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Category: Media

  • Israel has ‘deliberate strategy’ of killing Palestinian journalists like Anas al-Sharif, warns UN expert

    Democracy Now!


    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

    Global condemnation is mounting over Israel’s assassination of one of the most prominent journalists in Gaza, the Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, along with four of his colleagues at the network and another freelance journalist.

    UN Secretary-General António Guterres is calling for an independent investigation after the five Al Jazeera journalists were killed in a targeted Israeli strike outside Al-Shifa Hospital in a tent clearly marked in Gaza City. European Union officials and international press freedom groups have also denounced the assassinations.

    The sixth journalist, freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khalidi, was also killed in the same strike. Minutes before the strike, al-Sharif posted to X, “If this madness does not end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.”

    On Monday, crowds of mourners gathered for a funeral procession for al-Sharif and his colleagues, marching from Al-Shifa to Sheikh Radwan Cemetery in central Gaza, carrying the journalists’ bodies wrapped in white sheets.

    A dark blue flak press jacket and a Palestinian flag were placed on al-Sharif’s remains. People embraced as they decried Israel’s relentless targeting of journalists in Gaza.

    Meanwhile, at rallies and vigils worldwide, people are demanding accountability for the attack on journalists, including in Tunisia, Belfast, Dublin, Berlin, London, Oslo, Stockholm and Washington, DC.

    For more, we go to Geneva, Switzerland, where we’re joined by Irene Khan, UN special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression. She served as secretary-general of Amnesty International from 2001 to 2009.

    Irene Khan, welcome back to Democracy Now! In late July, you publicly denounced Israel’s threats against Anas al-Sharif. Can you talk about what you understood at that time, and then this young 28-year-old reporter’s response to your press statement?

    IRENE KHAN: Yes, well, Anas actually contacted me, and Al Jazeera contacted me to tell me of this impending threat on his head. They had seen it before. He’s not the first one, as you know.

    There are some — anything between 26 to 30 journalists — who have been targeted in this campaign of assassination. And Anas wanted me to go public, he wanted others to go public, to stop what Israel was doing.

    But at the same time, he thanked me for my support, and then he said nothing would stop him from speaking the truth. And in a way, he signed his own death warrant by that, because, as you know, he and the others, Al Jazeera’s entire team in northern Gaza, were killed, murdered, just as Israel ramps up its military action on the city, Gaza City.

    So, there is a clear pattern here of killing journalists to clear the path, to silence voices, to stop the international, global opinion from being informed of the genocide in Gaza.


    Assassination: Israel’s killing of Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif   Video: Democracy Now!

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Irene Khan, the number of journalists — so, more than 200 have been killed in Gaza. That’s more than all the journalists killed in World War I, World War II, Korea, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan War combined.

    Your sense of the Israeli impunity here in being able to basically kill the corps of journalists that are still able to report from Gaza?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, you also have to take into account that Israel has refused to give access to international media. So these are all local Gazan journalists who are putting their lives on the line to keep the world informed. Many of them — you named some 200 — many of them, of course, have been killed in the intensity of the battle. Many of them have been killed while asleep in their own apartments. But these cases, the cases of Anas now, and his colleagues, and a number of other cases of targeted killing, is really murder.

    It is not killing in the context of war. It is a deliberate strategy to stop independent voices reporting. So it’s as much a threat to independent journalism as it is to the journalists themselves, as well as a blatant attempt by the Israelis to stop the world witnessing what they are doing.

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And these killings also came as the Israeli government announced they’re unleashing a new operation in the area of Gaza. Who will be left to document this operation now?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, absolutely. And that is why Anas got in touch with me, because he realised what was happening. You know, from his message on LinkedIn and from his message that he has sent to me and to others, it was very, very clear.

    He has been there on the ground since October 2023. He could see the pattern. He could see what was happening. He knew they were coming for him.

    And that is why it is incumbent on all of us now not to just condemn, but actually to act, before independent media is totally obliterated from Gaza.

    AMY GOODMAN: Irene Khan, I want to ask what you’re calling for, and the significance of Netanyahu holding this news conference on Sunday and saying — he has now said that the Israeli military can bring in journalists, but they’re most concerned about protecting their safety.

    A few hours later is when Israel assassinated these six journalists. Now, it is the first time, NPR reports, since October 2023 that Israel so quickly took responsibility for their assassination.

    You know, compare it to Shireen Abu Akleh, May 11, 2022, when Israel said it was not clear, and then, you know, so many studies were done, but it became very clear. Talk about what you are calling for at this point.

    IRENE KHAN: It’s not actually an admission of taking responsibility, because there is no accountability in it. It’s actually a brazen attempt to show the world that the Israeli army can work as it wishes, regardless of international humanitarian law that protects journalists as civilians.

    Now, what I’m calling for is, of course, independent investigation, truly independent investigation. But I’m also calling for protection of journalists on the ground and for access to international journalists.

    Israel always covers these assassinations and murders with allegations and smear campaigns — the journalists are simply agents of Hamas or members of Hamas — and that kind of gives Israel a veil of impunity.

    It’s important for international journalists to be on the ground so they can actually investigate and expose this false story and the string of assassinations that Israel is carrying out.

    And I think we need to remember the message that Israel’s action is sending to the rest of the world, because there are other spots, other conflict areas, where also others are learning that you need to be just brazen and go ahead and kill journalists, and you can get away with it.

    AMY GOODMAN: Irene Khan, we’re speaking to you in Geneva, Switzerland — Geneva, the Geneva Conventions. Can you talk about how the conventions specifically protect journalists?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, the convention gives journalists civilian status, which means that, like all other civilians, they should not be targeted during the war.

    The problem is the journalists are not just civilians. They are the kind of civilians that have to go to the frontline and not run away somewhere else. You know, they are not like women and children, who can move and seek shelter elsewhere.

    They have to be where the fighting is. And that exposes them. They are much more like humanitarian workers. And journalists need to be recognised as humanitarian workers. There needs to be — I believe there needs to be additional protection given to them, because it shows how vulnerable they are, on the one hand, to attacks, and, on the other hand, how important their work is to the rest of the world, to any peace process, to any attempt to have accountability and justice for the victims.

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Last month, the union representing reporters at the French press agency AFP warned that the agency staff were in danger of starving to death, and they issued an open letter condemning what Israel was doing in terms of denying food, not just to the population in general, but also to journalists, as well.

    Your response?

    IRENE KHAN: Well, absolutely. These journalists are local journalists, as I said, so they have faced all the problems that the population is facing. They’ve had their own families killed. They have to hunt for food, even as they hunt for news.

    So, they have been put in a terrible situation. And that’s why Israel has to open the gates, not under military protection, but allow journalists independently to come and investigate. It has to stop the starvation, the blockade. It has to allow humanitarian assistance to come in. And it has to agree to a ceasefire and, of course, stop the genocide.

    AMY GOODMAN: I want to end with the words of Anas al-Sharif himself. Anticipating his own murder by Israeli forces, he wrote a preprepared message that was posted on his X account after his death. Al Jazeera read part of his message on air.

    AL JAZEERA REPORTER: “If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice, I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification, so that God may bear witness against those who stayed silent and accepted our killing.”

    He ends, “Do not forget Gaza… And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.”

    AMY GOODMAN: The words of Anas al-Sharif, posted after he was killed by the Israeli military along with five other journalists. Five of them were with Al Jazeera.

    Irene Khan, I want to thank you so much for being with us, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, speaking to us from Geneva, Switzerland. To see our interview with the managing editor of Al Jazeera, go to democracynow.org.

    Democracy Now! is produced with Mike Burke, Renée Feltz, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Nicole Salazar, Sara Nasser, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud, Safwat Nazzal. Our executive director is Julie Crosby.

    I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, for another edition of Democracy Now!

    The original content of this programme is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israeli PM has ‘lost the plot’, says NZ’s Christopher Luxon

    By Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira, RNZ Māori news journalist in Parliament

    New Zealand’s Prime Minister says the war in Gaza is “utterly appalling” and Israeil Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost the plot”.

    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s comments came on a tense day in Parliament today, where the Green Party’s co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was “named” for refusing to leave the House following a heated debate on the government’s plan to consider recognising Palestinian statehood.

    Speaking to media, Luxon said Netanyahu had “gone too far”.

    “I think he has lost the plot and I think that what we’re seeing overnight — the attack on Gaza City — is utterly, utterly unacceptable,” he said.

    Luxon said Israel had consistently ignored pleas from the international community for humanitarian aid to be delivered “unfettered” and the situation was driving more human catastrophe across Gaza.

    “We are a small country a long way away, with very limited trade with Israel. We have very little connection with the country, but we have stood up for values, and we keep articulating them very consistently, and what you have seen is Israel not listening to the global community at all,” Luxon said.

    “We have said a forcible displacement of people and an annexation of Gaza would be a breach of international law. We have called these things out consistently time and time again.

    “You’ve seen New Zealand join many of our friends and partners around the world to make these statements, and he’s just not listening,” the Prime Minister said.

    Considering statehood
    The government is considering whether it will join other countries like France, Canada and Australia in recognising Palestinian statehood at a UN Leader’s Meeting next month.

    Luxon said recent attacks could “extinguish a pathway” to a two-state solution.

    “I’m telling you what my personal view is, as a human being, looking at the situation, that’s how I feel about,” he said.

    Opposition Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has called the war an “unfolding genocide”, echoing the comments made by former prime minister Helen Clark, who visited the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Palestinian territory this week. as part of The Elders’ delegation.

    “She’s used the words ‘unfolding genocide’, and yes, I do agree with that. That’s a good description of the situation at the moment.”

    Hipkins said calling it an “unfolding genocide” meant that New Zealand was not “appointing ourselves judge and jury” because there was still a case to be heard before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

    “Recognising that there is an unfolding genocide in Gaza is an important part of the world community standing up and saying, we’re not going to tolerate it.

    “We should recognise that there is now a growing acknowledgement around the world that there is an unfolding genocide in Gaza, and I think we should call that for what it is, and the world community needs to react to that to prevent it from happening,” Hipkins said.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NGOs urge Nandy to halt sale of Telegraph over China links

    Letter from rights groups says RedBird Capital’s proposed takeover threatens media pluralism and transparency

    A group of nine human rights and freedom of expression organisations have called on the culture secretary to halt RedBird Capital’s proposed £500m takeover of the Telegraph and investigate the US private equity company’s ties to China.

    The international non-governmental organisations, which include Index on Censorship, Reporters Without Borders and Article 19, have written to Lisa Nandy arguing that RedBird Capital’s links with China “threaten media pluralism, transparency and information integrity in the UK”.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • MEAA condemns targeted attacks on Gaza journalists as a war crime

    Pacific Media Watch

    Australia’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance has condemned the continued targeted killing of media workers in Gaza and the baseless smearing of working journalists as “terrorists”, following the deaths of five Al Jazeera staff over the weekend.

    Al Jazeera journalists Anas Al Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and assistant Moamen Aliwa were killed on Sunday when Israel bombed a tent housing journalists in Gaza City, near Al-Shifa Hospital.

    Shockingly, the Israeli military confirmed the targeted killing on social media, with a post to X accompanied by a target emoji.

    The latest deaths come after Israel had conducted a long smear campaign of unsubstantiated allegations against Al Sharif and other journalists, labelling them “Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists”, which the International Federation of Journalists has condemned.

    As Al Jazeera has said, this was a “dangerous attempt to justify the targeting of journalists in the field”.

    “Tragically, these warnings have now come to fruition,” the MEAA said in a statement.

    “The targeting of journalists is a blatant attack on press freedom, and it is also a war crime.

    “It must stop.”

    Call for ‘unfettered coverage’
    MEAA also said the Israeli ban preventing the world’s media from accessing the region and providing unfettered coverage of the worsening humanitarian crisis must stop.

    The silencing of Palestinian journalists via a rising death toll that the Gaza Media Office puts at 242 must also stop, the union said.

    “In his final words, Al-Sharif said he never hesitated for a single day to convey the truth as it is — without distortion or falsification,” said MEAA

    “His reports brought to the world the reality of the horrors being inflicted by the Israeli government on the civilians in Gaza.

    “He asked the world to not forget Gaza and to not forget him.”

    MEAA said it stood up against attacks on press freedom around the world.

    • Pacific Media Watch says there has been no equivalent condemnation by New Zealand journalists, who have mostly remained silent during the 22 months of Israel’s war on Gaza.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • RSF calls for emergency UN Security Council meeting after targeted Israeli strike kills six media professionals

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the Israeli military’s “disgraceful tactic” to cover up war crimes in the wake of the killing of six journalists in Gaza on Sunday.

    It has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to stop the massacre of journalists, RSF said in a statement.

    The August 10 Israeli strike killed six media professionals in Gaza, five of whom currently work or formerly worked for the Qatari television network Al Jazeera and one freelance journalist.

    The strike, which has been claimed by the Israeli army, targeted Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif, whom it accused, without providing solid evidence, of “terrorist affiliation”.

