Muslim women, wake up!

commenting on
WORLD NEWS | Tue Feb 21, 2017 | 4:33am EST
French far-right's Le Pen refuses to wear headscarf to meet Lebanon's Grand Mufti

I give up! If a non fundamentalist Mufti refuses to meet a woman not wearing a veil, then there is no hope.
He wants to impose his reading of religion on others and gives woman's hair the ultimate importance in piety!
If women submission is their main theological flag then there is no place for me with them.

I am the last person to defend Le Pen.
She is even more intolerant than the Mufti.
I suspect the only reason why she wanted to meet him was to let the world know that she would not cover her head. A cheap electoral stunt and her smirk showed it clearly!

Nonetheless each and every time Islam manages to shoot itself in the foot.
It is time for Muslims to take a honest look at the source of all problems facing them.
It is simply intolerance towards dissent in the interpretation of religion and a power grabbing effort by a religious establishment that is not even an integral part of Islam.
It is a modern times creation.
There is no institutional Church in Islam. No middle man between man and God.
The Koran even says that you should not preach religion because only God can give faith. 

What a mess and what a warped Islam is being preached today!

Le Pen in Lebanon, Kafkaesque!

Marie Le Pen managed to find a country to receive her. It is for her a validation of her stature on the foreign policy dimension of her candidacy.
President Aoun is happy to receive her as it is a validation of his inflated ego on the international scene.
Both want also to validate Bashar Al Assad in Syria. God knows why?!

For Marie Le Pen it is a logical component of her extreme right ideology that advocate for so called Christian values and the alliance of minorities in the Middle East. A nice extension of colonialism.
Yet there is a backside to her visit.
Dual French/Lebanese citizens have voted strongly for her in the last elections. Many of them because of being bigoted Christians and to a certain extent populist with a tilt towards fascism, some because they are extreme right and more Gauls than the Gauls, others due to pure ignorance. They cannot understand that they are Arabs like all the other Arabs and will not be treated differently.
Her visit will give publicity to her policy that says that if she is elected she will require all people from non European origins to give up their original nationality if they want to keep the French one.
A racist policy that clearly discriminates against a group of citizens. But she really does not care about the values of democracy, does she!?

For Aoun it corresponds to his agenda of Christian rights and the alliance of minorities. Yet it is once again a knee jerk and ego boosting exercise. What are his gains? None.
Even in the case Le Pen wins the elections, she will not be able to do a lot when France gets out of the EU and falls into economic disintegration.
And if she does not win, then he has alienated the next President of France and the rest of the EU.

Another sticking point in all of this is Aoun relation with Hezbollah and the problematic of this relation with the new Trump administration declared anti Iranian policy. It might reflect on the support of the US to the Lebanese Army. And how is Le Pen explains her positiont given her declared admiration and alliance with Trump. And what about the Russian factor and their interference in all European election to promote extreme right candidates including Le Pen. The Russians until now are maintaining their alliance with Iran.

What a mess! and what is Hariri doing in the middle of all of this? until where his compromise will go? Who is the Godot he is waiting for?

Lebanon is a doomed country lead by politicians whose strategy is knee jerk reactions based on corruption, nepotism, and self serving policies. These same leaders are re-elected by the Lebanese every four years... Kafkaesque!

I do not understand CNN anymore

Many will wonder why I am writing this blog. Those who witnessed the birth of CNN and how it affected access to information and was critical in shaping global public opinion might understand my nostalgia and emotional relation to CNN.

I am glad to have them expose the weaknesses and dangerous ideology of a Trump presidency.
But I am sad because they seem to be leading a political campaign which is not what balanced media is all about.

I rely on them for information, specially that I am almost all the time on the move.
Lately, I have just been shutting off the TV because I am bored of hearing them going after Trump all the time, for everything. Many important news is not covered. In addition, the sound criticism is being lost within all the hoopla.

Lately what shocked me is the line they are adopting towards the Iranian declarations and caricatures of Trump during the revolution celebration. Smirks and as if they are happy if the Iranians demean the USA. It is shocking. I would understand if they are taking side with a third country opposing the US on values of human rights and freedoms. But Iran??

This is counterproductive. Their audience is global, it is not formed of people who just want to hear what they like. Their audience wants balanced news.

It is sad if CNN becomes the other side of the coin of Fox News.
How can we fight populism and national socialism if we do not have a balanced media?

The Trump witch hunt might be counterproductive

In my wildest dreams, I never imagined that I would write such a blog.
Trump embodies an ideology that goes against all of my believes and what I fought for since the early 1970s.

I am furious that I am witnessing the rise of populist social nationalism around the world, I am angry at the erosion of gains in women rights, I am disheartened to witness the demise of a drive that lead to the creation the European Union, but what saddens me is the failure of the left, whether social democrats, progressive, or just liberals.

It is not right to have a witch hunt like criticism of Trump by many democrats, liberal and progressive media people, or just some intellectuals.
I hate hearing people taking side with Iran because Trump is saying he will take a taught stand on Iran. It does not make sense. Iran is a fundamentalist Islamic state that is wrecking havoc in the region. Just come to Lebanon and see the actions of Hezbollah and go to Syria and look at the sectarian crimes committed also by Hezbollah.
I hate hearing people going against safe zones for Syrians, idealizing the Obama presidency, sweeping under the rag all the failures of an administration that saw a dictator barrel bombing its own people while he meddled in a leading from behind policy saying that he is not lead by values, rather by putting the interests of the US first.

Standing against the Trump ideology is not taking sides by negating all of his actions while engaging in a never ending comparison with Obama who was a nice educated and wordily President but who was also stubborn, never heard the advice of Clinton or any of his other advisories, who sacked many of them, and who rules by Presidential decrees because he failed to unite or work with the Senate or the Congress.

It is time to take responsibility for eight years that ended by giving us Brexit, an emboldened and strong Putin, an Arab spring and a Green revolution that fell into violence and destruction, disabused youth, the Black Lives Count movement.... and certainly bears some responsibility for people in the US turning towards a person that is i Washington state and Minnesota n fact not electable such as Trump.

It is time to pay attention to the average person's concerns and to work on stopping this trend through winning the next election.
It will not happen by launching a witch hunt but by putting on the table logical and reasonable alternatives to Trump policies.

Just a day after I wrote this blog I was so happy to see intelligent people challenge Trump in the proper manner.  Washington state and Minnesota took the complaint against the Presidential order to court and District judge James Robart granted a temporary restraining order on Friday after hearing the arguments. 
Washington state’s attorney general, Bob Ferguson, who by the way sewed previously the Obama administration, hailed the decision as an important victory against.
“We are a nation of laws. Not even the president can violate the constitution,” Ferguson told reporters outside the courtroom. “No one is above the law, not even the president.”
This is an intelligent and effective answer!