Justice for Samina Malik!

Samina Malik is a 22-year-old Muslim Briton who was convicted yesterday under the U.K.'s Terrorism Act of 2000 for "owning terrorist manuals" ("articles likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism"). Evidence presented at her trial included poems she wrote. Apparently she is a prolific poet. Here's one of the poems the prosecutors presented at the trial:

How to Behead

Hold him
Tie the arms behind his back
And bandage his legs together
Just by the ankles
Blindfold the punk
So that he won't hesitate as much
For on seeing the sharp pointy knife
He'll begin to shake
And continuously scream like an eedyat
And jiggle like a jelly
Trust me – this will sure get you angry
It's better to have at least two or three brothers by your side
Who can hold the fool
Because as soon as the warm sharp knife
Touches his naked flesh
He'll come to know what'll happen

No evidence was presented at the trial to prove that Ms. Malik had actually committed or was even planning any violent actions against anyone. She was convicted for possessing certain types of literature and writing certain types of poetry. In other words she was convicted for merely thinking certain types of thoughts.

But I'd like to suggest that she was also convicted for thinking certain types of thoughts AND being the child of Asian Muslims. I have written much more violent poems than this one -- one of which was actually published in my High School literary magazine. It's hard for me to imagine that there are no other 22-year-olds in the U.K. who have written violent poetry and/or are in possession of books like "The Anarchist Cookbook" or "Guerilla Warfare" (Ernest "Che" Guevara). Ms. Malik was singled out because of her race and religion.

But never mind the issue of Racism for a minute since the dominant discourse disavows the existence of Racism in the world today. What about FREEDOM -- for which these English and U.S. imperialists claim to be committing genocide in the Middle East? And where is Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch? How come I have been able to find only one article defending Ms. Malik's right to freedom of thought? Has our new motto become (thanks Stephen Colbert) "'live free or do whatever it takes so I don't die"?

Free Sami Al Haj!

Five-and-a-half years ago -- on December 15, 2001 -- U.S. military personnel captured Al Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj while he was en route to Afghanistan in Pakistan. He has since been held, with no criminal charges against him, as an "enemy combatant" in Guantanamo Bay. Sami, who is a Sudanese national with distinctly African features, reported to his attorney who was finally allowed to see him in December of 2005 that:

• he has been tortured (e.g. forced to remain seated, exposed to the tropical sun, deprived of sleep, subjected to sexual abuse, confined in rooms in which extremely loud music was played, etc.)
• he has been interrogated with the use of threats more than 130 times
• he has a throat cancer that is not being treated

Why are the imperialists doing this to a cameraman (besides the fact that he is Arabic, Black, and Muslim)? Here's a hint: according to the London-based Guardian newspaper -- on September 26, 2005 -- U.S. officials offered Sami his freedom if he would agree to spy on Al Jazeera.

In other words the U.S. government claims to support freedom of speech yet it is trying to destroy a news outlet because of its distinctly balanced approach to current events in Western Asia (in March 2003, Al Jazeera was awarded by Index on Censorship -- an international group which campaigns against censorship -- for its "courage in circumventing censorship and contributing to the free exchange of information in the Arab world"). This isn't the first time the U.S. military has struck violently against Al Jazeera:

• November 13, 2001 -- U.S. missles destroy the Kabul offices of Al Jazeera in Afghanistan.
• April 8, 2003 -- U.S. missles strike the Baghdad offices of Al Jazeera killing reporter Tarek Ayoub.
• November 22, 2005 -- The Daily Mirror (U.K.) leaks the infamous "Al Jazeera Bombing Memo" in which U.S. President Bush suggests to U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair the idea of bombing Al Jazeera.

The U.S. government claims to care about the genocide against Black Sudanese people yet it is torturing at least one Black Sudanese man as I write this.

The U.S. government claims to fight for Democracy and the rule of law yet it is currently holding countless prisoners without due process.

There is no Global Islamic Conspiracy! This is as much a work of racist fiction as was Hitler's Global Judeo-Bolshevist Conspiracy.

For more about Sami: http://www.prisoner345.net/
To sign a petition: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=19079

Zionists Spread Anti-Semitism to Palestine

Last year I wrote an entry on Israel's racist (i.e. white supremacist) ideology regarding the definition of a Jewish person. I told the story of the Jin family who could prove that their family had been Jews for centuries and yet the Israeli Government still refuses to recognize them as Jews even after they underwent an Orthodox conversion in Israel. Moreover they are the only members of China's ancient Jewish community who have been allowed to immigrate to Israel (others have tried). I used the example to illustrate how the Zionists use a racist definition of a Jewish person to turn Palestine into a "White Man's Land".

Apparently, in a strange twist of fate that is giving me an evil kind of pleasure, the policy has backfired! Israeli citizens – even IDF soldiers – have been carrying out vicious anti-semitic attacks inside Israel! As I explained in my entry last year – White people (unlike people of color like the Jin family) need only produce a single Jewish parent or grandparent in order to fulfill the official definition of a "Jewish person" and thereby automatically become Israeli citizens. This policy has resulted in the immigration of over one million Russians to Israel since the 1990s. Unfortunately recent survey data reveal that at least 300,000 of these people do not even consider themselves to be Jewish! It's not surprising then that those responsible for all of these attacks have been "Russian Jews". In fact, according to the Dmir Centre which has been monitoring these attacks, there are now dozens of neo-Nazis in every city in Israel. Not surprisingly -- since the Zionist state's raison d'etre is to save Jews from anti-semitism -- the Israeli government is keeping this story under wraps. The authorities do not even record the attacks as instances of anti-semitism at all even though the attackers use anti-semitic epithets as they beat their victims and have swastikas tatooed on their arms. Thus, in its attempt to create a "White Man's Land" in the Middle East, the Zionist enterprise has actually spread old-fashioned European anti-semitism to Palestine!

Virginia Tech

For nineteen years I have been put in your man's world and was forbidden to touch anything and you made me think that all was going very well and that I did not have to worry about anything but putting flowers in vases. Why did you lie to me? Why did you keep me ignorant, if it was to admit to me one day that this world is cracking and that you are all powerless and to make me choose between a suicide and a murder?

-- Jean-Paul Sartre

Bill O'Reilly: El Gringo Rumbero, do you hate America?
El Gringo Rumbero: Hell yeah!

Why is it such a big deal that the shooter was Asian? Conversely -- why wasn't it such a big deal that the shooters at Columbine were White? How does his being Asian have so much explanatory power? Could it be that the U.S. is still a nauseatingly racist country?

Here's my hypothesis about the shootings:

This guy killed all of those people because a lot people in this country are fucking annoying and anyone who has never fantasized about just going all out and fucking buck wild and putting gaping holes in his fellow Americans is either extremely Buddha-like and Saintly or just plain stupid and insensitive to the world. In fact the guy said he was sick and tired of the students at Virginia Tech whom he viewed as rich and debauched. In other words -- it aint that deep, people! Stop hiding your racism behind pseudo-anthropology and look at the world around you!

This guy killed all of those people because it's so fucking easy to get a firearm in this country! You can get one at Wal-Mart. The kid had two nine-millimeter pistols that he obtained legally! Had he stayed in Korea -- where it is virtually impossible for civilians to procure firearms (legally or illegally) -- he probably would just have gotten wasted and, in the worst case, gotten his ass beat in a drunken brawl. Instead he was in Blacksburg (VA) where -- unlike in Korea -- any demented psychopath or his retarded cousin can easily and legally procure lethal firearms.

And where's the memorial address for the 650,000 dead Iraqis Mr. President?! Why are the lives of 650,000 dead Iraqis worth exponentially less than the lives of 32 Americans?!

"300": The Banality of Fascist Art

Finally, American cinema has never ceased to make and remake the same fundamental movie, that is Birth of a nation-civilization, of which Griffith made the first version.
Gilles Deleuze, 1983

Fifteen years after its coronation as global leader (with the fall of the Soviet Union), America is becoming a fearful and lonely democracy in a politically antagonistic world.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, 2007

On Saturday I shelled out 18 bucks for me and my date to see "300" -- Warner Bros.' production of the Frank Miller graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC). Since then I have been in a persistent state of of silent panic. No one in the audience booed as did the audience at the Berlin Film Festival last month after the screening of 300. There was intermittent laughter but no anger at such a blatantly fascist, racist and sexist spectacle. I can't believe that there could possibly be any question about the nature of this film. Here's a synopsis -- the world is being engulfed and overwhelmed by degenerate, diseased effeminate dark-skinned people from Africa and Asia and the only thing that stands in their way are 300 White Super-Men from Sparta which represents "freedom" (a word that, thanks to the U.S., now is devoid of any meaning whatsoever), masculinity and physical fitness (i.e. Whiteness as configured in the movie). Thus we are not talking about a hidden message here. Where is the outrage? D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation was met with significant protests all across the country upon it's release about a Century ago. Where is the protest now? After 100 years of replaying the same fascist and racist scenario to the public it would appear that the majority have finally internalized the illusion such that, as one blogger put it, "it's ok that it has a fascist aesthetic... so long as you know it's there." I would argue that this is in fact the hallmark of culture that has become rigorously fascist. When the elements that comprise fascist ideology -- denigration of life in and for itself, glorification of death in war, racism and sexism -- become banal then you can be sure that you are living under a fascist regime.

Imperialist Discourse and Neo-Fascism in Japan

Another unspoken rule of the dominant discourse: It's alright to deny one's responsibility for past crimes against humanity -- as long as the people against whom those crimes were committed were not White.

Case in point – Last week Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe publicly denied that the Japanese Government was responsible for the system of forced sexual slavery maintained in the areas of East Asia under Japanese control during World War II:

There is no evidence to prove there was coercion, nothing to support it... So, in respect to this declaration, you have to keep in mind that things have changed greatly.

The declaration Prime Minister Abe referred to was the one the Japanese Government made on August 4, 1993 in which it admitted playing an unspecified role in the maintenance of brothels – the so-called "Comfort Stations" – while denying any responsibility and denying that any war crime had been committed. This declaration came largely as a response to pressure from a movement led by some the few survivors of the Comfort Stations. The stories of these women – so-called "Comfort Women" who came from all over East Asia but mainly from Korea – are horrific. The following is the testimony of Chong Ok Sun:

I was born on 28 December 1920, in Phabal-Ri, Pungsan County, South Hamgyong Province, in the north of the Korean peninsula.

One day in June, at the age of 13, I had to prepare lunch for my parents who were working in the field and so I went to the village well to fetch water. A Japanese garrison soldier surprised me there and took me away, so that my parents never knew what had happened to their daughter. I was taken to the police station in a truck, where I was raped by several policemen. When I shouted, they put socks in my mouth and continued to rape me. The head of the police station hit me in my left eye because I was crying. That day I lost my eyesight in the left eye.

After 10 days or so, I was taken to the Japanese army garrison barracks in Heysan City. There were around 400 other Korean young girls with me and we had to serve over 5,000 Japanese soldiers as sex slaves every day - up to 40 men per day. Each time I protested, they hit me or stuffed rags in my mouth. One held a matchstick to my private parts until I obeyed him. My private parts were oozing with blood.

One Korean girl who was with us once demanded why we had to serve so many, up to 40, men per day. To punish her for her questioning, the Japanese company commander Yamamoto ordered her to be beaten with a sword. While we were watching, they took off her clothes, tied her legs and hands and rolled her over a board with nails until the nails were covered with blood and pieces of her flesh. In the end, they cut off her head. Another Japanese, Yamamoto, told us that 'it's easy to kill you all, easier than killing dogs'. He also said 'since those Korean girls are crying because they have not eaten, boil the human flesh and make them eat it'.

