Ho, ho, ho! Chris Hedges has an interesting take on how Israel and its Gaza war is covered in US along with the latest US witch hunt. Excerpts:

The conflation of outrage over the genocide with antisemitism is a sleazy tactic to silence protest and placate Zionist donors, the billionaire class and advertisers. These liberal institutions, weaponizing antisemitism, aggressively silenced and expelled critics, banned student groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine, allowed police to make hundreds of arrests of peaceful protests on campuses, purged professors and groveled before Congress.

[...]

Of course, appeasement does not work. This witch hunt, whether under the Biden or Trump administration, was never grounded in good faith. It was about decapitating Israel’s critics and marginalizing the liberal class and the left. It is sustained by lies and slander, which these institutions continue to embrace.

[...]

Media outlets regularly publish articles and OpEds uncritically accepting claims made by Zionist students and faculty. They fail to clarify the distinction between being Jewish and being Zionist. They demonize student protesters. They never bothered reporting with any depth or honesty from the student encampments where Jews, Muslims and Christians made common cause. They routinely mischaracterize anti-Zionist, anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian liberation slogans and policy demands as hate speech, antisemitic, or contributing to Jewish students feeling unsafe.

[...]

The New York Times, in a decision worthy of George Orwell, instructed its reporters to eschew words such as “refugee camps,” “occupied territory,” “slaughter,” “massacre,” “carnage,” “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing,” when writing about Palestine, according to an internal memo obtained by The Intercept. It discourages the very use of the word “Palestine” in routine text and headlines.

[...]

In December 2023, Democratic Governor of New York Kathy Hochul sent a letter to university and college presidents who failed to condemn and address “antisemitism,” and calls for the “genocide of any group.” She warned that they would be subjected to “aggressive enforcement action” by New York State. The following year, in late August, Hochul repeated these warnings during a virtual meeting with 200 university and college leaders.

[...]

“We are disassembling Gaza, and leaving it as piles of rubble, with total destruction [which has] no precedent globally. And the world isn’t stopping us,” gloats Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

“Last night, almost 100 Gazans were killed…it doesn’t interest anyone. Everyone has gotten used to [the fact] that [we can] kill 100 Gazans in one night during a war and nobody cares in the world,” Israeli Knesset member Zvi Sukkot, told Israel’s Channel 12 on May 16.

The perpetuation of the fiction of widespread antisemitism, which of course exists but which is not fostered or condoned by these institutions, coupled with the refusal to say out loud what is being live streamed to the world, has shattered what little moral authority these institutions and liberals had left. It gives credibility to Trump’s effort to cripple and destroy all institutions that sustain a liberal democracy.

[...]

Harvard, like Columbia, the media, the Democratic Party and the liberal class, misread power. By refusing to acknowledge or name the genocide in Gaza, and persecuting those who do, they provided the bullets to their executioners.

They are paying the price for their stupidity and cowardice.
One can’t describe any better 2025 USA than this short standup clip about Amtrak (by someone born in a ex-communist country). And don’t bring up excuses like population density (which does not apply on Northeastern train routes) or the amazing air travel alternatives (which makes one take shoes off on every takeoff, line up like cattle for a silly security kabuki dance and packs all in steerage with zero elbow and knee room and hands out 1/2 oz pretzels and one can of soda as free refreshments). #1 my foot. How the mighty have fallen.

LE: I forgot to mention that 2025 USA requires that one needs to be careful about what she says or writes (especially on social media) and if they have been indiscrete in the last few years, they might have to spend a few hours scrubbing their social media posts or bring a burner instead of personal phone on US trips lest they risk a nasty encounter with the brown shirts at the border. For the few of us that were born behind the Iron Curtain, there is definitely a very bitter sense of deja vu along with the realization that the pendulum of autocracy swings unimpeded even in those places where its inhabitants sincerely believe that their country is a beacon of democracy while their dear leader is sucking up to and colluding with the top autocrats in the world, has stacked its top court already and is working hard to muzzle any last ember of its much vaunted “free” (corporate) press.
Ms Shiner is not holding back on Netanyahu and US media’s own distorted coverage of the conflict and antisemitism accusations it sometimes throws about unchecked and without correction.

She mentions two recent incidents: CBS grilling and heavy innuendo about Ta-Nehisi Coates “antisemitism” in his latest The Message book about Palestine and CNN’s fabrications about Tlaib’s statements during their interview with Gov Whitmer. She contrasts these two incidents with the underwhelming media coverage when “Trump preemptively blamed “the Jews” for his potential loss in November”.

Here is her warning to America:
I am not afraid of the discomfort that will inevitably come when we allow Palestinians to be seen and grapple with our complicity in dehumanizing them. Instead, I am afraid that those who have championed Israel at all costs will soon get to live at home in the kind of theocracy they covet abroad.

Profile

JMA-PSOS

December 2025

S M T W T F S
 1 234 56
78 9 1011 12 13
14 151617 181920
21 222324 2526 27
28 29 30 31   

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jan. 7th, 2026 12:43 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios