P. GREANVILLE—The disgraceful US government response to the Helene hurricane disaster that devastated several states and left hundreds of thousands literally destitute, proves that ordinary Americans, whether in New Orleans, LA (Hurricane Katrina), Ashville, NC (Hurricane Helene), or the horrendous train disaster in New Palestine (OH), or the wind-driven wildfires on the island of Maui (HI), to name just a handful of such catastrophes in recent memory, are basically not duly represented by the US political class, from the President and Congress on down.
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MAIN EDITORS—10/4/2024 Episode 114 of Blowback: Exposing Imperial Decline with special guests Christopher Black and Max Parry.
The panel debates the question of who is actually setting global foreign policy in the US, especially in the Middle East, where many believe the Zionist lobby wields disproportionate influence. Is the Israeli lobby actually the most important factor in US foreign policy? Can it be said that this is a case of the tail wagging the dog? -
CHRIS HEDGES—Woke ideology is pervasive in liberal institutions, especially universities, but does it further and hamper the liberal values and inclusiveness it purports to advocate? It seeks to transform society through what Christian Parenti calls the moralizing micropolitics of politicized etiquette. It is fixated on the politics of language and symbols, the sins of cultural appropriation and misnaming and calls for centering historically oppressed groups. It advocates identity politics, prioritizing race, gender, indigeneity, sexual orientation, physical disability, mental health diagnoses, immigration status and socioeconomic status over political content. Woke discourse, Parenti writes, “is imbued with a therapeutic mentality expressed in safety-obsessed incantations about harm, trauma, healing, care and doing the work. Personal struggles take precedent over political struggles.
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MARGARET KIMBERLEY—n 2012 Angela Davis felt compelled to give fulsome praise to Barack Obama, including claiming that his rise to the presidency showed a connection with the Black radical tradition. The false statement was quite alarming, as Davis ignored the obvious, that the Obama campaign was a creation of the neo-liberal and imperialist elites who needed a more attractive face in a moment of crisis. Our late comrade Glen Ford observed that, “The ‘delusional effect’ that swept Black America with the advent of the First Black President has warped and weakened the mental powers of some of our most revered icons – and it has been painful to behold.”
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EDITOR—We are living through a moment of social and political upheaval – one that has somehow aligned the Houthi rebels in Yemen, South Africa’s greatest legal minds and students across the wealthiest campuses in the world. They’re all fighting for Gaza, and against an increasingly isolated Israeli government and its Western backers. So are we witnessing a historic tipping point? Norman Finkelstein has documented the Israel-Palestine conflict for over 4 decades, with a particular focus on Israel’s actions in Gaza. As the son of Holocaust survivors, he became particularly critical of Israel’s use of history as a propaganda tool to shut down critique – something he documents in his book ‘The Holocaust Industry’.
