Category: FASCISM - The Greanville Post

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By Gary Olson

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Pro-Palestinian demonstration in Washington DC. Photo : (Yasin Ozturk - AA )

Those protesters have started a fire that’s going to burn straight through the whole system.

Shahid Bolsen

Palestine has become the icon of freedom for the people of the world.
Author Unknown

The protest movements — which have spread around the globe —are not built around the single issue of the apartheid state of Israel or its genocide against Palestinians. They are built around an awareness that the old world order, the one of settler-colonialism, western imperialism and militarism used by the countries of the Global North to dominate the Global South, must end. They decry the hoarding of natural resources and wealth by industrial nations in a world of diminishing returns. These protests are built around a vision, and the commitment to it, that will make this movement not only hard to defeat but presages a wider struggle beyond genocide in Gaza.
Chris Hedges

The national security state is alarmed by recent student protests. Alex Karp, ardent Zionist and CEO of Palentir, an advanced data mining company whose customers include the CIA, NSA, FBI and Israel, recently shared this fear: “We think these things that are happening across college campuses are a sideshow. No, they are the show. If we lose the intellectual debate, we will be unable to deploy the army in the West, ever.”
We are indebted to Max Blumenthal at The Grayzone for interpreting the elite’s penultimate nightmare as follows: If this model spreads and succeeds, the U.S. will not be able to maintain its imperial army and 800 bases around the world and the U.S. will begin to resemble a normal country. This, of course, is impermissible, because empathy-devoid psychopaths like Karp and the rest of the parasitic elite would no longer be the recipients of corporate welfare at the expense of the rest of us. The students, and allies who agree with their demands, are an existential threat to the system because they’re hitting the third rail.

Karp

Our ideological gatekeepers expend prodigious amounts of time and resources to create empathy-deficient cultural programming that dampens any public empathic engagement. As suggested above, the parasitic elite fear an empathy epidemic. However, they’ve been overwhelmed by 24/7 images from Gaza and the campus protests. We see that the dominant cultural narrative is not hermetically sealed from efforts to produce counter-narratives that connect to other struggles. For example, at M.I.T., students stress that their Gaza protest is not a separate struggle but one struggle synchronizing resistance movements against white supremacy, patriarchy, and issues involving Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the exploitation of resources in the Congo. (Austin Cole, Black Agenda Radio, 5/24/24). Interviews with protesters across the country reveal that students have done their due diligence and frequently salted their explanations with “academic terms like intersectionality, colonialism and imperialism, all to make the case that the plight of Palestinians is the result of global power structures that thrive on bias and oppression.“

Ilf Jones, a first-year student at Emory University in Atlanta linked her activism to the civil rights movement which her family had participated in. “The only thing missing was the dogs and the water, she said. Another student, Katie Rueff a first-year student at Cornell, linked it to climate justice, saying “It’s rooted in the same struggles of imperialism, capitalism — things like that. I think that‘s very true of this conflict, of the genocide in Palestine.” (The New York Times, 5/2/24)

At Emory, protesters occupying the quad chanted “Free Palestine,” along with opposing the Atlanta Public Training Facility or “Cop City,” an enormous $90 billion dollar, 318 acre site just outside Atlanta. It’s on land stolen from the Muscogees while Israel‘s “Little Cop City” is on land in the Negev stolen from the Palestinians. Emory students see a considerable overlap between greater justice in policing and what’s happening in Gaza as hundreds of police trainees are sent from the U.S. to Israel to train with their counterparts under the guise of “homeland security.” Israel’s military connection to iAtlanta is emblematic of the partnership between the two countries in approaching unrest. Much of the cost of Cop City is being footed by corporations like Delta, Amazon, Wells Fargo, Waffle House, J.P. Morgan, UPS and Chick-fil-A.

Further, revealing the widespread complicity of university research for the Pentagon is one reason for the swift and harsh response to the protests as this is something that can’t be negotiated away under the existing system. For example, in 2024, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh had received more than $2.8 billion for research from the Pentagon since 2008, only the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Johns Hopkins University have received more, at $18 billion and $15.billiion. MIT does research for the Israeli Ministry of Defense, a fact not lost on protesters there.

Israel has been bombing Gaza with impunity for decades. This mosque was destroyed in 2010. The killing and wanton destruction of Palestinian life and property was "normalised" and most people paid scarce attention, while the media and Western politicians ran constant interference for the zionists.