    RSF said the military had repeatedly used this tactic against journalists to cover up war crimes, while the army has already killed more than 200 media professionals.

    “RSF strongly condemns the killing of six media professionals by the Israeli army, once again carried out under the guise of terrorism charges against a journalist,” said RSF’s  director-general Thibaut Bruttin.

    “One of the most famous journalists in the Gaza Strip, Anas al-Sharif, was among those killed.

    “The Israeli army has killed more than 200 journalists since the start of the war. This massacre and Israel’s media blackout strategy, designed to conceal the crimes committed by its army for more than 21 months in the besieged and starving Palestinian enclave, must be stopped immediately.

    “The international community can no longer turn a blind eye and must react and put an end to this impunity.

    “RSF calls on the UN Security Council to meet urgently on the basis of Resolution 2222 of 2015 on the protection of journalists in times of armed conflict in order to stop this carnage.”

    Targeted strike on tent
    The Israeli army killed Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif in a targeted strike on a tent housing a group of journalists near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

    The strike, claimed by Israeli authorities, also killed five other media professionals, including four working or having worked for Al Jazeera — correspondent Mohammed Qraiqea, video reporter Ibrahim al-Thaher, Mohamed Nofal, assistant cameraman and driver that day, and Moamen Aliwa, a freelance journalist who worked with Al Jazeera — as well as another freelance journalist, Mohammed al-Khaldi, creator of a YouTube news channel.

    The attack also wounded freelance reporters Mohammed Sobh, Mohammed Qita, and Ahmed al-Harazine.

    This attack, claimed by the Israeli army, replicates a tactic previously used against Al Jazeera journalists. On 31 July 2024, the Israeli army killed reporters Ismail al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi in a targeted strike, following a smear campaign against the former, who, like Anas al-Sharif, was accused of “terrorist affiliation”.

    Hamza al-Dahdouh, Mustafa Thuraya and Hossam Shabat, who also worked for the Qatari media outlet, are among the victims of this method denounced by RSF.

    As early as October 2024, RSF warned of an imminent attack on Anas al-Sharif following accusations by the Israeli army.

    The international community, led by the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, ignored these warnings.

    Under Resolution 2222 of 2015 on the protection of journalists in armed conflict, the UN Security Council has a duty to convene urgently in response to this latest extrajudicial killing by the Israeli army.

    Since October 2023, RSF has filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting investigations into what it describes as war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists in Gaza.

    The New Zealand-based Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • A Quartet Of Nicaragua Critics Sings From Washington’s Songbook

    In recent weeks, a motley crew of writers has found common cause in attacking Nicaragua’s Sandinista government: Jaden Hong, a high-school student from Sammamish, Washington, who has never visited the country; Jared O. Bell, a former USAID Foreign Service Officer; Barb Arland-Fye, editor of a Catholic newspaper in Iowa; and Gioconda Belli, a 76-year-old Nicaraguan novelist in self-exile. Writing in outlets ranging from The Teen Magazine to the New York Times, they have produced a string of biased, ill-informed pieces that repeat the same well-worn falsehoods about Nicaragua’s elected government.

    Their attacks on Nicaragua’s revolution reflect Washington’s talking points as it pursues its regime-change agenda.

    The post A Quartet Of Nicaragua Critics Sings From Washington’s Songbook appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • A Quartet of Nicaragua Critics Sings from Washington’s Songbook

    In recent weeks, a motley crew of writers has found common cause in attacking Nicaragua’s Sandinista government: Jaden Hong, a high-school student from Sammamish, Washington, who has never visited the country; Jared O. Bell, a former USAID Foreign Service Officer; Barb Arland-Fye, editor of a Catholic newspaper in Iowa; and Gioconda Belli, a 76-year-old Nicaraguan novelist in self-exile. Writing in outlets ranging from The Teen Magazine to the New York Times, they have produced a string of biased, ill-informed pieces that repeat the same well-worn falsehoods about Nicaragua’s elected government.

    Their attacks on Nicaragua’s revolution reflect Washington’s talking points as it pursues its regime-change agenda. Jaden Hong tells “Gen Z” in The Teen Magazine that Nicaragua’s democracy is fading. Jared O. Bell, who lost his USAID job in Managua when Trump shuttered the agency, complains in Peace Voice about the country’s “stolen democracy.” Barb Arland-Fye, in The Catholic Messenger, writes glowingly about a key organizer of the violent coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018. Novelist Gioconda Belli is given a guest essay in the New York Times to lament her “country’s dictator.”

    Belli, born in Nicaragua but living abroad since the 1980s, has been a critic of the Sandinista government since it first regained power through the ballot box in 2007. Her status as a novelist ensures that the NYT, the Guardian, Spain’s El Pais and other mainstream outlets give her space to vent her anger against a revolution which she supported initially but has since labeled a “farse.”

    Many of Nicaragua’s liberal intellectuals opposed the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s, but their commitment faded as the initial glamour of the revolution turned into the hard work of tackling the needs of the country’s poor and working people. As ordinary Nicaraguans were given greater voice, and taxes were raised to pay for new schools and hospitals (60% of the country’s budget goes to social programs), they maligned people’s power as an emerging “dictatorship.”

    The list of privileged critics of the Sandinista government, whose status gives them access to the New York Times and other corporate outlets, include Belli and her brother Humberto, along with Sergio Ramirez (a “novelist betrayed by the revolution”), journalist Carlos Chamorro and many more. Some work directly for mainstream media, such as Wilfredo Miranda (El Pais) and Gabriela Selser (Reuters). Supposedly revolutionary in their youth, they are now part of Washington’s soft power apparatus and help feed its imperialist agenda.

    Of the lies in Belli’s recent NYT article, one stands out: that “peaceful protesters were shot” during the coup attempt against Nicaragua’s elected government in 2018. This falsehood is repeated in the other three articles. Bell says that “student-led protests… were met with brutal, deadly repression.” Hong says that “lethal force” led to “355 dead and hundreds injured.” For Arland-Fye, it was a “deadly crackdown.” That the protestors were far from “peaceful” is obvious from the fact that 22 police officers were killed and over 400 injured in attacks launched from the hundreds of roadblocks erected by the coup-mongers throughout the country.

    Arland-Fye’s sycophantic piece is about opposition figure Bishop Silvio José Báez Ortega. The cleric had called the coup roadblocks “a wonderful idea” and said he hoped to see President Daniel Ortega in front of a firing squad. The Iowa bishopric, for which Arland-Fye writes, has just awarded Baez a “peace prize.”

    The suggestion that Trump is following an Ortega “playbook” appears in two of the articles: it could hardly be more absurd. Unlike Ortega, Trump is not building public hospitals, he’s dismantling Medicare. Also unlike Ortega, he isn’t presiding over a country which is championing the shift to renewable energy; nor is he building 7,000 affordable homes each year. Trump, instead, is drastically cutting federal spending for social needs.

    Rather than following a Nicaraguan “playbook” of peaceful cooperation with its neighbors, both Trump administrations (and Biden’s, both echoing Reagan in 1985) have incredulously declared Nicaragua an “extraordinary threat to the national security” of the US. But it is Nicaragua’s remarkable battle against poverty, unmentioned in the articles, that is seen by Washington as the real “threat,” because it challenges the neoliberal order.

    The article by Bell, a former USAID worker, is perhaps unintentionally the most revealing. Prior to the 2018 coup attempt, USAID spent millions of dollars creating Nicaragua’s anti-Sandinista media apparatus. After the coup attempt failed, the Sandinista government justifiably closed NGOs and media outlets funded by USAID or its auxiliary body, the National Endowment for Democracy. They did so based on legislation patterned after the US’s Foreign Agents Registration Act. Nevertheless this funding continues – going to anti-Sandinista outfits in Costa Rica and in the US itself.

    USAID had maintained a Nicaraguan presence by having staffers like Bell in the US embassy in Managua. Their role, as his article makes clear, was not to assist the government in fighting poverty but to engage with “exiled civil society leaders and independent [sic] journalists” opposed to the revolution. The ”independence” of US government-funded journalists goes unquestioned.

    Meanwhile, the USAID, while formally independent, now operates under the direction of the State Department. But its clandestine work assuredly continues.

    The saddest of the four articles is by teenager Jaden Hong. If he were to visit Nicaragua, he would see for himself how young people have free, good quality education right through to university level and beyond. He would see how the government has addressed malnutrition in youngsters by providing all of them with free school meals. He would note that parks, playgrounds and sports facilities have sprung up around the country.

    Above all, if he took part in one of the frequent mass demonstrations in support of the government, he might wonder at the fact that most of those around him are other young people. Unlike Gioconda Belli, they are too young to recall the revolutionary years of the 1980s. But they are old enough to recognize the revolution’s achievements and to be determined to protect them from Washington’s attacks.

    The post A Quartet of Nicaragua Critics Sings from Washington’s Songbook first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • A Quartet of Nicaragua Critics Sings from Washington’s Songbook

    In recent weeks, a motley crew of writers has found common cause in attacking Nicaragua’s Sandinista government: Jaden Hong, a high-school student from Sammamish, Washington, who has never visited the country; Jared O. Bell, a former USAID Foreign Service Officer; Barb Arland-Fye, editor of a Catholic newspaper in Iowa; and Gioconda Belli, a 76-year-old Nicaraguan novelist in self-exile. Writing in outlets ranging from The Teen Magazine to the New York Times, they have produced a string of biased, ill-informed pieces that repeat the same well-worn falsehoods about Nicaragua’s elected government.

    Their attacks on Nicaragua’s revolution reflect Washington’s talking points as it pursues its regime-change agenda. Jaden Hong tells “Gen Z” in The Teen Magazine that Nicaragua’s democracy is fading. Jared O. Bell, who lost his USAID job in Managua when Trump shuttered the agency, complains in Peace Voice about the country’s “stolen democracy.” Barb Arland-Fye, in The Catholic Messenger, writes glowingly about a key organizer of the violent coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018. Novelist Gioconda Belli is given a guest essay in the New York Times to lament her “country’s dictator.”

    Belli, born in Nicaragua but living abroad since the 1980s, has been a critic of the Sandinista government since it first regained power through the ballot box in 2007. Her status as a novelist ensures that the NYT, the Guardian, Spain’s El Pais and other mainstream outlets give her space to vent her anger against a revolution which she supported initially but has since labeled a “farse.”

    Many of Nicaragua’s liberal intellectuals opposed the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s, but their commitment faded as the initial glamour of the revolution turned into the hard work of tackling the needs of the country’s poor and working people. As ordinary Nicaraguans were given greater voice, and taxes were raised to pay for new schools and hospitals (60% of the country’s budget goes to social programs), they maligned people’s power as an emerging “dictatorship.”

    The list of privileged critics of the Sandinista government, whose status gives them access to the New York Times and other corporate outlets, include Belli and her brother Humberto, along with Sergio Ramirez (a “novelist betrayed by the revolution”), journalist Carlos Chamorro and many more. Some work directly for mainstream media, such as Wilfredo Miranda (El Pais) and Gabriela Selser (Reuters). Supposedly revolutionary in their youth, they are now part of Washington’s soft power apparatus and help feed its imperialist agenda.

    Of the lies in Belli’s recent NYT article, one stands out: that “peaceful protesters were shot” during the coup attempt against Nicaragua’s elected government in 2018. This falsehood is repeated in the other three articles. Bell says that “student-led protests… were met with brutal, deadly repression.” Hong says that “lethal force” led to “355 dead and hundreds injured.” For Arland-Fye, it was a “deadly crackdown.” That the protestors were far from “peaceful” is obvious from the fact that 22 police officers were killed and over 400 injured in attacks launched from the hundreds of roadblocks erected by the coup-mongers throughout the country.

    Arland-Fye’s sycophantic piece is about opposition figure Bishop Silvio José Báez Ortega. The cleric had called the coup roadblocks “a wonderful idea” and said he hoped to see President Daniel Ortega in front of a firing squad. The Iowa bishopric, for which Arland-Fye writes, has just awarded Baez a “peace prize.”

    The suggestion that Trump is following an Ortega “playbook” appears in two of the articles: it could hardly be more absurd. Unlike Ortega, Trump is not building public hospitals, he’s dismantling Medicare. Also unlike Ortega, he isn’t presiding over a country which is championing the shift to renewable energy; nor is he building 7,000 affordable homes each year. Trump, instead, is drastically cutting federal spending for social needs.

    Rather than following a Nicaraguan “playbook” of peaceful cooperation with its neighbors, both Trump administrations (and Biden’s, both echoing Reagan in 1985) have incredulously declared Nicaragua an “extraordinary threat to the national security” of the US. But it is Nicaragua’s remarkable battle against poverty, unmentioned in the articles, that is seen by Washington as the real “threat,” because it challenges the neoliberal order.

