EDITOR—RBN’s Nick Cruse gets into a dust-up with the ADL over whether Jews should feel threatened on campuses. As documented by Keaton and Russell, the smear attempt backfired.
-
-
ERIC ZUESSE—America’s version of capitalism is this, corrupt capitalism; and another name for it is fascism. But America’s version of it is the worst type of that: it is imperialistic fascism. And this is the reason why honest political discussion of America’s imperialism, and even merely referring to “the U.S. empire,” is prohibited throughout all of the billionaires’ ‘news’-media. So, here, from a news-medium that is not controlled by any billionaire, is a knowledgeable expert discussion of that:
-
BRUCE LERRO—What is the place of shock in the arts? Surely one of the callings of the artist is to move a society beyond the comfortable, the taken-for-granted and the obvious. In the early part of the 20th century, Cubists, Dadaists and Surrealists did this as a reaction to the Renaissance and Baroque conventions. Before a society is crumbling this is a very important calling. However once social cracks appear and spread, too much shock from the arts is counter-revolutionary. The Romantic artist imagines that shocking people might propel masses of people into social action. This may be true. But too much shock can result in anesthetizing, not moving people. Past a certain point artists should be creating constructive visions of the future not tripping over themselves about how to outrage a public already frightened by social conditions.
-
CJ HOPKINS—As my regular readers know, for the last two years, I’ve been experiencing the global crackdown on dissent “up close and personal,” and trying to report on it. A lot of my reporting has fallen on deaf ears. Which is understandable, given the nature of what we’re up against, which is (a) formidable, (b) rather challenging to really understand, and (c) virtually unassailable, currently.
People don’t tend to like stories like that. They tend to like stories with “good guys,” and “bad guys,” and identifiable enemies, and simple solutions, even if those stories are, essentially, bullshit.
One of the most prevalent bullshit stories (i.e., theories) about the global crackdown on dissent is the one about how The Big Bad Government Forced the Poor Helpless Global Corporations to Censor Everybody, or at least Conservatives. Americans are particularly fond of this story, especially conservative Americans, as it casts the Big Bad Government as the antagonist, and good, freedom-loving, military-contracting billionaires like Elon Musk as the heroic protagonists.
-
EDITORS—George’s monologue focuses again on the indescribable tragedy of Gaza, and the fact no country in the Axis of Resistance has yet made a decisive military move to stop the ongoing genocide. Of course, both sides know that an all-out war could destroy much of the Middle East and plunge the world into a horrendous economic and military crisis. The need for restraint in responding to Israel’s and Kiev’s revoltingly irresponsible provocations is, therefore, unfortunately, a serious factor. George also comments on the appalling dishonesty (later elaborated by Garland Nixon) underscoring US politics, wherein candidate Trump (himself an improbable choice in a genuine democracy) has the gall to call his opponent, Democrat Kamala Harris, a communist, something that could only happen in a massively ignorant nation, product of untold generations of unrelenting anti-communist brainwashing.
