Category Archives: Fail!

Frida Berrigan: “Pow, Pow, Yous Are Dead!” – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

We know where that problem ends, but it starts somewhere, too. One place to begin to look, at least, is at how our kids—particularly our boys—play, and how they are nurtured (or not), and taught to express their emotions (or not). It is, at least in part, up to us, their parents, to decide whether they are going to be the ones who help repair our society and reorient us (or not). And it begins with the kinds of care and love they receive, the kinds of conversations they are invited into, the kinds of expectations they are given about behavior and relationships.I don’t want to raise Seamus, Madeline, or Rosena in the austere, ripped from the headlines of horror, polemical atmosphere that was the essence of my own childhood. But I don’t want them to get comfortable with killing either.I want so much more for, and from, my little boy than “Pow, pow, yous are dead now!” And that starts with taking the gun or the stick or the rainbow flag out of his hands, sitting him down, and having a hard conversation about what guns actually do to people– and how much killing hurts us all.

Source: Frida Berrigan: “Pow, Pow, Yous Are Dead!” – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

Donald Trump’s slander of Captain Humayun Khan’s family is horrifying, even for Trump – Vox

Trump’s actual response, though, wasn’t fine.”If you look at his wife, she was standing there,” he said, on national television. “She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. In an interview with Maureen Dowd, Trump took the same tack. “I’d like to hear his wife say something,” he said.Let’s be very clear about what Trump is doing here: as ABC wrote, he’s suggesting “Khan’s wife didn’t speak because she was forbidden to as a Muslim.” This is bullshit. It is flatly, verifiably, false. But that’s almost beside the point.Trump listened to a speech by the bereaved father of a fallen Muslim soldier and used it to slander the fallen soldier’s family. That was his response. That is his character.At this point, I honestly don’t know what to say. I don’t have new language for this, I haven’t found another way of saying this isn’t okay, this isn’t kind, this isn’t decent. Instead, I’ll note James Fallows’s response. He quotes Joseph Welch, speaking to Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954.”Until this moment,” he said, “I think I never really gauged your cruelty.”If you would like to see Ghazala Khan speak, you can do so in this interview she gave to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. As Fallows writes, she breaks down sobbing while speaking of her son. It suggests she let her husband give the DNC speech for a simple reason: she remains overwhelmed by grief.This is the woman Trump decided to slander. This is the gauge of his cruelty.This isn’t partisan. This isn’t left vs. right. Mitt Romney never would have said this. John McCain never would have said this. George W. Bush never would have said this. John Kerry never would have said this. This is what I mean when I write that the 2016 election isn’t simply Democrat vs. Republican, but normal vs. abnormal.Trump also wanted the Khans to know that, like them, he had sacrificed for this country.”I’ve made a lot of sacrifices,” Trump said. “I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”I honestly do not understand how a human being can respond to a family that lost their son for this country by saying that he has sacrificed too, he’s worked really hard, he’s built “great structures,” he’s had “tremendous success.”This is not a question that needs to be asked in most elections, but it needs to be asked in this one: what kind of person is Donald Trump? What kind of person says these things? And is that really the kind of person we want to be president?

Source: Donald Trump’s slander of Captain Humayun Khan’s family is horrifying, even for Trump – Vox

Putin enjoys early Christmas presents | Europe | DW.COM | 29.07.2016

‘Die for Danzig. No!’And Republican Trump ally and former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, has explained exactly how this will happen – just as it did in Crimea. Speaking on the CBS This Morning programme he said “Estonia is in the suburbs of St Petersburg. The Russians aren’t going to necessarily come across the [Estonian] border militarily. The Russians will do what they did in Ukraine. 40 percent of Estonia is Russian. They’re suddenly going to say they’re being mistreated. They’re going to have a militia. I’m not sure I would risk a nuclear war over some place which is the suburbs of St Petersburg.”The comments are reminiscent of the French neo-socialist writer Marcel Déat, who wrote an article in 1939 urging further appeasement of Hilter by giving back to Germany the former Prussian region of Danzig, which was within Polish territory and administered by the League of Nations. Déat coined the phrase “Die for Danzig. No!”Shortly afterwards Hitler – followed by the Soviet Union which had been promised the territories of the Baltics, Finland and a swath of Poland under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact – invaded Poland and all hell broke out in Europe for the second time. Let’s hope there won’t be a third.

Source: Putin enjoys early Christmas presents | Europe | DW.COM | 29.07.2016

Kashmir: Communications blockade exacerbates the human rights crisis – IFEX

The Indian-administered part of Kashmir has been in the grips of mass protests that erupted across the Himalayan region following the killing of a commander of a militant secessionist group in a firefight with Indian security forces on 8 July. While thousands initially came out to join the last rites of Burhan Wani, protests soon broke out calling for azadi (independence) from India. The protests, which have included throwing stones, met with a heavy handed response from security forces, with around 50 deaths reported since the protests started. There have been reports of several human rights violations due to excessive use of force by security forces and attacks on ambulances and medical facilities. The political and human rights crisis in Kashmir has undoubtedly deepened. However, what has exacerbated this crisis is the de-facto information and communications emergency that has been arbitrarily imposed in Kashmir. Authorities in Kashmir have indiscriminately clamped down on internet and telecommunications services, making it harder for people to access information, express dissent and maintain contact with friends and family during a very turbulent time.