One Korean girl caught a venereal disease from being raped so often and, as a result, over 50 Japanese soldiers were infected. In order to stop the disease from spreading and to 'sterilize' the Korean girl, they stuck a hot iron bar in her private parts.

Once they took 40 of us on a truck far away to a pool filled with water and snakes. The soldiers beat several of the girls, shoved them into the water, heaped earth into the pool and buried them alive.

I think over half of the girls who were at the garrison barracks were killed. Twice I tried to run away, but both times we were caught after a few days. We were tortured even more and I was hit on my head so many times that all the scars still remain. They also tattooed me on the inside of my lips, my chest, my stomach and my body. I fainted. When I woke up, I was on a mountainside, presumably left for dead. Of the two girls with me, only Kuk Hae and I survived. A 50-year-old man who lived in the mountains found us, gave us clothes and something to eat. He also helped us to travel back to Korea, where I returned, scarred, barren and with difficulties in speaking, at the age of 18, after five years of serving as a sex slave for the Japanese.

The establishment of Comfort Stations in the areas of East Asia controlled by Japan began as early as 1932, became a widespread and regular practice by 1937 and continued until the Japanese surrender in 1945. Japanese Government documents, uncovered in 1992, reveal that military personnel – either directly or via middlemen – procured women for the brothels using coercion, deception and brute force. As the testimony of Chong Ok Sun and other survivors reveals, as well as the investigations of the United Nations and the International Commission of Jurists, the Comfort Stations were a system of Concentration Camps akin to the Lagers in Germany at the same time (in fact the SS also maintained "Joy Divisions" or "Womens Camps" in Auschwitz and other locations near the Eastern Front in which both Jewish and Non-Jewish women were forced into sexual slavery although the system was not as widespread as in the case of the Comfort Stations). Moreover, considering that most of these 200,000 women did not survive their enslavement, the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights stated in 1996 that the Japanese Government's establishment of the Comfort Stations should be considered an act of genocide.

Now imagine what kind of outrage would result if the Prime Minister of Germany were to declare that the German Government during World War II was not responsible for the Holocaust, that there never was a genocide and that the government was changing its position on the issue!

Remember how the news media of the core imperialist nations demonized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for questioning the historical veracity of the Final Solution and the Lagers? And Iran wasn't even responsible for the Lagers! Here we are talking about the very same country responsible for the forced enslavement and murder of nearly 200,000 women now denying its responsibility for the crime and denying that any crime was committed at all! Where are all the noisy reporters who were so upset about the President of Iran now?

North America on ICE

It's been a long time… I shouldn't have left you… without a strong rhyme to step to

Eric B. & Rakim, 1987

A lot's gone down during my hiatus. For example: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been hard at work deporting hundreds of Mexican people who are in this country illegally.

You all know about ICE right?

ICE is the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). And, as ICE is charged with the enforcement of over 400 federal statutes, ICE Special Agents quite possibly possess the broadest investigative authority in the United States Government. Also ICE is the largest special weapons and tactics (SWAT) unit that has ever been mobilized!

But why is the Department of Homeland Security, whose stated mission is to prevent and deter terrorist attacks, throwing so many resources behind an agency whose activities have little or no connection to "terrorism" at all?

The answer is clear: there is no terrorist threat. Why throw money and resources at an imaginary problem?

Okay but wait… if there's no terrorist threat, then what the hell is the DHS for?! The answer to this question should be obvious but many of us are too consumed by fear (fear spread by the DHS itself) to realize it. Think of the words "Department of Homeland Security" carefully. It tells us our home is in danger and we need this state institution to protect us. But we don't need it to protect us from foreign invaders since we have the Department of Defense for that. We need it to protect us from the evil terrorists! But who are the evil terrorists?

Consider that, in immigration raids now, ICE Special Agents are using the classic "darker than a grocery bag test" to separate the illegal from the legal immigrants. Moreover, in their press releases, ICE personnel have been equating illegal immigration with crimes that are much more repulsive to the public at large and that have long been associated in the news media with people of color -- like dope peddling, murder, rape, sexually abusing children and theft. Right now the line is that they are going after criminals and illegal immigrants but, given the Patriot Act, the terrorism law and the investigative powers ICE possesses, it is likely that the definition of a "terrorist" will grow increasingly broader.

In other words, the purpose of the DHS is to continuously create and violently suppress "terrorists" whenever the need arises, in the interest of ensuring the power of the state. That is to say that the DHS is nothing less than a terrorist institution. The most obvious parallel here is with the original terrorist body, the notorious Committee of Public Safety (Comité de Salut Public) of the Jacobins which presided over the infamous Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. Both institutions use fear and violence to maintain order and, ultimately, to suppress dissent and preserve power. Another such organization that comes to mind is the Ku Klux Klan.

So when John Kerry says he "will hunt down and kill the terrorists," he is not only supporting actual terrorism abroad in the form of military interventions in the countries of Asia and elsewhere, but he is also supporting actual terrorism right here in the 50 states. It's time to recognize that the discourse of anti-terrorism in facts supports the biggest agent of terror in the U.S. and the world, the U.S. Government, which executes its reign of terror through the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, and justifies it principally by racism.

The Pocahontas Myth

Frederic W. Gleach, Ph.D. (Senior Lecturer and Curator, Anthropology Collections, Cornell University) wrote a fascinating feature in this month's issue of Natural History Magazine. His argument runs as follows:

The Powhatans (the American Indians encountered by the Jamestown colonists in 1607) adopted the English into their social and political world. While they could have easily exterminated the English in a sustained campaign, the Powhatans instead made the colonists part of the collectivity. The English could not understand this and viewed it as a sign of weakness. They continuously broke the compact they had forged with the Powhatans which provoked the occasional punishment from the Powhatans.

Captain John Smith was an integral part of the contract forged between the Powhatans and the English since the latter viewed him as the English "War Chief." This explains the change in relationships after he returned to England.

Pocahontas was acting in a traditional role as a cultural mediator in symbolically saving Smith's life so that he could be reborn into the Powhatan world. In other words the execution of Smith was staged as part of the ritual the Powhatans performed when welcoming outsiders into their social body and Pocahantas was just playing her role in the ritual as the chief's daughter.

In short -- the Pocahontas story is a myth to dress up the reality of theft and genocide in the pretty garb of an insipid love story that establishes the superiority of Anglo-American Masculinity. The only love in reality is that which the Powhatans showed the English when they greeted them at the Coast while they could have massacred them. Love the English viewed as weakness and reciprocated with continuous attempts to seize more land than they needed. And the only explanation for the English conquest is not their intellectual, military or moral superiority but their willingness to lie, murder and rob the very people who saved their miserable lives from starvation and death.

Israel Is A Racist White Supremacist State

Chinese Jews?! Chinese food in the Holy Land! You'd think any Jew would be thrilled. Not so. Of the 600 or so families in Kaifeng who claim to have been Jews for generations, only one of them (the Jin family) has been able to make the so-called "return" (Aliyah) to the Holy Land. And they had to undergo an Orthodox conversion to do so. And even then they were not granted legal status as Jews by the State. You see the members of the ancient Jewish community of Kaifeng (established in at least the 10th Century), like the rest of the communities in the Jewish Diaspora, look like their neighbors (i.e. they look Chinese). Here's a picture.

In Israel, "Jew" clearly equals "White," although they can't say it. But this is ridiculous. According to Israeli law, I could make the Aliyah without a problem because I am White and can prove that all of my ancestors for many generations have been Jewish. Yet a recent DNA test my father took revealed that none of my paternal genetic markers can be traced to the Middle East. In fact on my father's side I have more in common with an Irishman or a Spaniard than an Ancient Hebrew. In other words, Judaism is not a race! It's a religion. And a Jew can be African, Arab, Chinese, European or what have you. But what the example of the Chinese Jews shows, as well as the experiences of all people of color in Israel, is that the Zionist State has nothing or very little to do with religion. The Jin family produced official Chinese documents showing that they were descendants of Jews. But that was not sufficient (as it would have been in say, my case). So they underwent an Orthodox ritual conversion. But that still wasn't sufficient. So if the Jew angle isn't about religion then what is it about? It's a con. How else do you justify the establishment of a new colonial entity based on White Supremacy after the whole world recognized the right of the formerly colonized people to independence after World War II? But that's another story.

Nobody Ever Wacks The Fascists!

Okay so the Columbia University student Republicans invited the leader of the Minutemen to speak at the school last week and the audience shouted him off the stage (<http://www.youtube.com/v/cfnn7wTgoE8>). Not a huge deal but commendable nonetheless and a feel-good moment for decent-minded citizens considering no one got hurt. Unfortunately the university administration doesn't see it that way. They want to discipline the students. Now, for those who may not know, the Minutemen are an armed militia that patrol the southern border of the U.S. and kill people who try to cross it from Mexico. Now if my last blog post sounded crazy to you then consider this: Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X -- men whose only crime was fighting for equality, freedom and justice -- were assassinated and their murderers went unpunished. Jim Gilchrist, who is guilty of inciting racist murders, was prevented from giving a speech and those responsible have been targeted for punishment (they might not if you sign this petition). And have you noticed that fascists like Gilchrist and his ilk hardly ever seem to pay for their crimes? Most die of natural causes. What the fuck is that?!

North Korea

"Before a journalist starts to cover foreign policy issues, he or she should first be required to report on car accidents."

John Feffer, Co-Director, Foreign Policy In Focus and Director, Global Affairs, International Relations Center

Most journalists in the U.S. are simply mouthpieces for the foreign policy of whatever administration happens to be in office at the time. The notion that there exists an opposing view must strike them as utterly alien. It must be nice to get paid not to think. This is blatant when it comes to North Korea. We, the mentally retarded U.S. public, are told that the leaders of North Korea are a bunch of irrational lunatics just aching to shower us with nuclear weapons. Never mind that North Korea has had large stockpiles of chemical weapons for decades, and perhaps biological weapons as well, but has never used them. And never mind that the country has maintained its sovereignty for over 50 years! They're just a bunch of psychopaths. We're also fed a big juicy line on how our leaders just want to spread Democracy and Freedom to North Korea! Pardon me while I go somewhere private to vomit. Let's think about some of the great things the U.S. has done for Korea since World War II:

August 6 and 9, 1945 -- The U.S. drops nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ultimately killing hundreds of thousands of people including at least 60,000 Koreans mostly brought to Japan forcibly as laborers.

August 15, 1945 -- The U.S. authorities in the South support reactionaries who collaborated with the Japanese. These men formed the kernel of the government of South Korea which would eventually include military dictators like Park Jung Hee who used techniques to suppress dissent that they had learned from their Japanese masters before liberation.

Korean War -- U.S. forces, likely as a result of General MacArthur's view of all Koreans as "defeated enemies" as well as the knowledge that the North enjoyed widespread support among the people, are under orders to view any unidentified person on the battlefield as hostile.

Korean War -- The U.S. uses chemical weapons, especially napalm, extensively during the conflict.

July, 1950 -- Elements of the Second Battalion, U.S. Seventh Cavalry Regiment, massacre hundreds of civilians (mostly women and children) at No Gun Ri.

May 1980 -- The U.S. government approves the use of force against pro-Democracy demonstrators in the city of Kwangju and commits to direct intervention if the situation gets out of hand. A massacre ensues, the notorious Kwangju Massacre, that results in the deaths of between 500 and 2000 (the final death toll is still unknown because the military dumped bodies in mass graves and lakes) civilian demonstrators at the hands of the U.S.-backed South Korean military.

Now let's add that to all the other fucked-up shit the U.S. has done and continues to do all over the world and let's wonder why on earth the government of North Korea, which the President included in his "axis of evil" speech, would want to acquire nuclear weapons!