    The article by Bell, a former USAID worker, is perhaps unintentionally the most revealing. Prior to the 2018 coup attempt, USAID spent millions of dollars creating Nicaragua’s anti-Sandinista media apparatus. After the coup attempt failed, the Sandinista government justifiably closed NGOs and media outlets funded by USAID or its auxiliary body, the National Endowment for Democracy. They did so based on legislation patterned after the US’s Foreign Agents Registration Act. Nevertheless this funding continues – going to anti-Sandinista outfits in Costa Rica and in the US itself.

    USAID had maintained a Nicaraguan presence by having staffers like Bell in the US embassy in Managua. Their role, as his article makes clear, was not to assist the government in fighting poverty but to engage with “exiled civil society leaders and independent [sic] journalists” opposed to the revolution. The ”independence” of US government-funded journalists goes unquestioned.

    Meanwhile, the USAID, while formally independent, now operates under the direction of the State Department. But its clandestine work assuredly continues.

    The saddest of the four articles is by teenager Jaden Hong. If he were to visit Nicaragua, he would see for himself how young people have free, good quality education right through to university level and beyond. He would see how the government has addressed malnutrition in youngsters by providing all of them with free school meals. He would note that parks, playgrounds and sports facilities have sprung up around the country.

    Above all, if he took part in one of the frequent mass demonstrations in support of the government, he might wonder at the fact that most of those around him are other young people. Unlike Gioconda Belli, they are too young to recall the revolutionary years of the 1980s. But they are old enough to recognize the revolution’s achievements and to be determined to protect them from Washington’s attacks.

    The post A Quartet of Nicaragua Critics Sings from Washington’s Songbook first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Why Israel’s assassination of Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif and crew threatens all journalists

    By David Robie, convenor of Pacific Media Watch

    I never knew Anas al-Sharif personally. But somehow he seemed to be part of our whānau.

    We watched so many of his reports from Gaza that it just appeared he would be always around keeping us up-to-date on the horrifying events in the besieged enclave.

    Although he actually worked for Al Jazeera Arabic, the 28-year-old was probably the best known Palestinian journalist in the Strip and many of his stories were translated into English.

    It is yet another despicable act by the Israeli military to assassinate him and four of his colleagues on the eve of launching their new mass crime to seize and demolish Gaza City with a population of about one million as part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to occupy the whole of Gaza.

    In many ways the bravery of al-Sharif — he had warned several times that he was being targeted — was the embodiment of the Palestinian courage under fire when UNESCO awarded the 2024 World Press Freedom Award collectively to the Gazan journalists.

    But it wasn’t enough just to “murder” him and his colleagues — as the Al Jazeera channel proclaimed in red banner television headlines — Israel attempted unsuccessfully to try to smear him in death as a “Hamas platoon leader” without a shred of evidence.

    The drone attack late on Sunday night hit a journalists’ work tent near the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, killing seven people. Among those killed beside al-Sharif were fellow Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed Noufal.

    Call for UNSC emergency session
    Al Jazeera later said a sixth journalist, freelancer Mohammad al-Khaldi, was also killed in the strike. Reporters Without Borders said three more journalists had been wounded and called for a UN Security Council emergency session to discuss journalist safety.

    In a statement, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network condemned in “the strongest terms” the killing of its media staff in “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”, noting that the Israeli occupation force had “admitted to their crimes”.

    “This attack comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities,” Al Jazeera said.

    “Anas and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices from within Gaza, providing the world with unfiltered, on-the-ground coverage of the devastating realities endured by its people.”

    Five Al Jazeera journalists killed in Gaza by Israel’s “psychopathic liar” — Marwan Bishara Video: Al Jazeera

    Ironically, the killings came hours after Netanyahu told media he had decided to “allow” some foreign journalists into the Gaza Strip.

    “In fact, we have decided, and I’ve ordered, directed the military, to bring in foreign journalists, more foreign journalists,” Netanyahu told a news conference in Jerusalem.

    Israeli authorities have in the past barred any foreign media from entering the Gaza Strip, while it has been deliberately targeting and killing local Palestinian journalists.

    Other attacks on Al Jazeera
    The deadly strike on Anas al-Sharif and his four colleagues is not the first attack on Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza since the start of Israel’s current war on the Palestinian territory in October 2023

    Israeli forces have previously killed five Al Jazeera journalists: Samer Abudaqa, Ismael al-Ghoul, Ahmed al-Louh, Hossam Shabat and Hamza Dahdouh, son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, as well as many of the family members of Al Jazeera journalists.

    The Israeli military has been systematically killing journalists, photographers and local media workers in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war in an attempt to silence their reports.

    The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has verified the killing of at least 186 journalists since October 7, 2023. At least 90 journalists have been imprisoned by Israel.

    But some media freedom groups put the casualty figure even higher. The Government Media Office in Gaza, for example, reports that 242 journalists have been killed.

    The Israeli military have frequently accused journalists of being “terrorists” without evidence.

    According to Muhammad Shehada, a writer and analyst from Gaza, Anas al-Sharif was a “loved by everyone, by his entire community”.

    ‘Enormous influence’
    “He’s held enormous influence there, and that’s precisely why Israel murdered him.

    Shehada told Al Jazeera he had “looked into the allegations” that Israel produced, trying to smear him as a Hamas militant, adding that “the allegations were completely contradictory.” He added:

    “There’s zero evidence that al-Sharif took part in any hostilities, in any armed actions, aided or abetted any kind of these hostilities. None at all. His entire daily routine was standing in front of a camera from morning to evening.”

    An early Instagram report of the killing of the Gazan journalists
    An early Instagram report of the killing of the Gazan journalists . . . later updated to five Al Jazeera staff and a sixth journalist. Image: AJ

    Reporting from Amman, Jordan, because Israel banned Al Jazeera from reporting from inside Israeli territory and the occupied West Bank, Hoda Abdel-Hamid said: “When you read the statement issued by the Israeli army, which was well prepared before all this happened, it’s almost as if it is bragging about it.”

    It had been alleged by Israel that Anas al-Sharif was a member of the military wing of Hamas, and the army claimed that it had found documents in Gaza that proved their point.

    “It includes some links to content that anyone could have printed,” she said. “This has been going on for a few weeks, ever since Anas started reporting on the starvation in Gaza, and he had such a huge impact on the Arab world.

    “Immediately after, a spokesman for the Israeli army in Arabic… posted a video on social media, accusing al-Sharif of being a Hamas member and threatening him.”

    ‘Knew he was at serious risk’
    Abdel-Hamid said she had been going through his X feed.

    “He knew his life was at serious risk, and he repeatedly wrote that he was just a journalist, and he wanted his message to be spread widely, because he thought that was a way to protect him.”

    Posted on his X account in case he was killed was his “last will” and final message. He wrote in part:

    “I entrust you with Palestine — the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace.

    “Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.

    “I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland . . . “

    Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said that last October Israel had accused al-Sharif and “a number of other journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof”.

    “We warned back then that this felt to us like a precursor to justify assassination, and, of course, last month… we saw again, a repeated smear campaign”, she told Al Jazeera.

    “This is not solely about Anas al-Sharif, this is part of a pattern that we have seen from Israel… going back decades, in which it kills journalists.”

    Accusations repeated
    Al-Sharif had warned last month about the starvation facing journalists — “and we saw then the accusations repeated.

    “Of course, now we are seeing a new offensive, plans for a new offensive, in Gaza, the kind of thing that Anas has been reporting on for the best part of three years.”

    The medical director of al-Shifa Hospital said that Israel had killed the journalists to prevent coverage of atrocities it intended to carry out in its Gaza City seizure.

    “The [Israeli] occupation is preparing for a major massacre in Gaza, but this time without sound or image,” Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya told Turkiye’s Anadolu news agency.

    “It wants to kill and displace the largest number of Palestinians in Gaza City but this time in the absence of the voice of Anas, Mohamed, Al Jazeera and all satellite channels.”

    Assassinated Gazan journalist Anas al-Sharif
    Assassinated Gazan journalist Anas al-Sharif . . . “killed to prevent coverage of atrocities” Israel intends to carry out in its Gaza City seizure. Image: AJ screenshot APR

    ‘Fabrications don’t wash’
    Al Jazeera’s senior analyst Marwan Bishara warned that “Israel’s lies” about al-Sharif endangered journalists everywhere, saying that the “best response to the killing of our colleagues is by continuing to do what we do”.

    “I want to correct one thing [about Western media reports], and I need our viewers and readers around the world to pay attention:

    “It doesn’t matter whether what Israel said about al-Sharif is correct or not.

    “It’s an absolute fabrication. It’s wrong. But it doesn’t matter.

    “Because if every American journalist who served in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been killed because there’s a suspicion that they worked for the CIA; if every French and British journalist would be killed because they work for the MI5 or something like that, then I think there will be no Western journalists working in the Middle East.

    “It’s not OK to kill a journalist in a tent of journalists because you accuse him of something.

    “If you accuse him of something, you take him to court, you make a complaint, you follow certain procedures, with the network, with the [International Federation of Journalists], and so on and so forth.

    “You don’t kill a journalist who has been doing their job for months on, day in, day out, night and day, and claim later that they work for Hamas.

    “That doesn’t wash.

    “It’s wrong, it’s a lie, it’s a fabrication as usual, but this psychopathic liar should not get away with killing a journalist and simply attaching an accusation to it.

    “It doesn’t wash, because otherwise, every single Western journalist covering a war that a Western government is involved in is going to be a target.

    “Why?

    “Because Israel has done it.”

    In January 2024, three months into the war, I wrote an article for Declassified Australia about “Silencing the messenger” when I made the point that while “Israel killed journalists, the West merely censored them”.

    I wrote that it was time for journalists to take a moral stand for truth and justice, and although I expected a strong response, the feedback was merely tepid. It was as if Western journalists did not comprehend the enormity of the Gaza crisis facing the world.

    It is shameful that New Zealand journalists and media groups have not come out in the past 22 months with strong denunciations of Israel’s war on both journalists and truth – and the genocide against Palestinians.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • CPJ condemns Israeli killing of Gaza journalist Anas al-Sharif and video crew of four

    Pacific Media Watch

    The Committee to Protect Journalists has made a statement today that it is appalled to learn of the killing of an Al Jazeera media crew of five, including journalists Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa by Israeli forces in Gaza.

    The journalists were killed in an attack on a tent used by media near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City during a targeted Israeli bombardment, according to Al Jazeera which has described the killings as “murders”.

    In a statement announcing the killing of Al-Sharif, Israel’s military accused the journalist of heading a Hamas cell and of “advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and [Israeli] troops”.

    Israel has a longstanding, documented pattern of accusing journalists of being terrorists without providing any credible proof.

    “Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said CPJ regional director Sara Qudah.

    “Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted. Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable.”

    Al-Sharif had been one of Al Jazeera’s best-known reporters in Gaza since the start of the war and one of several journalists whom Israel had previously alleged were members of Hamas without providing evidence.

    Reported on starvation
    Most recently, Al-Sharif had reported on the starvation that he and his colleagues were experiencing because of Israel’s refusal to allow sufficient food aid into Gaza.

    In a July 24 video, Avichay Adraee, an Israel Defence Forces spokesperson, accused Al-Sharif of having been a member of Hamas’s military wing, Al-Qassam, since 2013 and working during the war “for the most criminal and offensive channel”, apparently referring to Al Jazeera Arabic.

    Al-Sharif told CPJ in July: “Adraee’s campaign is not only a media threat or an image destruction — it is a real-life threat.”

    He said: “All of this is happening because my coverage of the crimes of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip harms them and damages their image in the world.

    “They accuse me of being a terrorist because the occupation wants to assassinate me morally.”

    The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Irene Khan, said she was “deeply alarmed by repeated threats and accusations of the Israeli army” against al-Sharif.

    Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war on October 7, 2023, CPJ has documented 186 journalists having been killed. At least 178 of those journalists are Palestinians killed by Israel.

    However, other sources and media freedom groups put the death toll even higher. Al Jazeera reports the death toll as “more than 200” and the Gaza Media Office has documented 142 journalists.

    UNESCO awarded its 2024 World Press Freedom Prize to the Palestinian journalists of Gaza.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel’s Biggest US Donor Now Owns CBS

    After reaching an agreement with President Trump, David Ellison—the son of the second-richest man in the world, Larry Ellison—has acquired Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS News.

    Larry Ellison, the largest private funder of the Israel Defense Forces, is deeply tied to the Israeli national security state and counts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among his closest friends.

    David has already announced significant changes at CBS, promising “unbiased” news coverage and “varied ideological perspectives,” which are widely understood to signal a shift toward right-wing, pro-Trump coverage. Worse still, Bari Weiss, a journalist with a long history of zealous pro-Israel advocacy, is being considered as the network’s new ombudsman, shaping its political direction, precisely because of her “pro-Israel stance.”

    The post Israel’s Biggest US Donor Now Owns CBS appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • 600+ Journalists Renew Call To Let Foreign Press Enter Gaza

    As Israel prepares for a full occupation of Gaza, foreign journalists have renewed calls to be allowed into the besieged strip.

