In a predictable and totally revealing turn of events, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh seems to have joined the ranks of politicians like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Justin Trudeau and the leadership of Israel on the issue of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid.
According to Rabbis Edward Elkin, Baruch Frydman-Kohl and Chaim Strauchler in the Canadian Jewish News, during an interview on December 18, 2019, Singh stated "that the NDP supports the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism as an educational tool to help policy makers address the ever-evolving scourge of Jew-hatred."
You can listen to the interview at a link below.
Just five days prior to this, Kenneth Stern, who drafted the IHRA working definition wrote again in the Guardian of how he had disavowed it as "rightwing Jews are weaponizing it".
Going even further Singh:
...unequivocally condemned BDS, stating that it “creates tensions and divisions,” and “does not advance peace.” Singh stated that neither he nor the NDP support BDS, believing that it is not “the right path forward.”
Singh spoke positively of his 2016 fact-finding mission to Israel, about the Jewish state’s nation-building experiment, its contribution to technological innovation, the revival of Hebrew as a language, and the diverse and complex range of political positions among Israelis. He condemned Iran and supported sanctions against the regime, while still seeking cautious ways, alongside tough sanctions, to engage that country in order to change its behaviour.
The authors contrast Singh positively with UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who, of course, was the victim of an unrelenting smear campaign on this issue.
This is a terrible, appalling position. While he says he opposes attempts to ban the movement on free speech grounds, he clearly states that both he and the NDP oppose BDS starting at around the 28 minute mark in the podcast.
The NDP, over and over again, tells us exactly what it is. As I have said before, it is time for us to listen.
A Barricade in Arbat St., Moscow, December 1905 -- Daily LIFT #90
"The December struggle of the proletariat left the people a legacy that can serve as an ideological and political beacon for the work of several generations" - V. I. Lenin
Protesters burn the US and UK flags, Tehran, Jan. 3, 2019
In an assassination that was illegal under international law and that represented a dangerous and reckless escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran and across the Middle East generally, the Trump administration ordered the killing of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad last night. Soleimani was widely seen as one of the most powerful men within the Iranian regime.
Since the beginning of his presidency Trump has been attempting to destroy all of the progress that the Obama administration made in negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran. Trump unilaterally withdrew from it under what were obviously false pretenses claiming that it was not working.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has said on repeated occasions that Iran remains in compliance with the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal it negotiated with world powers aimed at preventing it from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The Trump administration abandoned that pact and reimposed a near-total embargo on Iran's economy, including its oil, shipping, manufacturing and banking industries.
In the wake of the withdrawal there were numerous other American provocations including saber-rattling after dubious American accusation of an Iranian attack on Japanese oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and them trying to use the shooting down of a spy drone over Iranian air space as an example of Iran acting "aggressively" which was, of course, absurd.
In fact, as Mohamad Bazzi noted today in the Guardian, any crisis with Iran has been entirely manufactured by Trump and his quislings themselves:
When Trump took office, there was no US crisis with Iran. He created one – driven by hawkish advisers, many of whom had supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and his desire to undo one of Barack Obama’s major foreign policy accomplishments. In May 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal, and reimposed the US sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.
Trump constantly mentions his supposed desire to end US involvement in foreign wars – in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But since May 2019 the Pentagon has deployed more than 14,000 troops to the Middle East. That’s when the latest escalation with Iran began, with several incidents in the Strait of Hormuz that culminated with Tehran shooting down a US drone that it claimed had violated its airspace.
As a counter to the onslaught of misinformation and American triumphalism -- such as the revolting CNBC tweet stating that "America just took out the world's no. 1 bad guy" -- we have bought together developments, news and viewpoints that oppose this blind defense of murderous American adventurism.
While the Americans have tried to frame the killing as having been to prevent further violence and to make the world "safer" this narrative does not hold up under even the slightest scrutiny.
The killing was so obviously a dangerous escalation that administration figures like Vice President Pence are already resorting to total fictions to justify it:
One motive was likely to drive a final nail in the coffin of the nuclear deal and the efforts of some European countries to keep it alive. As the Guardian noted the "assassination...may have dealt a devastating blow" to these hopes.
