News

Error message

  • Deprecated function: The each() function is deprecated. This message will be suppressed on further calls in _menu_load_objects() (line 579 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/menu.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type int in element_children() (line 6600 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).
  • Deprecated function: implode(): Passing glue string after array is deprecated. Swap the parameters in drupal_get_feeds() (line 394 of /var/www/drupal-7.x/includes/common.inc).

MintPress News: Pushing Back Against Atrocity Propaganda

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 29/03/2024 - 12:31am in

Tags 

News

I want to invite you to the fight against media manipulation and censorship to help us break through the propaganda.

For nearly six months, we’ve witnessed Israel openly commit genocide in Gaza while it was livestreamed right on our smartphones.

For nearly six months, we’ve witnessed mainstream media outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and other Western mainstream media organizations provide the cover for Israel’s blatant war crimes – crimes that were committed using our taxpayer money.

They’ve peddled unverified stories of atrocity propaganda – handed to them directly by the Israeli government, justifying Israel’s war that has claimed the lives of over 30,000 people.

But in these dark times of manipulation and gaslighting, it falls upon us – independent journalists and media outlets – to break through the fog of war. That’s why MintPress has become a target, financially and algorithmically, to silence our decades-long investigative reporting exposing the war profiteers.

We invite you to support us by becoming a member of our Patreon, which costs $10 per month and helps us continue our watchdog reporting.

We want to ensure our investigative journalism is able to reach the public far and wide for free and accessible without a paywall, but we can’t do that without your financial support.

MintPress was among the first to question the official narrative of October 7, revealing how an Israeli Apache helicopter killed Israelis. We’ve conducted numerous investigations into conflicts of interest among authors and media commentators within corporate media that have direct ties to think tanks, lobby groups and weapon manufacturers that directly profit from this war. And we have been at the forefront of exposing how Big Tech works with the national security state, think tanks and lobby groups funded by Israel – that work to stifle free speech and control what we see in our newsfeeds.

Now, MintPress is on the ground in Yemen, providing exclusive interviews with officials directly from the Red Sea and groundbreaking reporting of the humanitarian crisis there as the U.S. continues to bomb the poorest country in the Middle East.

However, our efforts have not gone unnoticed. MintPress was banned from TikTok and PayPal in the past year alone, and our balance was seized. After that, GoFundMe banned us from their platform, taking down two of our fundraisers. Our journalists have been detained, surveilled, and targeted by national security agencies and special interest groups, including directly by the Israel lobby.

But we wear this as a badge of honor. This is just a glimpse of the challenges we’ve faced as an independent outlet holding the military class accountable, as every journalistic endeavor should.

Journalism is under attack, and we’re asking for your support to sustain our watchdog journalism.

While Big Tech attempts to erase our journalism algorithmically, we’re ramping up efforts to circumvent censorship and provide hard-hitting reporting that empowers the people. We need your financial support to continue this mission and keep investigative journalism free and accessible without a paywall.

We’ve launched our annual membership drive on Patreon, and we urge you to join us in the fight against the war machine. You can also become a member directly on our website and donate to MintPress there as well.

 

Our History

MintPress is among the few remaining independent investigative news outlets in the United States, featuring leading journalists and activists. Our team includes investigative journalist Alan MacLeod, whose work has exposed the deep ties between NATO, weapons manufacturers, and Big Tech.

Rapper and activist Lowkey hosts “The Watchdog” podcast, uncovering the Israel lobby’s surveillance tactics. Investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg explores the role of intelligence services in shaping policies across NATO nations.

Our Palestine correspondent, Jessica Buxbaum, has exposed Israel’s collaboration with Big Tech to surveil Palestinian resistance.

We regularly feature commentary by Dr. Ramzy Baroud and Miko Peled and work with internationally renowned cartoonist Carlos Latuff.

As for myself, Mn​​ar Adley, founder and director of MintPress News, I established MintPress over a decade ago to revive the fourth estate in a post-9/11 world dominated by the military-industrial complex. Having lived under Israeli occupation as a Palestinian-American teen, I witnessed the media’s complicity in whitewashing Israel’s atrocities. Corporate media act as PR for weapons manufacturers, justifying military adventurism that fuels the war economy.

MintPress was born out of the need to hold the ruling class and military accountable, amplifying voices silenced by mainstream media.

We’ve been targeted for our commitment to truth, and we need your support to continue our exclusive coverage. Join us in the fight for independent journalism and accountability.

Mnar Adley is an award-winning journalist and editor and is the founder and director of MintPress News. She is also president and director of the non-profit media organization Behind the Headlines. Adley also co-hosts the MintCast podcast and is a producer and host of the video series Behind The Headlines. Contact Mnar at mnar@mintpressnews.com or follow her on Twitter at @mnarmuh.

The post MintPress News: Pushing Back Against Atrocity Propaganda appeared first on MintPress News.

Israel’s Shadow Over Free Speech: The Truth Behind the TikTok Ban Bill

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 28/03/2024 - 4:26am in

On March 13, U.S. lawmakers overwhelmingly voted in favor of a bill forcing TikTok’s foreign owner, ByteDance, to sell up or face a stateside ban. Its advocates claim the popular video-sharing app is a Chinese Communist Party-controlled national security threat that could be weaponized as a tool of surveillance and manipulation if it isn’t already. Yet, despite the anti-Beijing hysteria running wild, many haven’t swallowed the bait, with even some typically pliant mainstream outlets alleging a far darker rationale.

For a start, the ominous vision of TikTok as a CPC Trojan Horse is demonstrably absurd. While parent company ByteDance is headquartered in Beijing and was founded by local internet entrepreneurs, court filings, financial returns, official submissions to Congress, and even Chinese government documents show the company is 60% owned by foreign investors, including many in the U.S., while a fifth is in the hands of its own employees, including thousands of Americans.

Despite this, the monolithic narrative of a CPC-run spying app maliciously taking over the phones of young Western citizens has long abounded. In January, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi Chew was subject to relentless McCarthyite grilling by Republican Tom Cotton on his loyalties and relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. A visibly bemused Zi Chew repeatedly explained he was a patriotic Singaporean, married to a U.S. citizen. These inconvenient facts did not deter the Senator’s bullying, xenophobic interrogation.

Now that the anti-TikTok “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” has passed, much of the media is fraudulently claiming the app is confirmed to be Beijing-owned and controlled. One might argue this is a deliberate smokescreen designed to obscure the true rationale behind the app’s Congressional attack, the individuals and organizations behind it, and who precisely benefits from TikTok being run by U.S. government-approved figures and entities.

In every case, the answer lies in plain sight and is the same. TikTok has long been in the crosshairs of powerful pro-Israel lobbying organizations due to the speed and ease with which content critical of Israeli atrocities and apartheid spreads on its platform. The risk younger users might question the concertedly concealed, horrific reality of Israel’s occupation has become all the graver throughout the Gaza genocide. Now, those same groups have corralled U.S. lawmakers into launching a fatal attack on free speech online.

 

‘A TikTok Problem’

In November 2023, a leaked recording of Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), appeared online. In it, he despaired over how much sympathy for the Palestinian struggle was apparent online in the wake of October 7’s Al-Aqsa Flood and inevitably disproportionate Israeli response. Expressing shock at how terms such as “Zionist entity,” a delegitimizing characterization applied to Israel, had proliferated, he singled out a particular social media app and demographic as responsible:

We have a major, major, major generational problem…all the polling I’ve seen, ADL’s polling, ICC’s polling, independent polling, suggests the issue of US support for Israel is not left and right, it is young and old…We really have a TikTok problem, a Gen Z problem.”

It is indeed no coincidence that in the same month, several prominent Jewish celebrities and influencers sought to lobby TikTok behind closed doors to erase any “anti-Israel content” from its platform and generally “do more to address a surge of antisemitism and harassment” on the app following October 7. Among the assembled was Sasha Baron Cohen. As MintPress documented in January, his cinematic oeuvre is almost exclusively rabidly Islamophobic and rife with genocidal pro-Israel propaganda tropes.

Cohen is also a repeat ADL confederate, actively complicit in the organization’s online censorship connivances. In September 2020,  he temporarily suspended his Instagram account to protest purported antisemitic “hate speech” on the platform and Facebook. The League led this action, which saw over 1,000 businesses suspend their ads on the social network for a month. At the secret TikTok meeting, he told Adam Presser, the app’s head of operations, and himself Jewish, “Shame on you.”

“What is happening at TikTok is it is [sic] creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” Cohen fulminated, telling Presser:

If you think back to October 7, the reason why Hamas were able to behead young people and rape women was they were fed images from when they were small kids that led them to hate,” he continued, accusing TikTok “of feeding similarly incendiary content to young people.”

Reported unquestioningly in the Western media, dubious claims that Hamas committed a wave of rapes and beheaded infants on October 7, as the group conducted an extremely dangerous lightning strike mission behind enemy lines to kidnap hostages, all along hunted by Israeli Occupation Force soldiers, helicopters, and tanks, have come apart in the weeks and months since. Likewise, no evidence has to date emerged that TikTok is indeed a hotbed of antisemitic hate, let alone uniquely so in the digital realm.

 

‘Wonderful Vehicle’

On March 6, Nikki Haley suspended her Republican Presidential candidacy. The Israel lobby was no doubt crestfallen. As U.S. Ambassador to the UN from January 2017 to December 2018, she distinguished herself as perhaps the most aggressive and ardent advocate for Israel ever to fill the post—a highly competitive category indeed. During her tenure, the Jerusalem Institute of Justice hailed Haley’s “Zionist spirit,” an accompanying cartoon bizarrely depicting her as Xena: Warrior Princess.

On the campaign trail, Haley was given to frequent Israeli propaganda outbursts. A common occurrence in U.S. politics, most of these utterances flew under the radar. Nonetheless, in December 2023, she elicited much ridicule for unbelievably declaring during a primary debate:

We really do need to ban TikTok once and for all and let me tell you why. For every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok every day, they become 17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas based on doing that.”

It appears Haley was misrepresenting the results of a recent survey conducted by MarketWatch. Yet, her self-evidently ludicrous – and thoroughly discredited – claim was cited without irony in a statement published by the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), applauding the passing of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The statement further charged:

TikTok’s parent company is beholden to the Chinese government, which has squarely positioned itself against Israel since October 7th. China has filled its state-controlled media and social media channels with antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric.”

