IDIOTIZED PUBLICS

MEE—What is the link between Zionism, capitalism and the American empire? Fresh off the back of a deeply toxic, all consuming US election – one in which the issue of Palestine and the war in Gaza was largely ignored – we examine what it means to survive a system intent on silencing and marginalising dissenting voices. Despite the key role the Biden Administration has played in arming and supporting Israel, a position opposed by the majority of Americans, few political voices were interested in challenging or even speaking about this policy. A policy which mirrors the US’ own bloody history of colonialism, empire and exploitation. An environment in which voices who challenge the status quo have fewer and fewer platforms to express their dissenting views.
This week on The Big Picture Podcast, Mohamed Hassan sits down with human rights attorney, legal scholar and professor at Rutgers University Noura Erakat.

A Jewish-American film-maker expressed her solidarity with the suffering of the Palestinian people at the Venice Film Festival last September. “I stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their struggle for liberation.” Her brave statements were welcomed by many in the audience, probably contrary what might have happened if the venue had been in the USA.

Jewish American filmmaker Sarah Friedland expressed her solidarity with the Palestinian people as she accepted the Luigi de Laurentiis prize for best first film for Familiar Touch.

She expressed her solidarity with the Palestinian people on the 336th day of what she referred to as “Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the 76th year of occupation”. She stated that she believes it is the responsibility of film workers to use the institutional platforms they work through to redress “Israel’s impunity on the global stage”.

EDITOR—Global activists and thinkers, dreamers and doers came together during IGNITE! to chart a path towards a society built on justice, equity, democracy, peace, and liberation. The Transnational Institute celebrated its 50th anniversary with a festival of radical ideas! We live in dark times — obscene levels of inequality, uncontrolled corporate greed, rampant militarization, a rising far-right, and ecological breakdown. Most disturbing of all, Western governments’ complicity with the ongoing genocide in Palestine has normalised brutal levels of dehumanisation with profound consequences for all vulnerable people worldwide. We need radical, systemic change.

EDITORS—An eloquent discussion of the evolution of US imperialism from the end of WW2, when it quickly rose to global supremacy, to its marked 21st century rapid decline. Americans—misled by the political and media classes, live in denial, says Wolff, not to mention the noxious exceptionalist/chauvinist indoctrination all Americans receive, making them practically immune to unpleasant truths about their nation’s realities and despicable deeds around the globe, from Ukraine to Palestine, Europe, and the Far East, all part of Washington’s penchant for constant war, which is now courting a global disaster by seeking a possible nuclear confrontation with Russia, China, and Iran. The Transition, notes Wolff, from FDR social democracy, when the economy was in good shape due to its robust set of income supports, to the free-marketism of “Neoliberalism” in the 1970s, which culminated with Reagan’s presidency and the massive offshoring of jobs and manufacturing to low-wage nations such as China, were the decisive points in US capitalism’s trajectory from affluence and power to oligarchic decrepitude.

FEMI AKOMOLAFE—One of today’s wonders is how anyone with a brain could fail to notice how far from reality the leaders and the media in the West have become.

Visiting Europe and watching the news there these days is quite an experience. Europeans chose to create and live in their parallel universe, millions of miles from reality. It does not help matter that unelected EU bureaucrats have hijacked almost every aspect of life. These EUcrats banned Europeans from watching alternative news media.

It baffles greatly that Europeans sheepishly went along.

America mercifully did not descend into the levels of Europe before they decided to act.

As we said at the onset, we have no horse in American presidential races.

However, the country’s importance will continue to affect our lives deeply.