offguardian--2020-12-07--The Past Lives On: The Elite Strategy To Divide and Conquer

“ They call my people the White Lower Middle Class these days .
It is an ugly , ice-cold phrase , the result , I suppose , of the missionary zeal of those sociologists who still think you can place human beings on charts .
It most certainly does not sound like a description of people on the edge of open , sustained and possibly violent revolt , ” wrote the marvelous New York journalist , Pete Hamill in “ The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class ” in New York magazine .
He wrote that on April 14 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Transferred from NYC to the middle of the country half a century later , these people are referred to as Trump ’ s “ deplorables.
” They comes in baskets , as Hillary Clinton said .
And even though they represent nearly half the voting public in the last two presidential elections – 70+ million Americans – their complaints are dismissed as the rantings of ignorant , conservative racists .
Name calling substitutes for understanding .
This is not an accident .
Like Hamill , I am a NYC born and bred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Brooklyn .
We both attended the same Jesuit high school in different years .
Unlike Hamill , known for his gritty street reporting , because I have been a college sociology professor , I could falsely be categorized as a northeastern liberal intellectual oozing with disdain for those who voted for Trump .
This is false , because , like Hamill , I see it as my intellectual duty to understand what motivates these voters , just as I do with those who voted for Biden .
I didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I vote for Joseph Biden , or Hillary Clinton in 2016 .
I am not one of those sociologists Hamill refers to ; I use the term Working Class and am acutely aware of the social class nature of life in the USA , where the economic system of neo-liberal capitalism is constructed to try to convince working Americans that the system cares for them , and if they grow disgusted with its lies and inequities and rage against the machine by voting for anyone who seems to be with them ( even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ named Trump who is not with them ) , they are dumb-ass bigots whose concerns should be brushed off .
The truth is that both the Trump voters and the Biden voters have been taken for a ride .
It is a game , a show , a movie , a spectacle .
It hasn ’ t changed much since 1969 ; the rich have gotten richer and the poor , working , and middle classes have gotten poorer and more desperate .
Those who have profited have embraced the fraud .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a new analysis showing that since the start of the Covid-19 “ pandemic ” in mid-March and the subsequent transfer upwards of $ 5 trillion to the wealthy and largest corporations through the Cares Act , approved 96-0 in the US Senate , 650 US billionaires have gained over a trillion dollars in eight months as the American people have suffered an economic catastrophe .
This shift upward of massive wealth under Trump is similar to Obama ’ s massive 2009 bailout of the banks on the backs of American workers .
Both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both political parties , accomplices in the fleecing of regular people , many of whom continue to support the politicians that screw them while telling them they care .
If the Democrats and the Republicans are at war as is often claimed , it is only over who gets the larger part of the spoils .
Trump and Biden work for the same bosses , those I call the Umbrella People ( those who own and run the country through their intelligence/military/media operatives ) , who produce and direct the movie that keeps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their seats in the hope that their chosen good guy wins in the end .
I am well aware that most people disagree with my analysis .
It does seem as if I am wrong and that because the Democrats and their accomplices have spent years attempting to oust Trump through Russia-gate , impeachment , etc .
that what seems true is true and Trump is simply a crazy aberration who somehow slipped through the net of establishment control to rule for four years .
To those 146+ million people who voted for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But if that is so , why , despite their superficial differences – and Obama ’ s , Hillary Clinton ’ s and George W. Bush ’ s for that matter – have the super-rich gotten richer and richer over the decades and the war on terror continued as the military budget has increased each year and the armament industries and the Wall Street crooks continued to rake in the money at the expense of everyone else ?
These are a few facts that can ’ t be disputed .
There are many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under Trump ?
We are talking about nuances , small changes .
A clown with a big mouth versus traditional , “ dignified ” con men .
If you were writing this script as part of long-term planning and average people were getting disgusted from decades of being screwed and were sick of politicians and their lying ways , wouldn ’ t you stop the reruns and create a new show ?
Come on , this is Hollywood where creative showmen can dazzle our minds with plots so twisted that when you leave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was all about and arguing with your friends about the ending .
So create a throwback film where the good guy versus the bad guy was seemingly very clear , and while the system ground on , people would be at each other ’ s throats over the obvious differences , even while they were fabricated .
Variety is necessary .
You wouldn ’ t want to repeat the film from 2008 when a well-spoken black man came into town out of nowhere to clean up the mess created by the poorly spoken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the black hero went on to wage war in seven countries while his fans sat contented in the audience loving the show and making believe they didn ’ t see what was happening on the screen even though their hero jailed whistle blowers and greatly expanded the surveillance state right in front of their eyes .
No , as the years passed , those two guys turned out to be buddies , and their wives hit it off , and a famous photograph appeared of the good guy ’ s wife hugging the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ good thing for the script that has the Republicans warring against the Democrats .
A new story line was needed .
How about an opéra bouffe , someone suggested , and the rest is history .
Or pseudo-history .
This is the real matrix .
The most sophisticated mind control operation up to this point , with the coronavirus lockdown added to propel it to what the producers hope is a conclusion .
What more can I say ?
The Towers pulverized .
David Ray Griffin told us the truth repetitively .
Minds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ginsberg said in Howl : “ I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.
” It ’ s been many generations now .
There has been a form of social madness growing over the decades and it is everywhere now .
Look at people ’ s faces , if you can see them behind the masks ; everywhere the strained and stressed looks , the scared rabbit eyes that you see on the wards of mental hospitals .
The look that says : what the fuck has happened as they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tumbling void , to paraphrase Don DeLillo from his new book Silence , where people speak gibberish once their digital world is mysteriously taken down and they wander in the dark .
We are in the dark now , even though the lights and screens are still shining for the time being .
Let those who think I am wrong about Trump and Biden being players in the same show , consider this .
If Trump is truly the opponent of the Deep State , the Swamp , the corrupt establishment , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Edward Snowden who have been persecuted by these forces .
He has nothing left to lose as he exits stage right .
The journalist Julian Assange has done more than anyone to expose the sick underbelly of the gangster state , its intelligence and military secrets , its illegal and immoral killings .
That is why he has been hounded and locked away for so long .
It ’ s a bipartisan persecution of an innocent man whose only “ crime ” has been to tell the truth that is allegedly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chelsey Manning has also suffered tremendously for exposing the savagery of US military operations .
And Edward Snowden has been forced into Russian exile for telling us about the vast global surveillance systems run by the NSA and CIA to spy on the American people .
Three innocent truth-tellers at war with the Deep-State forces that Donald Trump says he opposes .
If he is what his supporters claim , he will pardon these courageous three .
It ’ s all in his power .
A simple , clear message as he goes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ smallest chance he does pardon them , I will be very happy and publicly apologize .
If he doesn ’ t , as I expect , please don ’ t say a word in his defense .
My ears will be stuffed with wax .
For he won ’ t , because , like Biden , he is controlled by the very forces that these truth-tellers have exposed .
But back to the working class “ deplorables ” that voted for Trump .
They aren ’ t going anywhere .
Their grievances remain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican administrations , their lives have been hollowed out , their livelihoods taken as corporate thieves have ravaged their towns and cities by closing down the factories where they worked and sending them overseas for greater profits .
Small farmers have been “ liquidated ” for agribusiness .
As always , the coastal urbanites have considered rural people stupid , uncouth , and clownish , as the words clown , boor , and villain have all originally meant farmer or countryman or lower-class peasant .
Such hidden etymological social class prejudices have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Towns and small businesses disappear , traditional values are ridiculed , drug addiction and suicide increase , the fabric of traditions crumble , etc .
This list is long .
The people who voted for Trump feel betrayed ; feel like victims .
Of course , as Pete Hamill wrote of the NYC white working class in 1969 , there are racists among them , and with all racists , they have their reasons , but these reasons are poison and despicable .