Source: Kashmir: Communications blockade exacerbates the human rights crisis – IFEX

Sorry Donald Trump, but ‘France IS still France’ – The Local

During a news conference in Florida on Wednesday, the Republican presidential nominee brought up the recent attack on a church in Normandy, and said a friend who recently visited the country told him: “I wouldn’t go to France. France is no longer France.””They won’t like me for saying that,” Trump continued, “but you see what happened in Nice. You see what happened yesterday with the priest, who is supposed to be a spectacular man. France is no longer France.”Sorry to say, Mr Trump, but it is.And it’s largely because the majority French people defiantly won’t allow themselves to fall victim to the kind of reaction Trump would call for in the aftermath of a series of devastating terror attacks.No, France hasn’t closed its borders to Muslims.There have been some unsavoury incidents which saw some veil-wearing Muslim women verbally abused but the country’s five million Muslims are still free to wander the same streets as everyone else.There has been no walls put up around the banlieues – the poor suburbs home to mainly poor North African immigrant communities.There may be anger but communities have not turned on each other.

Source: Sorry Donald Trump, but ‘France IS still France’ – The Local

Nuclear accident: British Navy unloading weapons from nuclear submarine in Gibraltar | In English | EL PAÍS “Uh, ummm, nuke Brit sub crashes into merchant ship – and it is not front page news around the world?”

A British nuclear-powered submarine that sustained damage after colliding with a merchant vessel off Gibraltar a week ago is being stripped of its weapons.HMS Ambush will leave the British overseas territory “as soon as the ongoing work is completed,” said a spokesman for the Royal Navy, without specifying a date or the nature of the operation.But on Wednesday, a jib crane could be seen removing the Tomahawk cruise missiles, the Spearfish torpedoes and the Harpoon anti-ship missiles from the attack vessel, which returned to Gibraltar for examination after the collision on July 20.

Source: Nuclear accident: British Navy unloading weapons from nuclear submarine in Gibraltar | In English | EL PAÍS

Dear Politicians, Please Shut Up About Hacking and Chopping Rapists. Do Some Actual Work to Ensure Women’s Safety Instead – The Ladies Finger

When politicians make noisy bombastic statements about killing rapists, it’s a neat little diversion from work. How do you create environments in which women can report rape, be safe after reporting, stay secure and strong during trials, and create conditions in which rape trials can be sensitive? All of this is hard work and requires more effort than simply hanging someone. It requires challenging existing laws that are biased against women; it requires making changes in the educational system by introducing sex education and sensitising young adults and children; it requires us, and especially politicians, to stop moral policing women, a task that requires a little more than gruesome solutions such as “cutting the hands and legs of rapists”.So if you don’t mind, Raj Thackeray and the rest of you, don’t give speeches and demand blood in our names. Call us after you’ve done some work.

Source: Dear Politicians, Please Shut Up About Hacking and Chopping Rapists. Do Some Actual Work to Ensure Women’s Safety Instead – The Ladies FingerThe Ladies Finger

Critics of ‘Military Impunity’ Take On Indian-Administered Kashmir · Global Voices

The Indian writer Arundhati Roy argues that his country is in denial about the Kashmiri people’s freedom—its azadi.While we denounce—as we must—the gunning down of unarmed protesters by the security forces, the attacks on ambulances and hospitals by policemen, and the blinding of teenagers with pellet guns, we have to keep in mind that the real debate cannot only be about the violation of human rights by Indian security forces in the Kashmir valley. Egregious though they are, those violations are the consequence—the inevitable and unavoidable consequence—of the militaristic suppression of a people’s struggle for freedom. Kashmiris are not fighting for the establishment of the rule of law or an end to human rights violations. They are fighting for azadi. For this, they are prepared to face down bullets with stones. For this, they are prepared to die in numbers.

Source: Critics of ‘Military Impunity’ Take On Indian-Administered Kashmir · Global Voices

Israeli Forces demolish home with Palestinian man inside it – PNN

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on Wednesday dawn have demolished a home in Surif town north of Hebron with a Palestinian man in it amid intense clashes that lasted for hours.The Israeli army said that the man who was killed is a Palestinian resistance fighter named Mohammed Al-Faqih, whose body was pulled out of the ruins of his home.Eyewitnesses said that Israeli Forces were  calling on Al-Faqih to surrender before they fired 11 anti-tank missiles on the house and demolitshing it.Israeli authorities claim that Mohammed is responsible for the shooting near Otniel illegal settlement which left one rabbi dead and three others injured earlier this month.

Source: Israeli Forces demolish home with Palestinian man inside it – PNN

Trump invites Russia to meddle in the U.S. presidential race with Clinton’s emails – The Washington Post

The candidate and several of his top advisers have business connections to Russia. Campaign chairman Paul Manafort has made millions of dollars in business deals with pro-Russia oligarchs as well as advised the Putin-aligned president of Ukraine whose 2014 ouster triggered Russia’s intervention there.

Source: Trump invites Russia to meddle in the U.S. presidential race with Clinton’s emails – The Washington Post