IDIOTIZED PUBLICS

ERIC ZUESSE—The great progressive, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, thought very deeply about and planned constantly (during 11 August 1941 to 12 April 1945 when he died) to design, a post-WW2 world in which there would be equality of opportunity for all peoples under a “United Nations” that would be an all-inclusive democratic international federal republic of nations (a democratic world government) replacing and outlawing all empires and possessing a global monopoly control over all all geostrategically significant weapons so that no nation would be allowed to violate international law — the laws that pertain between nations and never within any individual nation. (His U.N. would have excluded any international dictates that pertain to human rights, since such laws inevitably differ from one nation to another, and each nation will inevitably deal with the matter according to its culture. He knew that the U.N. would be ineffective if it favored some cultures over other cultures. That (supremacism) is the way an empire is, and FDR despised empires, and was designing his U.N. to replace all of them.)

EDITOR—The geopolitical analysis looks at: U.S. role in enabling Israel’s actions. The Arab states’ muted response (e.g., Saudi normalization paused?). Iran’s strategic posture and proxy dynamics. Turning to International Law & Resistance, Garland and Laith examine the legitimacy of Palestinian armed resistance under occupation, and ICC/Western double standards.  The hosts clearly disapprove of Israel’s lawless actions. Garland Nixon, well known for his critical view of U.S. foreign policy, emphasizes Palestinian sovereignty. Laith Marouf filters his comments through an Anti-imperialist lens, highlighting the innumerable crimes of Zionist settler-colonialism.

Continued Israeli military operations and civilian casualties make further bloodshed a certainty. Siege conditions (food, water, medical shortages), all of which are war crimes, continue unabated, while the key nations capable of stopping the genocide—US, UK, France, Germany, major Arab states, etc. and most EU members—are busy helping Israel instead of the victmised Palestinians. This is aggravated by the disgustingly biased coverage we see in all Western media. 

PHILIP GIRALDI—The participants in the Signal meeting are now scrambling to make their case that they did nothing wrong, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in particular is arguing that the discussion was not classified even though the issue related to sensitive intelligence regarding the United States plans for escalating a war against a country with which it was not technically at war. The deniers are certainly wrong in making that case, either that or they were incapable of understanding what was on the table.

PROLE CENTER—It is clear that Chris Hedges is Chomsky 2.0 and repeats many of the same anti-communist, “anti-statist,” and “a plague on both your houses” rejections of all formations of power.

Michael Parenti, a genuine and powerfully persuasive, Marxist thinker, has thoroughly debunked the fake and amorphous pseudo-left declarations and talking points of Noam Chomsky that Hedges parrots.

CHRS HEDGES—President-elect Donald Trump does not herald the advent of fascism. He heralds the collapse of the veneer that masked the corruption within the ruling class and their pretense of democracy. He is the symptom, not the disease. The loss of basic democratic norms began long before Trump, which paved the road to an American totalitarianism. Deindustrialization, deregulation, austerity, unchecked predatory corporations, including the health-care industry, wholesale surveillance of every American, social inequality, an electoral system that is plagued by legalized bribery, endless and futile wars, the largest prison population in the world, but most of all feelings of betrayal, stagnation and despair, are a toxic brew that culminate in an inchoate hatred of the ruling class and the institutions they have deformed to exclusively serve the rich and the powerful. The Democrats are as guilty as the Republicans.