That TikTok is antisemitic because it is controlled by the Chinese government is an entirely novel slander for both the app and Beijing. Yet, following Congressional ratification of the Act, JNFA would have every reason to talk a big game. As The Times of Israel reported in mid-March, the organization, along with the ADL, was at the forefront of public campaigning in support of the bill.

These efforts saw JNFA gather Jewish community leaders across the U.S. for “crucial” briefings on the pending legislation. Conspicuously, the organization’s New Jersey chapter explicitly referred to the Act as “aimed at antisemitism on TikTok,” with no reference to Chinese government influence at all. Meanwhile, Israeli media took aim at Jewish billionaires Arthur Dantchik and Jeffrey Yass over their 15% stake in ByteDance. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency lambasted Dantchik for failing to curb “anti-Israel content” on TikTok despite sitting on its board.

These attacks were likely intended to ensure neither investor – both of whom give generously to Jewish and Zionist foundations – voiced any criticism of the Act. While successful, the Jewish news website The Forward acknowledged that several Jewish TikTok creators vehemently opposed its U.S. government takeover, including several rabbis. One told the newspaper that the app was “a wonderful vehicle” for teaching the Torah and “educating young people about Judaism,” arguing that “the platform’s value outweighs concerns about antisemitism that led some Jewish organizations to push for its ban.”

Of course, their entreaties fell on deaf ears. So, too, did the condemnations of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, who both denounced the legislation as state censorship. Their broadsides were particularly notable, as neither could be plausibly accused of holding even vaguely pro-China or anti-Israel sympathies. In Musk’s case, he has even collaborated with the ADL to suppress anti-Israel posts and users on ‘X,’ his rebranded version of Twitter.

 

‘A stranglehold on Congress.’

Despite its near-unanimous rapid passage through Congress, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act could run into trouble in the Senate. Republican Rand Paul has pledged to block the legislation on free speech grounds. U.S. citizens “choose to use TikTok to express themselves,” Paul argues, believing the Act would “take away the First Amendment rights” of 170 million users. The Washington Post quoted the Act’s Congressional architect, Mike Gallagher, as retorting:

[The Act] is about foreign adversary control of a social media application…not about shutting down speech. As long as the ownership structure has changed, TikTok can continue, and Americans can say whatever the heck they want on the platform.”

The newspaper did not mention that on March 13, Gallagher let slip the true motivation behind his anti-TikTok push. Namely, it is “becoming the dominant news platform for Americans under 30.” This very much chimes with the concerns of ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt.

Also unmentioned is that Gallagher’s biggest political donor is the infamous American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), accurately described by U.S. political scientist John Mearsheimer as “a de facto agent for a foreign government, [with] a stranglehold on Congress.”

Mike Gallagher IsraelThe chief architect behind the TikTok bill is Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, whose biggest donor is AIPAC

Since October 7, 2023, AIPAC has made no secret of its mission to rid Washington, DC, of any lawmaker even mildly opposed to or critical of Israel’s unrelenting war on Gaza, openly earmarking Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, among others, for defenestration. Chillingly, the organization’s 2022 report on “policy and political achievements” that year brags that it provided $17.5 million – the most of any U.S. PAC – to “pro-Israel candidates,” a staggering 98% of whom won their elections.

 

Questioning Israeli Influence Deemed ‘antisemitic’

Meanwhile, despite JNFA’s brazen public victory lap following the Act’s Congressional assent and its own central involvement in shilling for TikTok’s censorship, the ADL had the audacity to publish an investigation into how “antisemitic conspiracy theories” spread online after the vote. It charged that “influencers and extremists from across the political spectrum” framed the bill as “a product of Jewish or Zionist influence…an effort to infringe on free speech by limiting the reach of pro-Palestinian content.”

TikTokAn example of an antisemitic remark about the TikTok bill published by the ADL

The ADL has published a relentless deluge of reports, uncritically amplified by the mainstream media, alleging “antisemitic incidents” throughout the Western world have reached record levels since the Gaza genocide began. Yet, as MintPress has revealed, the League produces these mindboggling figures by categorizing anti-Israel and pro-Palestine rallies and corresponding chants and signage at both as individual “antisemitic incidents.”

The anti-TikTok Act’s untrammeled passage is an epic testament to “Zionist influence” in the U.S. That such far-reaching, disturbing legislation was rubberstamped with virtually zero public, political or media debate or scrutiny, despite intense civil society and American Jewish community opposition, sets a terrifying precedent for future aggressive action being taken against digital platforms allowing inconvenient, brutal truths about Israel to escape into the public domain.

If the Act becomes law, it will undoubtedly be used to target other social networks, apps, and websites on similarly spurious grounds. Indeed, the legislation is explicitly not intended to be restricted to TikTok. Its wording openly states that any tech company “determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the U.S.” can be in the White House’s firing line. Joe Biden has already made it abundantly clear that he will sign the moment it reaches his desk.

In December 2023, MintPress investigated The 10/7 Project, a new Zionist lobby entity founded by AIPAC, ADL, AJC, JFNA, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The outfit was initially intended to be a very public affair, promoting human interest stories and atrocity propaganda generated by Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in the media while elevating its eponymous date to 9/11 levels in the American public mind.