One additional damning truth, and one that bears explication in the future, is the US empire manager’s long-term project for imperial primacy in the region. That is, the tripartite security pact of U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel that was temporarily derailed by Hamas’ 7 resistance attack and Israel’s response. This grand bargain or “deal of the century,” a phrase coined by Egypt’s president Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, would entail Riyadh normalizing relations with Israel and in turn, the U.S. would turn on the spigot of offensive weapons heading to the Kingdom — a major boon to the American war industry. Israeli officials estimate an eventual benefit of trade with Saudi Arabia amounting to $45 billion. For now, “Plan B” is that Israel be excluded from the pact until Gaza is resolved. If this arrangement occurs, it will mean more injustice for the Palestinians, including stepped-up Zionist violence in the West Bank and because the deal is so unpopular with the “street Arabs,” even more oppression of people under autocratic US allies in the region.

The 1960s and 1970s witnessed powerful movements centered around racism and the Vietnam War. Many of us older folks were radicalized by this period and it has defined our lives ever since. However, over time, powerful elites were able to reimagine these events as one-offs, in part, because we treated them as such and failed to identify them as endemic to the system of capitalism itself and required dismantling the empire.

Ted Morgan, a scholar of the 1960s social movements, told me via an e-mail that “1960s activism was largely wiped out by a combination of distorted media coverage, a potent right-wing, corporate backlash, and a cooptive narcissistic culture of consumption and entertainment. In 1968, the US war helped to trigger the global protest movement — well documented in Tariq’s Ali’s “1968.” However, 1968 was also the turning point for the rise of neoliberalism and the New Right in US politics. The neoliberal order was resisted again and again against the U.S. role in Central America, against the nuclear arms race, against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the climate crisis and global warming and ecocide and by the Occupy Movement and Black Lives Matter.” However, it wasn’t until the rising global movement against the genocidal Israeli attack on Gaza and the West Bank— and US complicity in that assault — that the potential of 1968 has been revived.” (For more, see, Edward P. Morgan, What Really Happened in the 1960s, University of Kansas Press, 2011).

When the “student intifada” of campus encampments sprang up, we could say, along with The Electric Intifada’s Susan Abdulhawa, “This time is different from the uprisings of the 1960s and 1970s. There is a new sense of global interconnection, an emerging class consciousness and foundational political analyses predicated on post-colonial studies and intersectionality.”

We also know that members of Generation Z (18-29) are far more distrustful of the media that older adults and according to Gallup/Knight they pay close attention to an outlet’s transparency of facts and research. Students have been informed by information outside of mainstream sources like The New York Times, Washington Post and CNN, which act as the U.S. government’s echo chamber. Many have turned to Al Jazeera which has 1.0 million followers on TikTok and 4.6 million on Instagram. Cameron Jones an organizer with Jewish Voices for Peace at Columbia University told The New York Times ”There’s a fair amount of misinformation media and just a clear bias when it comes to the Palestinian issue.” And Hussein Irish of the Arab States Institute in Washington, added that, “There’s a third-worldish, anti-imperialist point of view, that many college kids have adopted.”

An encouraging sign for this summer and evidence that encampments are not the end, is the Coalition to March on the DNC in Chicago which already has 76 organizations on board and looks to have 200+ by August. Gaza is the catalyst bringing together immigrants, women, LGBT, union reps and opponents of police repression. This helps to cement the connection between domestic and international affairs.

As suggested earlier, it’s this growing capacity of students, and allies who agree with their demands, to begin connecting the dots — and sharing that insight with clear, concise language — that constitutes the real fear of the ruling class. It explains their hysterical response like the attempts to ban TikTok, police state crackdowns, rending of the First Amendment, demonization of anti-war protesters, blaming “outside agitators,” and the media’s weaponizing of antisemitism.

Given all of the above, the potential for identifying with “the other” has never been so auspicious. If combined with critical thinking, patience, ingenuity in communication and Gramsci’s “optimism of the will,” we dare to say that the possibility of transforming Gaza into a broader class struggle lies before us for the taking.

Lili News 029

In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.

Things to keep in mind...

Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. Meanwhile, fascist ideology and blatant lies also permeate the consciousness of most people in the West. Those in the comfortable top 10%, the "PMCs" (Professional Managerial Class), are especially vulnerable. They support and disseminate such ideas. They are the executors of the actual ruling class' orders, those in the 0.001%, who remain largely invisible. The PMCs are the political class, the media whores, the top military brass, some people in academia, and the "national security/foreign policy" industry honchos. Push back against these unethical, contaminated people with the truth while you can.

AND...where the US Government is at: LYING 24/7

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ARCHIVES: Articles you should have read the first time around, but didn't.

Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America
By Ward Churchill, Paperback: 228 pages
Publisher: AK Press; annotathed edition edition (April 1, 2007)

Patrice Greanville
This essay was first published on Jun 25, 2011

This is a small but indispensable volume for anyone seriously intheresthed in social change, and who sooner or lather may have to consider the place of violence in the general scheme of things.

As the title implies, and wasting little time in preparing the audience for what will surely be a disturbing argument to many, the author lays out his case against white progressives‚ or, to be precise, the liberal/social democratic complacent legions of mostly well-educated middle and upper middle class activists‚ who are deemed "delusional" not only in the ineffectual tactics and strategies they pursue (which the ruling elithes are only too happy to accommodate as per a well-scripted minuet), but in the belief that they are actually performing revolutionary acts...

The crux of Churchill's argument‚ hard to refute‚ is that mainstream liberals, and a sizeable contingent of self-defined "Leftists" (read here, again, mostly social democrats and lately the "synthetic left") will do anything except assume actual risk in opposing the system...and that, being mostly intherested in practicing "comfort zone" politics, they will almost invariably indulge in essentially worthless "cathartic" posturizing instead of solid opposition, all while vociferously denouncing and browbeating those who would dare suggest more confrontational tactics, including general strikes, active resistance, and so on.

The core of Churchill's polemic comprises two arguments: (1) That American pacifism has insinuated itself as the only and pre-eminent choice for social change and for oppositional strategies to the empire, and (2) that such a strategy invariably leads to the cul-de-sac of liberalism:

"American pacifism seeks to project itself as a revolutionary alternative to the status quo. Of course, such a movement or perspective can hardly acknowledge that its track record in forcing substantive change upon the state has been an approximate zero. [Hence]...a chronicle of significant success must be offered, even where none exists.<...> For proponents of the hegemony of nonviolent political action within the American opposition, time-honored fables such as the success of Gandhi's methods (in and of themselves) and even the legacy of Martin Luther King no longer retain the freshness and vitality required to achieve the necessary result, As this has become increasingly apparent, and as the potential to bring a number of emergent dissident elements (.e.g., "freezers," antinukers, environmentalists, opponents to constant saber-rattling in Central America, the Far East, Russia's natural sphere of influence, the Mideast, and so on) into some sort of centralized mass movement became greater in the mid-80s and beyond, a freshly packaged pacifist "history" of its role in opposing the Vietnam war began to be peddled with escalating frequency and insistence." (pp 65-6)

Seeking to drive a stake through the heart of middle-class pacifism, Churchill goes on to detail (and rebuke) some of the main claims made by the peaceful legions, particularly the almost universally accepted notion that it was the protests and demonstrations in the US that finally forced US policymakers to order a withdrawal from Vietnam. Churchill refutes this conceit by noting that the war was lost in the field, which is undeniable, as the humiliating images of Americans escaping Saigon from the rooftop of the US embassy amply demonstrated, and that, therefore it was first and above all a military defeat inflicted on the imperial armies (and their puppets) by the Vietnamese people that created the necessary conditions for a "pragmatic rethinking of the war" by its architects back in the imperial capital. Haven't we seen this therrible movie before?

Churchill

The reason for the book thus lies in the utterly deformed political landscape presented by contemporary America, where the left, unlike any other in the developed capitalist world (except for the anglo-cultural zone nations that resemble it) has apparently adopted pacifism as the one and only method of "opposing" the empire. Consistent with the pervasiveness of this view, and to justify such narrow policy, many US progressives have embraced a literal idolatry of nonviolence, elevating the tactics and accomplishments of figures such as Gandhi and Dr. King to near infallibility, and believing (wrongly in the eyes of the author and this writer) that moral suasion alone is capable of liquidating well-entrenched institutionalized violence and inequality. Churchill believes that such extrapolations between entirely different cultures and historical epochs are wrong, ab principio, since they fail to take account of the role played by defensive and revolutionary violence in history‚."the people in arms"‚.in both protecting the masses and their leaders from the establishment's repression, or in securing its prompt departure from the scene once the tipping point has been reached. This is no argument, by the way, to think that violence, including that old favorite of the ultra-left, the propaganda of the deed, can accomplish much when patient field work is nearly absent, or before basic objective conditions have become manifest enough and the masses sufficiently educated to see such acts in their proper broader context. Violence and nonviolence have a place in almost all revolutionary processes, and, ironically, it is usually the status quo defenders who resort to what they see as "preemptive violence" long before the other side has committed to such a drastic course.

