Category: US Politics

Waging War Against War

W.J. Astore

Even as the Military-Industrial Complex Becomes Ever Stronger and More Dangerous, We Must Keep Fighting Against It

In today’s article, I’d like to feature insights from friends and colleagues.

At TomDispatch, Tom Engelhardt takes on man’s seemingly endless addiction to war, an addiction most certainly manifested by the US of A, where bumper stickers tell me peace comes through superior firepower. Check out Tom’s article here. Not only do we wage war on each other, Tom notes, we wage war on the planet. In fact, few things degrade the environment more than war and all the destruction it brings with it. 

John Rachel, a peace activist, has a telling theme: War is making us poor. He’s been making short punchy videos to hammer home the point. Check out his latest here:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/GBmRtDJrC4M?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Why are wars so persistent in the U.S., despite their stupidity, their destruction, their waste? One of my readers put it well in a comment to me: 

The endless wars without a traditional definition of success have not been failures to those who have profited. For them, the only war that is lost, is the one that ends. God forbid one should be won under the standard definition and profits then ended.

Cynical? Not when you measure that statement against the U.S. experience of war since 1945.

Finally, also at TomDispatch, David Vine and Theresa Arriola have an article: “The Military-Industrial Complex Is Killing Us All,” which is what Ike warned us about in 1961 if we refused to act as alert and knowledgeable citizens to keep that complex in check. Their article features clear and insightful charts on the basic features of the MIC and the dangers it poses. Here’s an example:

Vine and Arriola are part of an effort whose goal it is to dismantle, or very much to downsize, that complex. (I’ve been involved in their efforts.) Here’s the website: 

https://www.dismantlethemic.org

Where you’ll find more charts and resources.

Meanwhile, last week the “liberal” New York Times posted an article ostensibly written by Senator Roger Wicker calling for even more military spending by the U.S.

Here’s how The New York Times introduced Wicker’s op-ed on May 29th:

In a guest essay today, Senator Roger Wicker writes that we are approaching a version of that moment [a major war crisis] “faster than most Americans think.” Worse, he argues, the U.S. military is unprepared to meet the moment. After decades of underfunding, the American military lacks the strength or the equipment to deal with the wide range of new threats coming from our nation’s adversaries, including Iran, China, Russia and North Korea, he writes.

The answer to this problem, Wicker says, is a short-term “generational investment” in the U.S. military — and a national conversation on how to create a safer future for America. In a new white paper, he lays out a road map to “rebuild” the military, starting with an additional $55 billion in military spending in the 2025 fiscal year and an increase of annual military G.D.P. spending from its current projected level of around 3 percent to 5 percent over the next five to seven years.

That’s a serious amount of money that will inevitably raise big questions about where it will come from — and at the expense of what — at a moment when voices all along the political spectrum are questioning both U.S. military spending overseas and the role of the American military in the world today.

Wicker makes the case that the cost of a war with an increasingly powerful adversary like China would be far higher. “Regaining American strength will be expensive,” he writes. “But fighting a war — and worse, losing one — is far more costly.”

Readers, isn’t that inspiring? A “generational investment” in more guns, more bombs, and, as likely as not, more war? What a great idea!

Apparently, the only way to prevent a war is to prepare mightily for one, according to Senator Wicker. Wicker has apparently never heard, or read, or understood the words of Ike.

Senator Wicker is a shining example of the military-industrial-congressional complex that perpetuates war to the detriment of us all, indeed to all life on our planet. But it’s his words that are amplified by the “liberal” New York Times, not the wise words of my friends and colleagues here.

And so it goes, unless we act to put an end to it. We must be the alert and knowledgeable citizens that Ike implored us to be.

Trump Paying Stormy Means Biden Wins?

W.J. Astore

The Absurdity of Democratic “Strategy”

The vacuity of Democratic strategy is astonishing if you take at face value the claim that a Trump victory this November will “end democracy.” Apparently, Trump paying Stormy Daniels $130K in hush money, after which some creative accounting obscured the source of the payoff, renders him “unfit for office.” And that claim is now a “top 2024 issue” for Democrats, as The New York Times notes here:

Democrats Push Biden to Make Trump’s Felonies a Top 2024 Issue

Interviews with dozens of Democrats reveal a party hungry to tell voters that Donald Trump’s conviction makes him unfit for office, and hopeful that President Biden will lead the way.

Meanwhile, this was the lead headline in the NYT “top news” send-out this morning:

A Felon in the Oval Office Would Test the American System

Some are wondering how the Constitution’s checks and balances, meant to hold presidents accountable, would work if the next president elected were already a felon.

“Some are wondering”: What a vapid phrase!

I think there are more severe “tests” of the “American system.” How about a president enabling a genocide in Gaza, for example?

If you want to beat Donald Trump this November, how about running a more attractive, more dynamic, more charismatic, more populist and popular, candidate? Whatever else Biden is, he is very much lacking in dynamism even as his actions render him increasingly unpopular among key segments of the Democratic base.

My wife jokingly said today: Just what we need, another election featuring two tired and seriously old white guys. She has a point. It’s not that Trump is now a felon that renders him allegedly unfit. Trump is, in my view, constitutionally unsuited for the presidency. Biden, in contrast, is a fading political hack who will be 82 years of age at the end of this year. Yet, this is what the “American system” produces. Maybe that “system” needs an overhaul?

So, which tired and seriously old white guy do you want to vote for this year?

JFK in 1963. Read his famous “peace speech” at American University

It seems hard to believe that in my lifetime we had a young, dynamic, and visionary president, JFK, who was 43 years of age when elected. A president who grew in office, rather than fading. A president who in 1963 made a commitment to pursuing peace with the Soviet Union. A man with flaws, but also one with potential.

Of course, the DNC with its superdelegates has created a system to deny anyone like a JFK (or even RFK Jr.) any chance at securing the nomination. Only corporate stooges need apply. That has allowed a populist-fraud like Trump to emerge from the right, a billionaire who poses as a man of the people. That Trump’s claim is plausible to so many is a measure of how far the Democratic Party has fallen.

It’s already been a very long election cycle, and it’s only early June. Five more months of total BS to go, America.

America’s Disastrous Afghan War

W.J. Astore

Finally a bit of truth from the New York Times, but for what reason, and why now?

Remember when Barack Obama claimed in 2007-09 the Afghan War was the right war, the good one, as opposed to the wrong and bad Iraq War prosecuted by Bush/Cheney? Of course, they were both disastrous wars, but until the Biden administration finally pulled out, chaotically so, in 2021, the mainstream media was still supporting the idea that America was doing good in Afghanistan.

I suppose enough time has passed for the New York Times to allow for a measure of honesty, if only to support Joe Biden’s reelection this year. See, Biden made the rightdecision to withdraw because now we finally can admit the war was a disaster. Naturally, it wasn’t entirely or even mainly the U.S. government’s fault …

Of course, plenty of people knew the Afghan War was a disaster; my colleague Matthew Hoh resigned from the State Department in 2009 in protest against Obama’s “surge” there and counterproductive U.S. policy decisions. Democrats in Congress listened to Hoh and a few wanted to change course, but they were brought to heel by Nancy Pelosi, who said no dissent on the Afghan War was permissible when Obama was fighting so hard for health care reform in America. Hoh heard those words straight from Pelosi’s mouth. So we got twelve more years of disastrous war and Obamacare.

Abdul Aziq in 2015 (Bryan Denton for the New York Times)

Anyhow, in my NYT news feed this AM, the “hidden history” of America’s “savage campaign” is finally being covered, though the savageness is largely ascribed to an Afghan ally of the U.S., General Abdul Aziq. As usual, American “advisers” tried to curb his worst instincts, apparently without success. Well, what can you do with such “savages”?

