Caitlin Johnstone

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

The US secretary of state and a Bilderberg surveillance tech oligarch have both made some very interesting admissions about the burgeoning protest movement against the US-backed slaughter in Gaza and the problems it poses for the empire they help run.

During a vitriolic rant about university demonstrators at the Ash Carter Exchange on Innovation and National Security on Tuesday, Palantir CEO Alex Karp came right out and said that if those on the side of the protesters win the debate on this issue, the west will lose the ability to wage wars.

For those who don’t know, Palantir is a CIA-backed surveillance and data mining tech company with intimate ties to both the US intelligence cartel and to Israel, playing a crucial role in both the US empire’s sprawling surveillance network and Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. Karp is a billionaire who sits on the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group and regularly features at the World Economic Forum and other platforms of plutocratic empire management.

“We think these things that are happening across college campuses are a sideshow. No, they are the show.”

“If we lose the intellectual debate, you will not be able to deploy any army in the West, ever.”#Palantir CEO Alex Karp at #SCSPAIExpo2024 pic.twitter.com/MwQoDlSMFw

— Palantir (@PalantirTech) May 8, 2024

“We kind of just think these things that are happening, across college campuses especially, are like a sideshow — no, they are the show,” Karp said during his rant. “Because if we lose the intellectual debate, you will not be able to deploy any army in the west, ever.”

Everyone should listen very carefully to Karp’s words here, because he’s giving the whole game away. He’s making it very clear how crucial it is for the empire to stomp out this protest movement and the zeitgeist upon which it rides, because the very existence of the imperial war machine depends on it. At a time when most imperial spinmeisters are trying to dismiss the importance of this movement and what young people are doing on college campuses around the world, this is a really extraordinary admission from someone who lives deep in the guts of the imperial hydra.

Such conferences are great for obtaining useful information from swamp monsters that you don’t normally hear, because when they’re surrounded by like-minded empire goons they tend to get a lot more loose-tongued than they are when they’re more aware that they have an audience of normal people. 

We saw this illustrated again in a conversation between Senator Mitt Romney and Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the McCain Institute last week, during which both acknowledged some facts that generally go unstated by such creatures.

After bemoaning Israel’s lack of success at “PR” regarding its Gaza assault, Romney just came right out and said that this was “why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature” —  with “us” meaning himself and his fellow lawmakers on Capitol Hill. 

“How this narrative has evolved, yeah, it’s a great question,” Blinken responded, saying that at the beginning of his career in Washington everyone was getting their information from television and physical newspapers like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. 

“Now, of course, we are on an intravenous feed of information with new impulses, inputs every millisecond,” Blinken continued. “And of course, the way this has played out on social media has dominated the narrative. And you have a social media ecosystem environment in which context, history, facts get lost, and the emotion, the impact of images dominates. And we can’t — we can’t discount that, but I think it also has a very, very, very challenging effect on the narrative.”

Notice how he said the word “narrative” three times? That’s how empire managers talk to each other, because that’s how they think about everything.

This is because empire managers are always acutely aware of something that normal human beings are not: that real power comes from manipulating the stories — narratives — that people tell themselves about their reality. 

They understand that humans are storytelling animals whose inner lives are typically dominated by mental narratives about what’s happening, so if you can control those narratives, you can control the humans.

They understand that power is controlling what happens, but true power is controlling what people think about what happens. 

They understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world.

That’s what’s going on with all the mass media propaganda, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, plutocrat-funded think tanks, and mainstream culture manufacturing in New York and Hollywood. A few clever manipulators understand that you can control a society by controlling its dominant narratives.

Our rulers don’t think about things like normal people think about them. They don’t think in terms of doing the right thing or acting in a way that benefits everyone. They don’t think in terms of truth and honesty or the lack thereof. They only think in terms of what stories people are telling each other, and how those stories can be changed in a way that advances the interests of the empire they manage.

Empire managers — and highly manipulative people in general — do not use language in the way that normal people use it. Normal human beings use language to connect and communicate, whereas manipulators use it only to extract things they want from people and exert control over them. They do this by working to control the narratives that people have about their material reality.

That’s why when Romney and Blinken are talking to each other about why people are so upset at Israel, it never even occurs to them to discuss how Israel’s public image is being hurt by its own actions, or to suggest that it could improve that image by simply ceasing to behave in a monstrous way. All they talk about is “the narrative” of what Israel is doing, and how people having the ability to share ideas and information with each other online makes that narrative harder to control.

So while normal people are looking at the bloodshed and horror in Gaza and screaming it needs to stop at the top of our lungs, our rulers are hearing us and thinking, “Oh no, we need to find a way to get them to stop believing that narrative and get them to believe another one.”

That’s what we’re seeing with all the attempts to stomp out free speech both at demonstrations and online. They understand that if they lose control of the narrative, they won’t be able to deploy their armies anymore.

So please don’t make the mistake of thinking your attempts to disrupt their narrative control aren’t working. Don’t let anyone tell you your protests don’t make a difference or your dissident speech poses no threat to the powerful. If what you’re doing wasn’t working, empire managers wouldn’t be losing their minds right now.

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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured images via World Economic Forum (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED)

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

American rapper Macklemore has released a single titled “Hind’s Hall”, the name given to Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall by anti-genocide protesters in honor of the six year-old Hind Rajab who was murdered in Gaza by Israeli forces. The artist says all proceeds from the track will go to UNRWA.

The song with its accompanying video is such a scathing indictment of the US-backed destruction of Gaza that Google-owned YouTube promptly age-restricted it. Macklemore attacks Biden, the brutal police crackdowns on protesters, the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-semitism, US politicians and the Israel lobby, with lines that will haunt you for days like “The Nakba never ended, the colonizer lied.” 

This marks the first really mainstream artist to take on this issue in their chosen medium with a track intended for widespread circulation. It probably won’t be the last. Opposing the Gaza genocide is quickly moving from the right thing to do to the cool thing to do, which is a major problem for the empire.

HIND’S HALL. Once it’s up on streaming all proceeds to UNRWA. pic.twitter.com/QqZEKmzwZI

— Macklemore (@macklemore) May 6, 2024

The empire can handle being on the wrong side of an issue; it has all the media and mainstream culture-manufacturing institutions on its side, which allows it to frame public perception of that issue in a way that quells dissent. What it absolutely cannot handle is a critical mass of young people deciding the imperial murder machine sucks, and that opposing it is fun and makes you cool.

That’s when dissent takes on a momentum of its own. As long as opposing militarism and imperialism is just the morally correct thing to do it will always be a marginal position in an information ecosystem that’s controlled by the powerful, because simply being on the right side of an issue has little natural magnetism of its own. But the instant it moves from being about morality to being fun and cool it suddenly starts crackling with energy and drawing in huge numbers of people who normally wouldn’t be that interested on their own.

The empire has no answer to this. Seriously, how can a bunch of boring empire managers in DC and Virginia hope to compete once that happens? What are they going to do, win the young back by writing another Wall Street Journal think piece? Have Netanyahu rap about how Zionism is rad while Tony Blinken plays guitar? They’ve got nothing.

This crackling excitement behind an antiwar protest movement hasn’t happened since the sixties, and the empire had to retreat from Vietnam with its tail between its legs and dramatically restructure western civilization before it could recover from it. And all the empire managers who worked on solving that problem are dead and gone now; the people working on it now have never had to deal with anything like this, which is why it took them by surprise. The empire managers of today have only ever encountered protests against the war machine that were either very small or short-lived and easily diverted; this one’s only gaining momentum seven months in.

And the northern hemisphere’s summer hasn’t even started yet. I guarantee you the swamp monsters are scheming very hard to try and shut this thing down before summer starts, because the kids are going to have a whole lot of fun at their expense if they can’t.

__________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured image by Markus Felix via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED)

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

What’s happening in Gaza should radicalize you. It absolutely should.

Right now, even as its own criminality hits fever pitch, the western political-media class is fretting with increasing shrillness about young people getting “radicalized” and turned against their government by the spread of information and ideas at campus demonstrations and on TikTok. 

But young people should be radicalizing right now. Everyone should.

When you see Israel rejecting a Hamas ceasefire and beginning its long-threatened assault on Rafah (the last so-called “safe zone” in Gaza), that should radicalize you.

“Entire residential squares being blown up.” Netanyahu is unleashing hell on Rafah in direct opposition to Biden’s (public) opposition. https://t.co/wicnLDxLET

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) May 6, 2024

When you see US senators assist this horrifying onslaught by publicly threatening the International Criminal Court if they dare to indict Israeli officials for war crimes, that should radicalize you.

When you see Israel shutting down Al Jazeera to quash news reporting about its criminality immediately before launching this mass atrocity, that should radicalize you.

When you see The New York Times receiving a Pulitzer Prize for its scandalously discredited, notoriously biased and widely–mocked Gaza coverage, that should radicalize you.

When you see the US president publicly supporting and encouraging violent police crackdowns against protesters opposing his genocidal actions in Gaza, that should radicalize you.

If the so-called “moderate” position of your nation’s political status quo is to accept, normalize, support and defend the sort of evil that is being inflicted upon the people of Gaza, then you should want to get as far away from that “moderate” position as possible, and you should seek the complete annihilation of that political status quo.

