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.
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EDITORS—Colonial states outside the United States have also implemented AI surveillance. Studying these surveillance measures and the connections between them is necessary because just as each struggle for liberation is intertwined, the tools for repression are shared between nation-states to curb dissent and expand surveillance.
US police forces are known to exchange tactics and training with foreign militaries, such as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). In Palestine, Israeli government created a facial recognition database of Palestinians in occupied Hebron. This constant surveillance is psychologically disturbing to people experiencing it and can be used to track people, arrest them, and even prevent them from entering the very neighborhoods they live in.
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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.
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EDITOR—Joe Biden’s speech Monday at the DNC was so full of whoppers that even mainstream media outlets typically in the tank for establishment Democrats like PBS and CNN took note, running “Fact check” pieces on the President. Among his lies included widely-debunked accusations against Donald Trump as well as outrageous exaggerations of his own accomplishments in office. Jimmy and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger discuss the parade of lies and fearmongering reflected in what will likely be the last major speech of Biden’s presidency.
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RANIA KHALEK—To discuss Israel’s intensifying atrocities in Gaza, including its weaponization of rape, Rania Khalek was joined by Miko Peled, the son of an Israeli general and the head of the newly established Palestine House of Freedom in Washington, D.C. Peled is the author of “The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine.”
