I watched The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for years. I stopped watching when Stewart and Colbert retired. John Oliver used to report for the Daily Show. Although I’ve long since stopped watching the Daily Show, I still watch John Oliver, although he’s often a bit frustrating. He has what seems like the right attitude, the right politics, a whole lot of empathy, a huge audience, and a global platform. But he still sticks to the extremely narrow channel of approved opinion.

The election is... [More]

This 23-minute video from early October, 2024 reports on the recent revelation from a Danish harbor master that—brace yourselves—there were several U.S. navy vessels in the vicinity of the attack on the day of the attack, with their transponders off. He’d been prevented from speaking out until now, when, presumably, it really doesn’t matter anymore. Germany’s over it, even though it has turned out to be the final nail in its coffin.

Nord Stream 'Mystery' SOLVED? by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

At 01:15,

“Let’s remember that the US, even before the... [More]”

This is a six-minute video that presents its thesis at hyper-speed but really well. The thesis is in the title: Palestine must continue to be a football in order for capitalism—and empire—to convince itself that it is still in charge.

Jason Hickel: Why a Liberated Palestine Threatens Global Capitalism by Transnational Institute (YouTube)

I’ve cleaned up a large part of the transcript below.

“What explains this incredible paradox? It’s ultimately our system of production, the social and ecological crisis that we face, which appears unresolvable, is ultimately a symptom of our system of... [More]”

Julian Assange: JournalistI had a conversation with a young friend, who’d admitted that he didn’t know who Julian Assange was. I wrote the following short bio for them.

Don’t feel bad that you don’t know who he is. He’d been incarcerated for over half of your life. Your media environment has been engineered to disappear him from the public eye. He’s not talked about in normal circles.

He is a journalist, the founder of WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks grew famous for (A) publishing only true information that (B) shone an... [More]

Leveling a whole village in LebanonEthnic Cleansing in Jabalia 2024

Photo by Onur Burak Akın − Lebanon

Imagine if that were your neighborhood.

Imagine if those were you and your neighbors, herded into the streets, made to stand in the sun with all of your worldly belongings in a torn bag, held in one hand, while, in the other, you brandish an ID issued by your oppressor, because the oppressor demands it.

You stand for hours.

Can you imagine it?

Of course not. Because things like that don’t happen to good people.

It only happens to those who deserve it, who aren’t even really people, when... [More]

Chris Hedges: The American Ruling Class Explained by The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel (YouTube)

A partial transcript from the 2-minute video.

“Our political class does not govern; it entertains. It plays its assigned role in our fictitious democracy, howling with outrage to constituents and selling them out. The squad and the progressive caucus have no more intention of fighting for universal health care, workers rights, or defying the war machine than the freedom caucus fights for freedom.

“These political hacks are modern versions of Sinclair Lewis’s slick con artist Elmer Gantry cynically... [More]”

If you think the current barrage of pro-Democrat propaganda is bad, remember that this has been going on all year. They started very early. For example, the article How Bad It Was by Richard Farr (3 Quarks Daily) writes about the Bush years. It’s essentially an essay that is a campaign ad for choosing the lesser evil, which is clearly the Democrats in the author’s eyes. They exhorted readers to choose now, and to start donating at least $25 regularly, even thought that’s a “pathetic” amount. How much money do these dopes need... [More]

The article Israel Raids Hospital by Liz Wolfe (Reason) is from February but the incident it describes has been repeated at least a dozen—if not dozens—of times since. It illustrates quite concisely how you should write about war crimes when you wholeheartedly support them. It hits all the standard notes:

• Attacking a hospital is a normal thing.
• It’s perfectly reasonable to tell everyone in a hospital to evacuate.
• The hospital is a enemy headquarters (this time it’s true!).
• The enemy uses human shields.
• The... [More]

The article Why the US Is Reimposing Sanctions on Venezuela? by Roger D. Harris (Antiwar.com) came out in February, so about six months ago. I took some notes on it before the U.S. decided to completely ignore the Venezuelan election results a few weeks ago.

So, how was it going in Venezuela before the election?

“Even with limited sanctions relief, Venezuela anticipated a 27% increase in revenues for its state-run oil company. Experts predicted a “moderate economic expansion” after having experienced the greatest economic... [More]”

I listened to the The Vladimir Putin Interview by Tucker Carlson (127 minutes), which is also available as Ep. 73 The Vladimir Putin Interview (Twitter). The article Tucker Carlson Interviews Vladimir Putin by Tucker Carlson (Scheer Post) includes a transcript found on the Kremlin’s website. You have to subscribe to Tucker Carlson to get the transcript from him. Those dirty commies in the Kremlin just gave it away for free.

Vladimir Putin

The interview was over two hours. What follows are just some longer quotes I took from the transcript, with a few notes of my... [More]

The article The US/UK attack on Yemen and the global eruption of imperialist war by WSWS Editorial Board (WSWS) describes how the U.S. and UK opened a new front in their war on the middle east.

“[…] supposedly it is Yemen that is the “aggressor,” carrying out “unprecedented attacks” on US military forces deployed in the Red Sea, thousands of miles from the US border. American imperialism, which has a military larger than that of the next 10 countries combined, claims to be waging a “defensive” war on the other... [More]”

The article When META Met Society by Scott H. Greenfield (Simple Justice) writes about the evils of META (Most Effective Tactics Available). The author cites an essay by Megan McArdle. Neither one of these fools can think of an example of META that corresponds to actual power. That perennial dipshit McArdle thinks that a 17-year-old swatting hundreds of people is a good example. Greenfield sticks to the obvious, as cited below.

“If you were big and strong, you could beat up someone small and weak. You could steal their wallet, watch... [More]”

Jeremy Scahill was absolutely en fuego in this 90-minute interview. I’ve cleaned up the YouTube transcript—it gets most of the words, but includes verbal tics, has no punctuation, has a very cavalier attitude toward capitalization, and simply will not transcribe certain words correctly. Anyway, Jeremy and Briahna had a great conversation about terrible, terrible topics.

IDF Soldiers DESECRATE Gaza Cemetery and Other Israel BOMBSHELLS (w/ Jeremy Scahill) by Bad Faith (YouTube)

At around 24:00 they talk about the circumstances surrounding the recent defunding of UNRWA.

“Jeremy It’s hard to shock... [More]”

The more I listen to the Blowback podcast, the more it’s clear that the U.S. has never been ruled by good people—or by smart people. They may be intelligent but their ideology makes them stupid. Or they’re just stupid. Either way, none of them are good. None of them have anything approaching universal principles. They are nearly all at least self-serving hypocrites. They are nearly all raging egos, bastards who don’t take the blame for anything. They are more than occasionally actual... [More]

A friend asked me for my opinion on the situation in the middle east, specifically on Israel/Palestine. Hoo-boy.

I wrote something like the following, although I’ve enhanced it a bit.

Israel is interested in clearing all of the Palestinians off of that land. They will shoot them if they have to, but starving them into leaving the country is also acceptable. Once they’re finished in Gaza, they’ll finish up in the West Bank, where they’ve already increased the ferocity of the occupation. It’s... [More]

It’s a bizarre thing that some countries just get to fly over other countries with their militaries—with their air force, to be more precise—and just bomb them on any day they feel like it. Like Israel just up and bombs Iraq, Lebanon, or Syria whenever it feels like it and no-one blinks an eye. The article US and UK Bomb Dozens of Sites in Yemen by Dave DeCamp (Scheer Post) writes that this just happened recently. No-one really cares—not enough to even dream of doing anything about it. No country that the U.S.... [More]

The article Go Straight to Jail by Jack Norton, Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, and Judah Schept (The Baffler) discusses the effects of jails on the communities in which they’re located.

“These numbers represent real people—hundreds of thousands of people who are directly impacted by the violence of jail incarceration and detention, millions of people who are affected by the extraction that jail facilitates, and by the violence that is perpetrated on families and communities through policing and incarceration across the varied geography of the United States.”

Jails and... [More]

Similar to the article Cheerleading for the … what’s the opposite of underdog?, the content below appeared in my Links and Notes for October 13th, 2023, which I managed to publish on October 23rd. I’ve edited things lightly, but I’m publishing these reactions again to have them in a separate article and because I think my initial take has aged relatively well.

The article The Spiral of Violence that Led to Hamas by Peter Singer (Project Syndicate) writes,

“Hamas reportedly holds roughly 150 hostages, and has said that it... [More]”

The content below appeared in my Links and Notes for October 6th, 2023, which I managed to publish on October 21st. I’ve edited things lightly, but I’m publishing these reactions again to have them in a separate article and because I think my initial take has aged relatively well—especially as compared with that of European leaders like Frau Baerbock of Germany.

The article Netanyahu regime staggered by Palestinian uprising by Alex Lantier (WSWS) was published on October 8th and writes,

“The World Socialist Web... [More]”

The article The Rot On His Own Side by Scott H. Greenfield (Simple Justice) writes,

“There is no principle that enables Schumer, or Biden, or any liberal, to find common ground with people who can make excuses for rape, together with the litany of horrors perpetrated by Hamas.”

I’ve written about the author a few times because of the extremely sharp turn he took on October 7th, 2023. See Losing the plot completely on November 1, 2023, Some commentator are still MIA on November 6, 2023, and Moar unhinged commentary on November 23, 2023.

At the beginning of December, Greenfield was still... [More]

The article No ‘End of History’ in Ukraine by Scott Ritter (Scheer Post) mentions Francis Fukuyama, citing him at length on what he meant by “the end of history”.

““Liberal democracy,” Fukuyama wrote, “replaces the irrational desire to be recognized as greater than others with a rational desire to be recognized as equal.” “A world made up of liberal democracies, then, should have much less incentive for war, since all nations would reciprocally recognize one another’s legitimacy. And indeed, there is substantial... [More]”

This kind of thing happens with awful regularity in the U.S. the Florida executes man after US Supreme Court denies his intellectual disability claim by Kate Randall (WSWS) is about a guy who is very obviously intellectually disabled. He is not ready for the world as she is. He had the kind of life that no-one would want to have, not in a million years.

Michael Duane Zack III

“Zack suffered a litany of horrors in his childhood. His lawyers wrote in a court filing that his mother drank heavily throughout her pregnancy. He was hospitalized... [More]”

This video is from a while back and I included in my weekly notes, but it was an interesting enough example of the kind of person that Glenn Greenwald is willing to interview—even though there’s not a lot of overlap between Glenn’s principles and whatever passes for Max Abrahms’s principles. The guy is pretty popular in some circles—he writes for the Atlantic, surprise, surprise—so it’s good to hear what he’s got to say instead of just dismissing it out of hand.

Glenn Greenwald & Max Abrahms Debate Israel-Gaza, Free Speech, & More by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

I think this is pretty... [More]

Israel doesn’t have a right to exist because no state has any rights, least of the right to exist. What a silly concept! Can you imagine if the Russian Tsars had taken the Bolsheviks to the ICC[1] because their right to exist had been violated? What a concept.

People have rights. International law regulates various aspects of how states may interact, but does not grant any rights to them. There is no “no takebacks” clause in international law. Any state can disappear or change shape if the people... [More]

I recently wrote about how good the Best of This is Hell! 2023 end-of-hear series has been. The episode Best of 2023: Living and Reliving the U.S. Invasion of Iraq / Rasha Al Aqeedi (This is Hell!) was a counterexample. I thought Rasha’s analysis was more superficial than the standard set by the other episodes.

• She says no-one should cheerlead a war, especially when they’re not involved, that any war is a tragedy, a diplomatic failure … but then she says that she’s totally pro-Ukraine. ARRRRGGGGHHHH.... [More]

So I’ve been listening to this podcast called Blowback by Brendan James and Noah Kulwin. It’s an American history podcast, but with a focus on foreign policy. I started listening to the fourth season, which is about Afghanistan. It’s in progress and up to episode 8 of 10 as of yesterday.

When I’d caught up to episode 7, I started in immediately on their inaugural podcast, S01, which is about Iraq. It’s not just about the invasion of in 2003. It starts in the early 20th century, explaining how British machinations kicked off... [More]

The article Undivided Loyalties by Patrick Lawrence (Scheer Post) starts off with this anecdote about Walter Lippmann.

“Lippmann, the celebrated editor, commentator and author attended a dinner party in Manhattan one evening, and at the port-and-cigars stage of the occasion the host announced an intellectual amusement. All those who advocated socialism were to stand on one side of the dining room, and on the other those who favored the capitalist system. The guests duly divided. And when they were done sorting themselves out, Lippmann... [More]”

The article German Group Won’t Present Arendt Prize to Masha Gessen Over Gaza Essay by Brett Wilkins (Scheer Post) is just one example among many recent ones, where both the German government and its cultural institutions are in increasing lockstep in controlling the narrative—controlling how its citizens are allowed to think.

German ultranationalist intelligentsiaIn the case cited in the article, Masha Gessen will still receive the Hannah Arendt award, but it will be presented “without the participation of the Heinrich Böll Foundation”, whatever the hell... [More]

I heard part of this guy’s Jim Himes’s speech in the following video,

Media Pushes Obvious Deep State PsyOp by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

I was struck by my utter inability to tell which party he was from. My only hint was that he was calling for more money for Ukraine, so I figured he must be a Democrat.[1]

But all of the rest of the words were the same words a Republican would use to encourage continued war. Let me throw a bit of the transcript in here, taken from H5846 − December 12, 2023 (Congressional Record)

“Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for... [More]”

Look, I know the title isn’t going to come as much of a surprise to anyone who knows me, but I’ve heard that he’s the “sane one”. I’d heard the same thing about Nikki Haley, though. It didn’t take at lot of research to belie that hypothesis. Here’s a very little bit of research on Vivek, based on the 20-minute interview below.

Israel Can Defend Itself However They Want – Vivek Ramaswamy by Jimmy Dore (YouTube)

Dore let him talk. A lot. He didn’t even disagree with him, even though he said some pretty outrageous and clearly incorrect—at best, misguided—things.

ignorance is strengthVivek is... [More]