Uhhh excuse me but is it not freakish and disturbing that we're now seeing US police forces and local officials taking it as a given that it is their job to stop the spread of political opinions they don't like? The NYC mayor has been saying the same thing. https://t.co/ytXNOzop0g

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 3, 2024

This obvious point is being aggressively attacked with rapidly intensifying frenzy by the empire and its lackeys.

After police violently shut down anti-genocide campus demonstrations in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams said “There is a movement to radicalize young people, and I’m not going to wait until it’s done… I’m not going to allow that to happen as the mayor of the City of New York,” as though preventing the spread of radical political opinions is something a mayor is elected to do in the United States.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry ominously told the press that there is “some organization” who is “radicalizing our students,” and that the New York police force intends to “find out who that is.” Again, the implication being that it is the job of the police to control the spread of unauthorized political opinions.

In an article with the incredibly propagandistic headline “Anti-Israel protests infiltrated by ‘outside agitators’ who radicalize students, sow violence,” The Washington Times presented these unevidenced assertions from New York City officials as though they are established fact instead of highly convenient fiction.

In a talk at the McCain Institute on Friday, Senator Mitt Romney told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Congress supports banning TikTok because it shares information that turns people’s opinions against Israel, saying such information has a “very, very challenging effect on the narrative.”

Incredible mask-off moment: Romney and Blinken say that the ban of TikTok was directly because "the emotion, the impact of images has a very challenging effect on the narrative", the narrative being "Israel's PR".pic.twitter.com/WkIGTAXG2X

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) May 6, 2024

A new report from The Intercept reveals that congressmen Mike Lawler and Josh Gottheimer called on the FBI to investigate campus protesters at a “centrist” political group called No Labels, suggesting there these demonstrations have a nefarious support system which the federal police should look into.

The Wall Street Journal has been losing its mind over the campus protests, posting articles with headlines like “Activist Groups Trained Students for Months Before Campus Protests” and “Rules for Campus Radicals, 2024 — A website reveals the planning and strategy behind the current college mayhem” which suggest that there is something sinister and unacceptable about these demonstrations receiving support from “longtime activists and left-wing groups.”

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough went full Alex Jones on his show last week, telling his audience that these university protests have been happening because Qatar has “poured hundreds of millions of dollars into American universities to have a radicalizing effect on Middle Eastern studies.”

Empire managers and propagandists have been pushing the narrative that foreign governments are behind this new protest movement to radicalize young people against Washington and Israel, though as we discussed recently they humorously can’t yet manage to agree on which foreign government that is.

The imperial spinmeisters have been churning out these talking points about radicalization and nefarious support because that’s the narrative bludgeon they plan on using to stomp out the burgeoning antiwar movement the empire has created with its genocidal atrocities in Gaza. If they can establish a narrative that it is the government’s job to shut down political dissent and stop the spread of unauthorized political opinions, then they can justify doing pretty much anything to stop this movement in its tracks.

All to shut down something that absolutely should be happening. Young people should be cultivating radical political positions in response to an active genocide that’s supported by their government. An antiwar movement should be forming against the imperial murder machine as its murderousness gets more and more insane. People should be aggressively rejecting the political status quo that has allowed this nightmare to be unleashed upon humanity.

Everyone should be turning against the US-centralized empire right now. Don’t let the imperial manipulators dupe our society into believing this turn is anything but a correct and appropriate response to what the empire is doing.

____________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured image via Ted Eytan (CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED)

Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

❖

I don’t oppose the butchery in Gaza because I love Hamas or hate Jews or love Islam or hate America.

I don’t oppose the butchery in Gaza because I’m a lefty or a commie or an anarchist or an anti-imperialist.

I oppose the butchery in Gaza because I’m not a fucking psychopath.

Opposing Israel’s butchery in Gaza is so obvious, so common sense, such a bare-minimum, fundamental-level, Being Human 101 position that if it isn’t immediately self-evident to you after learning the basic facts, your problem is much, much deeper than whatever ideology or bias or prejudice you might happen to have. There’s something wrong with you as a person.

If you support Israel’s butchery in Gaza, you’ve got much bigger problems than merely not having the correct ist or ism belief system. You’re just all fucked up inside. Your conditioning has made you into a generally shitty human being. You have deep and immensely consequential flaws in your character, and you won’t mature as a person until you heal and transcend them.

Opposing Israel’s atrocities in Gaza doesn’t make you a good person, it just makes you a normal person — and supporting Israel’s atrocities in Gaza makes you a bad person. Nobody gets any points for opposing an active genocide; that’s just the basic, bare-minimum requirement for a normal human being with a functioning empathy center in their brain. If you can’t meet that basic, bare-minimum standard, you deserve to be viewed with suspicion and disdain, and anyone in your personal life who cares about truth, morality and humanity should seriously reassess their relationship with you.

❖

"This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal."
~ Aaron Bushnell https://t.co/xoO4VazFrD

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 3, 2024

❖

One reason the empire is losing young people is because the imperial status quo has given them no investment in it. They’ll never own property. They can’t support a family or retire. They’ve been given no reason not to want to rock the political boat. So they’re rocking it.

The only vested interest young people have left is an interest in breathable air and a livable planet, and the possibility of a future that isn’t intolerably dystopian. All of which are diametrically opposed to the interests and trajectory of the status quo politics of the western empire.

So they’re going for it. They’re beginning to see that there’s no reason for them not to plunge headlong into a push for real change, in direct opposition to the mainstream politics of our time. Like Bob Dylan said, when you got nothing you got nothing to lose.

❖

One of the many things that’s beautiful about this particular protest movement is that these young people aren’t protesting a war that they could get drafted in or could harm their personal interests in any way. They’re opposing something cruel and evil solely out of compassion.

❖

One Palestinian life is worth more than every college campus window in the world.

❖

If you’re wondering why you’re suddenly seeing the word “radicalizing” a lot in mainstream politics and media, it’s because that’s the big scary boogieman the empire plans on using to justify stomping out the burgeoning antiwar movement it created with its atrocities in Gaza.

Uhhh excuse me but is it not freakish and disturbing that we're now seeing US police forces and local officials taking it as a given that it is their job to stop the spread of political opinions they don't like? The NYC mayor has been saying the same thing. https://t.co/ytXNOzop0g

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 3, 2024

❖

Israeli police raided Al Jazeera’s office after the Israeli cabinet voted to shut down the broadcasts of the Qatari media outlet on Sunday. The west is protecting freedom and democracy by stomping out its own freedom and democracy to assist the genocidal atrocities of a nation that is also stomping out freedom and democracy.

❖

Trump supporters are such foam-brained bootlickers that they’re now united in shitting on protests against a genocidal mass atrocity that’s being pushed by neocons, the Biden administration, and every other warmongering establishment swamp monster they claim to oppose.

Trump supporters: fighting the Deep State by siding with every intelligence agency, weapons contractor, mainstream media outlet and professional war whore in America.

❖

Republicans pretend to fiercely oppose Biden, but when it comes to issues that really matter like the president encouraging violent police crackdowns against people protesting his actions they’re in furious agreement, even saying he didn’t go far enough. They’re on the same side.

_____________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured image via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED)

For those who don’t know, I publish a print version of my work once a month called JOHNSTONE magazine. The new edition is called “Biden’s Bloodlust”, and is now available to order in print or download in pay-what-you-want digital. 

As November gets closer and the Biden administration gets more murderous and tyrannical by the day, liberal spinmeisters are falling all over themselves to portray the president as some kind of passive witness to the atrocities we’re witnessing in Gaza and the authoritarian suppression of dissent we’re seeing in the US. No no, he’s completely powerless to stop the government that’s completely dependent on US military support from conducting a military operation. No no, he’s completely powerless to stop the violent police crackdowns he’s openly supporting and encouraging on protesters against his genocide.

Bullshit. Biden has always been a murderous swamp monster. That’s the only reason he got the job. And that’s why the cover of today’s issue of JOHNSTONE features the US president dining on an ice cream cone of gore.

You can get a paperback copy of this issue by clicking here, or a pay-what-you-feel digital copy by clicking here.

Other paperback editions of JOHNSTONE can be purchased by clicking here. Other digital editions can be downloaded by clicking here.

You can also get a subscription to the digital versions which will be sent to your inbox every month by clicking here.