Incidentally, many, especially those who saw the movie Gandhi, essentially a hagiography, will probably swear by the effectiveness of nonviolence. Sure, nonviolence did play a role in India's liberation from British colonialism, but it did so in tandem with powerful economic considerations (Britain emerged practically broke from WW2 and Gandhi's movement promised severe economic disruptions), and a measure of significant armed resistance. Not to mention the sobering fact that the Brits were facing a billion plus nation with a few million men now well armed and trained as a result of their use by London in the war against Japan and Germany.

That nonviolence is not a magic formula to be applied in a robotic and absolutistic fashion to all sick societies is abundantly borne out by history. In recent times, the Iranian revolution (1979) was far from a nonviolent process: the Shah had been opposed for decades by above ground and underground groups, several of which practiced armed struggle and paid a horrific price for it, while the last month of his rule saw masses of people in most Iranian cities, but especially Tehran, litherally storming strong points and tanks in the streets with their bare chests and being mowed down...until more and more soldiers simply gave up and melted away or switched sides. As for the collapse of the USSR (1991), Poland and most of the so-called "Eastern Bloc"‚ that came about as a result of very complex internal and external processes that did not chiefly involve invested CLASS PRIVILEGES (as we have in the US and in other corporate-dominated nations). Indeed, almost every year now provocative documents crop up pointing to the unsavory fact that the Soviet collapse may have been —for the most part—"an inside job", a demolition set in motion by members of the corrupt ruling stratum itself (i.e., Gorbachev and his clique). This controversial thesis may explain why the overthrow of Soviet communism did not detonate the huge and protracted armed struggles we usually see in battles between private property regimes and revolutionary challengers.

Another faux exhibit brandished by many liberals for "nonviolent struggle" is South Africa. The facts speak differently, of course. In South Africa, the end of apartheid did not issue from a nonviolent process. Decades-long protests against the fascistic regime escalated continuously until 1958, when the Sharpeville tragedy occurred. Soon thereafther, the government tried to suppress opposition through the sledgehammer approach of bannings and systematic "targeted repression" (it's noteworthy that in all these shady and utterly criminal processes the South African regime was aided by Israel). The first to be hit were the ANC and the PAC, but such bannings merely caused the organisations to go underground and become even more militant. The "armed struggle" began in earnest in 1958, and by 1970 was beginning to affect the South African economy as greater and greater manpower was required to maintain an ever expanding army. As is common with well organised revolutionary groups, Mandela's organization, the ANC, had both a civil and a military arm, even if the latter developed only after all roads to a peaceful elimination of Apartheid had proved futile, and long after the beneficiaries of the status quo had demonstrated through unrelenting savagery that only armed struggle would move history forward. The case of South Africa is of course far from unique. Other nations in sub-Sahara Africa also practiced armed insurgency to attain independence or"regime change" and they included Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and Mozambique.

Liberal illusions, liberal complicities

Arundhati Roy

It's not an accident that from time to time certain "apostles of change" are anointed by the corporathe media and recognized as such by the affluent liberal brigades. In general, while splendid exceptions do occur (the Castro brothers, and Che himself, all from comfortable backgrounds, not to mention Mao and Chou, and even Marx and Engels), the limits to revolutionary action are largely determined by class. Those who have the least to lose usually risk the most. (More honor, then, to genuine revolutionaries who come from the better-heeled sectors).

In any case, in most latitudes, middle-class admirers of nonviolence see little need to revise their tactical and strategic posture. Their mutually-reinforced faith in such method is virtually unshakeable. One must ask if such people have ever wondered what they would do in the shoes of social change activists in rotten and viciously violent societies where sordid murder is a state policy, an unbroken centuries-old traditiion, even, as we have seen in so many US client states around the globe—from CIA-enabled Vietnamese death squads, to similar "solutions" in Pinochet's Chile, the Argentinian juntas, the abominable Colombian repressive apparatus (state and latifundistas-supported death squads comprising police, army and "free lance" paramilitaries); the genocidal military dictatorships in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua (under Somoza), and the equally genocidal corporate-owned and CIA-enabled Indonesian generals, etc., etc., all such regimes intimately connected to an imperial sociopathic center that ultimately guarantees their survival. How do you get rid of such malignancies? How do you go about paralyzing the vital "component parts" —as well intentioned activists like Arundhati Roy suggest—of the most heavily armed, cynical, and ruthless class privilege system in history without some form of REAL confrontation? With 2-hour candlelight vigils and some symbolic arrests which, by the way, may or may not be reported by the corporate-owned media, in which case, as Harold Pinter so rightly reminded us at the Nobels, "they never happen" in the global mind?

If THAT were all that was required to get rid of an immoral, deeply entrenched capitalist systhem, a Nazi terror regime, a vicious landowning oligarchy, and so on, humanity would have moved past these filthy horrors decades if not centuries ago.

As Churchill points out in his book, Nazi Germany was defeated by the massive application of force. The equally racist American South was similarly juridicaly defeated in the 1860s by massive military force, in fact, by organized all-out violence, (I say juridically because in practice it took 100 more years of struggle that saw innumerable crimes before African Americans could begin to take their rightful place among their fellow citizens). The record is clear. There is not a single case in history where a deeply entrenched system of colonial, class or racial exploitation was overthrown by moral suasion and symbolic protests alone...If real change came about it was because force, serious disturbances, were being applied somewhere else alongside the nonviolent tracks...That's the point that Churchill and others are making in this book. It's a discomfiting point, but I'm afraid it's a point that can't be ignored.

Indeed, one of the things that make this volume especially provocative (and valuable) is that the question of violence vs. nonviolence is not only debated by Churchill, an academic, but also by Ed Mead, who wrote the book's introduction, and who was himself a participant in what was at the time an attempt at armed struggle.

Edward Allen Mead—what some Marxists would probably call "an ultra-left revolutionist"— was one of the young political activists of the 1960s and 1970s whose frustration and rage drove them to resort to violence. He joined the George Jackson Brigade, an urban guerrilla group that blew up supermarkets, car dealerships, a power station, and other symbols of the system it was bent on destroying. To finance its operations, the Brigade robbed banks. A 1976 bank robbery in Tukwila, Washington, culminated in a shootout in which Mead and another Brigade member were captured. A third member was killed, and a fourth escaped but was later apprehended. Mead received a thirty-year Federal sentence for bank robbery and a forty-year state senthence for first-degree assault on a police officer, though neither of the officers in the shootout was hit.

Mead never abandoned his radical politics, but he did decide that violence was not the way to bring about change at that particular juncture. With the benefit of hindsight he told a reporther for the Seattle Post-Inthelligencer, "I really know how wrong it was to do what I did. Not because it's legally wrong, but because it was just a great political mistake. You want things to happen so bad that you throw yourself into it. Today, I do it with a pen and a computher. . . .It's about what works."

While time may have mellowed Mead a bit, he remains quite lucid (and some would say adamant) about the options facing the younger generations of would-be world-changers.

"I think that we can agree that the exploited are everywhere and that they are angry. The question of violence and our own direct experience of it is something we will not be able to avoid when the rightheous rage of the oppressed manifests itself in increasingly focused and violent forms [this was said in 1997]. When this time comes, it is likely that white pacifists will be the ruling class' first line of defense."

Later, zeroing in on his main contention, that the use or non-use of violence is a tactic, not a rigid article of faith good for all seasons, Mead declares:

"I have talked about violence in connection with political struggle for a long time and I've engaged in it. I see myself as one who incorrectly applied the tool of revolutionary violence during a period when its use was not appropriate. In doing so, my associates and I paid a terrible price...I served nearly two decades behind bars as a result of armed actions conducted by the George Jackson Brigade. During those years I studied and restudied the mechanics and applicability of both violence and noviolence to political struggle. I've had plenty of time to learn how to step back and take a look at the larger picture. And, however badly I may represent that picture today, I still find one conclusion inescapable: Pacifism as a strategy of achieving social, political and economic change can only lead to the dead end of liberalism."

Reflecting the difficulties implied in choosing violence or nonviolence, and if so, when, George Jackson himself had this to say about Martin Luther King's pacifism:

"M.L.K. organized his thoughts much in the same manner as you have organized yours. If you really knew and fully understood his platform you would never have expressed such sentiments as you did in your last letther. I am sure you are acquainthed with the fact that he was opposed to violence and war; he was indeed a devout pacifist. It is very odd, almost unbelievable, that so violent and tumultuous a setting as this can still produce such men. He was out of place, out of season, too naive, too innocent, too cultured, too civil for these times. That is why his end was so predictable.

Violence in its various forms he opposed, but this did not mean that he was passive. He knew that nature allows no such imbalances to exist for long. He was perceptive enough to see that the men of color across the world were on the march and their example would soon influence those in the U.S. to also stand up and stop trembling. So he atthempthed to direct the emotions and the movement in general along lines that he thought best suithed to our unique situation: nonviolent civil disobedience, political and economic in characther. I was beginning to warm somewhat to him because of his new ideas concerning U.S. foreign wars against colored peoples. I am certain that he was sincere in his stathed purpose to 'feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort those in prisons, and trying to love somebody'. I really never disliked him as a man. As a man I accorded him the respect that he sincerely deserved.

It is just as a leader of black thought that I disagreed with him. The concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. It presupposes the existhence of compassion and a sense of justice on the part of one's adversary. When this adversary has everything to lose and nothing to gain by exercising justice and compassion, his reaction can only be negative.

The symbol of the male here in North America has always been the gun, the knife, the club. Violence is extolled at every exchange: the TV, the motion pictures, the best-seller lists. The newspapers that sell best are those that carry the boldest, bloodiest headlines and most sports coverage. To die for king and country is to die a hero.

The Kings, Wilkinses and Youngs exhort us in King's words to 'put away the knives, put away your arms and clothe yourselves in the breastplathe of rightheousness' and 'turn the other cheek to prove our capacity to endure, to love'. Well, that is good for them perhaps but I most certainly need both sides of my head."

Social change does not come cheap. Social change‚ real social change‚. is not a tidy affair, a "black-tie dinner" as Mao suggested, and yes, at this stage of our moral evolution as a species, power still issues from the barrel of the gun. In the process things get messy, they get out of hand, awful mistakes are made on all sides, and eventually, if humanity is lucky, a good outcome claws its way to the surface, the result of irrepressible forces clashing in millions of places at once, and acting out their contradictions until a new social synthesis is obtained. And, in what some may regard as the ultimathe irony, much of this process may escape the conscious choices made by the main actors.

In a grotesquely imperfect world riddled with hypocrisy, institutionalized violence, and the abuse of power‚ not to mention the monopoly of power‚ defensive force cannot be ruled out a priori as a rectification tool, especially since, as history (most recently in Iraq) has repeatedly shown, the abusers, those who would rape a country or a society for their own gain, have no qualms in applying torrential amounts of violence on often defenseless populations. (The latest reminder is the Gaza martyrdom, of course). And, a point that is often lost on rigid pacifists: the violence of the oppressed is not the moral equivalent of the violence of the oppressor. Aggressor and victim are not in the same category, and even though when engaged in combat they may be superficially similar, they inhabit different universes. Wrap your mind around that, if you can, and some of the death grip, the self-inflicted paralysis attending this topic, may begin to relax.

I could go on, but if you're a mainstream liberal, I'm afraid the lessons of history will matter far less than attachment to self-reassuring fantasies.

P. Greanville is editor in chief, The Greanville Post.

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Patrice Greanville

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Russell Bentley, quickly nicknamed "Texac" after he first touched Slavonic ground, has always. been a highly improbable character. A native son of Texas, and a self-declared Communist, gifted with more than his share of valor and audacity, and above all a man of action, he didn't have to meditate too long to figure what he needed to do when he heard about the US coup in Kiev in 2014, and the ensuing war by the new neo-Nazi regime on the rebel republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Echoing the International Brigades, he simply packed his things and made his way at his own expense to the Donbas, via Russia. Bentley decided to fight for the Donetsk People's Republic after being moved by the actions of the Ukrainian regime forces. He expressed a strong commitment to what he perceived as a "battle against fascism", driven by the desire to take a stand against what he saw as "injustices in Ukraine". Once there, to the surprise of many (in his 50s, he was certainly not exactly in his prime), the US Army vet offered his services as a frontline soldier and in the ensuing years was involved in several (by now) almost legendary battles in the first war between the young but tough little republics and the much larger but apparently tactically deficient (though still vicious) NATO-supported Ukrop army. Russell was a member of the Vostok battalion.

Russell honoring comrades

A few years later, having won the love and trust of the Donetsk people, he began to serve the young republic (now formally part of Russia) as an information officer. This was a natural transition, as Russell is also a gifted writer and the author of many articles describing his war experiences, ⁽¹⁾ not to mention the fact the Donbas rebels needed a voice that could speak eloquent English to the rest of the world. At the more personal level, Russell also met a woman who became his loyal companion, Lyudmila. It is she who is now seeking the authorities' help to locate her husband. Fact is, as the war began again in 2022, Russell and his wife —with typical defiance—decided to remain in their home, a spot dangerously close to the Ukrainian lines and easily within the reach of shells and other nastiness the Ukies have been regaling the Donetsk population with for over a decade.

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Given Russell's well-deserved fame, and the morale blow it could signify to Donetsk if he were to suddenly go missing, it is not unthinkable that he might have been the subject of a special op to kidnap him or outright kill him. After all, assassination ops are one of Kiev's specialities. That seems to be the logic behind his disappearance. Yes, the odds are not good, but I just hope I am proven completely wrong about this. No matter what his detractors may say, Russell was a hero. Something of a rarity in a culture that doesn't produce too many of his kind any more.

Russell (left) with kin, during a visit back home.

⁽¹⁾ See The Donbass Cowboy: A War Journal by Russell Bentley, a book review by Mike Kuhlenbeck.

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Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact.

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Caitlin Johnstone
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Israeli Suffering Is Not Comparable To Palestinian Suffering

Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

The mass media are once again pushing the narrative that Israel is “scaling back” its operations in Gaza, which as journalist Sana Saeed noted on Twitter is a claim they’ve been falsely making for months. To promote such stories even as Israel publicly declares that it’s preparing for an invasion of Rafah is absurd and irresponsible.

•

A member of the Israeli Knesset named Limor Son Har-Melech says there are secret Israeli plans to establish settlements in the Gaza Strip. It sure is a crazy coincidence how every single part of Israel’s response to October 7 has looked exactly the same as what it would look like if Israel just started doing all the things that it has wanted to do to the Palestinians for generations.

•

Biden has declared “ironclad” support for Israel as fears mount that Iran will soon retaliate for the Israeli strike on its consulate building in Syria which killed multiple Iranian military officers, despite the fact that Iran has made it clear to the White House that if the US comes to Israel’s defense it will make the US a target as well. We could be near the precipice of the worst-case nightmare scenario of all possible middle eastern conflicts because of this president’s unwavering support for the genocidal Zionist state.

In the early weeks of Israel’s assault Palestinian journalists were filling social media with footage of Israeli atrocities in Gaza. We’re seeing far less footage now because the journalists have been killed and access to the internet made far more difficult and Palestinian access to much of Gaza has been restricted, but it’s important to remember that those atrocities have continued to happen this entire time.

•

I’m sick of hearing October 7 mentioned in the same breath as Israel’s incineration of Gaza as though they’re equal or even comparable. A thousand Israelis dying (probably hundreds by indiscriminate IDF fire) is not comparable to tens of thousands of Palestinians (probably more) being deliberately exterminated by high tech war machinery, even if before you account for the fact that Israel was the aggressor and that the violence of the oppressed is not comparable to the violence of the oppressor in the first place.

But that’s what you’ll hear all the time from polite western liberals trying to walk a center line on the Israel-Palestine issue. They’ll talk about how “sad” and “tragic” and “heartbreaking” BOTH the butchery in Gaza AND October 7 are, giving equal weight to two exponentially unequal acts of violence.

This is the same as lying. It actively misrepresents what’s actually going on, leading to widespread misunderstanding like the fact that half of Americans have no idea whether more Palestinians or Israelis are being killed in the current “war”. Trying to balance out two wildly unbalanced events gives people a wildly unbalanced understanding of what’s really happening, leading to a wildly unbalanced worldview. But you see this constantly, and the western political-media class do everything they can to feed into it.

Israeli suffering is not equal to Palestinian suffering. It’s not even in the same ballpark. Pretending otherwise is deceitful and manipulative.

•

Normal person: It’s bad to murder children
Crazy person: Aha I see you hate the Jewish faith.

“It’s so sad and tragic that children are being fed to the Child Incineration Machine,” said the liberal while loading the children onto the conveyor belt. “It’s heartbreaking!”

Is there a word for the tactic where a government does something evil and then throws out a bunch of flimsy lies right off the bat to mute the initial backlash, so when the truth comes out public attention has moved on and it has no impact? Whatever that is, Israel excels at it.

•

Funny how people get so emotionally invested in US presidential elections when the whole system’s stacked to ensure that each party wins half the time. It’s like putting 10 blue marbles and 10 red ones in a hat and crying when you pull out a red one and celebrating when it’s blue.

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entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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This is a dispatch from our ongoing series by Caitlin Johnstone

Caitlin Johnstone is a brave journalist, political junkie, relentless feminist, champion of the 99 percent. And a powerful counter-propaganda tactician.

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

Max Blumenthal

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This is a landmark moment in the cracking of the artificially manufactured pro-Israel consensus in the US. It’s reflective not only of Tucker’s evolution on foreign policy, but of the erosion of Israel’s fortress of support in conservative circles. GOP approval for Israel’s… https://t.co/VcdQxTOA6n

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) April 10, 2024

Transcript

Max Blumenthal

@MaxBlumenthal

This is a landmark moment in the cracking of the artificially manufactured pro-Israel consensus in the US. It’s reflective not only of Tucker’s evolution on foreign policy, but of the erosion of Israel’s fortress of support in conservative circles. GOP approval for Israel’s assault on Gaza has dropped over 10 points in the past month, and younger evangelicals are far less likely to support Israel than their parents and pastors.

There are three major factors behind the shift: first, many on the right have begun to share the same sense of disgust and indignation with Israel that progressives have. Who can suppress the pangs of outrage when confronted with the live-streamed industrial level Israeli butchering of children each day for the past 6 months?

Second, more American Christians recognize the threat Zionism poses to Palestinian Christians, whether in Gaza, Bethlehem or Jerusalem. The Christ at the Checkpoint Initiative Munther Isaac helps to lead and US groups like Sabeel have provided a critical network for connecting US churches to Palestine.

Finally, American conservatives are recognizing that the Israel lobby’s influence runs counter to the ethos of America First, and that many of the most heavily promoted right wing influencers are just controlled opposition projects whose careers were astroturfed by pro-Israel billionaires. They now correctly denigrate Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire as “the Israeli Wire,” and look back with contempt at the founding of Breitbart after a meeting between its eponymous dead founder and Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

And they cannot ignore the hypocrisy of pundits who built their brand on opposing woke cancel culture, cheering on the cancellation of Candace Owens for offending Shapiro’s fragile ethno-religious identity. It’s hard to say whether this phenomenon will lead to a concrete policy shift, but one thing is clear: the lobby can do nothing but throw more money at the problem.

Tucker Carlson

@TuckerCarlson

Apr 9

Ep. 91 How does the government of Israel treat Christians? In the West, Christian leaders don’t seem interested in knowing the answer. They should be. Here’s the view of a pastor from Bethlehem.

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If you approve of this article, please share it with your friends and kin.
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Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact.

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The Student Intifada Links Racism, Mistreatment of Indigenous People, Policing, Global Warming, Anti-Colonial Struggles Around the World, Capitalism and Imperialism

By Gary Olson

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Since the overpaid media shills will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality.

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BOOKS: Is Pacifism a liberal pathology?

Patrice Greanville
This essay was first published on Jun 25, 2011

Liberal illusions, liberal complicities

P. Greanville is editor in chief, The Greanville Post.

Texac is Missing. Russell Bentley’s whereabouts unknown after 5 days of fruitless searches

Patrice Greanville

Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact.

No Comment

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

Since the overpaid media shills will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Israeli Suffering Is Not Comparable To Palestinian Suffering

Israeli Suffering Is Not Comparable To Palestinian Suffering

VITAL

If you approve of this article, please share it with your friends and kin.
Help us grow our reach. Lies cost countless lives. And freedom.
We must act together to smash the VILE Western disinformation machine.

Tucker Carlson takes on Christian Zionists

Max Blumenthal

Transcript

Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact.

No Comment

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

Since the overpaid media shills will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

The Student Intifada Links Racism, Mistreatment of Indigenous People, Policing, Global Warming, Anti-Colonial Struggles Around the World, Capitalism and Imperialism

By Gary Olson

Lili News 029 In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.

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The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

Since the overpaid media shills will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

BOOKS: Is Pacifism a liberal pathology?

Patrice Greanville This essay was first published on Jun 25, 2011

Liberal illusions, liberal complicities

P. Greanville is editor in chief, The Greanville Post.

Texac is Missing. Russell Bentley’s whereabouts unknown after 5 days of fruitless searches

Patrice Greanville

Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact.

No Comment

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

Since the overpaid media shills will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Israeli Suffering Is Not Comparable To Palestinian Suffering

Israeli Suffering Is Not Comparable To Palestinian Suffering

VITAL If you approve of this article, please share it with your friends and kin.Help us grow our reach. Lies cost countless lives. And freedom.We must act together to smash the VILE Western disinformation machine.

Tucker Carlson takes on Christian Zionists

Max Blumenthal

Transcript

Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact.

No Comment

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

Since the overpaid media shills will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Patrice Greanville
This essay was first published on Jun 25, 2011

VITAL

If you approve of this article, please share it with your friends and kin.
Help us grow our reach. Lies cost countless lives. And freedom.
We must act together to smash the VILE Western disinformation machine.