Was the U.S. attack an act of war? Douglas Silliman, who was the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq until last winter and is now the president of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told me that the death of Suleimani was the equivalent of Iran killing the commander of U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia. “If Iran had killed the commander of U.S. Central Command, what would we consider it to be?” he said.
She also notes that:
The U.S. killing of Suleimani and the air strikes on Kata’ib Hezbollah over the weekend are an embarrassment to Iraqi leaders and a challenge to Iraqi sovereignty. They come at a time when Baghdad is gripped by the deepest political crisis since the U.S. invasion ousted Saddam Hussein, in 2003. The Prime Minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite who spent years in exile in Iran, stepped down and is now playing only a caretaker role. There are already calls for the Iraqi parliament to demand the withdrawal of some five thousand U.S. troops—and hundreds more from more than a dozen coalition neighbors—that are still waging a campaign against isis insurgents. In a tweet, in Arabic, Mahdi called the assassination of Suleimani an act of aggression against the “Iraqi state, its government, and its people.” In an ominous signal to Washington, he said the killing was a “breach of the conditions for the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq.” The Iraqi Parliament is due to debate the U.S. military presence and vote on whether it should continue when it reconvenes, but the Prime Minister has the ultimate say as Commander-in-Chief, Silliman said.
Since October, Iraq has witnessed a wave of protests against corruption, government mismanagement, and deteriorating living conditions across the south and centre of the country. Protesters have also rejected Iranian interference and support for the government.
Never had Iran's influence in Iraq been so precarious since the 2003 Iraq war. Iranian-affiliated PMUs have been accused of targeting the protesters, who for the most part are their Shia coreligionists. The Iranian consulates in Najaf and Karbala were torched and Adel Abdul Mahdi, the Iraqi prime minister, whom Iran supported, had to resign in the face of the escalating violence against peaceful protests.
Iraq has never faced an intra-Shia crisis on this scale. The US attack, however, will likely undermine the Iraqi protest movement and may reunite Shia forces. While Iraqis may have protested against the PMUs, they would take even more umbrage at the US attacking one of their own leaders who led the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS). The US made al-Muhandis a martyr.
Trump's decision to assassinate him and Soleimani offered a lifeline to the Iranian-affiliated militias, as well as the Islamic Republic, shifting the Iraqi demonstrators' anger from corruption to the brazen violation of national sovereignty.
In addition to making matters worse for the United States in Iraq, the assassination seems to have united popular opinion in Iran itself where many have been recently protesting against the regime and its austerity measures and general brutality.
Hundreds of thousands of Iranians flooded the streets of Tehran and other cities across the country Friday to condemn the U.S. assassination of military leader Qassem Soleimani, discrediting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's prediction that the people of Iran would "view the American action last night as giving them freedom."
Images and videos of massive rallies circulated on social media as Iranians gathered following Friday prayers to denounce Soleimani's killing, which was ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump and carried out via drone strike Thursday night.
Soleimani's assassination, according to Al-Jazeera, "triggered a wave of emotions and garnered a response of solidarity and retribution across the otherwise divided Iranian political spectrum."
As Bernie Sanders stated, far from improving the situation, "Trump promised to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to another one."
There is also a certain irony to this given that Trump himself predicted that a US president would use a war with Iran to win reelection. He just did not predict it would be him.
Cuban President Miguel DÃaz-Canel Bermúdez Visits the Grave of Karl Marx, London, England 2018
-- Daily LIFT #88
"It is impossible to be here, speak from this rostrum on behalf of Cuba, and not recall historic moments of the General Assembly which are also part of our dearest memories: Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Raúl Castro and the “Chancellor of Dignity”, Raúl Roa, just to mention the most significant, have brought here not only the voice of our people but also the voice of other Latin American and Caribbean, African, Asian, non-aligned peoples, with whom we have shared more than half a century of struggles for a fair international order, which is still far to be attained.
