BILLY BOB—Episode 44 of Blowback: Exposing Imperial Decline with special guests Regis Tremblay and Ian Kummer. The panel discusses the role of alternate media voices in pushing back against the pervasive brainwash, and memorialises the loss of John Pilger, one of the most dedicated anti-imperialist journalists and political documentarians of our time. Documentarian and antiwar activist Regis Tremblay speaks about his own radicalisation, and his eventual relocation to Crimea, Russia.
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INDRAJIT—While there is no straight line from Izz al-Din al-Qassam to the martyrs brigade that bears his name, there is an ideological connection. The brigade is also committed to armed jihad and signs off most statements saying ‘it is indeed a jihad of victory or martyrdom.’ And so the struggle (one translation of jihad) goes on, with Al Qassam at the vanguard.
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Despite much effort, no one, not even ambulances, could reach Samer, who was left bleeding for about five hours. While trying to crawl to safety, Samer apparently took off the protective armor that journalists wear while working in the field. Then another airstrike hit, ending his life. His body was later returned to Nasser Medical Complex, the place where he himself had covered the many martyrs and wounded in the weeks prior to his murder. All evidence indicates the targeting of the Al Jazeera crew was intentional.
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RON UNZ—Propelled by the horrific images of dead babies in Gaza, this controversial phrase soon began trending among anti-Zionists on Twitter along with talk of “decolonizing” the Israeli settler-state. Wilting under intense Zionist attacks, owner Elon Musk—the world’s wealthiest man—declared that these rather vague and innocuous progressive slogans constituted incitement to “genocide,” with their use being grounds for an immediate ban from his platform. By contrast, I haven’t heard that Musk has banned any of the Israeli politicians or activists publicly calling for the total annihilation of all Palestinians.
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ROCKHILL: Imperialist Propaganda and the Ideology of the Western Left Intelligentsia
123 minutes readGABRIEL ROCKHILL—In addition to helping displace class politics and analysis within the Western left, identity politics has made a major contribution to dividing the left itself into siloed debates around specific identity issues. Instead of class unity against a common enemy, it divides—and conquers—working and oppressed people by encouraging them to identify first and foremost as members of specific genders, sexualities, races, nations, ethnicities, religious groups, and so forth. In this regard, the ideology of identity politics actually is, at a much deeper level, a class politics. It is the politics of a bourgeoisie aimed at dividing the working and oppressed peoples of the world in order to more easily rule over them.