But overall , these Trump voters are , in Hamill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revolt against taxes , joyless work , the double standards and short memories of professional politicians , hypocrisy and what he considers the debasement of the American dream.
” Any politician , he added , who leaves these people out of the political equation , does so at a very large risk .
That risk has been growing over the decades .
Yet desperate people do desperate things , and for many Americans these are desperate times .
Everywhere you look , there are long lines at food pantries and soup kitchens .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Suicides .
Drug and alcohol addictions rising .
Clear signs of social disintegration .
This is true not just in the United States but is happening around the world as neo-liberal economic policies are exacerbated by the widespread lockdowns that have given rise to massive protests worldwide , protests that the corporate press has failed to publicize since doing so would give the lie to their promotions of the lockdowns .
In England , the Mirror newspaper just printed the legendary Australian journalist John Pilger ’ s article about his 1975 interviews @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Many Trump voters no doubt know that Trump was never going to save them .
But he said the right things , and desperation and disgust will grasp onto the slightest will-o ’ -the-wisp when disbelief in the whole rotten system is widespread .
Let ’ s not bullshit : everyone knows the game is rigged .
Fill in the names of the political charlatans .
The system is built on lies to keep the illusions brightening the screen of the great picture show , what Neil Gabler has rightly called “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doubt desperately hope that we can go back to some semblance of “ normal , ” even while knowing this is a losing game .
Many of them try hard to conceal their true feelings , that their hatred for Trump and their love of living in times when imperialism is concealed as democracy is what they want .
They don ’ t want to know .
Concealment of the atrocious underbelly of normal is their hope and desire , even while they too are being fleeced and secretly know that the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their restorative dreams .
There are exceptions , of course , true believers who think Biden will significantly change things , but I would say they are a very small minority .
Many Biden voters say they have voted for the “ lesser of two evils , ” an old , worn-out excuse that in a rigged system will perdure .
Little changes .
The past lives on .
Next year ’ s Academy Awards will be interesting .
A wit I know suggested that perhaps Trump and Biden will be nominees for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and they will tie for the Oscar .
That will be the second time that has ever happened .
The first was in 1932 when Fredric March and Wallace Beery shared the award .
March starred in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Beery in the boxing film , The Champ .
Both winners will be announced as starring in the same film , confusing the audience until it ’ s named : The American Nightmare .
Then raucous cheering will erupt from the jaded audience .
Dr. Jekyll will embrace Mr. Hyde @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bow as he winks for the cameras .
Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely .
He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts .
His website is http : //edwardcurtin.com/ .
He is the author of the new book Seeking Truth in A Country of Lies

Edward Curtin
“They call my people the White Lower Middle Class these days. It is an ugly, ice-cold phrase, the result, I suppose, of the missionary zeal of those sociologists who still think you can place human beings on charts. It most certainly does not sound like a description of people on the edge of open, sustained and possibly violent revolt,” wrote the marvelous New York journalist, Pete Hamill in “The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class” in New York magazine.
He added:
The White Lower Middle Class? Say that magic phrase at a cocktail party on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and monstrous images arise from the American demonology. Here comes the murderous rabble: fat, well-fed, bigoted, ignorant, an army of beer-soaked Irishmen, violence-loving Italians, hate-filled Poles. Lithuanians and Hungarians….Sometimes these brutes are referred to as ‘the ethnics’ or ‘the blue-collar types.’ But the bureaucratic, sociological phrase is White Lower Middle Class. Nobody calls it the Working Class anymore.
He wrote that on April 14, 1969. Yesterday. Little changes.
Transferred from NYC to the middle of the country half a century later, these people are referred to as Trump’s “deplorables.” They comes in baskets, as Hillary Clinton said. And even though they represent nearly half the voting public in the last two presidential elections – 70+ million Americans – their complaints are dismissed as the rantings of ignorant, conservative racists.
Name calling substitutes for understanding. This is not an accident.
Like Hamill, I am a NYC born and bred Irish-American – my working-class Bronx to Pete’s Brooklyn. We both attended the same Jesuit high school in different years. Unlike Hamill, known for his gritty street reporting, because I have been a college sociology professor, I could falsely be categorized as a northeastern liberal intellectual oozing with disdain for those who voted for Trump. This is false, because, like Hamill, I see it as my intellectual duty to understand what motivates these voters, just as I do with those who voted for Biden.
I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, nor did I vote for Joseph Biden, or Hillary Clinton in 2016. I am not one of those sociologists Hamill refers to; I use the term Working Class and am acutely aware of the social class nature of life in the USA, where the economic system of neo-liberal capitalism is constructed to try to convince working Americans that the system cares for them, and if they grow disgusted with its lies and inequities and rage against the machine by voting for anyone who seems to be with them (even a super-rich reality TV real estate magnate named Trump who is not with them), they are dumb-ass bigots whose concerns should be brushed off.
The truth is that both the Trump voters and the Biden voters have been taken for a ride. It is a game, a show, a movie, a spectacle. It hasn’t changed much since 1969; the rich have gotten richer and the poor, working, and middle classes have gotten poorer and more desperate. Those who have profited have embraced the fraud.
The Institute for Policy Studies has just released a new analysis showing that since the start of the Covid-19 “pandemic” in mid-March and the subsequent transfer upwards of $5 trillion to the wealthy and largest corporations through the Cares Act, approved 96-0 in the US Senate, 650 US billionaires have gained over a trillion dollars in eight months as the American people have suffered an economic catastrophe.
This shift upward of massive wealth under Trump is similar to Obama’s massive 2009 bailout of the banks on the backs of American workers. Both were justified through feats of legerdemain by both political parties, accomplices in the fleecing of regular people, many of whom continue to support the politicians that screw them while telling them they care.
If the Democrats and the Republicans are at war as is often claimed, it is only over who gets the larger part of the spoils. Trump and Biden work for the same bosses, those I call the Umbrella People (those who own and run the country through their intelligence/military/media operatives), who produce and direct the movie that keeps so many Americans on the edge of their seats in the hope that their chosen good guy wins in the end.
I am well aware that most people disagree with my analysis. It does seem as if I am wrong and that because the Democrats and their accomplices have spent years attempting to oust Trump through Russia-gate, impeachment, etc. that what seems true is true and Trump is simply a crazy aberration who somehow slipped through the net of establishment control to rule for four years.
To those 146+ million people who voted for Biden and Trump this seems self-evident. But if that is so, why, despite their superficial differences – and Obama’s, Hillary Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s for that matter – have the super-rich gotten richer and richer over the decades and the war on terror continued as the military budget has increased each year and the armament industries and the Wall Street crooks continued to rake in the money at the expense of everyone else?
These are a few facts that can’t be disputed. There are many more. So what’s changed under Trump? We are talking about nuances, small changes. A clown with a big mouth versus traditional, “dignified” con men.
If you were writing this script as part of long-term planning and average people were getting disgusted from decades of being screwed and were sick of politicians and their lying ways, wouldn’t you stop the reruns and create a new show? Come on, this is Hollywood where creative showmen can dazzle our minds with plots so twisted that when you leave the theater you keep wondering what it was all about and arguing with your friends about the ending.
So create a throwback film where the good guy versus the bad guy was seemingly very clear, and while the system ground on, people would be at each other’s throats over the obvious differences, even while they were fabricated.
Variety is necessary. You wouldn’t want to repeat the film from 2008 when a well-spoken black man came into town out of nowhere to clean up the mess created by the poorly spoken white sheriff who loved war and then the black hero went on to wage war in seven countries while his fans sat contented in the audience loving the show and making believe they didn’t see what was happening on the screen even though their hero jailed whistle blowers and greatly expanded the surveillance state right in front of their eyes.
No, as the years passed, those two guys turned out to be buddies, and their wives hit it off, and a famous photograph appeared of the good guy’s wife hugging the bad guy, which was not a good thing for the script that has the Republicans warring against the Democrats.
A new story line was needed. How about an opéra bouffe, someone suggested, and the rest is history. Or pseudo-history. This is the real matrix. The most sophisticated mind control operation up to this point, with the coronavirus lockdown added to propel it to what the producers hope is a conclusion.
What more can I say?
Billy Joel said it: “JFK blown away.”
The Towers pulverized. David Ray Griffin told us the truth repetitively.
Minds of this generation destroyed, as Allen Ginsberg said in Howl: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.”
It’s been many generations now. There has been a form of social madness growing over the decades and it is everywhere now. Look at people’s faces, if you can see them behind the masks; everywhere the strained and stressed looks, the scared rabbit eyes that you see on the wards of mental hospitals. The look that says: what the fuck has happened as they stare into a blank screen in a tumbling void, to paraphrase Don DeLillo from his new book Silence, where people speak gibberish once their digital world is mysteriously taken down and they wander in the dark. We are in the dark now, even though the lights and screens are still shining for the time being.
Let those who think I am wrong about Trump and Biden being players in the same show, consider this. If Trump is truly the opponent of the Deep State, the Swamp, the corrupt establishment, he will pardon Julian Assange, Chelsey Manning, and Edward Snowden who have been persecuted by these forces. He has nothing left to lose as he exits stage right.
The journalist Julian Assange has done more than anyone to expose the sick underbelly of the gangster state, its intelligence and military secrets, its illegal and immoral killings. That is why he has been hounded and locked away for so long. It’s a bipartisan persecution of an innocent man whose only “crime” has been to tell the truth that is allegedly the essence of a democratic society.
Chelsey Manning has also suffered tremendously for exposing the savagery of US military operations.
And Edward Snowden has been forced into Russian exile for telling us about the vast global surveillance systems run by the NSA and CIA to spy on the American people.
Three innocent truth-tellers at war with the Deep-State forces that Donald Trump says he opposes.
If he is what his supporters claim, he will pardon these courageous three. It’s all in his power. A simple, clear message as he goes out the door. If by the smallest chance he does pardon them, I will be very happy and publicly apologize. If he doesn’t, as I expect, please don’t say a word in his defense. My ears will be stuffed with wax. For he won’t, because, like Biden, he is controlled by the very forces that these truth-tellers have exposed.
But back to the working class “deplorables” that voted for Trump. They aren’t going anywhere. Their grievances remain. For decades, under Democratic and Republican administrations, their lives have been hollowed out, their livelihoods taken as corporate thieves have ravaged their towns and cities by closing down the factories where they worked and sending them overseas for greater profits. Small farmers have been “liquidated” for agribusiness.
As always, the coastal urbanites have considered rural people stupid, uncouth, and clownish, as the words clown, boor, and villain have all originally meant farmer or countryman or lower-class peasant. Such hidden etymological social class prejudices have a way of persisting over the years.
Towns and small businesses disappear, traditional values are ridiculed, drug addiction and suicide increase, the fabric of traditions crumble, etc. This list is long. The people who voted for Trump feel betrayed; feel like victims. Of course, as Pete Hamill wrote of the NYC white working class in 1969, there are racists among them, and with all racists, they have their reasons, but these reasons are poison and despicable. But overall, these Trump voters are, in Hamill’s words, “actually in revolt against taxes, joyless work, the double standards and short memories of professional politicians, hypocrisy and what he considers the debasement of the American dream.”
Any politician, he added, who leaves these people out of the political equation, does so at a very large risk. That risk has been growing over the decades.
Yet desperate people do desperate things, and for many Americans these are desperate times. Everywhere you look, there are long lines at food pantries and soup kitchens. The unemployment numbers are staggering. Homelessness. Suicides. Drug and alcohol addictions rising. Clear signs of social disintegration.
This is true not just in the United States but is happening around the world as neo-liberal economic policies are exacerbated by the widespread lockdowns that have given rise to massive protests worldwide, protests that the corporate press has failed to publicize since doing so would give the lie to their promotions of the lockdowns.
In England, the Mirror newspaper just printed the legendary Australian journalist John Pilger’s article about his 1975 interviews with impoverished English families with this lead:
John Pilger interviewed Irene Brunsden in Hackney, east London about only being able to feed her two-year-old a plate of cornflakes in 1975. Now he sees nervous women queueing at foodbanks with their children as it’s revealed 600,000 more kids are in poverty now than in 2012.
Vast numbers of people are suffering.
Many Trump voters no doubt know that Trump was never going to save them. But he said the right things, and desperation and disgust will grasp onto the slightest will-o’-the-wisp when disbelief in the whole rotten system is widespread.
Let’s not bullshit: everyone knows the game is rigged.
Trump is a liar.
Biden is a liar.
Great Britain’s Boris Johnson is a liar.
Fill in the names of the political charlatans.
The system is built on lies to keep the illusions brightening the screen of the great picture show, what Neil Gabler has rightly called “life the movie.”
Biden voters no doubt desperately hope that we can go back to some semblance of “normal,” even while knowing this is a losing game. Many of them try hard to conceal their true feelings, that their hatred for Trump and their love of living in times when imperialism is concealed as democracy is what they want. They don’t want to know.
Concealment of the atrocious underbelly of normal is their hope and desire, even while they too are being fleeced and secretly know that the “new normal” will be far from their restorative dreams. There are exceptions, of course, true believers who think Biden will significantly change things, but I would say they are a very small minority. Many Biden voters say they have voted for the “lesser of two evils,” an old, worn-out excuse that in a rigged system will perdure.
Little changes. The past lives on.
Next year’s Academy Awards will be interesting. A wit I know suggested that perhaps Trump and Biden will be nominees for the Best Actor in a Leading Role and they will tie for the Oscar. That will be the second time that has ever happened. The first was in 1932 when Fredric March and Wallace Beery shared the award. March starred in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Beery in the boxing film, The Champ.
Both winners will be announced as starring in the same film, confusing the audience until it’s named: The American Nightmare. Then raucous cheering will erupt from the jaded audience. Dr. Jekyll will embrace Mr. Hyde and the melded Champ will take a bow as he winks for the cameras.
Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely. He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His website is http://edwardcurtin.com/. He is the author of the new book Seeking Truth in A Country of Lies


offguardian--2020-12-06--This Week in the Guardian #18

This Week in the Guardian #18

This week we ’ re told that the Great Reset isn ’ t happening , and taught how to “ handle ” the conspiracy theorists who think it is .
Every week we like to highlight three or four stories that go full-Guardian , but don ’ t require an entire article of refutation .
We encourage reader-participation here , so if you come across something you feel should be included in the next edition either post a link below , or send us an e-mail .
If we can grow cruelty-free meat in a lab , what is there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ food reform ” is going to be an integral part of the Great Reset , through the pushing of vegan diets , edible insects , taxes on meat , fat or sugar , George Monbiot ’ s edible slime or lab grown meat .
This article by Barbara Ellen – one of the Guardian ’ s shallowest thinkers , which is really saying something – is painting the fake lab-grown meat as a compromise on veganism .
She ’ s selling it as “ meat without the cruelty ” and a possible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do these people think will happen to all the chickens , pigs , sheep and cows if we end the practice of farming animals for food ?
Are they imagining they ’ ll all live care-free lives in some kind of farm-zoo ?
Because they won ’ t .
They ’ ll be slaughtered , and because of the insane world we live in , eating the slaughtered animals will be labelled “ cruel ” , so they ’ ll probably be burned instead .
Nobody will say anything about that being bad @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by getting rid of all the animals is an interesting plan .
Enemies of the sheeple : why do pop stars fall for conspiracy theories ?
The Guardian is attacking musicians who express any kind of doubt about the “ pandemic ” narrative as a way of stifling dissent and trying to label Covid “ conspiracy theories ” as the domain of out of touch celebrities who don ’ t know what they ’ re talking about .