Contents:

Biden Wanted To Sanction An Israeli Battalion But He Didn’t Because Israel Said No … 3

Empire Managers Say Russia, China And Iran Are Tricking Students Into Opposing Genocide … 6

Quashing University Protests And Banning TikTok To Make The Kids Love Israel … 10

Israel Is Turning Hospitals Into Mass Graves While The West Fixates On ‘Antisemitism’ … 13

In This Dystopia, Opposing A Genocide Is Considered Worse Than Committing One … 16

Stopping The Slaughter In Gaza Is More Important Than Your Feelings … 18

In Gaza The Sniper Drones Are Crying Like Babies … 20

The US Doesn’t Support A Two-State Solution, It Just Supports Saying It Does … 22

Things That Have Been Discredited During The Destruction Of Gaza … 25

Israel Apologia Is One Big Fat Appeal To Emotion Fallacy … 28

Half Of Americans Have No Idea Whether Israelis Or Palestinians Are Suffering More Deaths … 30

Aviator Sunglasses … 32

A Barely-Disguised Genocide … 34

Ghost Town … 36

The Empire Slowly Suffocates Assange Like It Slowly Suffocates All Its Enemies … 38

Imagine If Russia Or China Did The Things Israel Is Doing In Gaza … 41

Violent Extremists Get Called “Moderates” By A Violent Extremist Empire … 44

Israel Lies About Being A Victim So That It Can Victimize … 47

Liberal Finger-Wagging At Netanyahu Is A Phony, Cynical Charade … 50

The Plan Is To Turn Palestine Into A Historical Footnote So It’s Too Late To Save It … 54

Israel’s Savage Destruction Of Gaza’s Healthcare System Is Exactly What It Looks Like … 56

Israel Keeps Getting More Murderous … 58

The ‘Human Shields’ Lie Has Been Conclusively, Irrefutably Debunked … 61

Six Months Of Hell On Earth … 64

Stop Reporting On Biden’s Angry Feelings Toward Israel. It’s Not News. It’s Not Interesting. … 66

Israel Lets Some Aid Into Gaza So The US Will Keep Giving It Weapons To Kill People In Gaza … 68

Dancing Outside The Concentration Camp … 71

As Support For Gaza Goes Mainstream, Don’t Let The Empire Co-Opt The Movement … 72

Australian Military Refuses To Disclose Arms Deal With Israel To Protect Its ‘Reputation’ … 75

Idiot Republicans Are Saying Genocide Joe Has ‘Abandoned Israel’ … 78

CNN Finally Tells The Truth About The Flour Massacre After Previously Shilling For Israel … 81

Israeli Suffering Is Not Comparable To Palestinian Suffering … 84

Getting Gaza Right Is The Absolute Bare Minimum Requirement … 86

Empire Managers Keep Acting Like Iran Is About To Attack Israel Without Provocation … 88

US Declines Israel’s Invitation To Start WW3 (For Now) … 91

Anyone Who Wants The US To Attack Iran Is An Enemy Of Humanity … 94

Israel’s Latest Lie Is That It Has ‘No Choice’ But To Attack Iran … 97

Stop Pretending Biden Is Some Passive Witness To Israel’s Warmongering … 100

Assange Extradition Case Moves Forward While The CIA Covers Its Tracks … 102

Escalation With Iran Seemingly Over; Now We Have To Worry About Rafah … 104

“Rules-Based Order” Means Rules For Thee But Not For We … 106

The Amputated Limbs Of Children … 110

Again, you can get a paperback copy of this issue by clicking here, or click here for a digital pay-what-you-feel copy.

_______________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

The Guardian has an article out titled “Israelis voice sadness and defiance over Gaza protests on US campuses”, subtitled “People in Jerusalem express little sympathy with anti-war demonstrators, with some accusing them of hatred for Israel”.

It’s exactly what it sounds like: an entire news report about the feelings that some Israelis are feeling in their feely bits about protests in another country on the other side of the world. The Guardian’s Jason Burke asked some random people about their feelings outside a theater in Jerusalem, and then presented this weird nothing thing as relevant news reporting.

“We didn’t know so many people hated Israel,” some random security guard is quoted as saying.

“Such feelings appear widespread among the Jewish majority in Israel, seven months after war was triggered by surprise attacks launched by Hamas into the south of the country in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 250 taken hostage,” writes Burke.

“Jewish Israelis interviewed by the Guardian this week blame outrage overseas on misinformation, ignorance, historical hostility from international institutions such as the UN, global ‘double standards’ and entrenched antisemitism,” Burke informs us.

Israelis voice sadness and defiance over Gaza protests on US campuses https://t.co/Qv88bnSRO5

— Guardian news (@guardiannews) May 3, 2024

If you’re just tuning in, it might seem odd to you that a major news outlet would publish a story about the emotions that some Israelis are feeling about foreign protests against an active genocide being committed by their country. After all, this is not a news story. A story about how some people’s feelings are feeling is not news, and is not journalism. 

But that’s exactly what the last seven months have looked like in the imperial media: a nonstop fixation on feelings instead of facts. Israelis have upset feelings about anti-genocide protests. Western Jews have upset feelings at campus demonstrators. Biden has upset feelings at Netanyahu. Last October the imperial media suddenly got a lot less interested in reporting on the facts on the ground with Israel and Gaza, and a whole lot more interested in reporting on how some groups of people feel about it instead. 

Western reporters, pundits, politicians and officials cannot stop talking about this. The feelings of Israelis and western Jews are not only given more importance than the feelings of Palestinians or any other group, they are given more importance than Palestinian lives. Some Zionist kid pretending to feel “threatened” on an Ivy League campus will get more coverage than the daily massacres that have been occurring in the densely-packed city of Rafah.

Watch Matt Orfalea’s latest video about the deluge of coddling, cooing media coverage that was given to a Zionist activist who falsely pretended to have been “stabbed in the eye” by a pro-Palestine activist for a good example of this behavior:

Israel is the only issue where the western political-media class treats people’s feelings as a matter of supreme importance.

If you’re a stressed-out single parent struggling to pay bills and keep a roof over your kids’ head, they don’t care about your feelings.

If you’re an American who’s been cast into destitution and homelessness by medical bills, they don’t care about your feelings.

If you’re a Palestinian whose apartment complex was bombed with your entire family inside, they definitely don’t care about your feelings.

But if you’re a western Zionist who doesn’t like the cognitive dissonance that comes with encountering anti-genocide protesters, or even if you’re an Israeli who’s upset about anti-genocide protests in whole other country on the other side of the planet, they’re very, very interested in your feelings.

This is of course because the west’s unconditional support for Israel cannot be defended through facts, so the narrative control needs to focus instead on one nonstop appeal to emotion fallacy. Their position is so gross and indefensible that all they have left is babbling about some select people having upset feelings and holding those feelings as more important than stopping an active genocide.

The propagandists and empire managers don’t have facts on their side and don’t have morality on their side, so they attempt to manipulate by pulling on the heart strings using sympathy and compassion. They appeal to some of the healthiest impulses within us in order to dupe us into supporting some of the most evil actions the world has ever seen.

Which is an absolutely disgusting thing to do, naturally. But, again, it’s all these freaks have left.

___________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

In remarks defending the brutal suppression of university demonstrations protesting his genocide in Gaza, President Biden argued that protesting is allowed in the United States so long as it’s polite and doesn’t disrupt anything or upset anybody.

“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” said Biden. “The American people are heard. In fact, peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues.”

“But,” the president continued, “neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society, and order must prevail.”

Biden went on to argue that “violent protest is not protected” as a form of free expression, sailing right past the fact that the only actual violence we’ve seen from these protests came from the police sent in to crack skulls and the bands of pro-Israel thugs who’ve been attacking campus demonstrators. Biden instead followed his false accusation of “violence” by listing offenses against inanimate objects: destroying property, vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows. He also listed the offenses of “shutting down campuses” and “forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations” — none of which were done by the demonstrators.

“Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest,” said Biden, citing zero examples of this ridiculous allegation, adding that “dissent must never lead to disorder” and that “there’s the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos.”

The president then of course went on to babble about “antisemitism” for awhile, on no basis whatsoever.

Again, this person is defending an authoritarian police crackdown on peaceful demonstrators protesting against his own actions. The US president is saying don’t worry about the jackbooted tyranny and suppression you’re seeing against critics of the US president, because the tyranny and suppression is approved of by that same US president.

And that’s the Democratic Party for you, folks. That’s everything it is right there. It is violence wrapped in politeness. It is fascism cloaked in lip service to civil rights.

New: 21 House Democrats led by Reps. Gottheimer and Goldman sent a letter to Columbia’s board of trustees telling them to “act decisively” to end the encampment or resign.

It’s a major escalation of Democrats’ rhetoric.@Axios https://t.co/IbiWLN3u2J

— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) April 29, 2024

Shortly before Columbia University called in police to smash the anti-genocide demonstrations on campus the other day, 21 House Democrats signed a letter addressed to the university’s board of trustees demanding they shut down the “anti-Jewish activists on campus.”

“It is past time for the University to act decisively, disband the encampment, and ensure the safety and security of all of its students,” the lawmakers declared.

This is the same party that always cites its support for civil rights and social justice as a primary reason for people to vote for them, constantly referencing Martin Luther King Jr and other civil rights leaders — who were all intensely despised by the establishment of their own time — as heroes we should all strive to emulate. 

Now they’re openly supporting the same tyrannical measures as Republicans to shut down criticism of their government’s genocidal and unjust policies, with no regard for the constitutional rights of those critics to speech and assembly. They try to make themselves look progressive and reasonable while doing it, saying it’s about fighting “antisemitism” and keeping the peace, but their actual behavior is no different from the tyrants who attacked anti-war protesters and civil rights activists in the sixties.

A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that’s going on right now. https://t.co/cLD9SjJDlc

— slicin’ up eyeballs (@eyeballslicer) November 24, 2023

As Democrats get worse and worse the longer Biden’s genocide in Gaza continues, I find myself recalling a tweet that went viral back in November by an account with the handle @eyeballslicer, “A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that’s going on right now.”

That tweet has gotten more and more relevant every day since. If you were to pick a banner to hang above western liberalism over the past seven months, that banner would need to contain those words. It’s been true of mainstream liberals for a very long time, but it encapsulates the response we’ve been seeing to Gaza with a special kind of perfection.

