AMERICAN BRAINWASH

ALAN MACLEOD—With a host of celebrity advocates, including Tobey Maguire, Emily Deschanel and Zac Efron, veganism is growing exponentially across the West. Noting that a quarter of 25-34 year old Americans are vegetarian or stricter, The Economist labeled 2019 the “year of the vegan.” Yet uncritical regurgitation of IDF press releases subtly presents the Middle East region as liberal, forward-thinking Israelis vs. backward, close-minded Arab Muslims.

This framing is particularly misleading for a number of reasons. Firstly, much of the most commonly celebrated Israeli vegan food (falafel, hummus, baba ghanoush, stuffed vine leaves) is simply the appropriated cuisine of the local peoples Israel displaced during its creation. Secondly, the great irony is that the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development statistics show that Israelis actually consume the most poultry per capita in the world, with 80% of the population eating it every day. As a whole, Israelis eat over 200 pounds of meat every year, more than even the famously carnivorous Americans.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—This all comes out as we learn that Facebook is attaching warning labels to posts from outlets sponsored by governments which have not been absorbed into the US-centralized empire like RT and CGTN, but attaching no such label to outlets funded by imperial governments like BBC and Radio Free Europe. There is not any discernible difference in the degree of bias shown in state media from unabsorbed nations like Russia and China than there is in state media from the US and UK (or oligarchic media from the US and UK for that matter), but Facebook causes its 2.6 billion active users to look at one with suspicion but not the other.

DAVID W. PEAR—An autopsy was performed on the Liberal Class to determine the exact cause of death. Political scientists wanted to examine the corpse for underlying pathologies and their progression. The information may prove useful to future social movements. Hopefully, future generations can be saved from the tragic fate of the Old Liberal Class. The peaceful protests against riotous police violence gives one some hope for the next generation.

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JIM KAVANAGH—So, sure, finding themselves with some power for a couple of days—the power of their numbers and rage—black and white working-class people are going to enact, in the streets, their version of “I’ll take mine!” (and “I’ll destroy what’s yours!”) that celebrated capitalist sharks enact, with the power of their money, in boardrooms every day, deciding which businesses and communities they’re going to prey on and drain of their wealth. There’s nothing rational about any of it. Capitalism produces social inequality, social injustice, and social pathologies to which no one is immune, but whose destructive effects are only visited upon the owning class on very rare and special occasions.