It is absurd but consistent with the irrationality of a world in which the richest 0.7% of the population owns 46% of all the wealth, while the poorer 70% of the population can access only 2.7% of it; 3.460 billion people survive in poverty; 815 million go hungry; 758 million are illiterate and 844 million lack basic services of drinking water. All these figures, by the way, are prepared and regularly used by global organizations, but it seems that they have failed to raise sufficient awareness of the so called international community. These realities, Madam President, are not the result of socialism, like the President of the United States said yesterday here. They are the consequence of capitalism, especially imperialism and neoliberalism; of the selfishness and exclusion that is inherent to that system, and of an economic, political, social and cultural paradigm that privileges wealth accumulation in the hands of a few at the cost of the exploitation and dire poverty of the large majorities." - Miguel DÃaz-Canel Bermúdez, United Nations Speech, 2018 Today is the 61st Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution
Moving, with a near perfect interplay between the two singers. #49) May I Have This Dance - Francis and the Lights f. Chance the Rapper
From one of the very best albums of the decade, Lemonade.
#48) All Night - Beyonce
Great song with a terrific video.
#47) Make You Better - The Decemberists
An unflinching song about loss, aging and death, If We Were Vampires is beautifully written and profoundly haunting and sad.
"If we were vampires and death was a joke
We'd go out on the sidewalk and smoke
And laugh at all the lovers and their plans
I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand
Maybe time running out is a gift"
#46) If We Were Vampires - Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
A song that ages very well. It gets better with time and repeated playing.
#45) Simple Song - The Shins
Timberlake's masterpiece. Truly moving song and video.
#44) Mirrors - Justin Timberlake
Any number of Lana Del Rey songs could have made this list (and this is not the last). An artist who has grown to be one of the most consistently original and interesting out there.
#43) West Coast - Lana Del Rey
A marvelous celebration of lust and sexuality.
#42) Coffee - Miguel
A deeply humanistic song that also improves with age.
#41) Call it Dreaming - Iron & Wine
A stunning song by an artist who is going to go great places.
#40) Great One - Jessie Reyez
Intense. Almost like a musical anxiety attack.
#39) Pedestrian At Best - Courtney Barnett
Haunting and ethereal.
#38) Strange Weather - Anna Calvi & David Byrne
Deeply philosophical and poetic.
#37) 33 "God" - Bon Iver
An absolutely brilliant, feminist re-imagining of an iconic country song.
"We are The Highwomen
Singing stories still untold
We carry the sons you can only hold
We are the daughters of the silent generations
You sent our hearts to die alone in foreign nations
It may return to us as tiny drops of rain
But we will still remain
And we'll come back again and again and again
And again and again
We'll come back again and again and again
And again and again"
#36) Highwomen - The Highwomen
Marvelously romantic, an incredible love song with great depth and feeling.
#35) The Spark - William Prince
Wonderful celebration of diversity and humanity.
#34) Fam Jam (Fe Sum Immigrins) - Shad
Lady Gaga's great triumph.
#33) You and I - Lady Gaga
Powerful, powerful song that features the exceptional gospel vocals of the iconic Mavis Staples. Packs a hell of an emotional and lyrical punch in under 3 minutes.
#32) Witness - Benjamin Booker
A great song off of what was possibly the greatest album the decade, Modern Vampires Of The City.
#31) Diane Young - Vampire Weekend
Middle fingers up.
#30) Sorry - Beyonce
Hypnotic.
#29) Like a Dream - Francis and the Lights
Terrific song and collaboration.
#28) Woman - Cat Power (feat. Lana Del Rey)
Phenomenal song that celebrates both change and tradition.
#27) Seasons (Waiting On You) - Future Islands
One of the decade's finest straight ahead rock songs.
#26) Here Comes My Man - Gaslight Anthem
Devastating.
#25) Take Me to Church - Hozier
An anthem of rage and a call for justice. A "Three Penny" Opera style rejection that is so richly deserved to a social order and patriarchy that has to end.
#24) Rich, White, Straight, Men - Kesha
A truly wonderful, wonderful song. Uplifting, full of heart and a deep embrace of humanity and life, Howard of Alabama Shakes fame gives us a feel good masterpiece.
#23) Stay High - Brittany Howard
Strikingly original. Lana Del Rey's finest moment to date.