Have you ever noticed how the spinmeisters responsible for normalizing our dystopian status quo use time as a psychological weapon? It’s the damnedest thing. They push all support for revolutionary change into either the past or the future, while insisting that status quo norms must be maintained in the present.

Once you notice this tactic, you see it everywhere. When they’re not shaking their fists at the crimes of the past like Vietnam, Iraq or segregation and applauding past struggles for social justice like women’s suffrage or Black civil rights, they’re claiming that you can get all the drastic revolutionary change you want in the future if you just elect more Democrats into office. 

In moments of dissent, there are always those who rush in to score political points.

But this isn’t a moment for politics. This is a moment for clarity. So, let me be clear:

Peaceful protest is protected in America.

Violent protest is not protected. It’s against the law.

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 2, 2024

Over and over again in many different ways, people are fed the message: “Revolution and change are wonderful, just not right now. The revolutionary sentiments of the past did great things we should all celebrate, and one day in the future we will have revolutionary change once again, but right now we need to keep supporting the way things are and hold very still and try very hard not to annoy the powerful people who rule over us.”

It’s actually kind of impressive once you notice it, because this malignant manipulation requires an almost buddha-like understanding of time and the present moment. At some point the manipulators figured out that there’s only ever the here-and-now and that the past and the future have no existence except in our memory and imagination, so you can give the people all the revolution they want so long as you’re only giving it to them in the past or the future.

You saw an early prototype of this manipulation with the rise of Christianity, wherein people were encouraged to forget about the material comforts enjoyed by their rulers and focus instead on how great it’s going to be when they die and go to Heaven. All their hopes are deferred to this imaginary, invisible reward in the future, and in the meantime they’re told to glorify poverty, meekness, obedience, and above all never rise up against all the rich people and take back what they stole from you.

This world will never see the changes it so desperately needs as long as we keep letting them manipulate us like this. Change needs to happen, and it can only happen now. Now is the only place where revolution can possibly occur. Stop letting them bury it under the appearance of time, and birth it into reality.

_________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

❖

So glad Trump lost in 2020 otherwise we’d be seeing fascistic crackdowns on political dissent, police brutalizing protesters, tyrannical suppression of free speech, and the facilitation of racist and Islamophobic agendas. That psycho would probably be committing genocide by now.

❖

So let me get this straight. The US wound up building its “floating pier” a few miles off the coast of Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid, but nobody will be able to ship the aid directly to the pier to get it to Gaza. Instead, the aid will be delivered to Cyprus via air or sea, and then from Cyprus the aid will be shipped 200 miles to the pier. From there the pallets of aid will be loaded onto smaller US army boats, which will then carry the aid from the pier to a long causeway on Gaza’s actual coast. Those pallets will then be carried from the boats to the shore via the causeway — possibly by British troops or possibly by Israeli troops depending on what source you’re reading — and taken into Gaza by IDF troops after careful examination and approval of their contents. All to deliver some 90 to 150 truckloads worth of aid per day, which is far short of the 500 truckloads the UN says Gaza needs.

And this is all being done because Israel isn’t simply letting people drive an adequate amount of aid through the custom-built gates directly into Gaza. Since Washington doesn’t want to exert any pressure on Israel to allow such a self-evident move, this immensely complicated and expensive dance is being performed to deliver a pathetically inadequate amount of aid instead. Aid that is only necessary because Israel has been destroying Gaza in its genocidal bombing campaign which it has been carrying out with total impunity.

Cool. Very normal and cool.

❖

US: We trust Israel to investigate itself on all allegations of war crimes.
US: Israel please investigate yourself for these alleged war crimes.
Israel: No.
US: Well that settles it then, we see no evidence that Israel has committed any war crimes. https://t.co/6Kllp6p3Jp

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) April 28, 2024

❖

In a speech on Thursday Biden defended the violent nationwide police crackdowns on university protests against his genocide in Gaza, saying “dissent must never lead to disorder”. 

Ah yes Joe, that’s very progressive of you. Dissent obviously should always be completely innocuous and obedient and not disruptive in any way. As Martin Luther King Jr said, “Our foremost value is to obey the law at all times and inconvenience nobody, because dissent must never lead to disorder. That’s why our civil rights movement famously never has any run-ins with law enforcement.” He said this in one of his most influential works, Letter from Birmingham Candy Shop.

❖

The Wall Street Journal has an article out titled “In Gaza, Authorities Lose Count of the Dead,” which confirms what’s been obvious for months: the Gaza health ministry doesn’t have the infrastructure to keep track of how many people Israel is killing. This means the official death toll from the Israeli onslaught is almost certainly a massive undercount.

❖

“You guys I’m super sincerely concerned about hate speech on university campuses,” said the person who’s made an entire career out of pushing for the mass murder of brown-skinned foreigners at every opportunity.

❖

https://t.co/pz95epfOI5 pic.twitter.com/KOGWAAhw88

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 1, 2024

❖

The US war machine views Palestinians as an inconvenient obstacle to its military agendas in the middle east, in the same way it views the local flora and fauna as an inconvenient obstacle when it’s constructing a new military base, or how it sees whales as an inconvenient obstacle because of public concern about navy sonar testing damaging their hearing and killing them. Palestinians are just viewed as an annoying indigenous animal that gets in the way of the imperial war machinery, and they’d be more than happy for that nuisance to be eliminated completely.

❖

I’ve had multiple Biden supporters seriously tell me that January 6 was worse than backing a genocide in Gaza in order to argue that Trump was worse than Biden. The mainstream liberal worldview will twist you up so bad inside that you can’t even see Palestinians as human beings.

❖

Everything Americans were warned would happen under Trump has happened under Biden. The only retort Democrats have to this is “oh yeah well this all woulda been way worse under Trump,” a claim which is (A) based on literally nothing and (B) completely unfalsifiable.

As I’ve said before, the lesson here is not that Trump is better than Biden or that you should support Republicans. The lesson is that no matter who you vote for you get surging authoritarianism at home and war, military expansionism and brinkmanship abroad, and that this system has got to go. 

To look at what’s happening and make it about who you should vote for is to completely miss the lesson of what’s happening: that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, because the system is rigged to only let you vote for murderous tyrannical imperialists who serve the interests of plutocrats and empire managers instead of normal human beings. That bickering about where your votes should go is exactly what those plutocrats and empire managers want you to do, because it keeps you trapped within the framework of status quo politics and prevents you from looking at measures that could actually bring about real change like direct action, general strikes, the fomenting of revolutionary ideas, and the emergence of a powerful revolutionary faction.

____________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured image via CENTCOM.

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to the International Criminal Court’s rumored plans to indict Israeli officials for war crimes by claiming that for the ICC to do so would be an “antisemitic hate crime”.

Yes, you read that correctly. 

“If this does happen, it will be an indelible stain on humanity. It would be an unprecedented antisemitic hate crime that would add fuel to the antisemitic incitement that is already raging in the world,” said Netanyahu this past Tuesday.

So, to be absolutely clear, Israel’s top government official has announced that charges against himself and other Israeli leaders for obvious war crimes like intentionally bombing and starving civilians would be both “antisemitic” and a “hate crime”. 

So, to make things even clearer, when a supporter of the state of Israel claims to be sincerely super duper worried about “antisemitism”, this is the kind of thing they are talking about. This is what the label “antisemitism” has come to mean. It means literally any opposition to, criticism of, or consequences for a nuclear-armed genocidal apartheid ethnostate which is backed by the most powerful empire that has ever existed.

I need you to understand that when an Israel supporter claims to be very sincerely concerned about "antisemitism", this is the "antisemitism" they're talking about: pic.twitter.com/kx7TlfHXnq

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 2, 2024

Keeping that in mind, let’s turn now to the bill that just passed in the US House of Representatives which can be used to suppress entirely legitimate political speech critical of Israel as “antisemitic”.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports:

“The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a bill that conflates criticism of the modern state of Israel with antisemitism and will mandate that definition be used by the Department of Education when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws.

“The bill could be used to crack down on pro-Palestine protesters at college campuses across the country, who have been falsely labeled ‘antisemitic’ despite Jewish students participating in the protests.

“The legislation adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which lists ‘drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’ as an example of antisemitism.

“The IHRA also defines antisemitism as applying ‘double standards’ to Israel by ‘requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation’ and ‘denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination’ by ‘claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.’”

House Passes Bill That Conflates Criticism of Israel With Antisemitism
The legislation adopts a definition of antisemitism that could be used by the Dept of Education to crackdown on college protests
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Gaza #Israel #censorship https://t.co/glebgTsFsY pic.twitter.com/ulsf3PfQOK

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) May 1, 2024

This comes as House Democrat Richie Torres teams up with Republican Mike Lawler to advance a bill which would create “antisemitism monitors” on university campuses which receive federal funding, which means the US government is actively working to police political speech in response to criticisms of US government policies. Perfectly normal thing to happen in a healthy liberal democracy.

And again, this is happening within a political climate in which the Israeli government publicly announces that “antisemitism” includes charging Israeli war criminals for extensively documented war crimes.

The thing about conflating support for Israel with Judaism and criticism of Israel with anti-semitism is that it necessarily asserts that there’s a religion which holds as an article of faith that your tax dollars must be used to murder foreigners in the middle east, and that any objection to this on your part therefore amounts to religious persecution. Anyone who makes this conflation is saying, “Judaism is a religion which believes your tax dollars need to go toward support for the military adventurism of the state of Israel, and if you don’t like it then you’re basically a Nazi.”

Bipartisan Bill Would Create ‘Antisemitism Monitors’ at College Campuses
Pro-Palestine protests have been falsely labeled as 'antisemitic' even though many Jewish students are involved
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Gaza #campusProtests #FreedomOfSpeech https://t.co/AzO355K7Md pic.twitter.com/PlqBQAb8Cg

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) April 29, 2024

Which is as self-evidently ridiculous as any position could possibly be, from any angle you could possibly look at it. Obviously the religion of Judaism itself does not say that western governments should be backing nonstop mass military slaughter in the Palestinian Territories and in Israel’s neighboring countries, which is why many Jews do not hold the position that this should be happening. And even if that was a fundamental tenet of the Jewish faith, a religion which asserts that a foreign country has a right to immensely consequential support from your country’s government would need to be criticized aggressively and relentlessly. 

You don’t get to claim that criticism of any part a powerful country’s foreign policy is not allowed because such criticism is against your religion or religiously persecutes you. That’s not a thing.

The “antisemitism” moral panic has officially jumped the shark. It has long been absurd, but now it’s a parody of itself. Things are only going to get dumber and more insulting to your intelligence from here.

___________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Featured image via President.gov.ua (CC BY 4.0 DEED)

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

In one of the most appalling propaganda segments I have ever seen in my life, CNN’s Dana Bash launched into a fire-and-brimstone sermon on Wednesday comparing anti-genocide university protesters to the brownshirts of Nazi Germany — doing so in defense of a fascistic police crackdown against those very same protesters.

After playing a clip of Zionist activist Eli Tsives theatrically claiming campus protesters at UCLA were blocking him from his classroom, Bash solemnly said, “Again, what you just saw is 2024 in Los Angeles. Hearkening back to the 1930s in Europe, and I do not say that lightly. The fear among Jews in this country is palpable right now.”

According to journalist Jeremy Lindenfeld — who happens to be Jewish — Tsives wasn’t even being denied access to his classroom, but was only being denied access to the protesters’ encampment which he’d conveniently decided he wanted to walk through in order to get there. Dana Bash makes no mention of this, framing this instead as a terrifying attack on Jews which could soon see them being loaded onto trains headed for extermination camps.

Today: Destruction, violence and hate overtake college campuses across the country with Jewish students feeling unsafe at their own schools. It is unacceptable, and harkening back to the 1930s in Europe. Our @InsidePolitics show open, here. pic.twitter.com/RiPX0HZbUv

— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) May 1, 2024

Bash played a clip of New York City Mayor Eric Adams saying “There is a movement to radicalize young people, and I’m not going to wait until it’s done,” as though preventing the spread of radical political opinions is something a mayor is elected to do in the United States. 

“They’re calling for a ceasefire,” says Bash. “Well, there was a ceasefire on October 6, the day before Hamas terrorists brutally murdered more than a thousand people inside Israel and took hundreds more as hostages.”

This is a brazen propagandistic lie. Israeli forces had been routinely murdering Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in the weeks and months preceding the October 7 attack. On October 6 2023, The New Arab published an article titled “2023 is ‘deadliest year’ for Palestinian children say human rights groups,” citing the Defence of Children International — Palestine along with other sources.

“This hour, I’ll speak to an American Israeli family whose son is still held captive by Hamas since that horrifying day, that brought us to this moment,” said Bash, adding, “You don’t hear the pro-Palestinian protesters talking about that. We will.”

Ah yes, such brave, up-punching journalistic integrity for you to talk about the Israeli hostages, Dana. Not like we haven’t been hearing about them every single day from the imperial media for the last seven months while orders of magnitude more Palestinians are butchered by US-supplied war machinery.

200+ pro-Israel counterprotestors are attacking the @UCLA pro-Palestinian encampment. They started beating on one student and stomped another under a plywood board per @latimes @safinazzal on the scene. Where is UCLA security? pic.twitter.com/zjYNFWSK7r

— Teresa Watanabe (@TeresaWatanabe) May 1, 2024

“At UCLA, pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups were attacking each other, hurling all kinds of objects, a wood pallet, fireworks, parking cones, even a scooter,” Bash says.

Another lie. The footage going around makes it abundantly clear the violence is being consistently instigated by Zionist counter-protesters, with videos of pro-Israel thugs launching fireworks and hurling bottles of chemicals into the encampment, ganging up on a protester on the ground and beating him with sticks, and tearing down parts of the encampment while screaming “Second Nakba!” 

Later on in the same segment of Bash’s own show, CNN’s Stephanie Elam contradicts Bash’s both-sides lie by commenting on some of this footage, saying, “And you can see that in the video, it looked like people from this side were breaking down the encampment from the pro-Palestinian side last night, throwing objects in there. As well as it looks like some sort of maybe pepper spray or something coming from the other side over here.”

It should here be noted that Dana Bash gets her surname from her first husband Jeremy Bash, who went on to serve as the chief of staff for both the CIA and the Pentagon. The woman is pure swamp.

It should also be noted that CNN’s own staff recently leaked to The Guardian that they have been pressured to report on the Gaza onslaught with an extreme pro-Israel bias, attributing the pressure to the network’s new CEO Mark Thompson. 

I for one think it’s great that the imperial media are becoming so transparently obvious about their propagandistic nature, and I hope they keep exposing mainstream westerners to the fact that the primary purpose of these outlets is to promote the information interests of the US and its allies. 

Propaganda only works if you don’t know it’s happening to you, so hopefully they keep going mask-off like this for everyone to see.

_______________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Okay, yes, police are currently in the process of violently stomping out political dissent on university campuses across America following multiple statements from President Biden attacking the protesters as “antisemitic” for opposing the genocide he’s been enthusiastically facilitating in Gaza. And okay, fine, bands of right wing thugs are currently going around terrorizing students who don’t align with the US government’s support for the state of Israel.

But before any of my fellow liberals get any wild ideas about ceasing their support for Biden during an election year just because of a little tyranny and genocide, I think it’s important to remind everyone that all this fascism would feel way more fascisty if Trump was president.

Think about it. If Trump was presiding over jackbooted authoritarian suppression while mobs of marauding fascists attack dissident youths with impunity, wouldn’t that just feel way worse? Wouldn’t it feel way more scary and upsetting in your feely bits? When cops are cracking skulls at Columbia University to punish young people for protesting their government’s actions, wouldn’t the cracking sound way worse if the president was being all crude and impolite about it?

CNN's @miguelmarquez: "I've covered lots of this sort of stuff around the world, and i've never seen this many police moving into one area." pic.twitter.com/ktRfqDBkoy

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 1, 2024

After all, if Trump was allowing these things to happen in the United States it would be because he is the second coming of Adolf Hitler, but when Biden does it it’s because he’s walking a fine line of nuance and diplomacy and something something political pragmatism. Whatever, my point is we don’t have to think about it too hard or feel too bad about it.

And if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the last seven months it’s that the only thing that matters is you and your feelings, and the way your feelings are feeling inside. Are campus protests making you feel unsafe and threatened? Then that’s all that matters; we needn’t get into the details of whether those feelings are based on any factual circumstances. Does someone saying “from the river to the sea” make your feelings more uncomfortable than US war machinery being used to massacre children? Then we’ll focus on that to the exclusion of all else.

If Trump was letting these horrible things happen, we’d feel outraged and upset. We might even feel obliged to get up and go protest the things he is doing, which as we all know can often cause us to miss brunch. But because a trusted Democrat is in office, we can just relax and think pleasant thoughts and drink bottles of wine and Nyquil in the bathtub.

You don’t have to like what’s happening to your country. You don’t even have to pay attention to it. All you have to do is make sure you keep telling everyone to shut up and stop criticizing the president and to tick that little box next to Biden’s name in November. Because it’s just a tough fact that in order to defeat Orange Mussolini, we’re going to have to get comfortable with fascism.

_________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Listen to a reading by Tim Foley:

Aviator sunglasses hide demented eyes
in a skull full of bank logos and forgotten AIPAC speeches,
boozy nights of rapefinger whisperings and Beltway balrogs,
and fundraising wisecracks with smiles made of Gaddafi’s bones,
brain now crowded with paper shredders 
and frantic, sweaty interns
staying up all night working 
to dispose of the evidence.

Aviator sunglasses with glowing pentagons in them,
with mountains of skulls in them,
with dismembered children in them,
with gutted babies in them,
with screaming mothers in them,
with burning flesh in them,
with flattened neighborhoods in them,
crushed limbs sticking out of rubble in them,
fathers carrying tiny bags of body parts in them,
laughing, mocking, blood-soaked soldiers in them,
bombs and food falling from the sky together in them.

Demented eyes gazing out upon a dying world 
through aviator sunglasses full of dead faces,
skin illuminated by a burning sky,
licking an ice cream cone
that is dripping deep red.

________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured image via Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

We’re always hearing international conflicts framed as a battle between Free Democracies and Evil Autocracies. What is the difference between a Free Democracy and an Evil Autocracy? Well, let’s look at the situation in Gaza to help us understand the distinction.

In Evil Autocracies the leaders commit genocide for hateful and racist reasons, whereas in Free Democracies the leaders commit genocide for noble and righteous reasons.

In Evil Autocracies the police are summoned to break up student protests in order to ensure the safety of the government, whereas in Free Democracies the police are summoned to break up student protests in order to ensure the safety of the students.

In Evil Autocracies the government monitors political speech on university campuses to suppress dissent, whereas in Free Democracies the government monitors political speech on university campuses to suppress “antisemitism”.

In Evil Autocracies the government controls the media and ensures that it only reports information which serves their interests, whereas in Free Democracies it is billionaires who do this.

In Evil Autocracies they imprison journalists who report inconvenient facts, whereas in Free Democracies they do this also, but mostly they just kill them with airstrikes.

In Evil Autocracies they massacre civilians with bullets and blades, whereas in Free Democracies they massacre civilians with military explosives and siege warfare, like civilized people.

In Evil Autocracies political speech is heavily restricted by the government, whereas in Free Democracies political speech is heavily restricted by Silicon Valley in collaboration with the government.

In Evil Autocracies they mow down disobedient civilians and bury them in mass graves, whereas in Free Democracies they mow down disobedient civilians and bury them in mass graves, and then their allies solemnly say they’re waiting for more information about these very serious allegations.

In Evil Autocracies they bomb hospitals, schools and religious centers, assassinate cultural leaders and journalists, and deliberately target civilian infrastructure in the name of inflicting death and terror, whereas in Free Democracies they bomb hospitals, schools and religious centers, assassinate cultural leaders and journalists, and deliberately target civilian infrastructure in the name of self-defense.

In Evil Autocracies they flagrantly disregard international law, whereas in Free Democracies they flagrantly disregard international law.

In Evil Autocracies they drop bombs on areas full of civilians because of genocidal bloodlust, whereas in Free Democracies they drop bombs on areas full of civilians because of “human shields”.

In Evil Autocracies you’ll get thrown in prison if you go on TV and speak out against the government, whereas in Free Democracies nobody who would speak out against the government is ever allowed to have a TV job.

In Evil Autocracies people are afraid to speak out against war crimes, injustice and oppression because they’ll be punished, whereas in Free Democracies people are afraid to speak out against war crimes, injustice and oppression because they’ll be accused of hating Jews.

In Evil Autocracies they arm terrorists with AK-47s and RPGs to help them inflict violence and suffering upon the innocent, whereas in Free Democracies they arm terrorists with war planes and 2,000-pound bombs to help them inflict violence and suffering upon the innocent.

In Evil Autocracies people are kept too brutalized and cowed to rise up against their rulers, whereas in Free Democracies people are kept too propagandized and indoctrinated to rise up against their rulers.

In Evil Autocracies the media feed the public a nonstop deluge of propaganda and people know it’s propaganda, whereas in Free Democracies the media feed the public a nonstop deluge of propaganda and people think it’s the news.

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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Nobody who claims to oppose the Gaza genocide while simultaneously supporting Joe Biden actually opposes the Gaza genocide. They’re just saying what needs to be said to win approval in the political sector they want the approval of. They’re not taking a moral stand, they’re cultivating an image. They’re building a brand.

One of many possible examples of this ridiculous posturing is Instagram progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has called Israel’s atrocities in Gaza “an unfolding genocide” while continuing to support and defend the US president who’s currently backing that genocide, and who recently attended one of the pro-Palestine campus demonstrations which her president recently smeared as “antisemitic protests”.

What AOC is doing here is attempting to straddle the impossible divide between what progressive Democrats claim their party is about and what it’s actually about in real life. She’s paying lip service to opposing injustice, supporting a ceasefire and siding with anti-genocide activists because that’s the sort of thing progressives are supposed to do, while simultaneously throwing her political support behind an administration that is facilitating injustice, keeping the genocide going, and smearing those who protest against it.

You really couldn’t put together a more incoherent position if you tried. You can’t acknowledge that Israel is committing genocide without also acknowledging that the Biden administration has been actively participating in that genocide. If you acknowledge that Biden is guilty of genocide, then you are acknowledging that he is guilty of the most horrific crime a state leader can possibly commit short of initiating a nuclear exchange.

Maybe you can ask him about the mass graves https://t.co/k6Ae20Ui7T pic.twitter.com/iUQjRq6avS

— Tamara Nassar (@TamaraINassar) April 25, 2024

Once you’ve acknowledged that Biden is guilty of doing pretty much the worst thing any state leader could possibly do, you’ve crossed a threshold. After such an acknowledgement, it is not logically or ethically coherent to follow it by saying you support him anyway because at least he’s a bit nicer to LGBT people than Donald Trump would be, or because he might try a tiny bit harder to reduce global warming.

You’ve acknowledged that he is participating in genocide. Genocide. There’s no “but” that could possibly follow that. It’s like saying “Sure my husband’s a serial killer, but he’s great with the kids.” If someone said that to you, the only conclusion you could possibly come to is that they’re really not all that bothered by the serial killing.

Those who support Israel’s actions in Gaza are the worst people on earth, but at least their position has some kind of integrity. They’re not contradicting themselves by pretending to oppose what they’re actually fine with. They’re not tearing themselves in half trying to straddle two completely incompatible positions while smiling for the camera and pretending it doesn’t hurt. They’re not posturing as compassionate anti-imperialists while serving the evil empire.

Those who are supporting Biden while opposing the destruction of Gaza do not have any kind of integrity. They’re just wearing whatever mask is politically convenient based on the way the winds are blowing on a given moment, while continuing to support the US-centralized empire which cannot be sustained without nonstop tyranny and bloodshed. They are providing social media-friendly soundbites which pay lip service to peace, while their true loyalty lies with the globe-spanning power structure whose existence makes peace impossible.

_________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

I think one of the reasons it took so long for student protests against the Gaza genocide to kick into high gear in the US might be because it took some time for the collective realization to dawn that nobody in charge is interested in ending this nightmare.

If Trump had won in 2020, it may not have taken so long for this to occur. Progressive-minded students would have understood from the beginning that the president is an immoral Israel-coddling imperialist, and we may have been seeing these campus protests that are freaking out the empire managers today a lot sooner.

But because it was Biden and not Trump, there was this background assumption that surely the grownups in charge would take care of this thing. Surely they won’t let this go on for very long. Surely they’re just walking a careful diplomatic line while negotiating a ceasefire in the near term, as any government that cares one iota about human rights would be doing.

It took half a year for that illusion to be dispelled. Half a year for people to really start going, “Oh shit. They’re really just going to keep these atrocities going. Nobody in charge cares about stopping this.” 

Half a year to see that nobody in the White House is going to save Gaza, none of their elected lawmakers on Capitol Hill are going to save Gaza, nobody anywhere in their government is going to save Gaza — not even the ordinary members of the public in the older generations are going to save Gaza. 

Half a year to see that the responsibility for ending an active genocide had been passed all the way down to a bunch of wide-eyed college kids.

Which would of course be a horrifying thing to realize, and would in fact be a profoundly jarring indictment of our entire civilization. But that is indeed what has happened. And you can see how it would take some time for young people to come to understand and process such a thing.

And to be clear, no part of this should be accepted by anyone. The fact that nobody in the world’s most powerful government is taking any responsibility for ending the continual mass atrocity in Gaza proves that government does not deserve to exist, and that it needs to be completely dismantled from top to bottom — including and especially the unelected aspects of that government which are not officially acknowledged. The fact that it has fallen to a bunch of university students to begin causing any meaningful problems for this genocidal regime is obscene, and should never have happened.

Those university students should not be responsible for standing against this genocide, and in truth the responsibility is NOT all theirs — it is ours as well. Each and every one of us are responsible for doing everything we can to end this horror.

None of us can end it single-handedly, but we can all do something every day to help end it collectively. The machine is far too big and powerful for any one person to deal it a fatal blow, but we can all throw sand in its gears to make it harder and harder for it to continue.

We can do this by making our opposition known in every way possible, and by drawing public awareness to the sadistic savagery that’s being perpetrated in Israel with the help of its western allies we live under. Using any medium and platform we can make use of, we can help people understand the ways the imperial media have been manipulating public understanding of this genocide and minimizing their own government’s responsibility for it so that they can really understand the severity and urgency of this issue. 

The US-centralized empire is heavily dependent on soft power, which means it needs to maintain a good public image in order to continue functioning — that’s what all the mass media propaganda, Silicon Valley information control, and mainstream culture manufacturing in New York and Hollywood is all about. If enough people start working to destroy the empire’s public image by spreading awareness of its depravity in Gaza, it will be forced to retreat or risk losing the credibility of the soft power manipulation systems it has put so much energy into maintaining over the years.

All positive changes in human behavior of any scale are always preceded by an expansion of consciousness. By spreading consciousness throughout our society about what’s happening in Gaza, we throw sand in the gears of the imperial murder machine and make it harder and harder for it to keep rolling forward. And it is our responsibility to do exactly that, in every way we can.

This world is so sick because nobody takes responsibility for the things that are happening in it. The rich and powerful shore up more and more wealth and power while offloading the responsibility for it onto others. They destroy the biosphere while offloading the consequences onto ordinary people, while telling us we just need to ride our bikes more and consume less in order to fix the problem. They start wars and back genocides abroad while refusing to provide for the needful at home, and if you complain they tell you you just need to vote harder next election. They take all of the power and none of the responsibility.

We can’t have a healthy world until we reverse this dynamic, and like all matters concerning responsibility that means it begins with the face in the mirror. We all need to step up to the plate and take responsibility for turning this catastrophe around, and in 2024 that means starting with the genocide our own governments are actively facilitating.

__________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

❖

Kids are taking over university campuses around the world for the noblest possible reason anyone could do such a thing in 2024. There are so many reasons to feel pessimistic, but Gen Z’s fierce opposition to the Gaza genocide is a massive reason to have hope for the future. 

I talk all the time here about the need for a collective awakening and revolution in order to turn this disaster of a civilization around, but it could turn out that what ends up saving humankind is as mundane as a superior generation of humans emerging out of the information age and replacing inferior generations who’ve been far more indoctrinated by mass media propaganda.

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Northeastern University brought in the police to break up a pro-Palestine demonstration, claiming antisemitic slurs and hate speech were being used by the demonstrators, but witnesses say it was actually pro-Israel counter-demonstrators who’d been shouting the antisemitic slogans, and a video confirms this. The pro-Israel agitators got some 100 demonstrators arrested by standing near them and shouting “Kill the Jews”, but they themselves were not arrested.

Whoever got this on video is a goddamn hero. Now nobody can deny that this has been happening.

Northeastern University crushed an anti-genocide protest because someone was heard shouting, "Kill the Jews."

At :10, it is clear a pro-Israel counter-protester holding an Israeli flag was the one who uttered that phrase

Yet another Zionist hate crime hoax https://t.co/yA6CnRdNUV pic.twitter.com/xlnzFOanli

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) April 28, 2024

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I keep seeing people expressing bafflement at the way Biden keeps alienating his base by shamelessly perpetuating the human butchery in Gaza. Doesn’t he care about getting re-elected?, they ask.

No, Biden does not care whether he gets re-elected, and neither do his empire manager handlers. What matters to them is advancing imperial interests in the middle east, not winning some pretend political puppet show that only exists to entertain and divert the common riff raff. They will happily lose the election and hand the genocidal baton off to Trump and his empire manager handlers who support all the same agendas as Biden’s.

Biden loses literally nothing of material relevance by being a one-term president, so there’d be no reason for him to step back from all the agreements he’s made with the inner workings of the empire to get him where he’s at now even if he wanted to.

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One of the weirdest things happening right now is how empire managers and propagandists are claiming these campus protests are being fueled by foreign influence from evil regimes, even as the Israeli PM openly influences state governments to crack down on those protests.

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If you’ve been shocked by the lies and propaganda your government and your media have been churning out about Gaza, it would probably be a good idea to take another look at what they’ve been telling you about Ukraine too. And Russia, China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Yemen while you’re at it.

❖

The New York Times has a new Pentagon press release disguised as news reporting titled “A New Pacific Arsenal to Counter China,” subtitled “With missiles, submarines and alliances, the Biden administration has built a presence in the region to rein in Beijing’s expansionist goals.” 

It’s exactly what it sounds like: it describes the US empire’s military encirclement of China, but frames it as a defensive action to counter “Beijing’s expansionist goals” rather than the extreme act of aggression and military expansionism that it actually is. If China started surrounding the US with war machinery like this it would be World War Three instantaneously.

"Beijing's expansionist goals" pic.twitter.com/O3zGzOKws0

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) April 27, 2024

One of the dumbest things the imperial media ask us to believe is that the US empire is surrounding its #1 geopolitical rival with war machinery for defensive purposes, in response to “expansionist goals” by that rival who has zero war machinery anywhere near the United States.

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So many of the awesome anti-imperialists I follow and admire got their start years ago supporting Palestinian rights. Israel-Palestine is like a gateway drug for anti-imperialism and anti-war activism for a lot of westerners, because the issue is so mainstream-adjacent due to the west’s intimacy with the Israeli state. 

The Gaza genocide is going to give rise to a real antiwar movement in the west if the empire managers can’t find a way to stomp it out. Which is why they’re trying so hard to do exactly that — but their attempts thus far have been pathetic failures, and have only made things worse for them.

_______________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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The Biden administration has reportedly canned its plans to issue sanctions on an extremist IDF unit for human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, following backlash from Israel and its high-powered supporters within the US government.

Axios reports:

The State Department has put on hold its intention to impose sanctions on the Israel Defense Forces “Netzah Yehuda” battalion for human rights violations in the occupied West Bank and is reviewing the issue in light of information Israel provided in recent days, U.S. sources familiar with the issue said.

Why it matters: The review is part of a consultation process outlined in an agreement between the U.S. and Israel. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also been under extensive pressure from the Israeli government, members of Congress and some senior Biden administration officials to reconsider the possible sanctions.

The big picture: The Biden administration had intended to withhold U.S. military aid and training from the Netzah Yehuda battalion — an unprecedented move in the history of relations between the countries.

-Story gets out that Blinken is ignoring Israeli human rights abuses
-PR story appears that Biden admin is going to do something
-Israel publicly acts outraged that laws may apply to them
-Biden admin quietly decides to do nothing

What a perfect summary of this admin pic.twitter.com/8QjM2v9NvD

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) April 26, 2024

As Dr Assal Rad has highlighted on Twitter, this decision follows a sequence of events in which ProPublica revealed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was ignoring his own State Department’s recommendation to sanction Israeli military units that have been credibly accused of human rights abuses like rape and torture, after which Blinken announced that he was preparing to issue sanctions after all. This announcement was met with outrage from Israel and its apologists, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu penning a furious screed calling the planned sanctions “the height of absurdity and a moral low”. Those planned sanctions are now canceled.

Or to put it more simply, the Biden administration had planned to sanction an IDF battalion, but it didn’t because Israel said no.

Which would be about par for the White House under Joseph R Biden, who throughout his too-long political career has received more campaign funding from the Israel lobby than literally anyone else in Washington. As Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi recently explained in an article for Foreign Policy, this administration’s adamant refusal to set any limits whatsoever with the Israeli state is a dramatic deviation from the norm, with other presidents frequently displaying a well-documented willingness to give Tel Aviv a smack whenever it got too insane.

Reporter: Evidence at Gaza mass graves show torture and signs of being buried alive, Palestinians called for an independent investigation, what’s wrong with that?

Patel: We’re asking Israel

Reporter: You’re asking the accused to investigate itself?

Patel: We’re asking Israel pic.twitter.com/fIWO3MHPwv

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) April 25, 2024

This incident with the IDF battalion sanctions is a good example of the way the Biden administration has had a standing policy of pretty much just letting Israel write its own rules for itself in Washington. We saw this illustrated yet again in a recent exchange at a press briefing with Deputy State Department Spokesman Vedant Patel, who when asked about the mass graves being discovered in Gaza kept defending the administration’s line that this was something Israel needs to investigate for itself.

Here’s a transcript:

PATEL: Go ahead, with the glasses.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: The Gaza civil service today held a press conference this morning, which was televised, and they said that evidence showed that many of those pulled out from the three mass graves that they found, including children, were tortured before being killed. Some even showed signs of being buried alive, along with other crimes against humanity that they accused Israeli forces of. They called for an independent forensic investigation. This administration repeatedly says that it asked Israel — the Israeli Government — to investigate itself.

As a mediator for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, how does it ever make sense that the United States asked the accused party to examine itself and provide reports that you have previously said that you actually trust? What’s wrong with an independent, scientific, forensic investigation? I mean, if there — if the results of such an independent investigation prove the accusations to be baseless, then that would be in Israel’s favor, wouldn’t it?

PATEL: So as it relates to the continued reporting about — we’re seeing about these mass graves, first, National Security Advisor Sullivan spoke a little bit about this yesterday, but we continue to find these reports incredibly troubling. And that’s why yesterday you saw the National Security Advisor call for this to be thoroughly investigated. We want to see these facts looked into. And simultaneously, we’re continuing to press the Government of Israel for more information. The IDF has spoken to this in some sense already, but we are continuing to press them for additional information.

QUESTION: But why not have an independent, forensic scientific — which the Palestinians are calling for?

PATEL: We think this does need to be thoroughly investigated, but in terms of the modality, we continue to want to see some additional information from the Government of Israel before we make other assessments.

QUESTION: But you’re asking the accused to investigate itself.

PATEL: We believe that through a thorough investigation, we can get some additional answers. We’re also hoping to continue to get more information from the Government of Israel on this.

QUESTION: But to his — 

PATEL: Guita, go ahead.

Have you ever seen anything more absurd?

Having a position that literally every accusation of Israeli criminality in Gaza just means Israel needs to investigate itself is exactly the same as having a position that Israel can commit any crime it wants with no consequences whatsoever, because obviously Israel is never going to convict itself of any wrongdoing. But that is indeed the Biden administration’s position.

The message that Israel has been consistently getting from Washington from October 7 onward is, do whatever you like. Commit whatever crimes you want to commit. Our support is unconditional and there will be no consequences for any of your actions, ever. And Israel is certainly taking up every bit of slack it’s being given on that front.

__________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

❖

It’s just a tough situation, with victims on both sides. On one side you’ve got people being slaughtered in droves by genocidal massacres and siege warfare, while on the other you’ve got people whose feelings get hurt when these atrocities are opposed. Hard to say which is worse.

❖

I have dedicated every day of my life to the project of spreading awareness of the depravity and deceitfulness of the western empire, but I will never write anything more effective toward this end than what the empire is doing itself on university campuses right now.

I mean, you kind of have to wonder what they’re thinking. “Yeah, that’s it. Violently quash pro-Palestine protests at universities, ban TikTok to ensure the suppression of pro-Palestine content, and saturate the boomer media with obvious propaganda. That’ll make the kids love Israel.”

This video is unbelievable.

Students and teachers are being arrested for protesting US support for atrocities in Gaza. Now reporters are getting assaulted and arrested for covering the protests. But remember, democracy is on the ballot.pic.twitter.com/Gsl1zbnPKq

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) April 24, 2024

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Meanwhile the US empire is still playing games with each and every one of our lives by continually taking insane risks in its world-threatening brinkmanship with a nuclear superpower. It turns out last month the Biden administration secretly sent Ukraine long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which Ukraine has reportedly already used to attack a Russian base in Crimea.

In 2022 when Ukraine first started urging the United States to send it the ATACMS— which has nearly four times the range of the HIMARS weapons the US has been supplying — Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova immediately responded with a warning that their use on Russian territory would make the US a direct participant in the conflict, and Russia would respond accordingly. Crimea is considered Russian territory by the Russian Federation.

In an article published in Antiwar last year titled “ATACMS: Be Very Afraid of This Acronym,” West Suburban Peace Coalition president Walt Zlotow wrote that this missile system “has potential to draw the US and NATO into all out war with Russia”:

ATACMS are long range US missiles that can strike up to 190 miles. Top US officials, likely including President Biden, are seriously considering giving ATACMS to Ukraine in their battle to take back all Russian gains in Ukraine, including Crimea. They can reach both Crimea and the Russian mainland.

If so used by Ukraine to attack Russia, it may be a missile too far that could ignite Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Further escalation into nuclear confrontation between Russia and the US/NATO alliance seeking Russia’s defeat becomes more likely.

❖

Biden proclaimed it “a good day for world peace” when he signed the World War 3 bill which will pour weapons of death and destruction into Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. This is the inverted reality the US-centralized empire premises its narratives about itself upon. They’ve got the mainstream public espousing a completely backwards and upside-down worldview, which is why we live in a completely backwards and upside-down civilization.

Biden just signed the mammoth war funding bill. "It's a good day for world peace," he says, without a hint of irony. New arms shipments will flow to Ukraine within hours. It's a shame Trump couldn't be there for the signing ceremony, they could've bonded over their shared support pic.twitter.com/wWLCcR0Crc

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 24, 2024

The Ukraine war funding part of the bill was actually reportedly pushed through with behind-the-scenes collaboration between Trump and Republican lawmakers. Anyone who still buys Trump’s “ending the wars, fighting the deep state” schtick is a fucking moron.

❖

When Israel’s genocide funding made it through the House, Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted, “The US Congress just overwhelmingly passed a much appreciated aid bill that demonstrates strong bipartisan support for Israel and defends Western civilization. Thank you friends, thank you America!”

And he’s not wrong. The US congress does have massive bipartisan support for Israel, and pouring war machinery into that genocidal apartheid state does in fact bolster the blood-fueled machine of nonstop murder and tyranny that is “western civilization”.

❖

Human thriving arises from curiosity. Curiosity about the way our material universe operates leads to advances in science, and all the benefits that come with it. Curiosity about how our civilization’s power structures operate leads to an understanding of how the world really works, which will lead to the emergence of a truth-based society if realized on a collective level. Curiosity about our own consciousness and inner processes leads to self-realization, and the harmonious way of moving in the world which flows from it. 

If a healthy humanity exists in the future, it will be above all a deeply curious species. The values of competition, greed and domination which currently drive the way our civilization operates will have given way to curiosity, humility and discovery. We will have cultivated a humble but intense curiosity about ourselves, about each other, about our collective societal dynamics, and about our natural world.

__________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

All the frenzied shrieking about pro-Palestine protests at universities these last few days makes it clear that our civilization is so twisted and insane that it sees protesting a genocide as far worse than committing one. Which is about as backwards as any society could possibly be.

Seriously, try to imagine a crazier, more upside-down civilization than one which gets more angry at people protesting genocidal atrocities than it does at people committing them. A civilization where people wear their pants on their head and walk backwards all day? That would be less crazy. A civilization where the dogs own the people and the children go to work while the parents go to school? That would be less crazy.

It’s as wrong as you can possibly get anything in this world. It’s actually hard to imagine how anyone could get anything more wrong. If you’ve accepted daily massacres of innocent civilians as the baseline normal and appropriate thing, and regard any opposition to this as a freakish and evil abomination, then you’re as screwed up and confused about reality as any other stark raving lunatic in town. Maybe worse.

To view nonstop mass military slaughter as moral and opposition thereto as immoral is to live in a mental moral universe that has been flipped on its head. It’s to inhabit a reality tunnel that has become completely divorced from reality. But that’s the kind of mainstream worldview that the political-media class in this society are working to indoctrinate us into day in and day out throughout our entire lives.

I had to scroll past *four* college campus stories, including two protest-critical opeds (John McWhorter & Bret Stephens) before I got to the much delayed coverage of hundreds of Palestinians found in mass graves. https://t.co/b57txq0M3o

— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) April 24, 2024

I just saw a tweet from the commentator Briahna Joy Gray saying that in order to find any mention in The New York Times of the hundreds of Palestinians in mass graves that are being discovered in Gaza, she had to scroll past no fewer than four stories about pro-Palestine protests on college campuses — including two op-eds which criticized the protesters. 

What kind of warped, fucked up dystopia is this where that’s the kind of mainstream news outlet people are getting their information and ideas from? Our entire civilization is saturated with reality-distorting propaganda like this, and it’s making people insane. It’s got our moral compasses flipped 180 degrees from our true north, and our inner sensemaker tuning in to frequencies of nothing but garbled static.

That’s how crazy they need us to be to keep us supporting a globe-spanning empire that literally cannot exist without nonstop violence and tyranny. They need us thinking up is down and black is white. They need us not just unable to tell the difference between right and wrong, but actually believing that wrong is right and right is wrong. So they pound our collective consciousness day in and day out with extremely aggressive psyops in the form of mass media propaganda to ensure that our insides are scrambled around enough to consent to the amount of depravity necessary for our rulers to continue dominating this planet.

This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal, as Aaron Bushnell said moments before lighting himself on fire in protest of the genocide in Gaza. A society where mass graves get less media attention than university protesters. A society where more political firepower is going into stopping pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses than ending Israel’s murderous assault on an enclosed enclave packed full of children. A society where trying to stop a genocide is considered evil, and committing one is considered good.

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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Stopping the slaughter in Gaza is more important than your feelings. Your feelings don’t matter.

Stopping the slaughter in Gaza is more important than playing along with the persecution-LARPing of Zionist university students.

Stopping the slaughter in Gaza is more important than some privileged Ivy Leaguers pretending to feel “unsafe” or “unwelcome” on campus.

Stopping the slaughter in Gaza is more important than whatever you’re pretending to believe “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” means.

Stopping the slaughter in Gaza is more important than making sure everyone says all the right words and condemns Hamas with sufficient fervor. 

Stopping the slaughter in Gaza is more important than making sure Joe Biden maintains enough support to win re-election.

Stopping the slaughter in Gaza is more important than performing all kinds of mental contortions and prostrations while talking about Israel’s criminality to avoid offending people who make everything about themselves.

Stopping the slaughter in Gaza is more important than helping you avoid the uncomfortable cognitive dissonance incurred by the contradictions between your stated value system and the genocidal murderousness and cruelty of apartheid Israel.

Your feelings are not more important than Palestinian lives.

Your feelings are not more important than Palestinian displacement.

Your feelings are not even more important than Palestinian feelings.

Your feelings are not important. Stopping the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the people of Gaza is important.

It is a symptom of the cancerousness of western civilization that there are people living their whole lives under the entirely unquestioned assumption that their feelings are so important that it is fine and normal to expect that a limitless number of impoverished foreigners may be killed without any opposition whatsoever in order to promote the interests of their favorite ethnostate, and that anyone who does oppose it is persecuting them.

It is a symptom of how diseased our entire society has become that people are so narcissistic that they now perceive anti-genocide demonstrations on university campuses as a direct attack against them and their identity, and will use any amount of spin and mental contortion to make this seem true.

It is a symptom of the dire need to dismantle the entire western empire that a mainstream narrative structure exists in our society which says opposing a genocide is a far more egregious offense than committing one.

It is a symptom of the dire need for radical revolutionary changes in this civilization that western political systems are urgently discussing the need to stomp out protests against a genocide at university campuses under the pretense of protecting people’s feelings.

Don’t protect people’s feelings. Stop the genocide in Gaza.

People’s feelings should be uncomfortable when a genocide is happening.

People should be experiencing uncomfortable cognitive dissonance and shame when their innately unjust worldview is being completely discredited in front of everyone.

None of us should be feeling comfortable with any of this. We should be feeling very, very uncomfortable, and letting that discomfort drive us to end this nightmare forever.

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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Feature image via Ted Eytan (CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED)