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Mos Def, Rhiannon Gibbons, and more.
Sublime.
Repost from Playing for Change:
Today we celebrate Cat Stevens, an artist whose music has inspired generations with messages of hope, peace, and compassion.
#audiotechnica #greatsoundiseverywhere
Join the movement at https://www.playingforchange.com/join
Link to video song: Peace Train
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Repost from The Houston Chronicle:
University of Houston administrators could slash almost 40% of the courses offered in the school’s core curriculum to comply with a new state law — including “Intro to Global Climate Change,” “Black Liberation Theology,” “Introduction to Women’s Studies” and “Introduction to LGBT Studies,” according to a list obtained by the Houston Chronicle. bit.ly/4wVhLn5
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Since the incident at the awarding of the FIFA trophy to the Spanish team, a number of memes like this have been popping up.
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A Western Saharan on how Christopher Nolan chose to accept generous subsidies from the repressive Moroccan monarchy to film part of They Odyssey in his occupied country.
Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey used occupied land as a film set. That feels like a betrayal
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Despite what the governor is claiming here, it would be impossible to impose sharia law and there are no serious efforts to do so in Arkansas or anywhere else in the United States. I guess she has to find some way of distracting Arkansas residents from the fact that their state ranks near the bottom in most social statistics.
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Whether it be about its reactionary theocratic policies, lack of political rights, oppression of women and religious minorities, or support for extremist groups, Saudi Arabia is as bad, if not worse, than Iran.
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Well, yes, actually…
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Repost from Informed Comment:
John Esposito, 86, showed how Islamophobia warped US policy
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The fact that so many political leaders in the country think it is so horribly wrong to even try to arrest an indicted war criminal is an indication of how far to the right we have become.
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Repost from Anja Ilić:
If someone had told me that I’d spend a large portion of this World Cup arguing with leftists online about false news regarding their beloved or less beloved teams and players, and reading their vitriolic takes on the latter, I’d have laughed it off a few years ago. Yet here we are, one day after another someone sharing the types of posts your aunt or uncle with low social media literacy would share and claim adamantly that it’s all true, getting reactive and condesceding when you point out that it isn’t, or plainly ignoring the truth to push the agenda.
The case of Argentina is the most telling litmus test. Within a few weeks, the Argentinian national team has become one of the, if not the most hated one in the tournament, and particularly among leftist circles. There are in fact many sports-related reasons for disdain: Argentina played dirty most of the tournament, although, unlike Paraguay for instance, they don’t actually have to compensate for being the weaker link by acting like pricks on the field; Argentina can definitely play, which was obvious whenever they received a goal and had to secure the result in their favour afterwards. Another problem is, not only did the Argentinians act like pricks, but most of the judges had no spine to call faults on them when needed and give the yellow and red cards. Thus this thuggish behaviour got a free pass. That’s enough for sports-related disdain.
Yet somehow, it seems to me it was less about sports and more about purported politics. And here the “aunt and uncle” types of posts really kick in. In a matter of weeks, Argentina and its national team became the evil incarnate, the new Nazis, the direct subsidiary of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu himself. It’s not surprising to hear socially insensitive sports commentators (like Rade Bogdanović here in Serbia, for instance) talking in terms of “civilised and cultured” European football vs the savages from South America. It is jarring to read so many socialists’ comments in the same vein, frequently accompanying some random-ass photo with supposed “facts” (based on vibes and unnamed sources) about Lionel Messi and/or the Argentinian football team. From what I read these days, the guy could as well be more responsible for the genocide in Gaza than Netanyahu himself.
And once the ball starts rolling, it never stops. The algorithm feeds these factoids down your throat, empowered by the all-permeating AI and not only our growing inability to spot it but, more worryingly, our indifference to even check. Palestine is, quite rightly, at the heart of this moral compassing. It’s just that, for some people reading the compass, showing the right direction becomes more important than whether the compass factually exists or not.
So all of a sudden you have Cristiano Ronaldo and Erling Haaland fans (and I too am the latter) sharing strongly-worded misquotes, or plain fabrications, about their support for Palestine, and people attacking you (still!) about those auctions and donations of Ronaldo to Palestine that never happened, and were debunked repeatedly throughout the years. On the opposite side, you have Messi supposedly waving the Israeli flag, selling his jerseys to IDF soldiers, and whatnot. Stuff that in most of the cases never happened, but is nevertheless shared without a self-correction and any capacity for self-critical assessment. (Nota bene, most celebrities, sportspeople included, rarely go out of their way to make an overtly political statement. That should be the first signal to check authenticity of such statements. Celebrity culture, as a rule of thumb, just couldn’t care less about ordinary people and our matters.)
With that said, while the Spanish government is, shamefully, an outcast in showing basic humanity regarding Gaza and the Palestinians, one has to notice that not a single Spanish player refused to shake hands with Trump (or Infantino, for that matter) last night; some Argentinian players however did. Not a single Spanish player wrapped a Palestinian flag around himself, and they had the perfect opportunity to do so, having just won the World Cup. Argentinians did make a political statement on the pitch. After their win over England, they collectively raised a banner “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”, addressing the Falklands war and the much longer dispute over a British colony on Falklands Islands. Curiously, among many leftists this was still primarily read through the lens of “Nazis of South America” (or savage orcs, to quote a phrase another comrade repeatedly used to refer to the Argentinian national team).
I too cheered for Spain last night, both for sports and (current) politics-related reasons. I’m glad they won. I was though a little disappointed that they were willing to take no risk and do any, however small, gesture of political braveness and solidarity. Turns out it’s easier to wave the flag of Palestine while riding an open bus through Barcelona than where it mattered most, and where many ordinary fans and some sportspeople were willing to take a stand.
I’m however much more disappointed, and worried, about comrades caring more about virtue-signalling than the truth. What sort of alternative you claim to represent when you engage in the same racist language and behaviour as your arch-enemy (which in this case happened to be Messi and the Argentinian team)? What truth do you stand for when you’d rather stand by bombastic and hot-takey lies than correct yourself and move forward? Who exactly are you “left of” then – the likes of Milei and Trump? You have, and we as socialists have (or claim to have), political and scientific responsibility that those reactionary clowns lack. Don’t mimic them.
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Repost from Mark Norris Lance:
We are at the “check the app every morning to see how poisonous the air is” stage of late capitalism.
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My interview on CNA in Singapore this morning talking about the latest regarding the Iran, the U.S., and international shipping.
CNA938 Rewind - US-Iran Conflict: What the Blockade Threats Mean for Oil and Freight Markets
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