There ’ s an awful lot of cod psychology , but very few facts or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jibes , but no quotes from the people concerned .
There ’ s actually been very little basic research done at all .
A case in point is the ( totally unsourced ) anecdote in the opening paragraph : Dorian Lynskey , the author of the of this insufferable article , is attempting to paint Crosby ’ s view on the JFK assassination as a fringe view which is not backed up by evidence .
But that ’ s totally the opposite of the truth .
Not only is there a wealth of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Dallas on November 22nd 1963 , but the vast majority of the American public agree with Crosby ’ s view and always have .
Lynsky didn ’ t do this simple bit of fact-checking , because it ’ s not his job .
He is just a music writer .
That is all .
He ’ s not an historian , scientist or psychologist ( you can tell that by his work ) .
Why , then , the Guardian have paid him to write about the motivations of people he does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not understand is anyone ’ s guess .
To answer the headline ’ s question : “ Why do pop stars believe conspiracy theories ?
” The same reason plumbers or real estate agents or mechanics do .
Because they are human beings capable of reading , understanding and forming their own opinions ( which , it must be said , is more than can be said for people who write for The Guardian ) .
To sum this up in brief terms – this is a shabby attempt by a “ journalist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by playing on the natural biases and inherent resentments of his readers .
To be even briefer : It ’ s a smug prat doing smug prat things .
How the ‘ great reset ’ of capitalism became an anti-lockdown conspiracy It turns out the Great Reset everyone ’ s talking about isn ’ t really happening .
Ignore all the slogans and adverts and politicians using the phrase .
Ignore the video ’ s produced by the World Economic Forum literally titled “ The Great Reset ” .
None of that really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ happened ” , whatever that means , but not in the way it looks .
It ’ s just about planting some trees .
Honest .
All the stuff about social control and attacks on personal freedom is just an alt-right conspiracy theory being peddled by Fox News .
At least , according to the academic the Guardian roped into making a fool of himself for 3 pounds per word .
His name is Quinn Slobodian and he ’ s apparently a college professor , which is a sad indictment of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In his opening paragraph he says this : …without mentioning that literally every single one of those policies has been suggested at some point this year .
Later he drops this beautifully deceptive use of language [ our emphasis ] : Bezos “ appears ” to have gained ?
Sorry , but gaining 13 billion dollars in a single day is not “ appearing to gain from the pandemic ” …it ’ s “ gaining from the pandemic ” .
Apparently , the author can ’ t even cede that small reality to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ denigrate .
After dismissing the Great Reset as “ nonsense ” and “ implausible ” , he launches into a defense of Klaus Schwab , the head of the WEF .
What he doesn ’ t mention is that that Klaus Schwab literally wrote a book called “ Covid19 : The Great Reset ” , and published it in July .
One direct quote from this book : This goes hand-in-hand with calls for a “ new normal ” and that we can “ never go back ” to how things were and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That means cashless societies and social distancing and masks forever , Joe Biden ’ s looming government are already using the term “ Great Reset ” themselves , not just about Covid19 but about climate change as well .
It would be easy to dismiss the piece as drivel , but it ’ s actually rather more sinister and deceptive than that .
It ’ s a masterclass in manipulative rhetoric .
He concedes every valuable piece of information and yet veers away from the only logical conclusion , inviting his readers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ • He readily admits that the Great Reset initiative is real , and was launched by the WEF in the summer .
• He openly states that the richest 0.1 % have already made a fortune from the pandemic , and will likely continue to do so .
• He acknowledges “ Shock Doctrine ” , and that in the past crises have been used to pass laws which enrich the elites .
…but despite these admissions , he won ’ t admit that the “ conspiracy theory ” has any grounds in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a man standing on the deck of the Titanic , his trousers rolled up past his knees , trying to convince the panicking crowd that water is just a conspiracy theory .
“ All right , ” he says , “ yes it appears the ship is sinking into something , and fine we ’ re all wetter and colder than we were an hour ago , but honestly , that doesn ’ t mean there ’ s any water !
I certainly can ’ t see any !
” BONUS : How @ @ @ @ @ @ @ articles appeared this week – one specifically about vaccines , one about conspiracies in general – detailing how to “ handle ” conspiracy theorists .
One of them was written by a “ behavioural consultant ” who works for the Total Media Group , a company which identifies as a “ behavioural planning agency ” .
Essentially they are a marketing agency which uses biometrics and psychological triggers to try and control people .
It is every bit as creepy as it sounds .
The “ behavioural consultant ” says that we shouldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deluded souls , because they ’ ll just become entrenched .
Instead just pressure anyone who doesn ’ t want to get vaccinated by forcing it to become a “ social norm ” that people won ’ question .
The second article is all about rhetorical tricks – the ones us “ conspiracy theorists ” use , and the ones that can be used against us .
Neither of them consider for a second that a ) they might be incorrect or b ) They should ever attempt to have an honest , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ telling .
All told , a busy week for The Guardian .
And we didn ’ t even mention giving column inches to Peter Mandelson to or their sickening puff pieces about the “ miracle vaccine ” and crying immunologists .
Did we miss anything ?
Tell us about it in the comments below , and keep an eye out for articles that should go in the next issue .

This week we’re told that the Great Reset isn’t happening, and taught how to “handle” the conspiracy theorists who think it is.
Every week we like to highlight three or four stories that go full-Guardian, but don’t require an entire article of refutation.
We encourage reader-participation here, so if you come across something you feel should be included in the next edition either post a link below, or send us an e-mail.
The push for “food reform” is going to be an integral part of the Great Reset, through the pushing of vegan diets, edible insects, taxes on meat, fat or sugar, George Monbiot’s edible slime or lab grown meat.
This article by Barbara Ellen – one of the Guardian’s shallowest thinkers, which is really saying something – is painting the fake lab-grown meat as a compromise on veganism. She’s selling it as “meat without the cruelty” and a possible end to farming…which is bizarre.
What do these people think will happen to all the chickens, pigs, sheep and cows if we end the practice of farming animals for food? Are they imagining they’ll all live care-free lives in some kind of farm-zoo?
Because they won’t. They’ll be slaughtered, and because of the insane world we live in, eating the slaughtered animals will be labelled “cruel”, so they’ll probably be burned instead. Nobody will say anything about that being bad for the environment.
Ending animal cruelty by getting rid of all the animals is an interesting plan.
The Guardian is attacking musicians who express any kind of doubt about the “pandemic” narrative as a way of stifling dissent and trying to label Covid “conspiracy theories” as the domain of out of touch celebrities who don’t know what they’re talking about.
There’s an awful lot of cod psychology, but very few facts or figures. An awful lot of sarcastic jibes, but no quotes from the people concerned. There’s actually been very little basic research done at all.
A case in point is the (totally unsourced) anecdote in the opening paragraph:
At the 1967 Monterey pop festival, David Crosby of the Byrds treated the audience to his thoughts on the murder of JFK. “He was not killed by one man,” Crosby declared. “He was shot from a number of different directions by different guns. The story has been suppressed, witnesses have been killed, and this is your country.” This incident, perhaps the first high-profile case of a musician airing a conspiracy theory, is one reason why Crosby was fired from the band.
Dorian Lynskey, the author of the of this insufferable article, is attempting to paint Crosby’s view on the JFK assassination as a fringe view which is not backed up by evidence. But that’s totally the opposite of the truth. Not only is there a wealth of evidence supporting the idea of multiple gunmen in Dallas on November 22nd 1963, but the vast majority of the American public agree with Crosby’s view and always have.
Lynsky didn’t do this simple bit of fact-checking, because it’s not his job. He is just a music writer. That is all. He’s not an historian, scientist or psychologist (you can tell that by his work).
Why, then, the Guardian have paid him to write about the motivations of people he does not know in discussing issues he does not understand is anyone’s guess.
To answer the headline’s question: “Why do pop stars believe conspiracy theories?”
The same reason plumbers or real estate agents or mechanics do. Because they are human beings capable of reading, understanding and forming their own opinions (which, it must be said, is more than can be said for people who write for The Guardian).
To sum this up in brief terms – this is a shabby attempt by a “journalist” to smear and belittle free-thinking individuals by playing on the natural biases and inherent resentments of his readers.
To be even briefer: It’s a smug prat doing smug prat things.
It turns out the Great Reset everyone’s talking about isn’t really happening. Ignore all the slogans and adverts and politicians using the phrase. Ignore the video’s produced by the World Economic Forum literally titled “The Great Reset”.
None of that really happened.
…OK, so technically it “happened”, whatever that means, but not in the way it looks. It’s just about planting some trees. Honest. All the stuff about social control and attacks on personal freedom is just an alt-right conspiracy theory being peddled by Fox News.
At least, according to the academic the Guardian roped into making a fool of himself for 3 pounds per word. His name is Quinn Slobodian and he’s apparently a college professor, which is a sad indictment of the US education system if nothing else.
In his opening paragraph he says this:
In its most implausible version, this conspiracy imagines that a global elite is using Covid-19 as an opportunity to roll out radical policies such as forced vaccinations, digital ID cards and the renunciation of private property.
…without mentioning that literally every single one of those policies has been suggested at some point this year.
Later he drops this beautifully deceptive use of language [our emphasis]:
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, added $13bn to his fortune in just a day. With surreal realities like these, where prominent members of the 1% really do appear to have gained from the pandemic,
Bezos “appears” to have gained? Sorry, but gaining 13 billion dollars in a single day is not “appearing to gain from the pandemic”…it’s “gaining from the pandemic”. Apparently, the author can’t even cede that small reality to the people he’s seeking to denigrate.
After dismissing the Great Reset as “nonsense” and “implausible”, he launches into a defense of Klaus Schwab, the head of the WEF. What he doesn’t mention is that that Klaus Schwab literally wrote a book called “Covid19: The Great Reset”, and published it in July.
One direct quote from this book:
the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”
This goes hand-in-hand with calls for a “new normal” and that we can “never go back” to how things were and we must “build back better”. That means cashless societies and social distancing and masks forever,
Joe Biden’s looming government are already using the term “Great Reset” themselves, not just about Covid19 but about climate change as well.
It would be easy to dismiss the piece as drivel, but it’s actually rather more sinister and deceptive than that. It’s a masterclass in manipulative rhetoric. He concedes every valuable piece of information and yet veers away from the only logical conclusion, inviting his readers into a world of cognitive dissonance.
He readily admits that the Great Reset initiative is real, and was launched by the WEF in the summer. He openly states that the richest 0.1% have already made a fortune from the pandemic, and will likely continue to do so. He acknowledges “Shock Doctrine”, and that in the past crises have been used to pass laws which enrich the elites.
…but despite these admissions, he won’t admit that the “conspiracy theory” has any grounds in reality.
The article is the like a man standing on the deck of the Titanic, his trousers rolled up past his knees, trying to convince the panicking crowd that water is just a conspiracy theory.
“All right,” he says, “yes it appears the ship is sinking into something, and fine we’re all wetter and colder than we were an hour ago, but honestly, that doesn’t mean there’s any water! I certainly can’t see any!”
BONUS: How to deal with conspiracy theorists
Two different articles appeared this week – one specifically about vaccines, one about conspiracies in general – detailing how to “handle” conspiracy theorists.
One of them was written by a “behavioural consultant” who works for the Total Media Group, a company which identifies as a “behavioural planning agency”. Essentially they are a marketing agency which uses biometrics and psychological triggers to try and control people. It is every bit as creepy as it sounds.
The “behavioural consultant” says that we shouldn’t get angry with the poor deluded souls, because they’ll just become entrenched. Instead just pressure anyone who doesn’t want to get vaccinated by forcing it to become a “social norm” that people won’ question.
The second article is all about rhetorical tricks – the ones us “conspiracy theorists” use, and the ones that can be used against us.
Neither of them consider for a second that a) they might be incorrect or b) They should ever attempt to have an honest, fact-based conversation in good faith. Very telling.
* * *
All told, a busy week for The Guardian. And we didn’t even mention giving column inches to Peter Mandelson to or their sickening puff pieces about the “miracle vaccine” and crying immunologists.
Did we miss anything? Tell us about it in the comments below, and keep an eye out for articles that should go in the next issue.


offguardian--2020-12-07--Occupation By COVID: Palestine As a Viral Export, 2020

As the year 2020 expires in an embattled welter of politicized suffering , I feel I need to address my fellow advocates for Palestinian rights , too many of whom seem not to notice – or actively deny – that , under cover of coronavirus hysteria , the unhealed wounds of Palestine are steadily infecting us all .
Yes , I know all of you face calumny enough from the Israel lobby without being smeared by pro-lockdown propagandists – many of whom , alas , cling to the name “ progressive ” even as they abjectly submit to the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And I know the task I am setting for you is a hard one .
After all , few Americans have paid much attention to Palestine in the past ; how likely is it that today , punch-drunk from the creeping despotism unleashed as COVID-19 “ health ” regulation , a large public will turn from its troubles long enough to realize that the blows our country is tasting for the first time – curfews , closures , mass confinements , official lying , economic warfare – have been the lot of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is no escaping the obligation to tell the truth : and that means , first of all , that we have to acknowledge the truth .
And while advocates for Palestine are well aware of what the American government has done to that land – with its money and military hardware , the systematic violence of its client state , Israel , and the cruel deceit that is called U.S. “ diplomacy ” – too many remain strangely blind to the poisoning of our own nation with the same evils that have blighted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bank and Gaza .
Yes , the venue is shifting – from foreign training ground to domestic soil – but we are only deluding ourselves if we refuse to see the connection between the two .
The historian Alfred McCoy warned as far back as 2009 that what the U.S. was developing in the Middle East would inevitably come home to haunt us : And it was only the start .
Israel ’ s example already figured in the militarization of American police forces : think Ferguson , think Chicago .
But that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this year ’ s reconstruction of West Bank-style administrative repression throughout much of the United States .
Israel rationalizes its imprisonment of Palestine as a “ defense ” against “ terror ” ; here , state authorities prefer the pretext of combating an infectious disease .
But the systems of control are ultimately the same .
Do I exaggerate ?
Who , then – before last March – ever heard U.S. politicians talk eagerly about “ lockdowns ” ?
Or bans on political demonstrations ?
Or the thought-policing of social media ?
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of mass repression could be introduced , not through legislation , but by means of “ emergency ” decrees from a handful of state executives whose edicts purport to be above the law ?
These things are new to the United States ; but none of them would have surprised Palestinians , whose entire lives – from where they can go to what they are allowed to post on Facebook – have been governed by arbitrary decrees for decades .
And more repression is on the way .
Already there ’ s talk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to carry “ contact-tracing ” technology ; even the first hints of travel restrictions , controlled through universal registration with a government-run monitoring agency , have begun to percolate in the “ liberal ” press .
A year ago all of this would have been unthinkable .
But Palestinians have lived under such a regime since the 1990s .
Nor should the Mideast-coronavirus connection really surprise anyone – least of all , those of us who have made it our business to follow the wrongs of Palestine .
After all , we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel ’ s occupation to the West was predicted with uncanny accuracy by Jeff Halper in his book War Against the People : Israel , the Palestinians , and Global Pacification .
In 2016 , Halper told In These Times that the success of capitalist states in controlling unruly populations would depend on what he called “ globalizing Palestine.
” He said , back then : It ’ s a shame that Halper ’ s insight hasn ’ t been given more attention in public discourse – even on the left – during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s declaration of a global “ pandemic.
” But then , maybe it was inevitable that Palestine would be marginalized in exact proportion to its growing importance to the West as a blueprint for domestic oppression .
Certainly its plight was never more belittled than last spring , while more than forty U.S. governors were effectively Palestinianizing their populations with mass confinements , business closures , school shutdowns and restraints on public protest .
If that was a rehearsal for something like Israel ’ s West Bank occupation on American soil – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ d never have known it from listening to the few politicians around the world who even bothered to talk about Palestinians .
Donald Trump – the outgoing President who wasn ’ t sure whether the Western Wall was in Palestine – first declared international law irrelevant to Israelis , then claimed to have a “ solution ” that would resolve the “ conflict ” once and for all .
What he proposed was predictably outrageous , of course .
But was it really any worse than the apathy that greeted the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Was it more reprehensible than the behavior of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas , who – while still feeding at the Israeli trough – pretended for months to be leading a rebellion against an “ annexation ” of West Bank territory that , for all the noise the word ’ s novelty generated , was actually launched a long time ago and continues to this day ?
At least it ’ s clear now ( if it wasn ’ t all along ) that the whole to-do over “ annexation ” was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its allies use the word when it ’ s politically convenient and forget about it when it isn ’ t ; the verbal fashion of the moment has no effect on the pace of Israeli land theft .
As for Abbas , he ’ s already making nice with President-elect Joe Biden despite the latter ’ s ostentatious Zionism – and why not ?
The actual measure of Israel ’ s purloining of West Bank territory is the amount of its illegal colonization by Israeli Jews .
And that colonization , which began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in June 1967 , has never been more rampant than it is now .
This year alone , Israel approved a record-high 12,000 new “ housing units ” for its squatters in occupied Palestine , who already control nearly all of the most valuable land and whose pastimes include regular violent attacks against the rightful owners – not to mention the frequent destruction of their homes and olive groves .
By early 2019 the number of illegal settlers in the Occupied Territories , which by then had mushroomed to over 650,000 , was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ population .
And what was Mahmoud Abbas doing all that time ?
Nothing .
What was the European Union doing to halt Israel ’ s land theft ?
Nothing .
What did the Democratic Party “ resistance ” to Donald Trump , apart from some ritual harrumphing over “ annexation ” proposals , have to say about the monstrous expansion of illegal West Bank colonies ?
Nothing .
Against that background , was Trump ’ s insult to international law even worth mentioning ?
To tell the truth , it ’ s hard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the last year that didn ’ t crackle with absurdity .
A warmed-over reprise of Israel ’ s long-standing demand for Palestinian capitulation was unblushingly called “ the Deal of the Century.
” A cynical bargain between the crime family that runs the United Arab Emirates and a blood-stained , racist Israeli Prime Minister with one foot already in a prison cell was heralded as “ the dawn of a new Middle East ” – by Washington ’ s Con-Artist-in-Chief , a man who could make Becky Sharp look innocent by contrast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actual land and people – amid all the sputtering ?
Not one square inch of occupied territory has been reclaimed from Israel ’ s occupation in over fifty years of Palestinian suffering and international indifference .
Not one prisoner has been freed from the concentration camp called Gaza since the heroic sacrifices of its people that began in March 2018 .
No wonder Israel is doing so well at exporting its occupation : its techniques represent an unqualified success story .
In fact , the most accurate pointer to where matters stand comes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one real consequence of the Palestinian Authority ’ s “ refusal to cooperate ” with Israel ’ s annexation threats .
According to 972 Magazine , tens of thousands of Palestinian children born since May do not officially exist – as far as Israel is concerned – since the P.A .
has not communicated their names to the Israelis .
Nor can the P.A .
confer legal status on its own .
It follows that these children have no official identity and , therefore , no rights ; they can never , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if their parents are permitted to .
Whether they will be allowed to own their homes one day , or even to work , will apparently be at the whim of the Israelis .
Let that image sink in a moment : people who do not legally exist , in a country that is not a country , administered by a “ government ” that is not a government .
If there ’ s a better summary of what “ Palestine ” means today , I can ’ t think of it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ fate has no relevance for what awaits the American public , think again .
Under President-elect Biden ’ s latest coronavirus plan , just for instance , … This means that an unelected and unaccountable panel of bureaucrats – working in a political environment where the dominance of Big Pharma is a matter of record – will have unprecedented control over American education and economic life .
And for how long ?
Biden is careful not to say .
As for Palestine , the incoming administration ’ s top foreign policy adviser , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Biden government… So the whims of Israel ’ s apartheid government will trump American law ( no surprise there ) , and corporate plutocrats will have increasing power over whether and when Americans can go to school , work , or gather in public places .
Nablus , here we come !
What can anti-occupation activists do about all this ?
It seems to me , we can take seriously what we have said for years : Israel ’ s conduct in Palestine is not an isolated problem spurred by unique historical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ international crime that threatens us all .
In fact , Israel values its occupation of Palestine precisely because its methods and technology are so readily marketable .
The longer we tolerate the repression of Palestinians , the sooner we will see that system replicated in countries around the world – including our own .
We need to apply the same skepticism with which we have long viewed Israeli propaganda to the extravagant web of fear-mongering , distortions and dissent-shaming now being spun to aid the importation of Israeli-style repression onto American soil .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the emotional exploitation of “ terrorism ” : a genuine but limited danger is shamelessly manipulated to cow the public into accepting measures that are far worse than the evil they are supposed to cure .
As far back as early May , I was warning in print that the unconstitutional “ emergency ” orders of more than forty state governors in response to COVID19 involved unprecedented attacks on civil liberties .
Now things are actually looking worse – and with still less justification .
A makeshift political system intended to respond to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then , only temporarily – has been implausibly stretched to rationalize the long-term suspension of representative government , in four-fifths of our states , to counter one moderately serious respiratory virus .
Meanwhile , the press has bombarded us with “ expert ” assurances that we have too much freedom for our own good , and that wanting to “ get back to normal ” – that is , to democracy and constitutional rule – is a product of “ bias , ” if not of some psychological malady .
There ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we surrender the Bill of Rights or we all die .
But the official tally of each week ’ s deaths , state by state , hardly supports these apocalyptic pronouncements .
New Jersey ( where I live ) provides a convenient example .
Since the beginning of July and right up through the first week of November – the last for which statistics are available as I write this – the number of deaths from all causes in New Jersey has been virtually identical to the figure for the same period in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a third of one percent .
In other words , since the midpoint of the year , COVID19 has had no significant effect on the mortality rate in New Jersey .
True , the massive application of an unreliable testing procedure has managed to generate what New Jersey ’ s Governor Phil Murphy called an “ uptick in cases ” ; but if you ’ re still looking for the Emperor ’ s new clothes amid these tales of a “ deadly pandemic , ” you can save yourself the effort – even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new “ cases ” seem to have materialized out of thin air .
So , when Murphy once again ( on October 24 ) unilaterally extended a “ state of emergency ” that , by law , was originally supposed to end on April 9 – insisting that the “ dangers presented ” by the coronavirus required him to hold onto quasi-dictatorial power in order “ to save lives ” – he was taking pretty much the same tack as Israeli propaganda that claimed the Jewish State had to poison children in Gaza @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So the question is not whether Israel ’ s occupation is being transported – in fact , has already been transported – far beyond the borders of Palestine .
That much should be obvious .
For advocates for Palestinian rights , there are really only two issues : First , are we prepared to recognize the repressive measures we have long identified with occupied Palestine wherever they appear and under whatever pretext ?
Second , are we determined to resist them once they arise ?
My own experience indicates that , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ passed either test .
I ’ ve been condemned by some , and cold-shouldered by others , for even mentioning the connection between lockdown policies and Israel ’ s long-standing outrages in the Occupied Territories .
When I submitted a version of this column to a left-wing site that has run many of my pieces in the past , the publisher responded that it was… Since I know him to be a reasonable and thoughtful person , I conclude that the publisher ’ s “ not something I can present ” means that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other contributors – aren ’ t ready to see coronavirus policy as the police-state pretext it really is .