#22) National Anthem - Lana Del Rey
Incredibly powerful, beautifully written and performed.
#21) Glory - Common & John Legend
Raw, beautifully produced and realized. #20) 4:44 - Jay Z Based on the intense and magnificent "Stadium Pow Wow", this collaboration is a home run on every level. Will make you heart beat just a little too fast.
#19) R.E.D. Ft. Yasiin Bey, Narcy & Black Bear - A Tribe Called Red A love song to a certain New York.
#18) Step - Vampire Weekend
From the marvelous Glen Hansard...tremendous vocals, wonderfully written.
#17) Her Mercy - Glen Hansard
Just wonderful. Romantic, soaring vocals, touching, heartfelt.
About as good a love song as you will ever hear.
#16) Beyond - Leon Bridges
Visceral, challenging, intense and breathtaking...a stunning song that is both a throwback and an announcement while also a devastating piece of social commentary. #15) Creature Comfort - Arcade Fire
This is a searing, incisive and really amazing political and musical statement.
They confront the racist brutality of their own society head on in a way that does not attempt to whitewash or make excuses.
Lyrically stunning, musically perfect.
#14) What it Means - Drive By Truckers
Haunting. #13) From Eden - Hozier
The legendary John Prine. Back again with this emotionally devastating song about the opioid crisis, love, longing and loss.
#12) Summer's End - John Prine
With Prince influences, clever lyrical twists, amazing hooks...Monáe strikes in ways both new and familiar.
#11) Make Me Feel - Janelle Monáe A strikingly powerful and moving meditation on death.
#10) Brendan's Death Song - Red Hot Chili Peppers I love everything about this song and its stunning video. Guaranteed to make you feel better about the world for a few minutes at least! #9) Sunday Candy - Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment w. Chance the Rapper
The song and video are a body blow. An expression of fightback and resistance.
The interpretative dance about the police murder is one of the most powerful things I have ever seen. #8) 16 Shots - Vic Mensa
This song just kicks ass...from the great folks of Alabama Shakes... #7) Hold On - Alabama Shakes
A devastating, disturbing and exceptionally powerful song.
#6) The Body Electric - Hurray for the Riff Raff
Disturbing, intense, irreverent, angry, comic...a song for our time.
#5) This Is America - Childish Gambino
This song is a masterpiece on basically every level. A stunning, confrontational, angry, reverential, historic, amazing piece of art.
It has led to both praise and criticism and sometimes both had equal merit. It is self-contradictory and yet anthemic. It is a song that stresses individualism and that yet came to symbolize resistance.
Mesmerizing, beautiful, magnificent.... All Hail Beyonce.
"You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation"
#4) Formation - Beyonce
A song of great power, reflection and sadness.
#3) Afterlife - Arcade Fire
What can you say about this one? It is like 3 songs in 1, it is intense and wild, a genuine work of art.
Absolutely love everything about it. Just amazing.
#2 - Q.U.E.E.N. - Janelle Monáe feat. Erykah Badu
Comrades and friends...THIS is the song we have been waiting for and, especially now in this time of great challenges, needed.
A beacon of hope and revolt in the face of darkness.
Anthemic, rousing, revolutionary, sad, despairing yet uplifting, it even features a sample of Pedro Pietri’s poem “Puerto Rican Obituary”.
Profoundly moving it is sure to become a leftist anthem:
"From el barrio to el assyeo, ¡Pa’lante!
From Marble Hill to the ghost of Emmett Till, ¡Pa’lante!
To Juan, Miguel, Miradros, Manuel, ¡Pa’lante!
To all who came before, we say, ¡Pa’lante!
To my mother and my father, I say, ¡Pa’lante!
To Julia, and Sylvia, ¡Pa’lante!
To all who had to hide, I say, ¡Pa’lante!
To all who lost their pride, I say, ¡Pa’lante!
To all who had to survive, I say, ¡Pa’lante!
To my brothers, and my sisters, I say, ¡Pa’lante!
¡Pa’lante!
¡Pa’lante!
To all came before, we say, ¡Pa’lante!"