Here’s how the NYT puts it:

But his [Aziq’s] success, until his 2018 assassination, was built on torture, extrajudicial killing and abduction. In the name of security, he transformed the Kandahar police into a combat force without constraints. His officers, who were trained, armed and paid by the United States, took no note of human rights or due process, according to a New York Times investigation into thousands of cases that published this morning. Most of his victims were never seen again.

Washington’s strategy in Afghanistan aimed to beat the Taliban by winning the hearts and minds of the people it was supposedly fighting for. But Raziq embodied a flaw in that plan. The Americans empowered warlords, corrupt politicians and outright criminals in the name of military expediency. It picked proxies for whom the ends often justified the means.

The NYT is shocked, shocked!, that there was a “flaw” in the U.S. plan that “empowered warlords, corrupt politicians and outright criminals” in the cause of military “progress.” Hmm…sounds more like a feature of U.S. policy than a flaw.

What about all those U.S. generals testifying to Congress under oath about the progress we were allegedly making in Afghanistan? Are any of them going to be called to account? You can bet your sweet combat boots that they’re not.

After Aziq, matters grew even worse in Afghanistan, as the NYT puts it here: “What they [new warlords and supposed U.S. allies] brought under the name of democracy was a system in the hands of a few mafia groups,” said one resident of Kandahar who initially supported the government. “The people came to hate democracy.”

So, instead of Operation Enduring Freedom, America brought Operation Endemic Corruption to Afghanistan. That latter operation most definitely succeeded.

Here’s how the NYT summarizes its new study of the Afghan War:

Historians and scholars will spend years arguing whether the United States could have ever succeeded. The world’s wealthiest nation had invaded one of its poorest and attempted to remake it by installing a new government. Such efforts elsewhere have failed.

But U.S. mistakes — empowering ruthless killers, turning allies into enemies, enabling rampant corruption — made the loss of its longest war at least partly self-inflicted. This is a story Matthieu [Aikins] and I [Azam Ahmed] will spend the coming months telling, from across Afghanistan.

Echoes of the Vietnam War here. The world’s wealthiest nation invading a much poorer one in the name of “democracy,” then spreading corruption and devastation ending in a chaotic withdrawal. And now grudging admission that maybe, just maybe, the U.S. loss in Afghanistan was “at least partly self-inflicted.”

Ya think? Or maybe we can just blame the Afghan people, just as we blamed our “allies” in South Vietnam.

Nothing against Aikins and Ahmed here. I’m sure their “hidden history” of America’s war in Afghanistan will be revelatory. Yet why was it “hidden” for so long? And why are the “hiders” never called to account?

And was it really “hidden”? Matthew Hoh wasn’t the only truth-teller willing to blow a whistle. Why was his honest voice suppressed while worm-tongued generals like David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal were celebrated?

I wonder when we’ll get the “hidden history” of America’s “savage” involvement in Gaza and Ukraine? Perhaps in 2030?

The Dishonesty of Western Media on Gaza

W.J. Astore

Genocide? What Genocide?

A fascinating interview, well worth watching.

Suella Braverman is a Tory MP in Britain. Here she debates a student about Gaza and the ongoing genocide there.

Watching this interview exposes the playbook of Western politicians and the media. It’s about accusing student protesters of antisemitism; of getting them to denounce Hamas; of asking them about Israel’s “right to exist”; of starting the debate with the Hamas attacks on October 7th. Those are the “facts” that matter to the Western media and politicians like Suella Braverman.

Fiona Lali, the student here, does a superb job of focusing on the facts that matter: the roughly 40,000 Palestinians already killed by Israel, the more than 100,000 wounded, the millions displaced from their homes, together with the Western policy of covering for Israel while sending them more weaponry to kill more Palestinians. Those facts don’t seem to matter to the mainstream media, and politicians are careful to ignore them or to dismiss them as “necessary” since Israel has “a right to defend itself.”

Apparently, Fiona Lali is associated with “the revolutionary communist party” and is a critic of capitalism. Perhaps the British establishment believed that she’d come across as a crazy radical. As you watch the interview, you realize Lali is the rational “conservative” in that she’s trying to conserve the lives of Palestinians while arguing for free speech and a system that doesn’t exploit the many for the benefit of a few.

I hope Lali is correct that the majority of Britons are against sending more weapons to Israel, though I doubt the Tories in Britain care here.

It’s rather incredible that this Tory MP argues there is no evidence of genocide in Gaza and that the real issue is antisemitism and Israel’s right to exist.

Education in America

W.J. Astore

Protesting genocide in Gaza gets you punished as layoffs and job losses loom for teachers

Two stories landed in my email inbox this morning that tell us something about the state of education in America. The first from The Boston Globe shows how students are being punished for protesting against genocide in Gaza:

Suspended MIT and Harvard protesters barred from graduation, evicted from campus housing

Dan Zeno’s suspension from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for participating in an encampment protesting the war in Gaza had a swift impact on his family’s life. The graduate student has not only been barred from classes, he was also evicted from campus housing, along with his wife and 5-year-old daughter, with just one week to find another place to live.

He is among the MIT students who won’t be graduating as planned or have lost income by having their fellowships canceled or have had their research projects halted.

And on Friday, Harvard University began suspending protesters. They were told they can’t sit for exams or participate in commencement or other school activities, and will be evicted from student housing.

That’s the way you handle “rebellious” students: make them homeless and perhaps even degree-less. Want to protest mass murder and famine? Prepare to be evicted and probably suspended, if not prosecuted. And this is happening in the “liberal” state of Massachusetts at “liberal-leftist” Harvard.

Schools like MIT and Harvard, having intimate connections to Israel and the military-industrial complex, as well as huge endowments, are corporations rather than schools of higher learning. And, as we learned from “Rollerball,” you are not to interfere with management decisions. Corporate boards at MIT and Harvard are pro-Israel, and so must you be, else keep your mouth shut and maybe we’ll let you graduate. Open your mouth and we’ll shut it for you.

The second story involves teacher and staff layoffs as federal subsidies related to COVID are set to expire at the end of September. A quick summary from CNN:

Schools across the country are announcing teacher and staff layoffs as districts brace for the end of a pandemic aid package that delivered the largest one-time federal investment in K-12 education. The money must be used by the end of September, creating a sharp funding cliff.

Too bad we don’t have any money after September for those teachers and staff. I guess we sent all the money to Ukraine and Israel. Priorities, people.

For a bit of inspiration, consider this student from the University of Chicago, who explains why stopping mass murder is more important than his career prospects:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XLxSaN2nPx0?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

He gets it right. I wonder how he’ll be punished? “Criminal trespass”? Suspension? Expulsion? Imprisonment?

Someone should compare the funding of police forces, with all their riot gear and weaponry, to the funding of teachers and staff in K-12 schools across America. I’m sure America’s politicians, if pressed to make a choice, will fund the police first and to the max. Teachers? Who needs them. Our students are learning invaluable lessons from the police, who are “teaching” them about Tasers, rubber bullets, tear gas, and other instruments of “higher” learning.

Why Biden Is Consistently Pro-Israel

W.J. Astore

You get what you pay for

This graphic provides clarity as to why Joe Biden and other senior leaders in the U.S. government are consistently pro-Israel:

Of course, the power of AIPAC and similar interest groups isn’t limited to the money they give in campaign “donations.” If you cross them, they will use their power to denounce you as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel while supporting more tractable candidates against you.

You have to hand it to AIPAC and Israel. They basically control much of the U.S. government and for a relatively cheap price.

Of course, I’m not suggesting money and intimidation are the only reasons these men support Israel, but they are compelling ones.

The Palestinians and indeed the Arab and Muslim world simply have no counter to AIPAC and Israel. Unless you count oil and the threat of turning the taps off. Still, the power of the Israeli lobby in America is staggering. Many members of Congress seem more eager and willing to protect Israel at any cost than America itself. Senator Fetterman of Pennsylvania literally draped himself in an Israeli flag to show his support of that country.

Yes, that is U.S. Senator John Fetterman at a pro-Israel rally

To be an ally of a country, you don’t have to be a slavering puppet. Or a groveling puppy.

What is wrong with these people?

Update (5/11): I added this to the comments section and then thought it might be useful here as well: Besides money and fear, especially of being labeled anti-Semitic, here are more reasons why U.S. politicians support Israel so strongly:

1. It’s the path of least resistance.

2. For some, support of Israel is tied up with evangelicalism and other forms of Judeo-Christian faith.

3. They want to cash in after they leave office, and being construed as not entirely pro-Israel may be detrimental to that.

4. Sympathy for Israel (and Jews) as victims of the Holocaust.

5. Discomfort or antipathy toward Muslims, e.g. they seem more “alien” or less Western than Israelis and Jewish people in general.

6. The IDF and its intelligence services are intertwined with the CIA and various other U.S. intelligence agencies. In other words, fear of reprisals, because, let’s face it, most politicians have a lot of skeletons in various closets, and even if they don’t, skeletons can be “found.”

7. The U.S. mainstream media is almost entirely uncritical of Israel. Strong criticism of Israel will lead to negative coverage. Support of Israel produces positive coverage.

8. Being treated as an outcast among your peers. Most politicians relish being part of the club and basking in applause. You’re in the club and applauded when you support Israel. The opposite is true if you don’t.

Any others, readers? (And, of course, money/jobs related to all the U.S. weaponry that flows to Israel.)

It’s Not “Radical” to Oppose Genocide

W.J. Astore

Student Protest and the White Rose Movement in Nazi Germany

Apologists for the Israeli government and its genocidal policies are now warning us about “radicalized” college and university students. Apparently, it’s “radical” to protest genocide, famine, and ceaseless bombing. Contrariwise, it’s apparently “normal” to support mass murder, total destruction, and widespread starvation. Talk about a world turned upside down …

Of course, it’s only “radical” to oppose genocide if you live in a totalitarian state that’s prosecuting that genocide or aiding others in prosecuting it. Anyone with a working conscience and a smidgen of humanity would think it’s normal and sane to oppose mass murder and to protest against it.

Sophie Scholl flanked by her brother, Hans (L) and friend Christoph Probst (R) in 1942

Consider a university student who famously protested against genocide: Sophie Scholl. She, her brother Hans, and the rest of the White Rose movement in Nazi Germany are celebrated as heroes today in Germany because they spoke out at great risk against mass murder, and indeed the Nazis executed them in 1943 after holding show trials.

Again, we don’t dismiss Sophie Scholl as a campus “radical” for standing up for Jews and protesting against the murderous policies of the Third Reich. We see her as a paradigmatic individual, an example of the very best of us, a young woman of great moral courage. Of course, the Nazis thought otherwise, arresting her then executing her, her brother, and other White Rose members as traitors to their “race.”

Perhaps the Scholls were radical after all: radical in their courage and their commitment to human rights and values for all.

If you want to watch a powerful movie about young campus “radicals,” check out “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days,” from 2005. I highly recommend it. Back in 2013, I put together a list of 13 movies about the Holocaust and genocide for a college course I taught. In that course, I used well-known movies and documentaries like “Schindler’s List,” “The Sorrow and the Pity,” and “Night and Fog.” The list below was my attempt to expand on that and to point my students to some movies and documentaries that they may not have seen.

Here’s the original article I posted back in 2013: 

Thirteen Movies About the Holocaust

scholl movie

I’ve seen a lot of movies and documentaries about the Holocaust or with themes related to the Holocaust and totalitarianism.  Of the films I’ve seen, these are the thirteen that stayed with me.  Please note that these movies have adult themes; they may not be suitable for children or teens.

  1. American History X (1998): Searing movie about neo-Nazis and the power of hate.  Violent scenes for mature audiences only.
  2. Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001): Excellent dramatization of Anne Frank’s life, to include the tragic end at Bergen-Belsen.
  3. For My Father (2008): A movie about Palestinians, Israelis, and suicide bombers, but also a movie about the difficulties of confronting and overcoming prejudice.
  4. Hotel Rwanda (2004): The genocide in Rwanda, and how one brave man made a difference.
  5. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961): Powerful indictment of Nazi war criminals after World War II. 
  6. Katyn (2007): A reminder that the Nazis weren’t the only mass murderers in World War II.
  7. The Last Days (1998): Incredibly moving documentary that explores the fate of Hungarian Jews.  Highly recommended.
  8. Life Is Beautiful (1997): It’s hard to believe that a comedy could be made about the Holocaust.  But I think this movie works precisely because the main character is so resourceful and full of life.
  9. The Lives of Others (2006): Astonishing movie about life under a totalitarian regime (East Germany).  A “must see” to understand how people can be controlled and cowed and coerced, but also how some find ways to resist.
  10. Lore (2012): Movie about a German teenager who has to survive in the chaos of 1945 as the Third Reich comes crashing down.  Various small scenes show the hold that Hitler had over the German people, and the reluctance of many Germans to believe that the Holocaust occurred and that Hitler had ordered it.
  11. Sarah’s Key (2010): Heart-wrenching movie about the roundup of Jews in France, which reminds us that the Nazis had plenty of helpers and collaborators.
  12. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005): Inspiring movie about Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement in Nazi Germany.  The Scholls were college students who took a courageous stand against the Nazis.  Executed as traitors in 1943, they are now celebrated as heroes in Germany. 
  13. The Wave (2008): Compelling movie about the allure of fascism and “the Fuhrer (leader) principle.”  Highly recommended, especially if you want to know how Hitler got so many young people to follow him.

“Order Must Prevail”

W.J. Astore

Biden denounces violence, destruction, and hate, but only in America

President Biden read a short statement today in which he stated “order must prevail” across America. Sometimes squinting at the teleprompter and occasionally slurring his words, Biden said there’s no place for violence, destruction, and hate in America. Apparently, there is a place for violence, destruction, and hate in Gaza, as his administration continues to send more bullets and bombs to Israel in its war of annihilation there, but no matter.

Follow this link for Biden’s statement.

The best part of Biden’s statement came at the end, when he was asked if student protests had changed his mind at all. “No,” Biden replied.

Who says Joe Biden can’t speak simply, clearly, and honestly?

Biden puts a premium on order in his short statement on campus protests

An important point I was reminded of as I read Helen Benedict at TomDispatch today is how campus protests and coverage of the same in the U.S. is being used to obscure ongoing mass death and suffering in Gaza. The mainstream media here loves a good domestic “law and order” issue featuring controversy and (limited) violence, but forget about honest coverage of massive destruction in Gaza and mass murder of Palestinians.

In sum, Biden has always been a law and order man, with an emphasis on order, boasting of using police and prisons for social control. So his stance today was totally predictable—and totally retrograde and unproductive.

Biden, who in 2018 confessed he had no empathy for youth today and their complaints about tough times, is certainly showing that he indeed has no empathy for them.

For the U.S. Establishment, Violence Is the Answer

W.J. Astore

Meandering Thoughts on Campus Protests against Genocide and Police Responses

College and university campuses across the USA are increasingly the sites of violence, but that violence is largely being committed by police units called in to disperse and arrest protesters. The police, I assume, are, as they say, just following orders. The question is: Who’s giving those orders? And the answer most often seems to be senior administrators at those colleges and universities. Welcome to your education in liberal values!

Police do what they’re trained to do, just as soldiers do what they’re trained to do. Soldiers aren’t freedom-bringers and diplomats: they are trained in the use of deadly force under the most violent of conditions. Police aren’t educators and negotiators: they are also trained in the use of suppressive force under violent conditions.

On campuses across America, police have done what police are armed and trained to do here. They break out their riot gear, their sniper rifles, their armored cars, their tools of behavior modification (e.g. cuffs, Tasers, truncheons, rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper spray), and they go to work. They literally kick ass and take names (and mug shots, fingerprints, and so on).

Police are here to protect and to serve, so we’re told. But to protect and to serve whom? And for what cause? Ultimately, police protect the powerful, those with property and money, because those are the ones giving them their orders. If and when police begin to refuse orders from above, that’s when the powerful will truly begin to worry.

It’s interesting that some student protesters, as at Columbia, are now being compared (as by MSNBC) to the January 6th protesters and rioters for Trump. It’s a sign of desperation by the establishment to equate anti-genocide protesters with pro-Trump rioters, but there you have it. Recall on January 6th that the police largely stepped aside and allowed protesters for Trump into the Capitol. I don’t see the police stepping aside on campuses or taking selfies with protesters, or even removing barriers, as some police did on January 6th.

In “Rollerball,” John Housemen explains to James Caan that he is not to interfere with management decisions

The overly violent and repressive responses we’re witnessing across America to largely peaceful protests reveals the imperative at the heart of America’s political system. Recalling the movie “Rollerball,” the one thing you’re never supposed to do as a corporate-citizen is to question management decisions. America’s managers have decided to support Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and YOU ARE NOT TO INTERFERE WITH THAT. If you do, your protest will be suppressed, often quickly and violently.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Oe1NTpPIyEs?start=262s&rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

There’s a reason America’s managers “invest” so much in the “thin blue line” of the police. They believe in violence as the way to uphold their power and privilege. It doesn’t matter that violence hasn’t always worked, especially in foreign wars (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.). They’ll continue to use violence as long as it remains profitable to do so, whether economically or politically.

How long before people are killed or seriously injured in these police actions? How long before those who are killed or wounded are denounced as “bums,” as President Richard Nixon called the dead students of Kent State? How long before we hear that the “silent majority” supports Trump and/or Biden in their call for “law and order”?

How long before Israel renders Gaza Palestinian-free, as various U.S. police forces mobilize to render college campuses protester-free?

And how long before we’re told once again that America is the greatest, most exceptional, nation on earth because of all our freedoms?

Media Bias and Student Protests

W.J. Astore

NPR as National Propaganda Radio

I’d like to highlight this Twitter/X post by Lee Camp and his take on improving NPR’s BS headline:

Lee Camp: Ummm, NPR, I believe you meant to say “Nearly 300 peaceful unarmed people brutally attacked by fascist police for exercising their freedom of speech”

I’d add that students are protesting the Israeli government’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and the U.S. government’s complicity in the same. They are not protesting against “the war in Gaza,” unless you modify that as “Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.” 

It’s funny indeed that NPR has a reputation as being “left” or even “far left.” Anything critical of Joe Biden is “radical left” in America (unless you’re a Trumper, in which case you’re “fascist”). Anyone that questions and challenges the U.S. government’s total subservience to Israel’s current genocidal agenda is dismissed as unrealistic or as Kremlin stooges. Or maybe apologists for China. It’s nonsense, of course, but it seems to work for some people.

Confuse and obscure the issue. Baffle with BS. And don’t forget Tasers, handcuffs, tear gas, rubber bullets, and good old-fashioned truncheons for those who refuse to obey.

I suppose deceptive headlines don’t hurt quite as much as being beaten to the ground and hauled off to jail. But they are even more effective, I think, at quietening dissent.

Update (4/29): At Indiana University, snipers and armored cars showed up as well as circling helicopters for a modest student encampment. The snipers were apparently escorted into rooftop and tower positions by university administrators. Check out this report:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/MSFPOsxVPWw?start=5s&rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Update 2 (4/29): A good cartoon is sometimes worth 1000 words: