some musicians from African musical traditions but R & B dominance is really beyond dispute. One doesn’t know why they bother to argue otherwise.

Cultural hybridization in the globalized era of TV, radio, & film is a phenomenon of extraordinary complexity but by no means new to human societies. It probably isn’t an overstatement that US pop culture--particularly in its least talented & most vulgar forms--is international. Inexplicable but true. Witness Justin Bieber & the Barbie doll.  But it is just as true that there are perhaps no cultural genres in human history with as much global influence & dissemination as those from the Americas rooted in African culture. (Africans in the Americas have influenced language, law, politics, manners, religion, literature, music, art, & dance but here the genres referred to are music & dance.)

Africans, a majority from West Africa, introduced their distinctive syncopation & percussive instruments to the Americas which cohered with Spanish genres (like flamenco & paso doble) & native music & dance & transformed them. Thus we have the salsa, mambo, cha cha, rumba, tango, & merengue (which began as African mimicry of the French minuet)--as well as a vast repertoire of musical genres which continue to fuse & hybridize. We live in an interesting world.

But the cultural fusions are infinitely more complex than even that. The Spanish flamenco & paso doble are themselves the result of hybridization. To name just a few elements, flamenco incorporates body movements from Hindu dancing brought, according to some historians, by Untouchable migrants from the Punjabi region of India (other historians claim they were hired performers at festivals); Andalusian regional folk dances; Jewish synagogue chants; Arabic elements, not so much in body movements but in use of finger cymbals, tambourines & costuming; & going full circle, African influences coming back to Spain from colonies in the Americas.

All that history to explain that now we read many Arabs are concerned about the “Westernization” introduced into Middle Eastern cultures through TV programs, music videos, hip-hop music, comic book super heroes, & Barbie dolls. Of course the concern is the cultural indoctrination of white supremacist ideas which permeate much of this pop cultural stuff along with male supremacism.

Photojournalist Natalie Naccache has launched a project to document this cultural collision & has already traveled through several countries to investigate how Arabs are attempting to manage this phenomenon. Though as any feminist mother of a child clamoring for a Barbie doll can testify, it’s a lot easier to disseminate these cultural influences than to control them. In Kuwait, she is looking at a series of comic books that have superheroes from Arabic history with Islamic archetypes; & she is documenting the popularity of Fulla dolls, essentially Arabized Barbie dolls which are selling well from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.

Cultural fusions are so creative & expand the artistic possibilities that make human beings such an interesting lot--which makes it all the more important that supremacist views be challenged & defeated politically so the creative potentials of all will be allowed to flourish--& we can live in a world of music & dance.

(Photo of child with Fulla dolls by Natalie Naccache)

No US war in Syria!

What are we to make of John Kerry seeking advice from Henry Kissinger on US war against Syria before he heads off to Geneva to negotiate with Russian diplomat Sergei Lavrov (and to add ignominy to insult, on the anniversary of the coup in Chile.)? Kerry’s antiwar credentials may be entirely inflated & self-aggrandizing but he did testify once (in 1971) before congress against the Vietnam War while Kissinger was orchestrating it as national security adviser to Nixon. But that isn’t even the half of it! After meeting with Kissinger, Kerry consulted with one of those secretive government groups called the Foreign Affairs Policy Board. Some media describe the board as bipartisan (which only means they swing both ways, serving either party); some say it’s a who’s who of experts in diplomatic, military, & economic affairs providing independent, informed advice on US foreign policy. (The question of course would always be, “independent of whom?”)

In fact, if you look at the senior members of the board (John Negroponte, Thomas McLarty, Strobe Talbott, Thomas Pickering, John Podesta) you’ll see the who’s who guys each have human rights crimes rap sheets a mile long & have all served both Democratic & Republican presidents. Other members of the board are elite rookies being groomed for what is euphemistically called “public service”--so they’re still working on their resumes & rap sheets.

There’s damage control going on here since Russia took advantage of an offhand remark by Kerry that Syria could avoid US intervention by giving up chemical weapons.  Russia outfoxed the US in turning Kerry’s gaffe into a proposal to Assad. Although the meeting with Kissinger is not just the diplomatic equivalent of being taken to the woodshed to advise Kerry how to keep from recklessly flapping his jaw & putting US war plans in jeopardy.

Kissinger is also making media rounds this week to promote US military intervention against Syria. US diplomacy must be in serious trouble if they have to drag out the stinking corpse responsible for the mass murder of millions & human rights crimes (including torture, mass rape, carpet bombing, coups) from Latin America to South Asia.

Kissinger thinks Obama blundered when he tried to turn the decision about intervention over to the US Congress & warned there could be dire international consequences for such a rebuff of presidential power--by which he means a restraint on US intervention.

The NY Times weighed in on all this today citing unnamed sources who consider Obama’s turn to Congress as “outsourcing” & the Russian diplomatic overture as “dubious.” They quote figures like Richard Haass, the head of the Council on Foreign Relations (another of those secretive bodies) describing Obama as ad hoc, improvised, unsteady, undisciplined, feckless, indecisive.

Well there’s another explanation for the involvement of Kissinger & these secretive boards. This country is run by an elite--not in the simple-minded way of mere puppetry or the Wizard of Oz but with the necessary complexity to mask oligarchy & feign democratic rule. This oligarchy doesn’t leave the military-industrial complex, a massive system of war, treachery, deceit up to the vagaries & fecklessness of individuals. They rule with an iron fist & reward their minions like Kissinger & their secret boards handsomely.

The diplomatic missteps & confusions apparent around Syrian policy more likely reflect disunity within the oligarchy about what the hell to do. That’s why they dragged the loathsome Kissinger out of the shadows. The Pentagon is talking a three-day aerial siege; others recognize the need for a lengthy siege to facilitate US control in the Middle East. Kissinger’s proposal, repeated in several venues, is the complete breakup of Syria into ethnic & religious factions: Kurds, Druzes, Alawites, Sunnis, & several Christian groups: a disaster for Syrians but a political bonanza for the US. Tha'll take more than three days.


All out to demand “No US war in Syria!”

(Photo by Getty Images posted only to facilitate its abuse)

Tribute to Victor Jara & to the disappeared of the Pinochet coup

This memorial wall in the Parque Por La Paz (Park for Peace), on the grounds of the former Villa Grimaldi torture center in Santiago, lists those disappeared during the Pinochet reign of terror. Anyone who has seen monuments listing victims knows how powerful & personal they are. From a distance they may seem impersonal but viewing them up close is overwhelming.

This beautiful song by Victor Jara, the troubadour of justice & social transformation in Chile, is in tribute to the disappeared & in solidarity with their family members & others demanding justice. On September 16th, 1973, Jara was arrested, tortured, shot with 44 machine-gun bullets, & dumped on a street in Santiago. May he RIP; & may we join with the victims to demand justice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en8yqVxuT-U

(Photo by Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

Commemorating the US-backed Chilean coup

There are two 9/11s to be commemorated: the US-backed Chilean coup in 1973 & the attacks on the World Trade Center towers in 2001. No one with all their marbles intact denies the horror of 2001 but the tragedy is smothered in US war apologetics, anti-terrorist hysteria, & drone assaults while the carnage of 1973 is ignored to cover for the barbarisms inflicted on the Chilean people with the direct involvement of the US under the tutelage of Henry Kissinger. The official death estimates for both events are about the same (3,000 +) but guided by his conviction that “Sometimes democracy must be bathed in blood” & trained in death squad terrorism by the CIA, Pinochet’s military initiated a reign of terror that disappeared over 10,000 people & killed, tortured, or imprisoned over 40,000. Over a million fled into exile.

Volumes of idiocies have been written trying to justify the barbarisms of Pinochet’s rule by deference to what Milton Friedman called “The Miracle of Chile.” The so-called miracle is the imposition of neoliberal economics that halfwits & economists who sing for their supper claim transformed Chile from one of the poorest countries in Latin America to the second wealthiest on the continent. The string of five regimes following the end of direct military rule in 1990 have left not only Pinochet’s constitution but also his neoliberal economic policies intact--partially because they agree with the policies (& are enriched by them) & partially because they’re afraid of poking a stick at the military still waiting in the wings.

The economic model installed by the military junta was classic neoliberalism which opened the country to foreign plunder & enriches a few at the expense of working people. In their relentless opposition to neoliberal education policies (making higher education out of reach for most), Chilean students have exposed the massive fault line between the classes as a result of neoliberalism--which is the barbaric phase of capitalism.

Current Chilean president, Sebastian Pinera, talks out of both sides of his ass in addressing Pinochet’s legacy as the forces of justice close in on his regime which includes many figures who collaborated with Pinochet. Military officials, judges, & politicians are now apologizing for their roles in the dictatorship & asking for forgiveness. Well if it’s forgiveness they want they can go to a priest for confession. Justice demands coming clean publicly & prosecution in a court of law. A handful of pathetic “mea culpas” or one Our Father & three Hail Mary’s in contrition doesn’t cut it & mocks the tens of thousands who were murdered.

One of Pinochet’s most ardent defenders was Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” of Britain, now thankfully rusting in peace. With allies like Kissinger & Thatcher, Pinochet went to his grave without prosecution but once again his victims still haunt justice. These  photos of his victims are displayed at a ceremony to commemorate 40 years since the coup at the Parque Por La Paz (Park for Peace) on the grounds of the former Villa Grimaldi torture center in Santiago. Of course justice will not be fully honored until all those involved in these unspeakable crimes against the Chilean people are exposed & prosecuted--even postmortem.

(Photo by Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

The follies of the UN

Many people have high hopes for the United Nations. That’s why many are appealing to the UN to resolve the threat of US-NATO war against Syria. It’s a hard thing to give up pipe dreams but when it comes to world peace, the UN is the wrong place to appeal. You might get a better reception at the Pentagon. The UN functions as a coordinating committee for neoliberal & colonial interests, not as an arbiter of conflict.

Its reports on international human rights violations are sometimes useful, its commemorative days calling for an end to world hunger move so many privileged school children to tears of pity, & UNICEF sure does put out touching greeting cards. But mostly the UN serves as an agency of war--providing sanctions & threats to cover for the aggressors. It also provides its own troops to aid & abet world plunder--being second to the US in the number of troops deployed worldwide. Its conduct in Haiti & the DR Congo merit it a special place in hell. One of its most egregious war crimes is introducing cholera to Haiti & then washing its hands of any culpability or responsibility for cleaning up the water contamination introduced by UN troops.

Making news today is a 2010 report the UN human rights commission issued on poverty in Afghanistan. It’s a worthless thing so only God knows why anyone would cite it three years later. If you question the damnations here expressed do read that regrettable document--& weep! The thing is 26 pages of long-winded cliches, banalities, just outright idiocies about the character of poverty in Afghanistan. Nine years into the US-NATO war & the UN barely mentions the presence of those troops! Odd that, since if you asked the average Afghan citizen, the war would be their first explanation for worsening poverty.

The report does note that an estimated $35 billion USD in “reconstruction” aid was “poured” into the country between 2002 to 2009 but adds that much of this dough was used for military purposes. The UN doesn’t ask for any accounting from the NGOs who were supposed to be dispersing the money or why there is so little evidence of any dispersal whatsoever. It also doesn’t mention the suitcases of bribery cash the CIA & USAID were wheeling into government offices to grease the wheels of their drug operation. Nor do they ask why countries are providing reconstruction money while the US is still attacking the country with drone aircraft. So many unanswered questions that  Rupert Colville speaking for the UN just cannot address. When the depth of your analysis is satisfied with platitudes like poverty is “closely related to inequality & frequently accompanied by a sense of powerlessness & exclusion,” you know our man Rupert is in over his head.

Media frequently cite the main conclusion of the report that abuse of power by Afghan officials is the key driver of poverty. They’re referring to the drug dealers the US installed in office & the ones being bribed by the CIA. So what’s the beef? That UN officials aren’t getting their share? A little more flattery for the right people & a little less exposé for others should clear that up pretty fast.

The UN report uses the World Bank standard for poverty which is $1.25 USD per day which means 36% of Afghanis live in absolute poverty & another 37% live just slightly above that $1.25 a day mark. Let’s cut the crap! That means nearly 75% of war-stressed Afghanis are malnourished because there isn’t a place on this planet where $1.25 is sufficient for anything. It’s not enough for a cup of coffee in most places. Most of us living on that paltry sum would starve to death. Why can’t the damn UN report just say that outright!? Because it’s not in the business of making peace; it’s in the business of peddling war. It’s in the business of pawning off baloney as chateaubriand--& $1.25 as a poverty line rather than the absolute starvation point!

(Photo of Afghan child at a refugee camp in Kabul, May 2012 by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

The eternal strike in Kashmir

Indian cops in Srinagar, Kashmir arrest a striking government worker while other strikers  hotfoot it out of there to avoid arrest & the water cannons spewing toxic purple dye. The water cannons cause a number of injuries including to eyes, internal organs, & broken bones.

These labor protests by government workers in Kashmir have gone on for a few years now without resolution. Workers are demanding payment of arrears in wages, that all temporary contract employees by made permanent, & to raise the retirement age by two years since India has no social security net. These are fairly modest demands that don’t require a revolution to achieve.

India has a relatively combative trade union movement; the workers in Kashmir have been intransigent in their demands. In the past few years alone there have been repeated one-day strikes where millions of workers stopped dead in their tracks. So what the hell is the matter that a simple demand like back wages goes unaddressed? This kind of problem is not at all particular to Kashmir; it could be called the central dilemma of the labor movement today in every country.

Union officials bring workers out on strike for one day to flex a little muscle but not to actually accomplish anything since the officialdom is so integrated into the power elite--or just can’t keep itself from drooling around them. That way workers can blow off a little steam but not actually kick ass. The concept of “an injury to one is an injury to all” & of active solidarity with other unionists has been relegated to romanticism. As union officials see it, it’s reckless endangerment of the perks they get for enforcing labor peace in their social contract with employers. They’re a sorry lot & at some point they’re going to all have to be bounced out on their ears or their asses. Whichever hits the ground first! The average union bureaucrat wouldn’t know solidarity if it bit him (let’s be frank, most of them are men but women bureaucrats are no improvement) in the ass.

The government workers of Kashmir have fought alone long enough; they’ve taken more than enough of that purple dye up their snoots. Time for some real solidarity of the kind that won’t take no for an answer.

(Photo by Rouf Bhat/AFP/Getty Images)

Screw the Nobel Peace Prize!

Sorry to be a spoilsport about that damn Nobel Peace Prize but who receives it or who doesn’t should be no concern to working people. It’s an honorific of the oligarchs given to those who served them well, including mostly war criminals & those who run propaganda interference for them. There are few rebels on the roster of winners.

Occasionally they throw in a Linus Pauling or a Martin Luther King to cover the stinking mendacity of the award but that isn’t enough to redeem the damn thing--not after Henry Kissinger won it. Anybody respectable who wants it after that needs to have their head examined. Quit wishing it on people like Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden.

That award thing is a scam anyway. Millions of people around the world contribute & sacrifice (including their lives) to the cause of justice & social transformation. They don’t need silly-assed honorifics for an “atta boy” even though they could use the dough that comes with it. Their efforts to make this world a better place are its own reward.

Like this guy--Rajesh Kumar Sharma, a teacher & founder of a free school in New Delhi, India. Originally from Kashmir, he was forced to leave school early due to lack of money so he set up a school under a city bridge for kids from nearby slums. There are a few people among my FB friends who are doing the exact same thing without looking for recognition. Enough with the damn Nobel; cheap toilet paper has more value.

(Photo by Altaf Qadri/AP)

Teachers in Mexico defend public education

For several years, Mexican public school teachers have been fighting tooth & nail against government attempts to apply neoliberal policies & privatize public education. But the bureaucracy of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), which represents 1.5 million teachers & education staff, is so corrupt & has its head so far up the government’s ass that it has supported these measures.

Elba Esther Gordillo, the head of SNTE for 25 years, was corrupt, autocratic, & tied in to the government--which allowed her to have a private jet, Swiss bank accounts, & mansions in several cities, including in the US. Mexican authorities arrested her in February 2013 when her private jet arrived at Toluca airport after a spending spree in California. She is accused of embezzling $2 billion pesos ($156,816,000 USD or €119,242,600 euros). The government appointed Juan Díaz de la Torre, one of Gordillo’s most groveling lieutenants, as the new union head. Whatever happened to unions electing their own leaders!?

They didn’t arrest Gordillo because of corruption & grand larceny nor because of her tepid, self-serving opposition to neoliberal education policy. De la Torre is as ardent a supporter of the neoliberal reforms in education as sycophancy requires but without the personal control Gordillo exercised over the union which might prove an obstruction to government implementation. The power shake-up is really more about breaking up growing union dissension among the ranks.

Last December, the newly-elected Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto rammed through changes to Mexico’s constitution to wrest any say in education from the union & put it completely under government control, changing how teachers are hired, fired, & evaluated. The proposals are a rendition of US neoliberal education policy called “No Child Left Behind,” considered a weapon of mass destruction lobbed at public education.

Thousands of teachers all over Mexico have mobilized in defense of a democratic union & for free, public education. Within the SNTE, a dissident caucus (formed in 1979) called The National Coordinating Committee of the Teachers Union (la CNTE) has long been organizing public opposition & in some places have come under severe & violent repression. Teachers in Oaxaca & other states have protested the deleterious affects these reforms would have on indigenous cultures but also the exclusion of poor children from public education. The OECD, an international agency which supports neoliberal economic policy in Mexico, including in education, maintains in its education report that Mexico now has near universal enrollment in primary & lower secondary education--”close to 100% of 5-14 year-olds participate in education.” Speaking of having your head stuck in the nether regions! This assessment makes a mockery of the millions of homeless children & the thousands working as peddlers to support their families.

For the past few weeks, thousands of teachers from around the country have been flooding Mexico City--marching, rallying at the president’s house & Mexican congress, blocking highways, disrupting international air travel, interrupting or forcing cancellation of sports events. More than 8,000 teachers have set up camp in Mexico City’s central Zocalo square. Meanwhile in Oaxaca, 70,000 school teachers went on strike against the “reforms” after the school year started on August 19, affecting over one million school children. In this photo teachers march to the presidential palace in Mexico City (on Aug 28th). Nice work, teachers! We couldn’t be prouder of you! Our fullest solidarity.

(Photo by Eduardo Verdugo/AP)