Yes , they ’ ll complain about the imprisonment of Palestine – and they ’ re right to do that .
But refusing to notice similar abuses in their own country puts them in the absurd position of trying to keep a finger in a dike while a whole city floods around them .
But it doesn ’ t have to be that way .
If the wrongs of Palestine mean to us what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we can be – and should be – in the vanguard of resistance to what is surely the most alarming phase of the occupation to date : its spread across Europe and the United States , even as it intensifies in Palestine itself .
At the turn of the 20th century , Mark Twain noted bitterly how the oppression of other peoples led an empire ’ s citizens to submit to tyranny within their own borders : Surely those who object to the trampling of Palestinians should be the first to raise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crimes throughout the world – especially when those crimes reach our own doorsteps .
If not , what have we been campaigning for all these years ?
Michael Lesher is an author , poet and lawyer whose legal work is mostly dedicated to issues connected with domestic abuse and child sexual abuse .
His latest nonfiction book is Sexual Abuse , Shonda and Concealment in Orthodox Jewish Communities ( McFarland & Co. , 2014 ) ; his first collection of poetry , Surfaces , was published by The High Window in 2019 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Judaism as an adult – Turning Back : The Personal Journey of a “ Born-Again ” Jew – will be published in September 2020 by Lincoln Square Books .

Michael Lesher
As the year 2020 expires in an embattled welter of politicized suffering, I feel I need to address my fellow advocates for Palestinian rights, too many of whom seem not to notice – or actively deny – that, under cover of coronavirus hysteria, the unhealed wounds of Palestine are steadily infecting us all.
Yes, I know all of you face calumny enough from the Israel lobby without being smeared by pro-lockdown propagandists – many of whom, alas, cling to the name “progressive” even as they abjectly submit to the most massive civil rights violations of our lifetimes.
And I know the task I am setting for you is a hard one. After all, few Americans have paid much attention to Palestine in the past; how likely is it that today, punch-drunk from the creeping despotism unleashed as COVID-19 “health” regulation, a large public will turn from its troubles long enough to realize that the blows our country is tasting for the first time – curfews, closures, mass confinements, official lying, economic warfare – have been the lot of occupied Palestine for decades?
But there is no escaping the obligation to tell the truth: and that means, first of all, that we have to acknowledge the truth. And while advocates for Palestine are well aware of what the American government has done to that land – with its money and military hardware, the systematic violence of its client state, Israel, and the cruel deceit that is called U.S. “diplomacy” – too many remain strangely blind to the poisoning of our own nation with the same evils that have blighted the lives of millions in the West Bank and Gaza.
Yes, the venue is shifting – from foreign training ground to domestic soil – but we are only deluding ourselves if we refuse to see the connection between the two. The historian Alfred McCoy warned as far back as 2009 that what the U.S. was developing in the Middle East would inevitably come home to haunt us:
the War on Terror has proven remarkably effective,” he wrote, “in building a technological template that could be just a few tweaks away from creating a domestic surveillance state – with omnipresent cameras, deep data-mining, nano-second biometric identification, and drone aircraft patrolling ‘the homeland.’
By 2013, McCoy had concluded, sadly, that…
that prediction has become our present reality.
And it was only the start.
Israel’s example already figured in the militarization of American police forces: think Ferguson, think Chicago. But that was child’s play compared with this year’s reconstruction of West Bank-style administrative repression throughout much of the United States.
Israel rationalizes its imprisonment of Palestine as a “defense” against “terror”; here, state authorities prefer the pretext of combating an infectious disease. But the systems of control are ultimately the same.
Do I exaggerate? Who, then – before last March – ever heard U.S. politicians talk eagerly about “lockdowns”? Or bans on political demonstrations? Or the thought-policing of social media? And who would have thought that such instruments of mass repression could be introduced, not through legislation, but by means of “emergency” decrees from a handful of state executives whose edicts purport to be above the law?
These things are new to the United States; but none of them would have surprised Palestinians, whose entire lives – from where they can go to what they are allowed to post on Facebook – have been governed by arbitrary decrees for decades.
And more repression is on the way. Already there’s talk of U.S. citizens being “encouraged” to carry “contact-tracing” technology; even the first hints of travel restrictions, controlled through universal registration with a government-run monitoring agency, have begun to percolate in the “liberal” press. A year ago all of this would have been unthinkable. But Palestinians have lived under such a regime since the 1990s.
Nor should the Mideast-coronavirus connection really surprise anyone – least of all, those of us who have made it our business to follow the wrongs of Palestine. After all, we’ve been warned.
The exportation of Israel’s occupation to the West was predicted with uncanny accuracy by Jeff Halper in his book War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians, and Global Pacification. In 2016, Halper told In These Times that the success of capitalist states in controlling unruly populations would depend on what he called “globalizing Palestine.”
He said, back then:
“Israel-Palestine is the microcosm of the larger world. What Israel’s doing to the Palestinians…reflects the kind of war that capitalism is having to fight now…. The wars that are being fought in Syria, or the wars being fought against poor people in the States aren’t wars that F-35s or nuclear submarines are any use for…. [W]hen they’re actually going to fight wars among the people, Israel becomes the go-to place. They [the Israelis] have the weaponry, the tactics, the surveillance systems and the security systems that are more relevant for the types of capitalist wars of repression that are being fought today than the big systems that the Pentagon has.
It’s a shame that Halper’s insight hasn’t been given more attention in public discourse – even on the left – during the critical nine months since last March’s declaration of a global “pandemic.”
But then, maybe it was inevitable that Palestine would be marginalized in exact proportion to its growing importance to the West as a blueprint for domestic oppression.
Certainly its plight was never more belittled than last spring, while more than forty U.S. governors were effectively Palestinianizing their populations with mass confinements, business closures, school shutdowns and restraints on public protest. If that was a rehearsal for something like Israel’s West Bank occupation on American soil – and it certainly looked like one – you’d never have known it from listening to the few politicians around the world who even bothered to talk about Palestinians.
Donald Trump – the outgoing President who wasn’t sure whether the Western Wall was in Palestine – first declared international law irrelevant to Israelis, then claimed to have a “solution” that would resolve the “conflict” once and for all.
What he proposed was predictably outrageous, of course. But was it really any worse than the apathy that greeted the “plan” throughout Western Europe? Was it more reprehensible than the behavior of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who – while still feeding at the Israeli trough – pretended for months to be leading a rebellion against an “annexation” of West Bank territory that, for all the noise the word’s novelty generated, was actually launched a long time ago and continues to this day?
At least it’s clear now (if it wasn’t all along) that the whole to-do over “annexation” was a conjuror’s trick. Israel and its allies use the word when it’s politically convenient and forget about it when it isn’t; the verbal fashion of the moment has no effect on the pace of Israeli land theft.
As for Abbas, he’s already making nice with President-elect Joe Biden despite the latter’s ostentatious Zionism – and why not? The actual measure of Israel’s purloining of West Bank territory is the amount of its illegal colonization by Israeli Jews. And that colonization, which began almost immediately after Israel seized the territories in June 1967, has never been more rampant than it is now.
This year alone, Israel approved a record-high 12,000 new “housing units” for its squatters in occupied Palestine, who already control nearly all of the most valuable land and whose pastimes include regular violent attacks against the rightful owners – not to mention the frequent destruction of their homes and olive groves. By early 2019 the number of illegal settlers in the Occupied Territories, which by then had mushroomed to over 650,000, was growing even faster than the overall Israeli population.
And what was Mahmoud Abbas doing all that time? Nothing. What was the European Union doing to halt Israel’s land theft? Nothing. What did the Democratic Party “resistance” to Donald Trump, apart from some ritual harrumphing over “annexation” proposals, have to say about the monstrous expansion of illegal West Bank colonies? Nothing.
Against that background, was Trump’s insult to international law even worth mentioning?
To tell the truth, it’s hard to think of any Palestine-related mainstream headline over the last year that didn’t crackle with absurdity. A warmed-over reprise of Israel’s long-standing demand for Palestinian capitulation was unblushingly called “the Deal of the Century.” A cynical bargain between the crime family that runs the United Arab Emirates and a blood-stained, racist Israeli Prime Minister with one foot already in a prison cell was heralded as “the dawn of a new Middle East” – by Washington’s Con-Artist-in-Chief, a man who could make Becky Sharp look innocent by contrast.
And where was Palestine – the actual land and people – amid all the sputtering? Not one square inch of occupied territory has been reclaimed from Israel’s occupation in over fifty years of Palestinian suffering and international indifference. Not one prisoner has been freed from the concentration camp called Gaza since the heroic sacrifices of its people that began in March 2018. No wonder Israel is doing so well at exporting its occupation: its techniques represent an unqualified success story.
In fact, the most accurate pointer to where matters stand comes from a little-noticed news item about the one real consequence of the Palestinian Authority’s “refusal to cooperate” with Israel’s annexation threats. According to 972 Magazine, tens of thousands of Palestinian children born since May do not officially exist – as far as Israel is concerned – since the P.A. has not communicated their names to the Israelis. Nor can the P.A. confer legal status on its own. It follows that these children have no official identity and, therefore, no rights; they can never, for instance, leave the Occupied Territories even if their parents are permitted to. Whether they will be allowed to own their homes one day, or even to work, will apparently be at the whim of the Israelis.
Let that image sink in a moment: people who do not legally exist, in a country that is not a country, administered by a “government” that is not a government. If there’s a better summary of what “Palestine” means today, I can’t think of it.
And if you think Palestine’s fate has no relevance for what awaits the American public, think again.
Under President-elect Biden’s latest coronavirus plan, just for instance,…
the CDC will be in charge of announcing recommendations for when it is safe to open or close restaurants, schools and businesses.
This means that an unelected and unaccountable panel of bureaucrats – working in a political environment where the dominance of Big Pharma is a matter of record – will have unprecedented control over American education and economic life. And for how long? Biden is careful not to say.
As for Palestine, the incoming administration’s top foreign policy adviser, Tony Blinken, announced last June that a Biden government…
would not tie military assistance to Israel to things like annexation or other decisions by the Israeli government with which we might disagree.
So the whims of Israel’s apartheid government will trump American law (no surprise there), and corporate plutocrats will have increasing power over whether and when Americans can go to school, work, or gather in public places. Nablus, here we come!
What can anti-occupation activists do about all this?
First…
It seems to me, we can take seriously what we have said for years: Israel’s conduct in Palestine is not an isolated problem spurred by unique historical or religious circumstances; it is an international crime that threatens us all. In fact, Israel values its occupation of Palestine precisely because its methods and technology are so readily marketable. The longer we tolerate the repression of Palestinians, the sooner we will see that system replicated in countries around the world – including our own.
Second…
We need to apply the same skepticism with which we have long viewed Israeli propaganda to the extravagant web of fear-mongering, distortions and dissent-shaming now being spun to aid the importation of Israeli-style repression onto American soil. Coronavirus hysteria is really no different from the emotional exploitation of “terrorism”: a genuine but limited danger is shamelessly manipulated to cow the public into accepting measures that are far worse than the evil they are supposed to cure. As far back as early May, I was warning in print that the unconstitutional “emergency” orders of more than forty state governors in response to COVID19 involved unprecedented attacks on civil liberties.
Now things are actually looking worse – and with still less justification. A makeshift political system intended to respond to a massive bioterror attack – and even then, only temporarily – has been implausibly stretched to rationalize the long-term suspension of representative government, in four-fifths of our states, to counter one moderately serious respiratory virus. Meanwhile, the press has bombarded us with “expert” assurances that we have too much freedom for our own good, and that wanting to “get back to normal” – that is, to democracy and constitutional rule – is a product of “bias,” if not of some psychological malady. There’s no mistaking the official message: either we surrender the Bill of Rights or we all die.
But the official tally of each week’s deaths, state by state, hardly supports these apocalyptic pronouncements. New Jersey (where I live) provides a convenient example. Since the beginning of July and right up through the first week of November – the last for which statistics are available as I write this – the number of deaths from all causes in New Jersey has been virtually identical to the figure for the same period in 2019; the totals vary by barely a third of one percent. In other words, since the midpoint of the year, COVID19 has had no significant effect on the mortality rate in New Jersey.
True, the massive application of an unreliable testing procedure has managed to generate what New Jersey’s Governor Phil Murphy called an “uptick in cases”; but if you’re still looking for the Emperor’s new clothes amid these tales of a “deadly pandemic,” you can save yourself the effort – even the “experts” admit that the new “cases” seem to have materialized out of thin air.
So, when Murphy once again (on October 24) unilaterally extended a “state of emergency” that, by law, was originally supposed to end on April 9 – insisting that the “dangers presented” by the coronavirus required him to hold onto quasi-dictatorial power in order “to save lives” – he was taking pretty much the same tack as Israeli propaganda that claimed the Jewish State had to poison children in Gaza to protect itself from exploding helium balloons.
(Meanwhile, across the Hudson, New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo is slated to receive an International Emmy Award for “his once-daily televised briefings on the coronavirus pandemic”; like Murphy, Cuomo excels at convincing jaded audiences that he has averted a catastrophe with edicts that more likely exacerbated it. If there were an Oscar for Best Dramatic Performance by a Nation-State, Israel would win hands down every year, …Norman Finkelstein has written. It looks as though Israel is finally getting some competition.)
So the question is not whether Israel’s occupation is being transported – in fact, has already been transported – far beyond the borders of Palestine. That much should be obvious. For advocates for Palestinian rights, there are really only two issues:
First, are we prepared to recognize the repressive measures we have long identified with occupied Palestine wherever they appear and under whatever pretext? Second, are we determined to resist them once they arise?
My own experience indicates that, so far, most pro-Palestinian pundits have not passed either test. I’ve been condemned by some, and cold-shouldered by others, for even mentioning the connection between lockdown policies and Israel’s long-standing outrages in the Occupied Territories.
When I submitted a version of this column to a left-wing site that has run many of my pieces in the past, the publisher responded that it was…
simply not something I can present.
Since I know him to be a reasonable and thoughtful person, I conclude that the publisher’s “not something I can present” means that his donors – to say nothing of other contributors – aren’t ready to see coronavirus policy as the police-state pretext it really is.
Yes, they’ll complain about the imprisonment of Palestine – and they’re right to do that. But refusing to notice similar abuses in their own country puts them in the absurd position of trying to keep a finger in a dike while a whole city floods around them.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. If the wrongs of Palestine mean to us what we’ve always said they do, we can be – and should be – in the vanguard of resistance to what is surely the most alarming phase of the occupation to date: its spread across Europe and the United States, even as it intensifies in Palestine itself.
At the turn of the 20th century, Mark Twain noted bitterly how the oppression of other peoples led an empire’s citizens to submit to tyranny within their own borders:
trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her [the “Great Republic”], by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home.
Surely those who object to the trampling of Palestinians should be the first to raise our voices against the dissemination of similar crimes throughout the world – especially when those crimes reach our own doorsteps.
If not, what have we been campaigning for all these years?
Michael Lesher is an author, poet and lawyer whose legal work is mostly dedicated to issues connected with domestic abuse and child sexual abuse. His latest nonfiction book is Sexual Abuse, Shonda and Concealment in Orthodox Jewish Communities (McFarland & Co., 2014); his first collection of poetry, Surfaces, was published by The High Window in 2019. A memoir of his discovery of Orthodox Judaism as an adult – Turning Back: The Personal Journey of a “Born-Again” Jew – will be published in September 2020 by Lincoln Square Books.