    More than 600 journalists and media organizations have signed a petition released Monday by Freedom to Report (FTR) demanding “immediate, unsupervised foreign press access” to Gaza, which they said is “the worst press blackout in modern conflict.”

    “This is not a call to be heard,” said the renowned war photographer André Liohn, FTR’s founder. “We demand that independent, professional journalists be allowed into Gaza. What’s happening today is not only a humanitarian blackout but also an information blackout, and it must end.”

    The post 600+ Journalists Renew Call To Let Foreign Press Enter Gaza appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Trump’s FCC Considers Supercharging Corporate TV Consolidation

    Critics say Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr is ignoring legal precedent as the FCC moves to eliminate rules that effectively limit the number of local TV stations that corporate media conglomerates can own and operate. The FCC controls local TV and radio licenses, and while the telecom regulator is independent and overseen by Congress, advocates say Carr…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • ‘You will hear us!’ -New anti-genocide protest interrupts live media broadcasts


    This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Enemies of the people’- Max Blumenthal blasts media role in Gaza genocide


    This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • No, Nuking Cities Did Not Save Lives

    It’s oddly encouraging that the New York Post had to bring up its kookiest right-wing propagandist on Friday to argue that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives. It’s almost as if the New York Times’ kookiest right-wing propagandist’s claiming that killing Palestinians is not genocide had to be one-upped by the Post. It’s even more encouraging that the Post felt obliged to expand the usual definition of “lives” to include the lives of Japanese people, claiming that nuking people saved not only U.S. lives but also Japanese lives — an argument it would have been very hard to find even being attempted during the early decades of this myth.

    But it isn’t true that claims that nukes saved lives or nukes ended the war are only made by fringe crackpots. Those claims may be fading out among serious historians, but they are basic accepted fact to the general public, even the most educated sections of the general public; so they continue popping up like zombies in books and articles whose authors seem to have no idea they’re even writing anything controversial, much less utterly debunked. (The Post calls it “one of the most controversial historical questions in American history.”)

    The argument in the Post (quoting an author named Richard Frank) is this:

    “Not only has no relevant document been recovered from the wartime period, but none of them,” he writes of Japan’s top leaders, “even as they faced potential death sentences in war-crimes trials, testified that Japan would have surrendered earlier upon an offer of modified terms, coupled to Soviet intervention or some other combination of events, excluding the use of atomic bombs.”

    Well here’s a relevant document. Weeks before the first bomb was dropped, on July 13, 1945, Japan had sent a telegram to the Soviet Union expressing its desire to surrender and end the war. The United States had broken Japan’s codes and read the telegram. Truman referred in his diary to “the telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace.” President Truman had already been informed through Swiss and Portuguese channels of Japanese peace overtures as early as three months before Hiroshima. Japan objected only to surrendering unconditionally and giving up its emperor, but the United States insisted on those terms until after the bombs fell, at which point it allowed Japan to keep its emperor. So, the desire to drop the bombs may have lengthened the war. The bombs did not shorten the war.

    It’s odd for the Post to build its case entirely on the absence of a certain type of testimony by proud Japanese defendants facing trials for their lives with zero motivation to admit that the Japanese government had been wanting to surrender, and for the Post to completely omit the testimony of all U.S. authorities.

    Defenders of nuking cities may now claim the nukes saved lives, but at the time the bombs were not even intended to do any such thing. The war ended six days after the second nuke, six days into the Russian invasion of Japan. But the war was going to end anyway, without either of those things. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that, “… certainly prior to 31 December, 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November, 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

    One dissenter who had expressed this same view to the Secretary of War and, by his own account, to President Truman, prior to the bombings was General Dwight Eisenhower. Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard, prior to the bombings, urged that Japan be given a warning. Lewis Strauss, Advisor to the Secretary of the Navy, also prior to the bombings, recommended blowing up a forest rather than a city. General George Marshall apparently agreed with that idea. Atomic scientist Leo Szilard organized scientists to petition the president against using the bomb. Atomic scientist James Franck organized scientists who advocated treating atomic weapons as a civilian policy issue, not just a military decision. Another scientist, Joseph Rotblat, demanded an end to the Manhattan Project, and resigned when it was not ended. A poll of the U.S. scientists who had developed the bombs, taken prior to their use, found that 83% wanted a nuclear bomb publicly demonstrated prior to dropping one on Japan. The U.S. military kept that poll secret. General Douglas MacArthur held a press conference on August 6, 1945, prior to the bombing of Hiroshima, to announce that Japan was already beaten.

    The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William D. Leahy said angrily in 1949 that Truman had assured him only military targets would be nuked, not civilians. “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender,” Leahy said. Top military officials who said just after the war that the Japanese would have quickly surrendered without the nuclear bombings included General Douglas MacArthur, General Henry “Hap” Arnold, General Curtis LeMay, General Carl “Tooey” Spaatz, Admiral Ernest King, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, and Brigadier General Carter Clarke. As Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick summarize, seven of the United States’ eight five-star officers who received their final star in World War II or just after — Generals MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Arnold, and Admirals Leahy, King, Nimitz, and Halsey — in 1945 rejected the idea that the atomic bombs were needed to end the war. “Sadly, though, there is little evidence that they pressed their case with Truman before the fact.”

    On August 6, 1945, President Truman lied on the radio that a nuclear bomb had been dropped on an army base, rather than on a city. And he justified it, not as speeding the end of the war, but as revenge against Japanese offenses. “Mr. Truman was jubilant,” wrote Dorothy Day. We have to remember that in the U.S. media of the time, killing more Japanese people was decidedly preferable to killing fewer, and required no justification of supposedly saving lives or ending wars. Truman, the guy whose action is being defended and whose diary is being carefully ignored, made no such claims, as he was not doing restrospective propaganda.

    So, why then were the bombs dropped?

    Presidential advisor James Byrnes had told Truman that dropping the bombs would allow the United States to “dictate the terms of ending the war.” Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal wrote in his diary that Byrnes was “most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got in.” Truman wrote in his diary that the Soviets were preparing to march against Japan and “Fini Japs when that comes about.” The Soviet invasion was planned prior to the bombs, not decided by them. The United States had no plans to invade for months, and no plans on the scale to risk the numbers of lives that the Post will tell you were saved.

    Truman ordered the bombs dropped, one on Hiroshima on August 6th and another type of bomb, a plutonium bomb, which the military also wanted to test and demonstrate, on Nagasaki on August 9th. The Nagasaki bombing was moved up from the 11th to the 9th to decrease the likelihood of Japan surrendering first. Also on August 9th, the Soviets attacked the Japanese. During the next two weeks, the Soviets killed 84,000 Japanese while losing 12,000 of their own soldiers, and the United States continued bombing Japan with non-nuclear weapons — burning Japanese cities, as it had done to so much of Japan prior to August 6th that, when it had come time to pick two cities to nuke, there hadn’t been many left to choose from.

    Here’s what the Post claims was accomplished by killing a couple of hundred thousand people and commencing the age of apocalyptic nuclear danger:

    “The end of the war made unnecessary a US invasion that could have meant hundreds of thousands of American casualties; saved millions of Japanese lives that would have been lost in combat on the home islands and to starvation; cut short the brief Soviet invasion (that alone accounted for hundreds of thousands of Japanese deaths); and ended the agony that Imperial Japan brought to the region, especially a China that suffered perhaps 20 million casualties.”

    Notice that the Post feels obliged to blame (at the time it would have been credit) the Soviet invasion with killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese people, even while claiming, pace Truman, that it did not influence the Japanese decision to surrender. Notice also that the only alternative to the war ending after the nukes, in this view, would have been the war continuing for a great long time costing millions of Japanese lives. But the facts above do not bear this out. The 2025 propagandist is disagreeing with the consensus of the leaders of his beloved military in 1945.

    Why is he doing that?

    He concludes with his motivation: “This is why President Donald Trump’s vision of a Golden Dome to protect the U.S. from missile attack is so important, and why we need a robust nuclear force to deter our enemies.”

    Here is a different view of what World War II tells us about a Golden Dome.

    Here are things you can do to make the 80th anniversaries of the nuclear bombings without lying about them.

    The post No, Nuking Cities Did Not Save Lives first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Indo-Pak Leaders Should “Have a Nice Dinner Together”

    Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (left) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi IMAGE/PPI/AFP/The News

    Troublemakers

    Many leaders1 are averse to running their countries in a peaceful and progressive manner. Instead of concentrating on the problems the majority of their people face, they create trouble by introducing or undoing things, in order to gain political mileage and divert the public’s attention from important issues requiring government focus. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one such leader.

    In the Indian Lok Sabha, on August 5, 2019, Modi’s Home Minister Amit Shah announced revocation of Article 370 which had granted limited autonomy to the Indian occupied Kashmir.

    Constitutional expert and eminent scholar A. G. Noorani told Akshay Deshmane what that revocation meant:

    It is utterly and palpably unconstitutional. An unconstitutional deed has been accomplished by deceitful means. For a fortnight, the Governor and other people told a whole load of lies. And I am sorry that the Army Core Commander (Chief) was also enlisted to spread this false thing of inputs from Pakistan. It was all a falsehood. They have undermined the Army’s non-political character. This is patently unconstitutional. Thing is that I had always predicted that they are out to fulfill their Saffron agenda: Uniform Civil Code, Ayodhya and Abrogation of Article 370. It remains to be seen how they accomplish the Ayodhya agenda.

    The Revocation of Article 370 was in complete violation of the 2018 Indian Supreme Court ruling which stated that Article 370 was a permanent part of the Indian Constitution and the only way it could be revoked was through the legislative body that had drafted the Article originally- only they could rescind it. That body, however, stopped functioning in 1957.

    India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said in the Lok Sabha on June 26 and August 7, 1952.

    “I say with all respect to our Constitution that it just does not matter what your Constitution says; if the people of Kashmir do not want it, it will not go there. Because what is the alternative? The alternative is compulsion and coercion…” “We have fought the good fight about Kashmir on the field of battle… (and) …in many a chancellery of the world and in the United Nations, but, above all, we have fought this fight in the hearts and minds of men and women of that State of Jammu and Kashmir. Because, ultimately – I say this with all deference to this Parliament – the decision will be made in the hearts and minds of the men and women of Kashmir; neither in this Parliament, nor in the United Nations nor by anybody else,”

    — Selected works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol. 18, p. 418 and vol. 19 pp. 295-6, respectively in A. G. Noorani, “Article 370: Law and politics,” Frontline, September 6, 2000.

    That has never happened. The Kashmiri people have never been given a choice to decide their own destiny. Immediately after revoking Article 370, political leaders and thousands of Kashmiri civilians, including those who want Kashmir to be a part of India, were arrested. Kashmir and Jammu was locked down and all communication was blocked for eighteen months. Kashmir was cut off from the rest of the world.

    Pahalgam

    In September 2024, Kashmir Times’ editor Anuradha Bhasin told Al Jazeera:

    “For the last five years, all Kashmiris have seen is an arrogant bureaucracy and the important missing layers of a local government.”

    Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in parliament, addressing a rally in the Jammu region said:

    “Non-locals are running Jammu and Kashmir.” “Your democratic right was snatched. We have given priority to the demand for restoration of statehood.” “If [Modi’s party BJP] fails to restore statehood after the elections, we will put pressure on them to ensure it.”

    Bhasin painted a gloomy picture:

    “The hands of the clock have never moved back. Whatever has been taken from the people, in terms of their autonomy or democratic rights, has never been given back. I doubt that would change in the near future.”

    In May 2024, Omar Abdullah, prior and the current Chief Minister since October 2024, had warned about presenting a rosy picture:

    “The situation [in Kashmir] is not normal and talk less about tourism being an indicator of normalcy; when they link normalcy with tourism, they put tourists in danger.” “You are making the tourists a target.”

    Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group:

    “New Delhi and its security agencies started buying their own assessment of peace and stability, and they became complacent, assuming that the militants will never attack tourists.” “But if pushed to the wall, all it takes is two men with guns to prove that Kashmir is not normal.”

    While Modi was in Saudi Arabia, on April 22, 2025, terrorists associated with The Resistance Front killed 26 tourists in Pahalgam, a beautiful hill station and a favorite destination for visitors. The victims were asked about their religion and were killed on communal basis.

    Modi cut short his Saudi Arabia visit and flew back to India’s capital city, Delhi where he didn’t mention Pahalgam at all.

    However, Modi’s divisive inflammatory rhetoric and strategy is well known to the Bihar-based Rashtriya Janata Dal who predicted Modi’s politics:

    “The pyres of the victims of the Pahalgam terrorist attack have not yet been lit, but the country’s Prime Minister will come to Bihar tomorrow to campaign and deliver speeches because Bihar is holding elections this year.”

    Modi, as if on an election campaign in Bihar, the second most populous state (with a large Dalit and Muslim population), gave a fiery speech:

    “Today from the soil of Bihar I say to the whole world. India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the earth.”

    Veteran journalist Jawed Naqvi points out that in foreign countries Modi typically gives his speeches in Hindi but he gave this address using English to Bihar’s Hindi speakers (perhaps, to fully capitalize from the foreign press present.)

    The accusing finger immediately implied Pakistan, rather than question the security lapse of the Indian security forces or trying to determine the perpetrators. Pakistan has been involved in the past but, this time no proof exists of its involvement. The rhetoric reached fever pitch and culminated in India’s attack on its neighbor, and when Pakistan asked for evidence of the accusation, India didn’t provide it.

    Pakistan also offered to join a “neutral and transparent” investigation but India refused the offer.

    India blamed Pakistan’s military chief Asim Munir’s speech of April 15, 2025 for the Pahalgam tragedy.

    It’s a well known fact that Kashmir is the world’s most militarized zone with very numerous Indian check points all over the state. The question: where was Indian security? was not addressed by the government. Two months later, on June 22, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested two persons who provided shelter to three persons involved in the act, according to NIA allegations.

    Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri announced 5 major decisions taken by the Indian Government in April, 2025:

    1. Suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (1960) with Pakistan.

    2. Immediate closure of the Atari Integrated Checkpost.

    3. Cancellation of all SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme visas for Pakistani nationals.

    4. Expulsion of defense, naval, and air advisors from the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi.

    5. Reduction of staff in both High Commissions from 55 to 30.

    The CCS reaffirmed India’s resolve to bring perpetrators to justice and hold their sponsors accountable.

    These are extreme measures that, if implemented, especially the water treaty suspension, will undoubtedly create more trouble and could result in a bigger war in the future.

    On July 28, Indian government said its security forces killed three persons responsible for the April 22 killing.

    Asim Munir

    On April 15, while addressing the Overseas Pakistanis (OPs), Munir came out as Indian Hindu Modi’s2 Pakistani version: full of hate, divisiveness, and communalism.

    “Our forefathers thought that we are different from the Hindus in every possible aspect of life. Our religion is different. Our customs are different. Our traditions are different. Our thoughts are different. Our ambitions are different.”

    “… we are two nations, we are not one nation.”

    The army, not popular in Pakistan for its constant interference in politics and disappearing critics and people as Balochis, seemingly, feels driven to frequently do something to make itself relevant. Munir’s speech to OPs was one such attempt.

    India blaming Munir for Pahalgam attack does not seem very credible. The oppressed people, Kashmiris in India or Balochis in Pakistan, don’t need any inciting speech to fight back; they’re just waiting for the right time because they don’t have the luxury of attacking at will, like the governments do, in the name of “national security.” The oppressed can’t reach the state so they attack innocent people to communicate their plight.

    In Pakistan, Baloch separatists have stopped buses and killed Punjabis after checking their IDs, perhaps in revenge as Punjab is Pakistan’s most populous and dominant province, and has a strong hold over the central government.

    The attacks are cruel, but these kind of ugly incidents may continually occur if governments involved refuse to negotiate and reach amicable solutions.

    War

    On 29 April, Indian government sources quoted Modi: “They [the Indian army] have complete operational freedom to decide on the mode, targets, and timing of our response,”

    On May 7, India struck some sites in Pakistan, that then counter-struck.

    India’s Israeli Ambassador Reuven Azar posted on X: “Israel supports India’s right for self-defense. Terrorists should know there’s no place to hide from their heinous crimes against the innocent.”

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Modi: “Israel stands with India in its fight against terrorism.”

    There can be no better person than Netanyahu, the great terrorist and genocider, to advice another terrorist.

    Trump’s ceasefire

    The four-day-war ended when US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire on his Truth Social media site:

    “I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.”

    Propaganda

    In 2014, when Modi was to become Prime Minister for the first time, Amit Shah had bragged about BJP having 3.2 million WhatsApp groups who could instantly turn anything into believable stuff. In May 2024, BJP had at least 5 million WhatsApp groups and its infrastructure is so strong that any message relayed from Delhi could circulate all over India within 12 minutes.

    Kiran Garimella of Rutgers University who researches WhatsApp in India, warned that WhatsApp is not an open social media like X or Facebook which is worrying and a cause for concern for many people.

    “It is concerning that such a huge ‘hidden’ infrastructure plays a huge role in how the public consumes information.” “Only the creators of these groups know the extent to which the tentacles of this WhatsApp infrastructure are spread.”

    What is the result?

    War is like a game to the war inciters, war lovers, war media, and common people under the spell of the media frenzy and are most interested in the one question, who won and who lost?

    The winners

    There were two clear winners: Indian news media and the Pakistan army and its Chief of Army Staff: Asim Munir.

    False news stories and AI generated images came from both sides but India was way ahead in fake news:

    • Indian Navy destroyed sea port Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and financial center, with “over ten blasts.”
    • The city of Peshawar was turned to “dust.”
    • Pakistani soldiers were “deserting” and generals were “fleeing” the country,
    • Some channels announced destruction of 5 cities where as another settled for 26 cities
    • India’s fake news-master Arnab Goswami also declared a huge blast was heard outside Pakistan PM’s house and he was taken away to a place “20.5” kilometers (12.74 miles) away. Goswami also said it’s not clear whether it was for a safety reason or was it a coup.
    • Zee News declared a coup happened resulting in the arrest of General Asim Munir.
    • and so on…

    For a very long time now, most Indian media has turned into “Godi Media,” a term used by Ravish Kumar, the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award winner. (Kumar was NDTV India’s Managing Editor but left when it was bought by billionaire Gautam Adani, a Modi supporter and fellow Gujarati.)

    Kumar queried as to who should get an award for riveting fake news?

    • News Nation who gave news of Sharif on the run or,
    • Zee News who located Sharif, who was never missing?

    Sumitra Badrinathan, an assistant professor at the American University, observed in an interview with the New York Times that in India “previously credible journalists and major media news outlets ran straight-up fabricated stories [on the 4 day war].”

    The losers

    The victims of the bombings, dead or wounded, are always the first ones to endure the horrors of war. They are the losers.

    Pakistan said 40 civilians and 13 military personnel were killed. India’s figure was 21 civilians and 8 military and paramilitary personnel died. Hundreds of people on both sides got injured.

    The politicians and generals on both sides claimed victory. The war was of a very short duration, thus politicians and generals didn’t feel populace hostility or face dire consequences like resignations.

    Winner and loser honor

    That honor goes to Modi. He was a winner and also a loser.

    • Modi the winner. To his followers, Modi’s heroism enhanced when the Indian news media falsely started giving way too inflated stories of India beating Pakistan.
    • Modi also succeeded in cutting off whatever little cooperation existed between Indians and Pakistanis through arts and sports. The Indian government ordered all Pakistani songs removed from Spotify. All media streaming services, digital intermediaries, and OTT platforms were ordered to discontinue Pakistani films, web series, songs, etc. Pakistani TV channels and dramas, very popular in India, were banned and still are. Pakistani artists and sportspersons social media accounts were blocked and still are.
    • The extent of Modi’s hatred can be gauged from the following film posters: before and after.

    Indian actor Harshvardhan Rane and Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane in Indian film poster of Sanam Teri Kasam IMAGE/BrandSynario/Duck Duck Go

    In an Orwellian move, Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane was removed from the film poster of Sanam Teri Kasam IMAGE/Hindustan Times/Duck Duck Go

    The original film poster had Mawra Hocane but in the revised one, Hocane disappeared in an Orwellian manner. Shah Rukh Khan‘s movie posters of Raees with Pakistani actress Mahira Khan have faced the same fate.

    • Indian singer, actor, producer Diljit Dosanjh film Sardaar Ji 33 with the Pakistani actress Hania Aamir got banned in India. The Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar and Minister of Information & Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw to revoke passports of Daljit Dosanjh, Gunbir Singh Sidhu, Manmord Sidhu and Director Amar Hundal. Just for working with a Pakistani artist, thus displaying the toxic mixture of hate, idiocy, and faulty logic.
    • FWICE’s letter contained many lies about Hania Aamir who had lamented the loss of life: “I don’t have fancy words right now. I just have anger, pain, and a heavy heart. A child is gone. Families are shattered. And for what? This is not how you protect anyone. This is cruelty – plain and simple.

    Mind you, Modi personally may not be giving orders, but, people get emboldened to inflict damage as they know they won’t be stopped.

    Many fields of life, from economics to education and from culture to cricket, have suffered due to rigidity, egotism, and ideology of politicians on both sides. Pakistani military’s control over politicians has never let both countries cooperate and utilize fully the trade, talents, and technology. Hardly a 100 or so Pakistani artists and playback singers have ever worked in Indian films.

    Official trade between both countries has dropped and is routed through Singapore, Colombo (Sri Lanka), and Dubai (UAE), costing more money. Even in peace times, these routes are used for trade due to some or other reason. It’s foolish, but than you can’t make people with power to understand, because the powerful don’t allow discussions or arguments.

    Modi the loser. On May 10, 2025, at 6:55 A.M. Eastern Time (that is 4:55 P.M. Pakistan time and 5:25 P.M. Indian time) on his Truth Social site, Trump announced:

    “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

    It was sobering news for Modi. Modi has created an image of himself as Indian superman with broad 56-inch chest who is globally famous giving hugs to presidents, prime ministers, billionaires, whether they want it or not. He has made 91 foreign trips till July 2025. He has made India a superpower not in reality but by creating such perception. Modi who likes to control the narrative and who desperately wanted to announce victory had to get a ceasefire order from Trump. Trump is such a character that you can’t argue with him because then you face more humiliation — not because Trump is more vitriolic than Modi but because US is economically much more stronger than India, who is economically heavily interconnected with the US.

    Imbecile

    Then there is Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. He got so carried away by Pakistan army’s downing of less than half a dozen Indian fighter planes that he equated it as a victory compensating for the loss of half the country (55% of its population in 1971) when East Pakistan seceded with Indian help to become independent Bangladesh.

    That is clearly just a fictional ego boosting comparison.

    Unpredictable Outcome

    Who could have predicted that Modi’s war would give Pakistan army and Munir a new lease on popularity?

    Avoid war

    Poet Sahir Ludhianvi’s poem O Decent People has a quatrain:

    whether the blood spilled is ours or theirs

    it is the blood of Adam’s progeny, after all

    whether the war is in the east or west

    it is the murder of world peace, after all

    War should be avoided at all cost. All wars between Pakistan and India inflict tremendous cost in lives and finances, and, affect the entire South Asian region.

    Both possess nuclear weapons which if, by mistake or bravado, get deployed in the war, would end in great disaster for the entire world. According to climatologist Alan Robock, 1,000,000,000 to 2 billion people would face starvation worldwide, in such case, there would be immediate climate changes, leading to much colder weather than the Little Ice Age and many other disasters, including destruction of ozone layer.

    Dinner date

    Trump advised Indian and Pakistani leaders to go for a dinner date.

    “Maybe we can even get them together a little bit, Marco [Rubio, the US Secretary of State], where they go out and have a nice dinner together. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

    Improve relations

    The population of South Asia, including Afghanistan, comprises 25% of global population. With China’s 17% added, the percentage shoots up to 42%.

    The World Inequality Lab study observed that income and wealth contrast in Modi’s India is worse, more than it was during the British colonial rule. Other countries in the region are not any better.

    Suggestions:

    • If 42% of people increase trade in way that exchange of dollars is minimized, either through barter trade or using own currencies, this would save them hustle for dollars and foreign exchange.
    • Increased trade also brings people closer and aids in creating more understanding and tolerance.
    • In the best interest of both countries and the entire South Asian region, it would be better if SAARC (South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation) is revived.
    • Visas should be issued to enjoy tourism and appreciate each other’s natural beauty of land, flora and fauna and cultures
    • Exchange student programs should be initiated
    • Joint cultural, artistic, sports, entertainment, and other such events should be organized and promoted.
    • India and Pakistan should avoid competing to get in the good books of US administration and try to sort out their problems themselves.
    • Pakistan feels insecure when Trump is close to Modi and vice versa.
    • India is the most populous country and Pakistan is the fifth most populated nation, both are made of many nations held together with very weak ties. They should concentrate on making that connection stronger by addressing the problems of various ethnic, caste, gender, and religious groups and by improving relations between the countries of SAARC.

    Gur Mehar Kaur, whose father died during one of the Indo-Pak wars when she was 2 year old, wishes peace:

    “… Only mutual cooperation can drive South Asia ahead. A peaceful subcontinent is the greatest gift we can give our families, our soldiers and ourselves.”

    “Hate is the most anti-national force that we face. The worst thing the BJP under Modi did was nurture a mob that can only be satisfied with blood, killings and hate. For 10 years, this mob has been empowered.”

    Notes:

    The post Indo-Pak Leaders Should “Have a Nice Dinner Together” first appeared on Dissident Voice.
    1    In the Shanghai Communique, 1972, the US declared:

    The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position.

    For almost five decades, peace prevailed between China and the United States on the issue of Taiwan. The above policy was maintained without any serious incident. It could have gone on for decades but for some US generals and others who visited Taiwan in March 2022. Author Eve Ottenberg surmised, “to beat the war drums and provoke China.” Same year in August, Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan too, to incite China.

    The “world’s greatest democracy” seems devoid of a peace gene; it follows it’s own motto: “I war, therefore I am.”
    2    In 1924, 1,165 in-person hate speech events took place in India; 259 were openly calling for violence. Many important BJP leaders, including Modi, his Home Minister Amit Shah, and Yogi Adityanath, the rogue governor of largest state Uttar Pradesh, were involved in these events.
    3    The 2016, the Indian film Sanam Teri Kasam had a Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane as the female protagonist. The film was re-released in February and became highest-grossing re-released Indian film. They are making a sequel but now without Hocane because of the war. (VIDEO/Soham Rockstar Entertainment/Youtube)Dosanjh made a great move. He didn’t implore authorities for the film to be released in India but instead had it released worldwide, including Pakistan, where it became the second highest-grossing film in Pakistan’s history. It is also the highest-grossing Punjabi language film internationally. The film has made almost double the money it cost to make the movie. (VIDEO/White Hill Music/Youtube) Dosanjh’s actions will encourage those Indian and Pakistani artists who wants to collaborate to release their work worldwide to cover the cost and make profit internationally, rather than be at the mercy of local politicians’ whims. Indian film Abir Gulaal with Indian actress Vaani Kapoor and Pakistani actor Fawad Khan was to release on May 9 but was postponed indefinitely. The makers should think of forgoing the Indian market and releasing it worldwide if possible and if it won’t hurt them financially.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Australian media faces existential crisis after realising ‘free Palestine’ might extend well beyond university lawns and Instagram

    COMMENTARY: By Clancy Overell, editor of The Betoota Advocate

    After years of sitting on the fence and looking the other way, the Australian media is today reckoning with the fact that showing basic sympathy towards the starving and war-weary people of Gaza is actually a very mainstream sentiment.

    This explosive moment of self-reflection has rocked newsrooms all over the country, from the talk back radio stations to the increasingly gun-shy ABC.

    This comes as the tens of thousands of everyday Australians marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in solidarity in protest against the abhorrent war crimes being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people.

    • READ MORE: More satire about Israel’s horrendous war on Gaza

    This existential media feeling of extreme detachment from the general public is only amplified by the undeniable fact this crowd actually isn’t even that representative of the actual number of people who are horrified by the events taking place on the Gaza Strip — as the extreme weather conditions clearly shrank the overall number of people who would have otherwise attended this record-breaking protest.

    The crowd that did make it there is still one of the biggest to ever march the Harbour Bridge, many who braved heavy winds and rain to join the chants “ceasefire now” and “free Palestine”.

    With a large number of high-profile household names such as Julian Assange and former NSW Premier Bob Carr making their presence known, it’s now very difficult for the media to now write these protesters off as “terrorist sympathisers”.

    It’s also clear that the plight of the Palestinians is something that ripples far beyond the university lawns and instagram timelines that have since been dismissed as the musings of “detached inner-city elites” and “brazen antisemites”.

    Sydney’s “Rainy Sunday” march also comes as a blow to both the Federal and State Labor governments, which have worked tirelessly to squash these protests using police powers and anti-free speech laws.

    The Betoota Advocate is an Australian satirical news website that takes its name from the deserted regional western Queensland town of Betoota but is actually published in Sydney.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • For Media, Trying To Help Gazans Survive Turns Heroes Into Zeroes

    Last week, Smalls took on another Goliath. As part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, he tried to deliver life-saving aid—including food and baby formula—to the people of Gaza, who are suffering from a severe famine deliberately engineered by the Israeli government.

    The Handala, the ship carrying the aid, was illegally seized in international waters by Israel’s military, and Smalls was singled out for violence, choked and kicked by Israeli soldiers, apparently because he’s Black. Past attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza have been dealt with even more harshly by Israel: In 2010, 57 activists aboard the aid ship Mavi Marmara were shot—nine of them killed—on their way to Gaza.

    The post For Media, Trying To Help Gazans Survive Turns Heroes Into Zeroes appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Corporation For Public Broadcasting Shutdown

    The truth is, from Nixon to Trump, Republicans were actually rather successful in manipulating the CPB to serve their partisan agenda. Back in 2005, when Republican Kenneth Tomlinson was in charge, the New York Times reported that the chairman aggressively pressed “public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias.” The chief executive of PBS even accused Tomlinson of threatening “editorial independence.” 

    Peter Hart of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) further noted that an unnamed senior official at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) claimed Tomlinson was “engaged in a systematic effort not just to sanitize the truth, but to impose a right-wing agenda on PBS.”

    The post The Corporation For Public Broadcasting Shutdown appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Palestine surveillance author says Australian protesters ‘outraged’ by Israel’s war on Gaza

    Pacific Media Watch

    Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, a book on the Israeli arms and surveillance industry, says Australian protesters are “outraged” not just by what Israel is doing in Gaza, but also by the Australian government’s “complicity”.

    Loewenstein, who also spoke at the rally, told Al Jazeera that Australia has, for many years, including since the start of the war, been part of the global supply chain for the F-35 fighter jets that Israel has been using in attacking the besieged enclave.

    “A lot of Australians are aware of this,” he said. “We are deeply complicit, and people are angry that their government is doing little more than talk at this point.”

    Asked about opinions within Israel, Loewenstein, who is an Australian-German and Jewish, condemned what he called a prevailing climate of “genocide mania” and also criticised the role of the mainstream media in not reporting accurate coverage of the reality in Gaza.

    Organisers of the Palestine Action Group Sydney-led march across the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge have said at least 100,000 people — and perhaps as many as 300,000 — took part in the biggest pro-Palestinian held in Australia. Police say more than 90,000.

    Mehreen Faruqi, the New South Wales senator for the left-wing Greens party, addressed the crowd gathered at central Sydney’s Lang Park before the march, calling for the “harshest sanctions on Israel”, accusing its forces of “massacring” Palestinians.

    At least 175 people, including 93 children, have died of starvation and malnutrition across the enclave since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, according to latest Gaza Health Ministry figures.

    The horrifying images of Gazans being deliberately starved is adding to the pressure on Western governments which have been enthusiastic supporters of Israel’s genocide, reports the Sydney-based Green-Left magazine.

    Former US President Barack Obama has started to push for an end to Israel’s military operations. Sections of Israeli society, including five human rights organisations, now agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

    Media corporations, such as BBC, AFP, AP and Reuters, which have been complicit in manufacturing consent for “Israel has a right to defend itself” line, are now condemning the killing of Palestinian journalists.

    These shifts reflect the scale of the horror, but also the success of the global Palestine solidarity movement.

    It is undermining support for Israel — a factor which is starting to weigh on Western governments. Only 32% of Americans approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza, according to a new Gallup poll.

    With the exception of Ireland and Spain, Western governments have refused to describe Israel’s war as an act of genocide.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Israel’s International Isolation Has Begun

    We’ve never lived through such rapid change in the politics of Israel as we are now. Two nights ago more than half of Democratic senators – 27– voted to block some arms sales to Israel. A day before that, the UK and Canada said they will recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N, echoing France’s recent statement. 

    These are steps that advocates for Palestinians thought might be years away. But today the world is shocked by Israel’s starvation of Gaza, and the mainstream press is at last reporting the charge of genocide.  

    Israel’s international isolation has begun. 

    The post Israel’s International Isolation Has Begun appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Israel backing Gaza ‘gangs’ to create unlivable chaos, says academic

    Asia Pacific Report

    While the Israeli government claims it is backing “clans” in Gaza to counter the resistance movement Hamas, the groups it supports more closely resemble criminal gangs, says a British-based security specialist.

    Dr Rob Geist Pinfold, international security lecturer at King’s College London, says: “These are criminal gangs. Many were in prison before October 7 for drug offences, not for being political dissidents.

    “They rob Palestinians on the streets. They feed off and contribute to the chaos and disorder,” he told Al Jazeera.

    “Many of these people, like Yasser Abu Shabab, are outcasts from their clans. Israel has basically chosen the least popular people in Gaza to arm and equip.

    “It’s not trying to create a viable political alternative to Hamas, it’s identifying people who thrive off chaos and encouraging them to further that chaos.”

    Dr Pinfold said Israel appeared to be intentionally sowing chaos in Gaza to make the territory “unlivable”.

    “It used to look like this chaos in Gaza was the product of Israel not having a day-after plan,” he said. “But I think it is now evident that this chaos is . . .  part of the day-after plan, which is a grander strategy to make Gaza unlivable in the long term.”

    Arming criminal gangs
    To accomplish this, Israel is arming the criminal gangs that “thrive off chaos” and funnelling the little aid coming in through the dysfunctional and violence-ridden GHF [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] system.

    From Israel’s perspective, “I actually think this is working very well”, he said, “because its undeclared aims are to create chaos and ensure Gaza becomes unlivable”.

    “Unfortunately, so far, that is proving to be a very successful strategy.”

    Earlier this week it was announced that the death toll had topped 60,430 people (not including the tens of thousands buried under the rubble, or missing and believed dead). This number of dead included more than 18,000 children.

    Also, 148,722 wounded were wounded.

    Already there have been 162 deaths from starvation in Gaza, 92 of them children and the predictions are dire.

    Also, more than 1300 Palestinians have been killed near the GHF aid depots.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Mirror or Mirage? The Future of Truth and Freedom of the Press Today

    Truth or Perception?

    True to the words of the legendary 19th-century French novelist Gustave Flaubert, “there is no truth. There is only perception”. The truth may sound or taste bitter. But in reality, there is no singular truth and perception about anything and everything in this divine universe, even about the most abstract ones. Inherent truth is subjective, which lies in the hands of an individual’s interpretation. Together, they have a profound influence on shaping people’s views.

    Its real-life exponent is none other than the dictator Hitler⸺thanks to his exceptional oratory skills, once dangerous and fascinating. On the other side of the coin lies the legacy of the great American social and civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. His non-violent liberal views on racial equality echoed deeply. Both historical figures left an indelible mark on the world courtesy of their respective mindsets strategically manifested, intertwined with truth and perception.

    To shape public perception, key news sources include print and electronic media. These include newspapers, television, books, magazines, and radio. Newspapers and television are naturally the most widely ubiquitous, commanding massive audience coverage and deep penetration.

    India has one of the largest newspaper circulations in the world. It endures and reveres the media, but here is the catch. According to media literacy index data, our homeland, India, ranked at a very low level globally. The magnitude of freedom is handy to the journalists at large, and it is alarming! Sadly, in India’s context, it is directionless. Ultimately, it is a wake-up call. The freedom of the press is inextricably linked to the democracy of a country. Apart from this, news channels on television are not behind in the rat race with their contemporaries. Selling content to the audience instead of ensuring quality content that informs them the most. Running for TRP, the real news gets diluted. The essence of informing and information gets killed long before through various media.

    India’s complex emotional landscape

    In a country as emotionally vulnerable and socially heterogeneous — as India. The longstanding challenges, such as Hindu-Muslim tensions, population explosion, poverty, illiteracy, and more. Labyrinths of other enigmas are often engulfed, which causes reactive, colloquial responses. They manifest vividly during nightmarish, complex — Kafkaesque episodes. Numerous instances of public unrest like riots, rapes, suicides, and more are evidence to it. Such emotionally charged reactions complicate the government’s ability to implement and administer policies in a consistent, transformative manner. This is where the truth and the press hold a critical role. In these complexities, the leakages of the internal machinery get highlighted.

    A Press Under Siege

    Having such a media state has major concerns and equally questionable consequences. They often tend to leave a painful scar later in the long term. On the contrary, the case is very different in countries as Russia, China, the US, and the U.K. They usually have concrete, strong, hassle-free, definite political motives and policies. They refrain from the ways India often tends to follow. The typical Indian answer to our emotional country goes back to our heated history textbooks. There have been countless deliberate attempts the whole world has made to conquer the roots of our ‘bhāratavarṣa’. It was not only for centuries but for millennia indeed. Starting from the advent of Alexander the Great in 326 BCE to the British Empire in 1947. The continual cycle of ‘sought and fought’ had fragmented and fractured the internal cohesion. This legacy left the nation in a difficult yet diverse situation. Still, it often backfires, creating an ironic, complicated situation of unity in diversity. Unlike other countries, the US and Russia. Unfortunately, India hasn’t enjoyed an uninterrupted political lineage with a uniform singularity of purpose. In our case, the press doesn’t report the truth. It often has to wrestle for it amid the noise of unresolved historical background, painstakingly.

    Indispensable, twin forces — the truth is an expression, the press is the medium. Shaping and reshaping our views, then our beliefs. Eventually, it solidifies respective ideologies. The media are the purveyors of truth and freedom. Conveying information concisely under the instructions of the government. With such a vital authority and verdict resting on the press, it is a transparent, crystal-clear mirror of the country. It is a double-edged sword, bridging the supreme authority with the assurance of the people. Just exactly like Snow White’s enchanted mirror, today’s press undergoes examination, “Mirror, mirror on the wall: Who tells the truth among us all”? Publicly, things get amplified and complicated with social media. It affects the scenario, which itself is in an uneasy, lopsided state.

    Social Media Perils and Content Pollution

    True to the words of the legendary English poet Alexander Pope, the warmth of his lines is produced in his thought-provoking work, ‘An Essay on Criticism’. The lines “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” These are so apt to the complex content we consume today. The essence of the magnum opus is deeply felt even today in the 21st-century modern world.

    In the essence of the digital age today, Social Media is the online medium that makes shallow learning among the masses a dangerous thing! It has a profound impact and internal pressure on one’s daily life. The ignorance of countless posts on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and so on, will undoubtedly be bliss. In shades of innumerable benefits, it often results in ruining one’s privacy. Social media validation and accumulating more and more followers are blinding. It is infused with overloaded fake news, intense addiction, and the urge to form opinions and criticism (trolling). Everyone wants to express something without having the real knowledge about it. With this huge confusion and anxiety, it has emerged everywhere like wildfire. All of this has created misconceptions, prejudice, manipulation, censorship, ambiguity, rumours, and misuse. This mess is one of the major grey shades of social media.

    Content is not just consumed; it is exaggerated, engineered, and fabricated. All this is exercised under legitimate knowledge claims. Ultimately, this flooding mechanism has blurred the line between what is reel and what the actual reality is. It has adulterated information to an unprecedented level. India itself produces a large number of content creators globally. In turn, Indians also tend to consume a huge volume of content. Thanks to insanely addictive reels and posts on apps like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, and more. As a result, India also leads in average mobile screen time. The estimated screen time is more than 5 hours daily. Even sometimes creating obscene content for the sake of likes and comments is considered normal! At least for disseminating genuine content, social media proves to be an easy yet complex option. Consequently, it has driven the Indian media into peril.

    The Collapse of Free Speech

    Unearthing the truth in the crossword and its clues embedded in a web of lies is hard. It has paradoxically suffocated the very freedom of speech within the compound chaos altogether. Truth is born out of freedom and courage. The press, which once investigated the unknown, unbelievable, and the unthinkable, now tirelessly circles. Just hunting for the truth for the sake of real, meaningful truth. But alas, today, there is both speech and courage immersed deep. The axis of profoundly malicious, politically motivated actions and intentions is strongly holding it. Both truth and press now operate in a system they once sought to expose. Here, language often bought through bribes speaks loudly and boldly to rule over everyone. Often, institutions buy and sell the freedom of speech, putting their agenda forward to the masses. This dirty, unethical transaction not only trades monetary value but also corrupts the system. It hollows the society morally, emotionally, and socially, both intentionally and unintentionally, like a parasite.

    The voice of the innocent (media professionals), who dare to speak the truth, often embraces unjust retribution and tyrannical faith. Their remarkable efforts peel back those thick layers of deception, corruption, and bribery, but go in vain. Pressure groups and others often bury uneasy truths and astonishing facts under the guise of national interest and public welfare. The beautiful irony is just showcased as normal in thin air! The menace is that it is paraded to the audience as a sideshow spectacle. Such skillful, shrewd wordplay and rhetorical acrobatics contribute significantly to it. As a result, even the sharpest person in the room can’t pose a question. This puppetry media manipulation in a performative democracy becomes art, not for informing, but for controlling.

    The Legal Lens: Indian Constitution and the Press

    Laws and the press share a valiant, intertwined relationship where both have the power and potential in society. The law acts as a watchdog over the duty of both the people and the press. The freedom of the media is not only linked to journalism but to the vocal freedom of a country. Leaving it in a deadly dilemma of oblivion if left unchecked.

    Resorting to legal methods for a hand-to-hand confrontation and cleansing it eventually may be the tedious yet best remedy. Highlighting the pitfalls and sorting them to the roots, as there is no smoke without fire. Although this is an even bigger headache since the magnitude of the Indian media industry is a whopping amount of more than a billion dollars.

    By turning through the pages of the most voluminous rulebook of the world, the Indian Constitution. It offers us both a better, comprehensive, and far-sighted view. Indian law is just and faithful enough to meet both ends and refine its application by drawing the light of wisdom over the respective case.

    Article 19(1)(a) relates to the independent freedom of voice and their respective opinions against the actions of the government. The media is legally backed up to highlight the plight of truth ‘lying’ beneath the surface and above it. Likewise, some notable eye-opening cases include the Romesh Thappar vs State of Madras and the Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) (P) Ltd. vs Union of India. These astounding cases had thrust the freedom of the press and media into the limelight, concreting their status even more. These cases and many more are at the confluence of the political and social environment. The emancipation to advance facts and reports without any intervention, but with reasonable restrictions behind the fences.

    Freedom and truth in the press should be carried sensibly within the thin line of legal demarcation relative to the audience. Sensitive news often triggers harmful ideas, and it can lead to both psychological and mental pain directly. Avoiding the spread of any fake news, defamation, contempt of court, blasphemy, voyeurism, and any threat to the sovereignty and integrity of India is of utmost national significance. There has been some progress over time to overcome the stagnant debacle; there is a long road to travel.

    Press, Sacrifice, and Political Ironies

    Dubbed as the 4th pillar of democracy, the press and media enjoy an ironic status owing to their gullible volatility. There remain shining examples of fearless Indian journalism that delivered the truth at the right place and at the right time, undeterred by mental pressure. But ironically, the most staggering report gathered is that our motherland, India, stands amongst the top countries to have the most journalist deaths.

    Renowned cases of such ill-fated scapegoats include Gauri Lankesh, J.Dey, and Daniel Pearl; the list goes on. Their “sacrifice” bears a thought-provoking lesson. These media professionals fearlessly tried to unmask the bitter truth of the wrongdoers and guilty minds. To combat such authoritarian regimes, often influential political ideals march forward carrying the baton, calling for a major upheaval or revolution. In the process, this leads to doublespeak from the other side in a counterreaction. Often, when things take a U-turn, these political ideals later turn into political prisoners! Eventually, their descendants find their lives embroiled, burdened with defining and redefining their ideologies and legacy.

    Such a misuse or mistake can lead to an Orwellian dystopia in a totalitarian manner, as pointed out by the great 20th-century English author George Orwell. In his magnum opus novel, 1984, he showcases the political nightmare the caged media and press cast upon it.

    In the dynamics of India, the silver lining is certainly visible. The architectural Gandhian values of truth and freedom will be followed and resonate. Both the sanguine prospects and outputs of journalism will emerge rooted in integrity and moral duty, without fleeting urgency. But rather with an imperative role, a pillar of democracy, not with transience but with transparency.

    The post Mirror or Mirage? The Future of Truth and Freedom of the Press Today first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Media Largely Ignored Gaza Famine When There Was Time To Avert Mass Starvation

    Since the October 7 attacks, Israel has severely restricted humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, using starvation of civilians as a tool of war, a war crime for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Yoav Gallant have been charged by the International Criminal Court. Gallant proclaimed a “complete siege” of Gaza on October 9, 2023: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”

    Aid groups warned of famine conditions in parts of Gaza as early as December 2023. By April 2024, USAID administrator Samantha Power (CNN, 4/11/24) found it “likely that parts of Gaza, and particularly northern Gaza, are already experiencing famine.”

    The post Media Largely Ignored Gaza Famine When There Was Time To Avert Mass Starvation appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Bloodshed at GHF-run Gaza aid sites ‘a great sin’, says former top UN official

    Asia Pacific Report

    A former senior UN aid official has condemned the bloodshed at the notorious US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid food depots, describing the distribition system as having turned into a “catastrophe”.

    The number of aid seekers killed continues to climb daily beyond 1000.

    Martin Griffiths, director of Mediation Group International and the former Under Secretary General of the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office, said: “I think when many of us saw the first plans of the GHF to launch this operation in Gaza, we were immediately appalled by the way they were proposing to manage it.”

    “It was clearly militarised. They’d have their own security contractors,” he told Al Jazeera.

    “They’d have [Israeli military] camps placed right beside them. We know now that they are, in fact, under instructions by [the Israeli military].

    “All of this is a crime. All of this is a deep betrayal of humanitarian values.

    “But what I at least did not sufficiently anticipate was the killing and was the absolutely critical result of this operation, this sole humanitarian operation allowed by Israel in Gaza,” Griffiths added.

    “The 1000 killed are an incredible statistic. I had no idea it would go that high and it’s going on daily. It’s not stopping.

    “I think it’s a catastrophe more than a disappointment,” he said. “I think it’s a great sin. I think it’s a great crime.”

    Aid analyst Martin Griffiths
    Humanitarian aid advocate Martin Griffiths . . . We know now that [GHF] are, in fact, under instructions by [the Israeli military]. All of this is a crime.” Image: Wikipedia
    Commenting about US envoy Steve Witkoff and US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee’s planned visit to GHF-run aid distribution sites in Gaza, he said this was “likely to be choreographed”.

    However, he acknowledged it was still an “important form of witness”.

    “I’m glad that they’re going,” Griffiths said.

    “Maybe they will see things that are unexpected. I can’t imagine because we’ve seen so much. But I don’t see it leading to a major change.

    “If I was one of the two million Gazans starving to death, this is a day I would like to go to an aid distribution point,” Griffiths added.

    “There’s slightly less risk probably than any other day.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Snake Oil, PT Barnum, and Postmortem for July 4

    Note: A new editor for the local rag, Lincoln County Leader, which was known for 100 years as the Newport News Times. The previous editor, Steve Card, who did 30 years in the journalistic trenches, left and retired. I was doubtful that my long-form op-eds would continue, but this month, today, July 16, it appeared. Thanks to the new editor. We shall see how long it lasts. However, it doesn’t appear on their on-line version, and thus, if you put in the title above and my name, it is nowhere to be found on the Internet. Google’s Goofy AI can’t find it either. There you go, another sort of Digital Death!

    This email I received in my gmail box. With the following typical letter to me, my email, but who knows if he sent it to the editor, I may already be banned by the editor, and I will never know because these fellows never answer direct emails back.

    Here, from that person who shall be unnamed, telling me …

    All you do is criticize this country and the president, as if you are a spoil sport, mad that your guy didn’t win. My advice is leave. Go to Cuba, go to your great communist country of your choice. You do nothing for our community writing these screeds from your high horse. Love it or leave it is something I think everytime I read your junk. I’m shocked that some local patriot hasn’t read-ended your shitty mini-van or taken a swing at your smug face. Leave, and DO let the door hit you on your fucking anti-AmMerican ass.

    Oh, well, my feelings aren’t hurt, but again, I’ve said this time and time again: I get people texting me thanking for my radio shows and my op-eds, but they just will not go on public record, i.e., a letter to the editor in support or agreement with me and my short “screeds.”

    Today, with my Meals on Wheels gig and with my volunteer work at the senior center here, amazing social workers and folks with federal grants for their AmeriCorps workers lamenting about the Trumpism in the Senior Center — old flagging people, again, eating taxpayer paid for Meals on Wheels, and a Senior Center not just funded by local taxes, and these  octogenarians no less, vaunting Trump, going on and on about, “well Obama and Clinton never served in the military either.”

    That comment came after I had entertained them, made these people laugh, served them food and drinks and gave them to-go boxes, and then, well, someone mentioned cuts in the Meals on Wheels program here and nationwide, and then I stated that Trump is laughing at that, that he’s a mean gene, and wants my butt gone, and he’s especially laughing at “you older folk relying on Medicare and Meals on Wheels and who voted for him.”

    I mentioned that Trump’s a felon and criminal and just a faker, among other things, and he is a wimp, who declared bone spurs as his out for military service. Yep, me, atheist and communist AND someone who spent time in the Army, man, sure, less than honorable discharge I got,  but still, that, and then working with homeless veterans and even teaching college courses for various military outfits in my part-time faculty gigs.

    These old people couldn’t square all those corners to the guy (me) who had just done all this service to the community work FOR them.

    The social workers are tired. They are tired of people. They have family, and one I talked with, she even has a father who supports Trump Hands Down, like the freaks that in do. And, alas, I asked — Why no estrangement from these toxic folk in your life? These people, your fucking father, want you fired, essentially, because your AmeriCorps folk are being sacked because the grants have ended, and you too will be on the chopping block.

    The system is winning when social workers hate people — not all, but most people, she told me — and when teachers hate their kiddos and the parents. This is what the design is all about — losing confidence in EVERYTHING except the price of toilet paper bundles at Costco.

    More than just the Reagan way of getting people to believe government is too big, too cumbersome and too much an impediment in the American Way of Free-for-All Markets.

    Chip chip chip those rotten democrats and republicans have enforced for decades.

