ARAB NATION

PATRICE GREANVILLE—It’s a well known fact that the totality of corporate journos and entertainers, under penalty of career cancellation, obediently toe the imperialist line, that’s why unless you watch or read alternative media sources (like this one) you are liable to be consuming nothing but the smelly servings of the Ministry of Truth. That’s the case therefore with all major comedians approved by the empire, a select group of extremely well paid people which includes Steven Colbert, Bill Maher, John Oliver, and others of equivalent caliber. Well guess, what, folks, it now seems that John Oliver apparently had something like a conversion—at last—or the Israeli/Palestinian issue is so obvious a crime that he simply had enough. Oliver is obviously aware that his segment would detonate an explosion of Hasbara retaliation, and this already has begun. It’s clear the pressure, as usual, is on to make him a non-person, to cancel him, and to make an example, too, lest others begin to think they can cross the invisible but very real imperial red lines with impunity. Oliver’s presentation, by the way, given his usual passion and talent to inject clarity into neglected or distorted issues, was good, but far from splendid. He is either still learning or he was pulling many of the punches that the gravity of Israel’s crimes actually merit.

Judging that there is danger in the house of France, twenty generals of the second section and more than a thousand soldiers drawn from the reserve cadre have launched an appeal to government authorities. Here without a spirit of controversy is the personal opinion of a group of citizens who have in common to have served for an active period of their lives as officers in one of the three Armed Forces. It is in this capacity that they share an anxiety concerning the present and future of France that more or less in the near term they will bequeath to their descendants.

In doing this however no one is claiming to represent the opinion of active military personnel nor to suggest any involvement on the part of the latter, those who are dedicated to serve their nation as a whole, actively and often at peril of their lives.

DAVID GAMBLE—A common enemy unifies people. While the Yellow Vest protests have underscored the economic and financial crises of capitalism as they rally against austerity and privilege, a gasoline tax and inequities, the traumatised French population gathered en masse in unified nationalism.  They confronted the Muslim enemy, alleged radical separatism which, in some aspersions, is somehow leftist Islamo gauchisme.  What, then, is left of solidarity of the Arab working class with the general population? They have been dismissed with a word in the current rightward trend. The religious rights of Muslims need to be included. This is not limited just to Muslim students but to Arab workers who compose 3.3% of the French population.

CALEB MAUPIN—In this chat Caleb covers as usual a wide range of topics, including: A major and powerful analysis of the political origins of 9/11 (the attack on the Towers).  Caleb explores the rise of Wahabism, a fanatical branch of Islam supported by Saudi Arabia and the US, and used criminally and cynically by the latter to fight genuine anti-imperialist forces and nations. Caleb reminds us that the 9/11 attacks were NOT carried out by anti-imperialist forces or nations, and that such nations —Cuba, Iran, Syria, Russia, China, etc., well acquainted with the consequences of Wahabism—were in fact clearly opposed to such an act of indiscriminate terror against the American people.  The conceptual failure of the left to point out that the attack on the twin towers was not the work of anti-imperialists, but of a Washington proxy and ally, was a huge tactical failure for the American left, including its most famous voices.

EDWARD SAID—Sure enough Sartre did have something for us: a prepared text of about two typed pages that – I write entirely on the basis of a twenty-year-old memory of the moment – praised the courage of Anwar Sadat in the most banal platitudes imaginable. I cannot recall that many words were said about the Palestinians, or about territory, or about the tragic past. Certainly no reference was made to Israeli settler-colonialism, similar in many ways to French practice in Algeria. It was about as informative as a Reuters dispatch, obviously written by the egregious Victor to get Sartre, whom he seemed completely to command, off the hook.