The 10/7 Project has, to say the least, failed in this mission not least because citizen activists and journalists have challenged Israeli propaganda and exposed the realities of the Gaza genocide, with such devastating effect, on platforms such as TikTok. As such, it is only to be expected that the same lobbying organizations behind this effort have redoubled their quest for narrative control. If the information war cannot be won fairly, the only option is to nobble all opposition via straight-up censorship.

From Israel’s perspective, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Since October 7, 2023, as Jonathan Grimblatt bemoaned in that leaked recording, poll after poll has shown U.S. public support for Israel is almost exclusively restricted to older generations of Americans. For example, on March 21, Pew Research published a survey showing 46% of 18- 29-year-olds viewed Tel Aviv’s actions in Gaza as “unacceptable,” while 35% of 30 – 49-year-olds – a majority – agreed.

As the entire Zionist project – and the unending, slow-motion genocide it necessarily executes – is wholly contingent on U.S. support to endure, in the face of nigh-universal condemnation from citizens of the world and governments throughout the Global South, such an attitudinal shift could spell the end of Israel as we, unfortunately, know it. That is quite some “generational problem” that needs urgent rectification.

Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.

The post Israel’s Shadow Over Free Speech: The Truth Behind the TikTok Ban Bill appeared first on MintPress News.

Florida Philosophy Grad Student Seeks Legal Aid for Asylum Case

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 28/03/2024 - 4:18am in

Shadi “Soph” Heidarifar is a doctoral student and teaching assistant in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Florida. She’s also suing the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for neglecting her asylum case.

Heidarifar, a queer woman, came to the United States from Iran and filed for asylum. She writes:

My country is among the fewest countries on earth that systematically executes people (even minors) for their sexual orientation and brutally assaults/kills women for their clothing choices. My asylum case is also based on the systemic treatment that I personally got there both as a woman and as a Queer person.

She filed for asylum four years ago but, she reports, “USCIS hasn’t scheduled an interview for my case yet.”

Her lawyer advised her to sue USCIS in a Federal Court to schedule an interview. She writes:

The problem, however, is that this entire process costs $3000. As an international graduate student, I’m in no position to pay this amount on my own. So, I’m asking for your help to please consider supporting this cause.

I can’t emphasize enough how much your support means to me; it is literally life-saving! When I first moved to this country, I was able to find who I am because of the amazing support I’ve got, especially in academia, and with the same kind of support, I’m sure we will achieve this goal as well. 

You can donate to Heidarifar’s legal fund here.

 

The post Florida Philosophy Grad Student Seeks Legal Aid for Asylum Case first appeared on Daily Nous.

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

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 27/03/2024 - 12:45pm in

Tags 

USA, News, Gaza

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

https://medium.com/media/b6644e713c4774fa0811b6342c20ff75/href

The British High Court has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may potentially get a final appeal against extradition to the United States, but only within a very limited scope and only if specific conditions are met.

The court ruled that Assange may appeal only on the grounds that his freedom of speech might be restricted in the US, and that there is a possibility he could receive the death penalty. If the US provides “assurances” that neither of these things will happen, then the trial moves to another phase where Assange’s legal team may debate the merits of those assurances. If the US does not provide those assurances, then the limited appeal will move forward.

Absurdly, the court determined that Assange’s lawyers may not argue against extradition on matters as self-evidently critical as the fact that the CIA plotted to assassinate him, or on the basis that he is being politically persecuted for the crime of inconvenient journalism.

Consortium News on Twitter: "Assange's Fate Awaits US 'Assurances' https://t.co/tpbQZHgw1L The High Court on Tuesday rejected five Assange grounds for a new appeal, agreeing he had only three legitimate arguments but that the U.S. could nullify them with new "assurances," reports Joe Lauria. pic.twitter.com/IHkQZWZLEL / Twitter"

Assange's Fate Awaits US 'Assurances' https://t.co/tpbQZHgw1L The High Court on Tuesday rejected five Assange grounds for a new appeal, agreeing he had only three legitimate arguments but that the U.S. could nullify them with new "assurances," reports Joe Lauria. pic.twitter.com/IHkQZWZLEL

The mass media are calling this a “reprieve”, even “wonderful news”, but as Jonathan Cook explains in his latest article “Assange’s ‘reprieve’ is another lie, hiding the real goal of keeping him endlessly locked up,” that’s all a bunch of crap.

“The word ‘reprieve’ is there — just as the judges’ headline ruling that some of the grounds of his appeal have been ‘granted’ — to conceal the fact that he is prisoner to an endless legal charade every bit as much as he is a prisoner in a Belmarsh cell,” writes Cook. “In fact, today’s ruling is yet further evidence that Assange is being denied due process and his most basic legal rights — as he has been for a decade or more.”

Cook writes the following:

“The case has always been about buying time. To disappear Assange from public view. To vilify him. To smash the revolutionary publishing platform he founded to help whistleblowers expose state crimes. To send a message to other journalists that the US can reach them wherever they live should they try to hold Washington to account for its criminality.

“And worst of all, to provide a final solution for the nuisance Assange had become for the global superpower by trapping him in an endless process of incarceration and trial that, if it is allowed to drag on long enough, will most likely kill him.”

https://medium.com/media/adec158e798d3f63499e02b24aabb0d1/href

This kind of slow motion strangulation is how the empire operates all the time these days, across all spheres. Helping Israel starve Gaza while slowly pretending to work toward solutions. Drawing out a proxy war in Ukraine for as long as possible to bleed Russia. Slowly killing Assange in prison without trial under the pretense of judicial proceedings.

The US-centralized empire hunts not like a tiger, killing its prey with one fatal bite to the jugular, but more like a python: slowly suffocating the life out of its prey until it perishes. It favors the long, drawn-out, confusing strangulation of inconvenient populations and individuals, carried out under the cover of bureaucracy and propaganda spin. In today’s world it prefers sanctions, blockades and long proxy conflicts over the big Hulk-smash ground invasions we saw it carry out in places like Iraq and Vietnam.

These slow suffocations can take more time, but what they lack in efficiency they make up for in the quality of perception management. It’s bad PR to just openly invade countries and murder people, which is why the leaders of the western empire have been able to wag their fingers at Putin despite their being quantifiably far more murderous than Russia. People start snapping out of the propaganda matrix you spent so much time building for them and begin organizing against the political status quo your power is premised on.

So they opt for slow strangulation strategies where they can confuse the public about what’s happening and who’s responsible, outsourcing the blame to other parties while posing as the good guy who’s trying to bring peace and stability. It takes time, but the empire has time to burn. That’s what happens when you’re the most powerful empire in the history of civilization; you have the luxury of biding your time while orchestrating large-scale, long-term operations to advance your power agendas.

Meanwhile Gaza starves, Ukraine bleeds, and Assange languishes in prison, each needing this to end with more urgency every day.

________________

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 Landjager (CC BY-NC 3.0 DEED)

Things That Have Been Discredited During The Destruction Of Gaza

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 26/03/2024 - 1:23pm in


Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

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

https://medium.com/media/ee18920e43cbc243457663a5d88e3530/href

List of things that have been discredited during the destruction of Gaza:

• Israel

• the “rules-based international order”

• liberals

• the label “antisemitism”

• the mainstream media

• Joe Biden

• the “two-state solution” myth

• Bernie Sanders

• Robert F Kennedy Jr

• the label “terrorist”

• the “human shields” lie

• the ADL

• AIPAC

• the US war machine

• right wing “free speech” supporters

• the Democratic Party

• the Republican Party

• Zionism

• all western governments

• all of western civilization

• everything westerners believe about their society

The US vetoed multiple UN ceasefire resolutions, then put forward a fake “ceasefire” resolution that didn’t actually demand a ceasefire and accused Russia and China of “sabotaging” peace when they vetoed it, then an actual ceasefire resolution was passed which the US abstained from voting on rather than vetoing in order to save face over its Russia/China moralizing, and then the US declared (100% falsely) that the UN ceasefire resolution which passed is “non-binding”.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to support and defend Biden and just endorsed virulent Israel supporter Hakeem Jeffries for House Speaker, even after accusing Israel of genocide in a House floor speech.

If you say this is a genocide and then you support the people who are backing this genocide, it means either (A) you’re fine with genocide or (B) you only called it a genocide to score progressive political points and don’t actually believe what you said.

https://medium.com/media/da82a845acb7c8797aea0f3ce81989da/href

Biden supporters keep trying to spin his genocidal actions as some kind of aberration in his otherwise lovely behavior due to highly unusual circumstances, as though he hasn’t been a bloodthirsty warmonger AND an extreme pro-Israel hawk his entire fucking political career.

Don’t babble at me about how bad and wrong it is for Palestinians to use violence unless you can offer me a coherent plan for what they should do instead.

Civil disobedience won’t work because Zionists have no conscience and don’t care about Palestinian death and suffering.

The doors to a two-state solution with a real Palestinian state are slammed shut by Israel’s political landscape and are being further bolted down by continually expanding settlements deliberately designed to prevent such a solution from ever emerging.

A one-state solution where everyone has equal rights and no ethnicity gets preferential treatment is an even more remote pipe dream which not even Israel’s western allies support.

So what can the Palestinians do? It doesn’t look like anyone who opposes armed resistance has any good answers. Really what they want is for Palestinians to just lie down and submit to whatever abuses Israel wants to inflict upon them and just slowly fade into obscurity and become a forgotten people, but they can’t say that aloud without sounding like psychopaths so they just finger-wag at Hamas without ever offering any legitimate solutions.

Palestinians have been forced against their will into an impossibly horrible situation, and they sometimes use violence out of desperation because all the other doors are closed to them. If you want me to “condemn” them for this you can kiss my ass, especially since you can’t even tell me what they should do instead.

The overwhelming majority of westerners spend roughly zero percent of their day thinking about Jews and Judaism, but because Israel stands accused of genocide people are being gaslighted into believing our society is overflowing with a widespread seething hatred of Jewish people.

All popular online posts about Israeli atrocities will have numerous comments underneath claiming that it didn’t happen, or that it was justified, or that it was good actually, or that it should be blamed on Hamas. Every single one, without a single solitary exception. No matter how strong the evidence is. No matter how horrific the atrocity.

