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The white-Left Part 1: The two meanings of white

Sunday, November 12, 2017

This is why they #StandWithRoyMoore: Acceptance of pedophillia in the South is a legacy of slavery @MooreSenate is an attack on all women ‏

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Thursday, November 9, 2017

My Libyan Diaries

These are my articles on the Libyan Revolution:
Libya Myth used by Trump, Bolton and Amy Goodman to blow up peace talks with North Korea
Extreme racism & slave auctions 3 times a week in Gaddafi's Libya
Gaddafi's Harem: No rapist abused women like the late Libyan leader

Majority of Libyans Supported NATO’s War
Everyone says the Libya intervention was a failure. They’re wrong.
Are Obama's "boots" in Syria the result of lessons learned in Libya?
Life as it was under Gaddafi's democracy in Libya
The "Left's" Crime Against Humanity
How Noam Chomsky cleans up Mummar Qaddafi
Why the revolutions in Libya & Syria failed(so far) - the short version
Libya: Hailed as a Model Journalist Glenn Greenwald Proves to be the Exact Opposite
Benghazi
How Seymour Hersh confuses Syria with Libya
Socialism and the State of Libya
Why I consider Libya a revolutionary success story
Bringing David Swanson's imagination back to reality
While Assad's CW is 95.9% intact, Qaddafi's is 100% destroyed
Renfrey Clarke on the Libyan militias
Did US kidapping al-Libi help al Qaeda in Libya?
The PSL School of Falsification: A Libyan Rebel Sets the Record Straight
MSM wrong on Libya again
Libya: Saif Qaddafi's trial starts today
RT: Large Portion of Qaddafi's army in Libya were non-Libyans
Two years blogging for the Arab Spring
Tawergha, Libya: Acknowledging History
The State of Libya
A Libyan rebel speaks out on Jihadists in Syria
Stratfor files: British mercenaries trained rebels during Libyan Revolution!
Bani Walid Revisited
Bani Walid
BREAKING: Libya | BaniWalid falls!
US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens Murder Timeline
Libya: This is what democracy looks like - protesters take over HQ of Ansar al-Sharia
My answer to Secretary Clinton Re: US Death in Libya
Women and the Libyan Revolution
The Left and the Arab Spring
Libya's elected congress to take power today
The Elections and Libya's Violent Militias
#Libya at the crossroads: The ballot or the bullet
Is Libya better off than it was?
Libyan Elections to be held July 7th
Qaddafi forces Strike Back in Libya
Libya & Syria - two videos - no comment
BREAKING: Libyan High Court strikes down anti-free speech law
Where should Libya's Saif Qaddafi be tried?
MSM plays Hankey Panky with Libya
Qaddafi lies live on after him
Libya's Qaddafi helped US & Israel against Iran in Olympic Games
Why is Russia demanding NATO boots on the ground in Libya?
#LyElect Libyans register to vote 1st time in 60 years
Libya's Revolution: How We Won - The Internationale in the 21st Century
Good News from Libya
On Libya & Glenn Greenwald: Are the anti-interventionists becoming counter-revolutionaries?
UN: NATO killed 60 civilians in Libya
Libya in the news today
Amnesty International on Libya again
The Current Situation in Libya
Democracy Now & Amy Goodman gets it wrong again.
Why is Chris Hedges calling for "boots on the ground" in Libya?
The Worm Has Turned: Good Film on Libyan Revolution from PressTV
Why NATO's mission in Libya isn't over yet
Libya's Freedom Fighters: How They Won
Racism in Libya
Abdul Rahman Gave his Eyes to See the End of Qaddafi
BREAKING: Secret files reveal Dennis Kucinich talks with Qaddafi Regime
BREAKING: Libyan TNC won't extradite Lockerbie bomber
Who really beat Qaddafi?
#Feb17: @NATO Please help MEDEVAC wounded from #Libya
What should those that opposed NATO's intervention in Libya demand now?
BREAKING: Qaddafi's Tripoli Compound Falls!
Does PDA Support Qaddafi?
BREAKING: Operation Mermaid Dawn, the Battle to Liberate Tripoli is Joined
Helter Skelter: Qaddafi's African Adventure
Qaddafi's Long Arm
SCOOP: My Lai or Qaddafi Lie? More on the 85 Civilians presumed killed by NATO
Did NATO kill 85 Libyan Villagers As Qaddafi Regime Contends?
CCDS Statement on Libya - a Critique
The Assassination of General Abdul Fattah Younis
NATO over Tripoli - Air Strikes in the Age of Twitter
How Many Libyans has NATO Killed?
Qaddafi Terror Files Start to Trickle Out!
Have Libyan Rebels Committed Human Rights Abuses?
Tripoli Green Square Reality Check
Behind the Green Curtain: Libya Today
Gilbert Achcar on the Libyan situation and the Left
NATO slammed for Libya civilian deaths NOT!
Qaddafi's Million Man March
NATO's Game Plan in Libya
February 21st - Tripoli's Long Night
Did Qaddafi Bomb Peaceful Protesters?
Tripoli Burn Notice
Libyans, Palestinians & Israelis
'Brother' Qaddafi Indicted plus Libya & Syria: Dueling Rally Photofinishs
An Open Letter to ANSWER
ANSWER answers me
No Libyans allowed at ANSWER Libya Forum
Are they throwing babies out of incubators yet?
Continuing Discussion with a Gaddafi Supporter
Boston Globe oped supports Gaddafi with fraudulent journalism
Doha summit supports Libyan rebels
Amonpour Plays Softball with Gaddafi
Arming Gaddfi
North African Revolution Continues
Is Libya Next? Anonymous Debates New Operation
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Thursday, November 2, 2017

How counterpunch soft peddles white supremacy in the White House

The US Civil War was about ending slavery, no matter what some people might think it was about, either then or now. The last US presidential election was about denying white supremacists the White House, no matter what some people might think, either then or now. Like Democracy Now, the Left publication counterpunch was also on the winning side of that fight. In election year 2016 counterpunch was focused on denying Hillary Clinton the White House, and they succeeded.

To pursue this strategy, they had to seriously downplay the virulent white supremacy of Hillary Clinton's main opponent, so now that that strategy has help to put a white supremacist regime in the White House, it is not surprising that they are downplaying that result, and this is pretty much what Ron Jacobs does in a counterpunch piece Wednesday titled The Missouri Compromise and General Kelly.

The title and timing tell us that this article is counterpunch's response to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's message on Fox News Sunday to Trump's white nationalist base that he supports their basic views on the Civil War and slavery. He is telling the world, as if it again needs repeatings, that there is a white supremacist regime in the White House.

White supremacy was the unifying feature of the Trump candidacy from the moment he came down the escalator to call Mexicans rapists. It is now the key feature of the executive regime that candidacy has put in the White House. Virtually every question this White House has obsessed about, from immigration to banning Muslims, from fighting ISIS with tremendous loss of civilian life to confronting the Koreans with a threat of nuclear holocaust, from encouraging police to commit more Freddie Grey style killings, to demanding the firing of football players who take a knee to protest those killings, from calling a white mass murderer "deranged," to calling a Muslim one "an animal," from greatly escalating the US war on Africa, to dissing an African American Gold Star family and the African American congresswoman who came to its aid, and from seeing "good people" among the neo-Nazis and plainclothes Klansmen in Charlottesville, to seeing "honorable men" fighting to preserve slavery, this White House is committed to white supremacy in a way that has not been seen in living memory. One would think that even counterpunch could finally see that. Apparently not.

If Ron Jacobs was a Marxists, I would probably point out his error in "there is nothing moral about owning another human being" followed by "That truth is immutable." Marxists know ancient slavery, as practised by every civilized people as they emerged from primitive communism, was a necessary step in human development, unlike the slavery practised much latter under capitalism. Since he is not a Marxist, I'll let that go.

However, I can't be so forgiving about what sounds like a concession to one of Kelly's heroes, namely the claim the Robert E Lee was a man of honor because that is another piece of white supremacist mythology that must be disassembled and destroyed. Why does Jacob say "even if Lee was an honorable man?" He wasn't! Since clearly more education is needed on this, let me add to the stories I recalled in Dotard Trump's Chief of Staff preferred slavery to the Civil War!, that included the recounting how Lee personally whipped a girl when his slaver-whipper refused, this story about what a reporter found upon visiting Lee's plantation at the war's end:
An Inquirer reporter described the Lee slaves as "ragged, dirty, and the smallest nearly naked." Few had ever been off the plantation their entire life. "There were all sorts of darkies there," one soldier noted, "stalwart field hands, old worn out men … "Topsies" carrying buckets of water on their heads, strong-limbed boys, and little toddlers running around [barely clothed]." It is no wonder the Lee slaves "were a happy set of darkies when they learned that they were free."
The first part of this counterpunch article indulges in a history lesson about the Missouri Compromise, which, in anycase, wasn't the compromise Kelly was talking about. This history of slavery barely touches upon legacy of racism it was intertwined with before it finally gets to the current situation:
The current attempts among various extremist elements to revive the ideology of the Nazis and of US slave-owners is testament to the need for white supremacy to be refuted. The fact that this ideology is being defended by two of the most powerful men in Washington, DC is some cause for alarm. Not only has Donald Trump tweeted out veiled support of the slavers’ heritage in his messages of support for Republican Ed Gillespie, Trump’s chief of staff, General Kelly recently told FoxNews reporter Laura Ingraham that the reason the US Civil War occurred was because there “was a lack of an ability to compromise.”
...
On a related matter, a recent poll of US military members acknowledged the presence of white supremacists in all branches of the military.
Here he does touch upon the three important aspects of the current situation and how it may be the harbinger of a fascist seizure of state power, but he leaves them disjointed and impotent. Once again counterpunch is disarming us to the real danger.

The first group, often referred to as "Trump's base" is that ~30% of white Americans who are more or less consciously racist, even if they hide it in the current environment, along with a handful of non-white opportunists that are rewarded for helping them hide it. This is the group Trump speaks to. This is the essential ~30% Trump needs to seize power and start the terror, and this is the ~30% the "various extremist elements" Jacobs refers to, are working hard to agitate and organize. As the rally in Charlottesville, and our own experiences in Santa Monica have shown, they are having more success than we would like to admit and they enjoy the active support of the White House.

The second group is those "white supremacists in all branches of the military," to which I would add, white supremacists in all departments of police. So we have a strong base for a fascist/racist takeover in the armed organs of state power, supported by a sizable minority of the population. This was already the dangerous mix that existed in the United States before certain forces on the Left started giving backhanded support for a white supremacist takeover of the White House.

That is the problem we currently face. It is much more serious than "this ideology is being defended by two of the most powerful men in Washington, DC." More than a "cause for alarm," this threatening situation must become a call to action. Now that these fascists have more than one foot inside the door of state power, its going to take a lot more than weak words "for white supremacy to be refuted."

By Clay Claiborne

If you are in the area:

Join us for the this Sunday, 5 November 2017, for the November meeting of the Santa Monica Committee for Racial Justice at Virginia Avenue Park [2200 Virginia Ave, Santa Monica, CA 90404]. We will have both de-escalation training and safety training review at 4:30 pm. Our CRJ Singing Group will meet at 5 pm. We will all gather as we have done, on the South side of the Library. (FYI: This month, our guest singing group leader will be Linda Alvarez!) The works runs from 6 to 8:30 and is a potluck as always. Here is the info about the workshop. Please invite your friends! A panel discussion about issues > that contribute to mass incarceration in the U. S. and what is being done & > can be done in California and at the federal level to cut back on this > heavy, racially inequitable drain on our human and capital resources. > Panelists will include Jayda Rasberry who is working against the expansion > of jails & prisons, Santa Monica native & transitional advisor Bert Cole and > other voices of personal experience with the unjust system that leads to > mass incarceration"

Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

Click here for my posts on the 2016 US Election
Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria
Click here for a list of my other blogs on Libya
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Wednesday, November 1, 2017

It's still "alleged" Russian interference on Democracy Now

The link to my last post criticizing White House CoS John Kelly's call for "compromise" in the fight against slavery, and this post is:

The US Civil War was about ending slavery, no matter what some people might think it was about, either then or now. The last US presidential election was about denying white supremacists the White House, no matter what some people might think, either then or now, and Democracy Now was on the wrong side of that fight.

Perhaps that is why, inspite of all the direct evidence of Russian state attempts to advance the candidacy of Donald Trump in the United States 2016 presidential election, Democracy Now, along with the Trump administration and the Russian state, continues to deny Russian interference in that election.

In the past year we have seen solid evidence that Russian government hackers stole the DNC and Podesta emails. They had bot armies operating on social media running fake accounts pushing anti-Clinton messages and promoting the candidacies of Donald Trump or Jill Stein. They also bought ads on Twitter, facebook and Google. facebook has said fake US election ads paid for by Russia reached 120 million Americans. Reality Winner gave her freedom to leak a NSA report about Russian attempts to manipulate the voting infrastructure itself. Russia Today, and the many other media outlets under Russian influence, spent hundreds of hours promoting Jill Stein's anti-Clinton campaign. [Would they had been so kind to her if she had been equally anti-Trump?] Now, with the George Papadopoulos Stipulation and Plea Agreement, the Russian attempt to provide the Trump campaign with "dirt" on Clinton is established as a legal fact. Still, on Democracy Now, as if to please Putin, it's still the "alleged" Russian interference. Listen to how they covered Monday's news of the Mueller indictments and pleas on Tuesday's show:
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: President Donald Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, and Manafort’s former business associate, Rick Gates, surrendered to authorities Monday morning, after a federal grand jury handed down the first indictments in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Putin would be pleased. Even after all this direct evidence of Russian interference has been building for more than a year it's still qualified as "alleged." It was the only thing so qualified on Tuesday's show. Amy Goodman was even slicker with her "possible collusion" dodge:
AMY GOODMAN: Manafort’s bail was set at $10 million, Gates’ set at $5 million. They’ve both been placed under house arrest.

Meanwhile, observers are closely watching the case against George Papadopoulos, an early foreign policy adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign, who may provide greater evidence of possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. According to his plea deal, Papadopoulos was told that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, and through a series of communications with foreign agents, he tried to facilitate communication between the Trump campaign and Russian agents.
First off, "the case against George Papadopoulos" has already been settled by the plea agreement and the facts of it have already been established. Then Amy Goodman artful leaves out of her reportage of the narrative the one actor that firmly establishes Russian attempts to interference with the US election as a matter of legal fact, and no longer "allegations." Allow me to correct her in brackets:
According to his plea deal, Papadopoulos was told [by the Russians] that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, and through a series of communications with [Russian] foreign agents, he tried to facilitate communication between the Trump campaign and Russian agents.
Amy Goodman is still careful to omit certain facts so that the question of Russian interference in the US elections remains a mere "allegation." She has done the same thing for Bashar al-Assad whenever he has been called out for killing with sarin. It took Marcy Wheeler to leave "alleged" and "possible" out of it, and tell it straight:
MARCY WHEELER: So, Papadopoulos was living in London. He was basically—it’s quite clear from the plea, he was being courted by Russian handlers, by three different Russian handlers, to set up a meeting. They wanted to set up a meeting between Putin and Trump.
It is not at all surprising that Democracy Now would want to question Russia's role in last year's election. When it came to the pro-Jill Stein and anti-Hillary Clinton positioning of Democracy Now's propaganda efforts in last year's election, little daylight could be seen between them and Kremlin directed outlets like RT. Below are examples of "ads" the Russians didn't have to pay for, AFAIK:























Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

Click here for my posts on the 2016 US Election
Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria
Click here for a list of my other blogs on Libya
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Tuesday, October 31, 2017

DotardTrump's Chief of Staff preferred slavery to the Civil War!

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly weighed in on the question of the Civil War on Laura Ingraham’s new show on Fox News Monday night:
"I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand."
What kind of "compromise" did Kelly have in mind? Why does his statement that there were "men and women of good faith on both sides" of the fight over slavery remind me of Trump's statement that there were "good people" on both sides of the anti-fascist struggle in Charlottesville?

Just as Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge that NFL players are taking the knee to protest racist police killings, his Chief of Staff calls for "compromise" instead of Civil War while refusing to acknowledge that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Like the pro-slavery Southerners then and white supremacists now, he thinks the Civil War was fought over state's rights.

That is why he thinks Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. Most white Southerners didn't own slaves, and some actually opposed slavery. Robert E Lee was a slave owner who never publically opposed slavery. He was a white supremacist who saw the financial advantages of slavery for the rich white planters.

At the same time Kelly disparages the thousands of generally unacknowledged southern whites that haven't had monuments erected to them because they showed true honor by opposing slavery and remaining loyal to the Union. According to Kelly, back in those days, loyalty to one's slavery state was more important than one's country, so General Lee wasn't a traitor when he used the civilian population of Fredericksburg as human shields while his rebel army guns mowed down his fellow United States Military Academy graduates and the Unionists, both Northerners and Southerns, under their command, in the name of his right to own other people and live comfortably off of their labor.

When Lee's father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis died in October of 1857, Lee became executor of his estate. Curtis had told his 300 slaves that they would be freed upon his death, but Lee freed no one, saying he had "determined that the slave labor was necessary to improve Arlington's financial status." Such an honorable man.

Even while Lee, and the other "honorable" white slavers Kelly prefers, were living "high on the hog" on the backs of black labor, Lee had the racist audacity to claim slavery was for the benefit of blacks, not whites! He wrote to his wife in 1856 that slavery was “a greater evil to the white man than to the black race” in the United States, and that the “painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction.”

Another report widely republished by Unionist newspapers in 1859, long before Robert E. Lee became famous in his own right, described his treatment of runaway slaves. It described the whipping of three slaves that had run away from Arlington:
"Mr. Lee was forthwith acquainted with their whereabouts," the story said, "when they were transported back, taken to a barn, stripped, and the men received thirty and nine lashes each, from the hands of the slave-whipper. When he refused to whip the girl, Mr. Lee himself administered the thirty and nine lashes to her."
Some would say Lee's slave-whipper showed more honor than his master, but Kelly doesn't mention slavery because he doesn't care about that. A compromise that would have left African Americans in chains wouldn't have been a problem for him.

James Karst recounts in a Times-Picayune piece:
A story published during the war describes a failed escape similar to the one described in 1859. It quotes a former slave named Wesley Norris.

"We were immediately taken before Gen. Lee, who demanded the reason why we ran away," Norris said. "We frankly told him that we considered ourselves free; he then told us he would teach us a lesson which we never would forget."

When the overseer declined to whip Norris, his sister and his cousin, a constable named Williams was asked to administer the attack.

Lee "stood by and frequently enjoined Williams to 'lay it on well,'" Norris said, "an injunction which he did not fail to heed; not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done. After this, my cousin and myself were went to Hanover Courthouse jail, my sister being sent to Richmond to an agent to be hired."
Kelly thinks Robert E Lee was an honorable man because, like Lee, he is a white supremacist. We saw that in his treatment of an African American Gold Star family of David Johnson and Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.), the African American congresswomen who spoke up for them.

Dotard Trump has turned the White House into the house of white supremacists.

How about WWII Kelly? Could that been avoided by compromising with the Nazis?
Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

Click here for my posts on the 2016 US Election
Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria
Click here for a list of my other blogs on Libya
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