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"Compassion is the radicalism of our time."

-- Dalai Lama

News and Opinion

The Destruction Of Gaza SHOULD Be Radicalizing People

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

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

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

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

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

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) May 6, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) May 6, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They’ll murder anyone who gets in their way

Count the lies?

Please watch this interview with Israeli spokesman David Mencer.

It's an absolute gem of an interview - a rare display of brilliant journalism with great questioning.

When there’s pushback from courageous journalists, Zionists become flustered and cry victim. pic.twitter.com/spRJQenLRp

— Khalissee (@Kahlissee) April 30, 2024

Cease Fire Negotiations: Is Peace Possible with Netanyahu’s Government?

Israeli Ground Forces Enter Rafah

Israeli tanks have entered Rafah and appear to be pushing to capture the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing that connects to Egypt, several media outlets have reported.

Heavy airstrikes have been reported in the city as well, with some media reports describing it as a “carpet bombing,” although the scale of destruction and death toll is unclear at this time. ...

A source told Axios that Israel plans to take control of the Rafah border crossing and monitor all aid that enters Gaza, a sign that it’s seeking long-term control of the area. The military activity near the Rafah crossing will further disrupt aid shipments into the Strip as Palestinians in northern Gaza are facing a “full-blown famine,” according to the UN’s World Food Programme.

Speaker Johnson Got BRIBED To Send Money To Isr@el!

Israeli airstrikes on Rafah begin despite mounting ceasefire pressure

Rafah’s fate hung in the balance on Monday after Hamas said it had accepted a ceasefire-for-hostage deal but Israel responded sceptically and said it would press on with its campaign on Gaza’s southernmost city, carrying out night airstrikes.

The more than 1 million Palestinians taking refuge in Rafah were thrown into confusion by the day’s events. Israel issued orders for the evacuation of part of the city earlier on Monday, triggering an exodus of thousands of people. There were celebrations in the streets in the evening after Hamas announced it had accepted a ceasefire, but then disappointment and bewilderment when Israel gave a tepid response and began bombing.

The Israeli military said late on Monday it was conducting targeted strikes against Hamas in Rafah. There were reports of Israeli tanks being seen on the eastern outskirts of Rafah and the Axios news site cited unnamed sources saying Israeli forces planned to take over the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, the sole gateway between Egypt and Gaza for humanitarian supplies and people. ...

A US official on Monday voiced concern about the strikes on Rafah but said they did not believe they represented a major military operation. The US was focused on heading off just such an operation in densely populated areas of Rafah, they said. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the terms that Hamas had agreed to fell far from meeting his government’s demands but he would dispatch a delegation for further negotiations through Egyptian and Qatari mediators.

Report from Rafah: Israel Seizes Border Crossing, Blocking Humanitarian Aid

'War Criminals': IDF Strikes Rafah After Hamas Agrees to Cease-Fire

Israel on Monday launched long-awaited strikes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip despite Hamas publicly confirming it agreed to a cease-fire and hostage release proposal from Egyptian and Qatari mediators. ...

In addition to sparking outrage around the world, the Israeli government's Rafah attack and rejection of the Hamas-backed proposal was met with criticism from people across Israel. The Associated Press reported that "thousands of Israelis rallied around the country Monday night calling for an immediate deal to release the hostages still held in the Gaza Strip."

Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset who was almost expelled by fellow Israeli lawmakers earlier this year for backing South Africa's ongoing genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), again called out his own government.

"Israeli tanks and infantry enter east Rafah while planes bomb from above, just hours after Hamas' decision to accept the hostages/prisoners exchange deal," Cassif said Monday. "Why? Because killing Palestinians is more important for the Israeli government than saving Israelis. War criminals!"

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that "the War Cabinet unanimously decided this evening Israel will continue its operation in Rafah, in order to apply military pressure on Hamas so as to advance the release of our hostages and achieve the other objectives of the war."

Along with the prime minister, Israel's War Cabinet includes Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz, former IDF chief of the general staff, along with three observers.

Netanyahu added that "while the Hamas proposal is far from meeting Israel's core demands, Israel will dispatch a ranking delegation to Egypt in an effort to maximize the possibility of reaching an agreement on terms acceptable to Israel." ...

Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone ahead of the IDF strikes on Monday and "reiterated his clear position on Rafah," according to a White House readout. They also discussed the hostage negotiations, humanitarian aid, the Holocaust, and antisemitism.

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, also suggested that the Israeli prime minister wants the bloodshed in Gaza to continue for personal reasons.

"Netanyahu does not want an end to the war because the moment the war ends, his political career ends as well. And his prison sentence will commence," said Parsi. "Yet, Biden has for seven months deferred to Netanyahu."

Israel REJECTS Cease-fire Deal, INVADES Rafah DESPITE Biden’s Red Line

Israeli assault on Rafah may cause ‘bloodbath’ and famine, aid agencies say

Aid groups have warned of grave humanitarian consequences and drastic cuts to the supply of aid if an Israeli offensive on Rafah goes ahead, after Israel demanded that tens of thousands of people leave the eastern part of the city. “A military incursion into Rafah could lead to a bloodbath because of how densely populated Rafah has become,” said Tamara Alrifai, the director of external relations for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa. “Another looming displacement is already creating panic and anxiety among a highly vulnerable population.”

An estimated 1.4 million people have gathered in Rafah after repeated Israeli evacuation orders forced them south towards areas previously marked as safe zones. Orders demanding that an estimated 100,000 people leave eastern Rafah were accompanied by a reported rise in Israeli airstrikes on those locations.

The Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings – the only routes for aid into the territory – were both closed on Monday, with no clear sign of when they might reopen. Data from the UN shows that no aid trucks were allowed through Rafah on Sunday. It was reported that 128 trucks entered through Kerem Shalom on Sunday, despite a Hamas rocket attack that killed four Israeli soldiers. The shipments were a fraction of the aid that relief groups say is needed to stave off rising famine across Gaza.

“This is extremely concerning as these are the only two crossings open for humanitarian access and commercial goods,” Alrifai said. “If the crossings are closed, this means no commercial or humanitarian supply lines are active, so people in Rafah will not have access to humanitarian assistance. This means we can expect the famine to move south.”

US-Made Bombs Used in March Israeli Attack on Lebanese Paramedics

On March 27, Israel attacked a building in Hebbariye, southern Lebanon, which housed the Islamic Emergency and Relief Corps. The attacks killed seven volunteer paramedics and was deeply criticized internationally as a war crime.

A new report from The Guardian revealed the bomb used in the attack was a US-made Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). Produced by Boeing, JDAMs figure prominently among the items Israel requests from the US.

Though US law is meant to prevent arms transfers from going to nations that are committing war crimes, the US routinely provides JDAMs to Israel in large quantities. This is leading to growing international calls from major human rights groups to stop arms transfers to Israel.

Republicans Threaten HAGUE INVASION Over Israel ICC Charges

Columbia Pres SPEAKS From CLEARED CAMPUS in Post Protest Address

Pro-Palestinian student protesters break through police fencing at MIT

Pro-Palestinian protesters who had been blocked by police from accessing an encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday broke through fencing, linked arms and encircled tents that remained there, as Columbia University canceled its university-wide commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests.

Sam Ihns, a graduate student at MIT studying mechanical engineering and a member of MIT Jews for a Ceasefire, said the group had been at the encampment for the past two weeks and that they were calling for an end to the killing of thousands of people in Gaza. “Specifically, our encampment is protesting MIT’s direct research ties to the Israeli Ministry of Defense,” he said. Protesters also sat in the middle of Massachusetts Avenue, blocking the street during rush hour in the Boston area.

The demonstrations at Columbia have roiled its campus and officials said on Monday that while it would not hold its main ceremony, students would be able to celebrate at a series of smaller, school-based ceremonies this week and next.

The decision comes as universities around the country wrangle with how to handle commencements for students whose high school graduations were derailed by Covid-19 in 2020. Another campus shaken by protests, Emory University, announced on Monday that it would move its commencement from its Atlanta campus to a suburban arena. Others, including the University of Michigan, Indiana University and Northeastern University, have pulled off ceremonies with few disruptions.

UCLA creates campus safety role amid condemnation of response to mob attack

The University of California, Los Angeles, said that it would create a new office dedicated to campus safety following mounting criticism of authorities’ slow response to a brutal attack on pro-Palestinian protesters by a mob of “instigators”. The school’s chancellor, Gene Block, said on Sunday that urgent changes were needed to “better protect our community moving forward” and announced that a new office of campus safety would oversee the university police department and the UCLA office of emergency management, “effective immediately”.

“It is clear that UCLA needs a unit and leader whose sole responsibility is campus safety to guide us through tense times,” Block said in a statement. UCLA has been rocked by major demonstrations and violence in recent weeks as protests have unfolded at universities across the US, in some of the largest such actions since the Vietnam war. Protesters established a Palestinian solidarity encampment in the center of campus last month.

Last weekend, the university saw clashes after thousands of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators gathered at UCLA. Days later, a masked group of people marched on campus and assaulted pro-Palestinian demonstrators as law enforcement and campus security watched. The violence shook students and prompted the university to cancel classes on Wednesday. Police dismantled the pro-Palestinian encampment shortly after and arrested hundreds of people.

Police and the university had faced condemnation for their response to the violent attack on demonstrators, including from the California governor, Gavin Newsom, who called it “unacceptable”. The UCLA police chief rejected the criticism, telling the Los Angeles Times he had done everything he could, while a union for University of California police departments said the blame fell on administrators.

Russia's final warning to Macron and Cameron

Russia threatens UK military and orders nuclear drills after ‘provocation’

Russia has threatened to strike British military facilities and ordered its military to hold battlefield nuclear weapons drills in a move the Kremlin described as a response to comments from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on western troops fighting in Ukraine and from the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, on using British-supplied weapons against Russia.

The Russian defence ministry said in a statement that troops from the southern military district would “practise the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons … in response to provocative statements and threats by certain western officials against the Russian Federation.”

The announcement came days after Macron said he would “not rule out” the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine and Cameron said it was up to Kyiv how it used British weapons, including against targets inside of Russia.

The UK ambassador, Nigel Casey, and his French counterpart in Moscow were summoned by the Kremlin on Monday. The Russian foreign ministry issued a formal protest to Casey over Cameron’s recent statements that Ukraine had the right to use British weapons to strike inside Russia. It said that the remarks made the UK a de facto party to the conflict. The statement came after a Ukrainian strike on Iskander short-range ballistic missile systems stationed in the annexed Crimean peninsula.

“Casey was warned that in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory with British weapons, any British military facilities and equipment on the territory of Ukraine and abroad” could be targeted, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. “The ambassador was called upon to reflect on the inevitable catastrophic consequences of such hostile steps by London and immediately refute the belligerent provocative statements of the head of the Foreign Office in the most decisive and unambiguous way.”

TikTok Wages Legal Battle Against Biden BAN

US workers’ share of the pie dwindles

When Jesse Motte began working at a Starbucks inside a Target store in Columbia, South Carolina, more than two years ago, $15 an hour sounded great. He was excited to start because it was the most he had ever made after working for years in the service industry. The excitement has dissipated due to his inconsistent and erratic work schedule, the rising costs of necessities and the minuscule raises he and his co-workers receive annually. His most recent annual wage increase was $0.37 an hour.

Motte is not alone. This week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest estimate for the share labor receives of national income for the first quarter of 2024. The statistics shows the income workers receive compared with the productivity their labor generates. According to BLS, this income share has declined for non-farm workers from about two-thirds, 64.1% in the first quarter of 2001, to 55.8% in the first quarter of 2024.

Target raised their company minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2017 and has since only increased the range of starting wages, which vary from $15 to $24 an hour. ... In 2022, Target’s CEO was paid more than $17.6m in total compensation, 680 times more than the median worker at Target, and more than double the average for S&P 500 corporations. The company reported $5.7bn in profits in 2023.

CEO pay has soared 1,209.2% from 1978 to 2022, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, compared to a 15.3% rise in typical workers’ pay. It’s part of several contributing factors to runaway income and wealth inequality that has resulted in low-income workers’ share of the pie dwindling as the distribution of wages in the US has trended toward high-end wage earners receiving more and more.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: The War Parties and the November Election

House set to vote on Marjorie Taylor Greene effort to remove Mike Johnson

The House is expected to vote this week on a motion to remove Republican Mike Johnson as speaker, but the effort, spearheaded by hard-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, faces virtually no chance of success.

Greene announced on Wednesday she would move forward with forcing a vote on Johnson’s removal this week, following through on a threat she first issued in late March. Greene has consistently attacked Johnson for advancing bills that have attracted widespread bipartisan support, such as the government spending proposal approved in March and the foreign aid package signed into law last month.

As she called for Johnson’s removal, Greene accused the speaker of abandoning his Republican principles in favor of Democratic priorities, such as Ukraine funding.

“Mike Johnson is giving [Democrats] everything they want,” Greene said Wednesday. “I think every member of Congress needs to take that vote and let the chips fall where they may. And so next week, I am going to be calling this motion to vacate.”

But Greene’s proposal is widely expected to fail, as House Democratic leaders indicated last week that they would vote to table, or kill, the motion to vacate the chair. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the three leaders cited the passage of the foreign aid package, which included nearly $61bn in funding for Ukraine, to justify their stance.

Poorer nations must be transparent over climate spending, says Cop29 leader

Poor countries must demonstrate clearer accounting and transparency to back up their calls for trillions of dollars of climate finance, the president of global climate negotiations has said. Mukhtar Babayev, the ecology minister of Azerbaijan, who will lead the Cop29 UN climate summit in November, urged governments in developing countries to draw up reports showing their progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and their spending on the climate crisis.

“It’s very important to build this correct, good and honest trust between the parties,” he said in an interview in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. “It’s a very, very important step, the creation of a transparency mechanism between the countries.”

At Cop29 in Baku, countries will be expected to come up with a new global goal on supplying climate finance to poorer countries, to help them cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather. Some governments from the global south are calling for the sums to reach more than $1tn a year.

These pledges are expected to be subject to bitter wrangling at Cop29, as rich countries are unlikely to agree to provide anything like such sums from their taxpayers but the role of other sources of finance – such as the private sector – is still in question.

Babayev said large sums would be required to help poor countries update their emissions-cutting plans, known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, in line with the need to limit temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. He sees efforts to improve the transparency of accounting for emissions cuts and climate spending as a crucial first step. “It’s like a triangle. First, transparency. It’s trust between the parties. Next, finance. Next, NDC. Today we are looking to this triangle,” he said.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Another Zionist Crime - The Psychopathic Destruction Of Rafah

US Corporate Media Complicit in Demonizing Pro-Palestinian Protesters

Why Media Have Failed Gaza

Claims That Student Protestors Are Chanting 'Death to America' Are Bullshit

NYC Mayor Smeared a Grandmother as an “Outside Agitator” to Justify NYPD Assault on Columbia

Why is Israel forcing the evacuation of part of Rafah, Gaza’s last refuge?

Campus Protests Over Gaza Open a Pandora’s Box for Wall Street Megabanks that Underwrote $8 Billion of Israel’s Bonds in March

Why Technocratic Elites Aren’t Trusted (Sam Altman Edition)

Argentine Student Movement Erupts Against Milei’s Adjustment

John Oliver on public libraries: ‘Another front in the ongoing culture war’

“Stop Weaponizing Antisemitism”: Police “Body-Slam” Jewish Dartmouth Prof. at Campus Gaza Protest

WORDS Are Not VIOLENCE, Zionism Is

Campus Protests SPLIT Democrats

GAZA DOCTOR EYEWITNESS: Famine, No Pain Meds, Health System Collapse

A Little Night Music

Robert Jr Lockwood -Take A Walk With Me

Robert Lockwood Jr - I'm Gonna Dig Myself A Hole

Robert Lockwood Jr - Mr. Down Child

Robert Jr Lockwood - Blues And Trouble

Robert Lockwood Jr & The Aces - Honky Tonk

Robert Lockwood Jr - In The Evening (When the Sun Goes Down)

Robert Lockwood Jr. - Terraplane Blues

Otis Spann w/ Robert Lockwood Jr. - Evil Ways

Robert Jr Lockwood - Rambling On My Mind