This shows you that Israel apologists don’t care about truth or morality, and it shows you that they never have. All throughout Israel’s history they’ve been lying and manipulating the public narrative about what the Israeli state has been doing this entire time. That’s why they push so hard to get people de-platformed and censored and to get TikTok shut down: all they care about is controlling the public narrative, so they want to silence anyone who makes that harder 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.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

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

Somerville Massachusetts Mayor Ballantyne announces guaranteed basic income pilot program  

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 24/03/2024 - 1:54am in

Tags 

News

Note: This pilot program’s recipients are means-tested so the program does not meet BIEN’s definition of basic income. “Mayor Katjana Ballantyne joins more than 100 mayors from across the country as part of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income (MGI), a coalition of mayors who establish and advocate for local and national guaranteed income programs. Guaranteed income programs […]

Somerville Massachusetts Mayor Ballantyne announces guaranteed basic income pilot program  

New UBI PhD Network

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 23/03/2024 - 8:25am in

Tags 

News

Hi All, We are an international group of PhD students interested in questions surrounding basic income. And we are very happy to announce a new initiative: the UBI PhD Network. Our goal is to connect young researchers working on UBI (and closely related topics) internationally. We aim to provide a platform for people to meet, have […]

New UBI PhD Network

Find Someone Who Loves You Like Israel Loves Attacking Palestinian Hospitals

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 21/03/2024 - 12:41pm in

Tags 

Gaza, News, Israel, IDF

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

https://medium.com/media/5da14eeb69f36f43dc607326b0bb61d9/href

The World Health Organization has issued a statement saying that it has recorded 410 Israeli attacks on Gazan healthcare services since October 7, resulting in 685 fatalities, 902 injuries, and damage to 99 healthcare facilities.

As of this writing there is a still-ongoing IDF assault on Al-Shifa Hospital, which according to Israel has resulted in scores of Palestinian deaths and the capture of hundreds of prisoners. This is the fourth time Israel has attacked this particular hospital, which happens to be the largest hospital in Gaza.

Survivors of the assault have told Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor that they repeatedly witnessed groups of prisoners being walked into the hospital morgue by IDF troops, then heard the sound of gunfire, then saw the IDF troops returning without the prisoners. Which is probably exactly what it would look and sound like if the IDF was conducting mass summary executions at Al-Shifa Hospital.

Sulaiman Ahmed on Twitter: "BREAKING: ISRAEL TAKE MORE CIVILIANS HOSTAGE FROM AL-SHIFAThey took 160 palestinians hostage including;✅ Intensive Unit Team✅ Dr. Nihad Abed✅ Dr. Mu'nis Muhaisen✅ Senior Nurse Rohi Labban✅ Nurse Kamal Kishko✅ Orthopaedic Team✅ Dr. Murad Al-Quqa✅ Nurse Yosef Abo... pic.twitter.com/hvN2hrUc8m / Twitter"

BREAKING: ISRAEL TAKE MORE CIVILIANS HOSTAGE FROM AL-SHIFAThey took 160 palestinians hostage including;✅ Intensive Unit Team✅ Dr. Nihad Abed✅ Dr. Mu'nis Muhaisen✅ Senior Nurse Rohi Labban✅ Nurse Kamal Kishko✅ Orthopaedic Team✅ Dr. Murad Al-Quqa✅ Nurse Yosef Abo... pic.twitter.com/hvN2hrUc8m

In an article for The Washington Post titled “How Biden became embroiled in a Gaza conflict with no end in sight” (the western press have an extensive track record of constantly framing US military aggressions as passive entanglements that the global superpower keeps innocently stumbling and bumbling its way into by accident), Yasmeen Abutaleb and John Hudson report that according to their sources the Biden White House misrepresented the intelligence whose claims were used to justify the first Al-Shifa raid back in November.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, told The Washington Post that there was a marked discrepancy between what White House officials were saying publicly about Al-Shifa and what the intelligence they’d seen actually said:

“Van Hollen, who had received a classified briefing about the U.S. intelligence on al-Shifa, said there were ‘important and subtle differences’ between what Biden officials were saying publicly and what the intelligence actually showed. ‘I did find there to be some disconnect between the administration’s public statements and the classified findings,’ the senator said.”

In December, when it was all long over, The Washington Post published a report which found that “the evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center.” It was obvious that Israel was lying about Al-Shifa at the time back in November, with psyops like a nonexistent Hamas calendar being “discovered” in the hospital and a fake video purporting to show an Al-Shifa nurse saying the hospital was overrun with Hamas fighters being debunked as fast as they could be produced.

Caitlin Johnstone on Twitter: "Are people not tired of having their intelligence insulted? https://t.co/SVPeXjR4OQ / Twitter"

Are people not tired of having their intelligence insulted? https://t.co/SVPeXjR4OQ

The evidence for the justification of this raid doesn’t appear to be any more robust, with the IDF publishing highly dubious footage of what it claims are “Hamas terrorist funds found inside Shifa Hospital”, complete with notes accompanying the money thanking Hamas by name for their “good work”.

Yeah okay sure, people have been somehow sending “Dear Hamas” letters to the militant group with wads of cash enclosed, and Hamas has been keeping both the cash and the letters in Al-Shifa Hospital, where they were kind enough to leave it for the incoming IDF raid to discover. Sounds legit. Definitely not the sort of thing Israel has been caught lying about many times before.

In an article titled “US and UK doctors in Washington to warn of IDF’s ‘appalling atrocities’ in Gaza”, The Guardian’s Chris McGreal writes the following:

Professor Nick Maynard, the former director for cancer services at Oxford University who worked at the al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza at the beginning of the year, accused the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of “appalling atrocities”.

“The IDF are systematically targeting healthcare facilities, healthcare personnel and really dismantling the whole healthcare system,” he said.

“It’s not just about targeting the buildings, it’s about systematically destroying the infrastructure of the hospitals. Destroying the oxygen tanks at the al-Shifa hospital, deliberately destroying the CT scanners and making it much more difficult to rebuild that infrastructure. If it was just targeting Hamas militants, why are they deliberately destroying the infrastructure of these institutions?”

The UN says none of Gaza’s 36 hospitals is fully functional. A dozen are partially working and the others are destroyed. On Monday, the Israeli military again raided the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Medical staff said the IDF killed and arrested Palestinians inside the hospital.

Khaled Elgindy on Twitter: "For those who still think Israel's assault on Gaza is about self-defense or even Hamas... US and UK doctors in Washington to warn of IDF's 'appalling atrocities' in Gaza https://t.co/ONkCJoLehD / Twitter"

For those who still think Israel's assault on Gaza is about self-defense or even Hamas... US and UK doctors in Washington to warn of IDF's 'appalling atrocities' in Gaza https://t.co/ONkCJoLehD

Israel’s constant fixation on attacking healthcare facilities makes no sense from a military strategic point of view, but it makes plenty of sense from a genocidal point of view. Hospitals are where people are brought to save their lives after they’ve been badly injured or have become acutely malnourished or sick, and they’re where civilians would normally take shelter when nowhere else is safe.

All the way back in December we were already seeing reports that Gaza’s healthcare system has been effectively destroyed by the nonstop attacks on healthcare facilities and the siege warfare cutting the enclave off from much-needed medical supplies. Now we are seeing Israel repeatedly re-attacking those same facilities, ensuring that they remain non-functioning despite all the most resilient efforts of the people of Gaza to stay alive.

This is exactly what it looks like. The narrative managers of Israel and the west will try to spin and distort the information you’re seeing right in front of your face to try and make you believe you’re seeing something other than what you’re seeing, but the truth really couldn’t be more self-evident. This is a genocide. If it wasn’t, Israel wouldn’t be methodically destroying hospitals while bombing and starving the population they’ve been oppressing for generations.

______________

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

It’s Journalistic Malpractice To Say Gazans Are Starving Without Saying Israel Is Starving Them

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 19/03/2024 - 11:08pm in

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

It's Journalistic Malpractice To Say Gazans Are Starving Without Saying Israel Is Starving Them

The mass media are printing some amazingly depraved headlines about a new UN-backed report on starvation in Gaza from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, who says half the enclave’s population is now at the highest-possible threat level for starvation.

The New York Times has a real corker out titled “Famine Is Projected for Northern Gaza, Experts Say”, subtitled “A global authority on food security said that in the coming months, as many as 1.1 million people in Gaza could face the severest levels of hunger.”

A casual news consumer could get multiple paragraphs into this article assuming that people in a place called Gaza are suffering from some kind of famine caused by natural events, like a drought or something. Not until paragraph four would they encounter the word “Israeli”, and not until paragraph five would they encounter the line “Israeli’s bombardment and a near-total blockade.”

At a time when only 20 percent of news readers ever make it past the headline of a given story, this is an extremely destructive and propagandistic act of journalistic malpractice. The editors of The New York Times know exactly what they’re doing packaging a story about Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinian civilians like it’s a troubling prediction about the weather.

Tariq Kenney-Shawa on Twitter: "Just when you think @nytimes coverage of Gaza couldn't get worse, they sink to new lows. Now they're describing famine in Gaza as if it's an inclement weather projection, rather than a weapon of war deployed by Israel to collectively punish Gaza's entire population. pic.twitter.com/nAlZPQdmJg / Twitter"

Just when you think @nytimes coverage of Gaza couldn't get worse, they sink to new lows. Now they're describing famine in Gaza as if it's an inclement weather projection, rather than a weapon of war deployed by Israel to collectively punish Gaza's entire population. pic.twitter.com/nAlZPQdmJg

Contrast the New York Times’ headline with that of Al Jazeera’s report on the same story: “Gaza headed towards famine amid Israeli aid curbs: What to know”. That’s the normal way to present a story about a deliberately inflicted famine upon an imperiled population. If a population was being deliberately starved by siege warfare from a nation like Russia, China or Iran, we may be absolutely certain that the name of that nation would appear in the headline.

But because the western media exist to generate propaganda and not to report the news, we get headlines like “Gaza faces famine during Ramadan, the holy month of fasting” from the BBC, and “Famine in northern Gaza is imminent as more than 1 million people face ‘catastrophic’ levels of hunger, new report warns” from CNN, and “Famine imminent in northern Gaza, says UN-backed report” from Reuters, and “‘Catastrophic levels of hunger’ in Gaza mean famine is imminent, says aid coalition” from The Guardian.

We saw this with Saudi Arabia’s US-backed starvation of Yemen as well. When the mass media talked about Yemen at all (usually they just ignored it), editors consistently obfuscated the fact that this was a population being deliberately starved by a cruel blockade and the deliberate targeting of food infrastructure. The fact that it was being made possible by the United States was almost never mentioned.

This is a very good example of how western propaganda works, by the way. The mainstream western press don’t generally make up whole-cloth lies (though they will uncritically print claims made by western government agencies who have an extensive history of lying); what they do is rely on half-truths, distortions and lies by omission to give their audiences a wildly slanted picture of what’s going on in the world. By always going out of their way to tell you an enemy of the US-centralized empire is committing an atrocity the millisecond it looks like they might be, while being furtive and obfuscatory about the crimes of the US and its allies, they give their audience a skewed understanding of who is and is not committing the real evils in our world.

This doesn’t typically happen as a result of any grand monolithic conspiracy; it’s mostly just the natural consequence of having all the major news platforms controlled by wealthy and powerful people who each have a vested interest in manufacturing consent for the status quo upon which their wealth and power are premised. The oligarchs control the media, and they hire the executives who run the media, and the executives hire the editors who write the headlines and guide the reporters to report a certain way, and this gives rise to a system where everyone working for the outlet conducts themselves in a way that just so happens to suit the powerful people on top.

Then before you know it you’ve got editors at The New York Times — a paper that’s been published by the same family for over a century — packaging a story about starvation caused by an Israeli siege to look like it’s a story about an innocent crop failure. Odds are nobody told them to do that; they just learned over the years that that’s how you rise to the top in an outlet like The New York Times.

________________

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 Adobe Stock.

Don’t Equate The Violence Of The Oppressor With The Violence Of The Oppressed

Published by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 19/03/2024 - 12:29pm in


Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

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

https://medium.com/media/35e62d041fc012fc04e3a9b2418bff9c/href

Israel has once again stormed Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital. Israel spent the first few weeks of the Gaza assault churning out fake audio clips of Hamas fighters exonerating the IDF from attacking hospitals and healthcare workers, and has spent all the months since just unapologetically attacking hospitals and healthcare workers.

CNN’s Dana Bash just gave an adoring rimjob of an interview to Benjamin Netanyahu, telling him “You’re not Hamas. Israel is a democracy, and as a Jewish state supports and believes in every life mattering.”

If Netanyahu was interviewed by an actual journalist he’d be forcefully interrogated with extremely uncomfortable questions about his genocidal atrocities in Gaza. When Netanyahu goes on CNN the anchor recites all of his pro-genocide talking points for him so he that doesn’t have to.

The underlying assumption behind the claim that Hamas needs to be eliminated is that Israel should be able to inflict nonstop violence on Palestinians day after day, year after year, generation after generation, without ever receiving any violence in return.

You can’t equate the violence of the oppressor with the violence of the oppressed. They’re not the same, and the oppressor is the ultimate source of the violence from both sides.

Say you’ve got a group of blue guys and a group of green guys. If the blue guys have power over the green guys and are constantly oppressing them, stealing from them, using violence on them and generally making life intolerable for the people they have power over, then the blue guys have no moral standing to get indignant and outraged when the green guys start responding to this with their own violence. That would be a ridiculous and illogical position for anyone to take.

In fact, if you look at what happened in our hypothetical scenario here, the blue guys are morally responsible for both their own violence AND the violence of the green guys, because they created the dynamics in which both happened. Had the blue guys not been oppressing and abusing the green guys, the green guys would not have responded with violence.

And you can argue “But the green guys aren’t making things any better with their violence! It’s just making the blue guys madder and more violent!” But that’s completely irrelevant to the question of responsibility, and to the fact that if the blue guys stop their violence and abuse there will be a cessation of violence from both sides.

The solution therefore is not to spend any energy whatsoever yelling at the green guys to stop being violent, the solution is to demand the blue guys stop being violent, abusive and oppressive toward the green guys — because that is the source of violence between the two groups. The violence of the blue guys is a cause, while the violence of the green guys is only an effect. You cannot therefore regard them in the same way, either morally or practically.

Niger kicking the French military out of the country was interesting and potentially significant. Niger kicking out both France and the US is a major development. To borrow a line from Django Unchained, gentlemen you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.

The US is backing a genocide and waging a proxy war against a nuclear superpower while the American people struggle with stagnant wages, a broken healthcare system and soaring costs of living, so naturally Americans are being told they need to be very, very worried about China.

Right wingers who regard themselves as bold anti-establishment freethinkers are currently defending the world’s most powerful government supplying bombs to drop on a giant concentration camp with arguments that ultimately boil down to “But the TV would never lie to me!”

If opposition to an active genocide shocks and offends you, that’s a character flaw, and you should change that about yourself. If it shocks and offends you because of your religious identity, that too is a character flaw. Supporting mass murder because of your religion is not a legitimate position to have.

_________________

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 Adobe Stock.

Pages