Venezuela's Leopoldo López Campaigning for Keiko in Peru: Solidarity on the Right

 

Leopoldo López is in Peru Campaigning for Keiko Fujimori. What better way to show his true colors. Keiko was Peru’s First Lady when her father was president in the 1990s and committed flagrant violation of human rights history among the worst of any head of state in recent Latin American history. Many Venezuelans knew what was waiting for them if López’s protégé Juan Guaidó gained power. López and Keiko: the right sticks together – it’s called solidarity.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom deserved the Oscar, as did Chadwick Boseman. Why didn’t they get it?

Yesterday I believe for the first time in my life I decided to see a movie for a second time. The movie was Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. I decided to see it after watching a short Netflix documentary on the life of Chadwick Boseman. Seeing the movie for the second time confirmed what I said after the first, that it may be the best movie I’ve seen in my life. The performance of all the actors was first rate but especially that of Levee. The fact that Levee killed another black man after being turned down by a while man (the manager of the recording studio who reneged on his promise to listen to the songs he had composed) was symbolic of how oppressed people take out on their own people the unfair treatment they receive from the dominant group.

The movie should have won the Oscar for best movie and Boseman for best actor. Why didn’t it?  For two reasons. First and most important was the scene in which Levee says God hates blacks and asks why didn’t He do anything when his mother was raped and when the black priest was threatened by a white mob since God should protect priests above all others. The Oscar people would have come under heavy attack from the Evangelists had the movie been awarded an Oscar. There is a second reason. The two white guys who ran the recording studio were obviously Jews and they reinforced stereotypes especially with regard to money. But in addition, one of them humiliated himself on each encounter with Ma Rainey and he didn’t seem to mind it. Too bad because the movie deserved the Oscar, as did the late Chadwick Boseman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MYzlgRQXBY

 

The Fallacy of the Assertion that Hamas’ Rockets are at the Root of the Current Conflict in Gaza

The corporate media blame Hamas and Netanyahu as equally responsible for the air strikes in Gaza. (The Biden administration blames Hamas as solely responsible.) The implication is that the inhabitants of Gaza elected Hamas as their representatives and Hamas is a terrorist organization whose central aim is the destruction of Israel. Thus (reading between the lines) the Gaza Palestinians are to blame for their grim fate.

The fallacy of this line of thinking is obvious. The Palestinians living on the West Bank have consistently elected the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which since 1993 has recognized Israel’s right to exist and rejected “violence and terrorism,” and it was subsequently recognized by Israel as the representative of the Palestinian people. Fatah, which is the dominant faction within the PLO, adheres to a social democratic (read: moderate) ideology. However, this has not spared Palestinian inhabitants on the West Bank (and East Jerusalem) of state-sponsored land grabbing by Jewish settlers and the Apartheid policies of the Israeli government. The real issue, then, is Israeli expansionism and its refusal to seriously accept the creation of an independent Palestinian nation.  

 

The Issue of Hamas’ Actions is a Red Herring

Some liberals and leftists condemn Hamas’ launching of rockets into Israel as at least partly responsible for the death and destruction that have ensued. Do these same people condemn indigenous resistance to the land grabbing and violation of treaties by whites in the U.S. west? After all, certainly many “innocent” people were killed as a result.

I don’t defend Hamas’ launching of rockets. But that’s not the problem at all. In fact, it’s a red herring. The problem is Israel’s inhumane policies toward the Palestinians. The launching of the rockets was inevitable because people who have been oppressed to the extent that the Palestinians have been always respond in similar fashion. In fact, Netanyahu knows that full well and indeed provokes the Palestinian armed groups since he benefits from the confrontation politically and his government benefits strategically. Media reporting that dwells on the rocket launchings is highly misleading if not intentionally deceptive. 

 

There are many precedents for Israel’s inhumane treatment of Palestinians

State-sponsored ethnic cleansing, discrimination, degradation and humiliation in Israel and the territories it controls are immoral, just as in Apartheid South Africa, and just as in Nazi Europe.  

 https://www.democracynow.org/2021/5/13/israel_palestine_gaza_death_toll_airstrikes