    Schizophrenia here by the Pew Research group:

    Americans remain deeply distrustful of and dissatisfied with their government. Just 20% say they trust the government in Washington to do the right thing just about always or most of the time – a sentiment that has changed very little since former President George W. Bush’s second term in office.

    Chart shows low public trust in federal government has persisted for nearly two decades

    The public’s criticisms of the federal government are many and varied. Some are familiar: Just 6% say the phrase “careful with taxpayer money” describes the federal government extremely or very well; another 21% say this describes the government somewhat well. A comparably small share (only 8%) describes the government as being responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans.

    The federal government gets mixed ratings for its handling of specific issues. Evaluations are highly positive in some respects, including for responding to natural disasters (70% say the government does a good job of this) and keeping the country safe from terrorism (68%). However, only about a quarter of Americans say the government has done a good job managing the immigration system and helping people get out of poverty (24% each). And the share giving the government a positive rating for strengthening the economy has declined 17 percentage points since 2020, from 54% to 37%.

    Yet Americans’ unhappiness with government has long coexisted with their continued support for government having a substantial role in many realms. And when asked how much the federal government does to address the concerns of various groups in the United States, there is a widespread belief that it does too little on issues affecting many of the groups asked about, including middle-income people (69%), those with lower incomes (66%) and retired people (65%).

    *****

    When participatory democracy never flourished, and when mutual aid is gone, and when people are doggedly dog-eat-dog and “I’ve got mine, so good luck getting yours” is the prevailing attitude, we are a disconnected “nation.”

    an illustration showing a crowd of people inside a head, with a cord and plug extending from the brain. The cord is unplugged from a US flag superimposed on a map of the nation.

    Will this resonate?

    For a decade, scholars, pundits and other analysts have been searching deep in the American political experience to understand why democracy seems so stressed. Now a new UC Berkeley report based on extensive surveys finds that Americans are confused about the meaning of democracy and frustrated with the leaders and institutions responsible for guiding the country — but also open to hope for repair.

    David C. Wilson, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, in a jacket and tie, smiling
    David C. Wilson

    In an interview, lead author David C. Wilson detailed the findings of this plunge into our political psyche, surveying a tangle of concerning trends. Americans are struggling with epidemic mistrust, but they’re also eager for solutions. For democracy to flourish, the report finds, its people must be flourishing, too.

    Wilson, a political psychologist, offered a potentially innovative course of therapy: Just as the nation has economic and health policy, local, state and federal leaders need a commitment to democracy policy to strengthen the system and nurture commitment to democratic values and practices.

    Wilson is the dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at Berkeley and a professor of public policy and political science. The report, “Delivering on the Promises of ‘We the People’,” is based on surveys of more than 2,400 Americans conducted before and after the November 2024 election.

    The report was produced by the Goldman School’s Democracy Policy Lab.

    *****

    Snake Oil, PT Barnum and Postmortem for July 4

    Snake Oil Salesmen and the Political Con — The Culture Crush

    I remember telling my daughter, who never got to meet my old man, her grandfather, that I was diametrically opposed to his 32 years in the US military. I told her that I even ended up in Viet Nam two years before she was born to work with a science team from England.

    I visited all parts of Viet Nam, after doing intensive biodiversity studies along the Laotian border.

    She has some of my large prints of kiddos on motorcycles piled high with live chickens. She has a photo I took of a female Buddhist monk near where a more famous monk self-immolated in protest of the US and French-backed repressive South Vietnamese president.

    That is Ho Chi Minh City, called Saigon back then.

    It was just before 10 in the morning on June 11, 1963, when 300 monks and nuns marched down a busy Saigon street. This 73-year-old monk named Thich Quang Duc emerged from a car at this crowded intersection and sat down in the lotus position on a cushion. Two fellow monks poured gasoline from a five-gallon can. As the fuel was emptied over his head, Duc chanted, “Nam mo amita Buddha,” — “return to eternal Buddha.”

    Aaron Bushnell evoking Thích Quảng Đức, and the fear we live with: that nothing will change - The Big Smoke

    Sixty years later a similar event was repeated here in the USA, although in this intentionally amnesiac and superficial society, it seems like a distant memory. But my friend from Wisconsin talks of this hero much.

    That distant memory occurred just over a year ago—February 25, 2024. Remember? Twenty-five-year-old Air Force serviceman Aaron Bushnell died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington in an act of protest against the Gaza genocide.

    Less than two years ago, and I have students who are afraid of calling “it” a genocide. I have fellow faculty in many parts of the country who are not just chastised for supporting innocent Palestinians but are fired.

    Is this newspaper going to get the “hammer” or “ax” for republishing Aaron’s words before he set himself on fire?

    The Spark of Your Story, Ode to Aaron Bushnell - The Markaz Review

    “I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force. And I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers—it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”

    The last words of his life were ‘Free Palestine.’

    A global day of protests draws thousands in Washington and other cities in pro-Palestinian marches | AP News

    Recall my professional soldier — CW4 — father. He was a 19-year-old in the so-called Korean Conflict, wounded there. He was then made a chief warrant officer in the Army and took his family to Paris, France, and Hamburg as part of his work.

    He was shot in the chest in a Huey helicopter in Viet Nam with his blackbox of codes handcuffed to his wrist. He was 36 years old, and he survived.

    I went to Viet Nam at age 36, leaving my home of El Paso behind. I visited villages near where my old man’s team set up communication towers and signal corps facilities.

    I was against that illegal war when I was still in junior high school.

    My father was a smart guy with graduate degrees in history and education. He always wanted me to go to college, and he supported my journalism and science studies at the University of Arizona. He read my newspaper articles.

    What he was for —  as a first-generation American whose father was a WWI pilot in the Kaiser’s Navy —  included expanded services for the poor, safety nets for the elderly, massive cheap public services to include health care for all, seven-day-a-week libraries, a post office that handled payroll and served as a credit union.

    F.D.R. Proposes a Second Bill of Rights: A Decent Job, Education & Health Care Will Keep Us Free from Despotism (1944) | Open Culture

    He wanted more state and national parks. He was a Republican, and I was a Ralph Nader independent who was deeply leftist. As left as the liberators of Viet Nam under Ho Chi Minh.

    Oh, if CW4 Marvin Haeder was alive today, man oh man. He knew European history and the history of the world, so having this perfume salesperson as his commander in chief would have chaffed him. Bone spur deferment from military service, Donald professed?

    PT Barnum may have said: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Trump is that purveyor and protector of rip-off artists.

    Paula White

    My old man supported expanded prosecution of grifters ripping off old people in all industries and services. He was for expanded consumer rights and expanded rights to unionize.

    These were his Republican values, with his two bronze stars, purple hearts and 32 years in combined AF and Army service.

    He was once an airman too, as we lived on Terceira Island in the Azores outside 65th Air Base Wing at Lajes Field.

    Now, POTUS is selling perfume.  Trump’s perfume is called “Victory 45-47” because “they’re all about Winning, Strength, Success.”

    0303-Barnum-Image_1.jpg

    Everywhere in Lincoln County the silence —  as I stated in a previous Op-Ed —  is deafening. Active genocide of the Holocaust variety, and people just go on with their rah-rah Fourth of July lives. We’ve been sold a bill of goods. Amnesia? Dis-education? Worse?

    I recommend David Swanson’s website where you can peruse collected sources on how much snake oil we’ve consumed. You won’t like this last paragraph on David’s website, so try studying it:

    “Since World War II, during a supposed golden age of peace, the United States military has killed or helped kill some 20 million people, overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 86 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on people in over 30 countries. The United States is responsible for the deaths of 5 million people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and over 1 million just since 2003 in Iraq.”

    ***** The End *****

    Let's Try Democracy

    The U.S. government provides weapons, military training, and/or military funding to almost every dictatorship and oppressive government on earth. See my 2020 book 20 Dictators Currently Supported by the U.S.

    U.S. weapons are used on both sides of many wars.

    In an attempt to quantify U.S. warmaking, I’ve copied below lists from these sources:
    David Vine: The United States of War
    William Blum: America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy
    Dr. Zoltan Grossman: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions
    James Lucas: U.S. Has Killed More Than 20 Million People
    William Appleman Williams: Empire As a Way of Life

    I can link to some others first. Here is a PDF from 2022 from the U.S. Congressional Research Service admitting to hundreds of U.S. military interventions abroad between 1798 and 2022.

    And here is a PDF of a journal article about something called the Military Intervention Project, which can also be found here and here and here. The authors claim to have a list of 392 U.S. military interventions between 1776 and 2019, but do not seem to actually produce the list. There are, however, extensive descriptions of it at those links, including:

    “The United States has carried out 34 percent of its 392 interventions against countries in Latin America and the Caribbean; 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific region; 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa; and just 13 percent in Europe and Central Asia, according to a newly refined version of the Military Intervention Project (MIP) dataset — a venture of the Center for Strategic Studies at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.”

    Which Country Is The Greatest Threat to World Peace?

    The post Snake Oil, PT Barnum, and Postmortem for July 4 first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • As protesters condemn Western media ‘complicity’, Gaza journalists struggle for survival

    Asia Pacific Report

    Protesters demonstrated outside several major US media outlets in Washington this week condemning their coverage of the genocide in Gaza, claiming they were to blame over misinformation and the worsening catastrophe.

    Banging pots and pans to spotlight the starvation crisis, they accused the media of “complicity in genocide”.

    Banners and placards proclaimed “Stop media complicity in genocide” and “US media manufactures consent for Israel’s crimes”, as the protesters demonstrated outside media offices that included NBC News and Fox News.

    But the irony was that while the protests appeared to have been ignored or overlooked by national media in the US – and certainly in New Zealand, they were strongly reported by at least one global news agency, Turkey’s Anadolu Agensi.

    The protests echoed a series of statements by various news media organisations, such as Agence France-Presse concerned about the safety of their journalists from both under fire and the risk of starvation, and media freedom advocacy groups.

    The Doha-based global television news network Al Jazeera, that has been producing arguably the best and most honest news coverage of Gaza and the occupied West Bank – which earned it being banned last year by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority from reporting inside their territory — called for global action to protect Gaza’s journalists.

    It said in a statement that Isael’s forced starvation of the besieged enclave that threatened Gaza’s entire population, including those “risking their lives to shed light on Israel’s atrocities”.

    Death toll passes 60,000
    On Tuesday this week, the world noted a grim milestone in Gaza, with the Health Ministry announcing that the death toll had surpassed 60,000 (this does not include the tens of thousands of people buried under the rubble and missing, presumed dead).

    Put in perspective, that is one in every 36 people in Gaza killed, and more than 90 people on average slaughtered every day.

    Also, 1157 people have been killed near the notorious Israel and US-backed Gaza “Humanitarian” Foundation food depots condemned as “death traps”, while 154 people have died from starvation, 89 of them children with the numbers rising.


    Israel’s genocide – ‘Everyone in Gaza is starving’       Video: Al Jazeera

    An episode of the weekly media watch programme, The Listening Post, took up the theme as well, criticising the failure of many high profile Western news services from adequately reporting the horror of Israel’s devastating and cruel policies.

    “When trying to stave off starvation becomes part of the job. What it means to be a Palestinian journalist in Gaza. The stories they are determined to tell, the incredible risks they are prepared to take,” said host Richard Gizbert when introducing the programme. He wasted no time firing a few caustic shots.

    Metropolitan police on watch for the pro-Palestinian protesters outside Fox News offices in Washington DC
    Metropolitan police on watch for the pro-Palestinian protesters outside Fox News offices in Washington DC this week. Image: AA screenshot APR

    “What is unfolding in Gaza now has the appearance of a final solution, orchestrated by Israel and the United States, Israel’s other ally: The transformation of parts of the Gaza strip into starvation and concentration camps, a place where famine has been turned into a weapon of war,” he said.

    “Reporting on the reality of this genocide can amount to a death sentence. Palestinian journalists can easily identify with the suffering they are documenting since they too are going hungry.

    “They have been targeted because for [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, like other genocidal leaders before him, starving a population is much easier to do when no one is watching.

    An Al Jazeera reporter ducks for cover as bombs hit a building behind her
    An Al Jazeera reporter ducks for cover as bombs hit a building behind her in a live broadcast from Gaza . . . featured in The Listening Post’s starvation report. Image: AA screenshot APR

    Perpetrator ‘left out’
    “Across Western mainstream media, news outlets have been unable to ignore this story of mass starvation in Gaza. But in report after report, they have made a habit of leaving out a key detail – naming the perpetrators of the famine, Israel.

    “The missing actors, the sanitised language, the use of the passive grammatical voice, it is all part of the playbook for far too many international news outlets and that is exactly what the few Palestinian journalists still standing are out to tell the world.”

    Gizbert explained that “journalists in Gaza already have the world’s toughest assignment”:
    “Job one for almost 22 months now has been survival; job two, telling heartbreaking stories; documenting a genocide while under fire.”

    Hossam Shbat reports on his colleague Anas al-Sharif's experience at Al Shifa hospital
    Hossam Shabat reports on his colleague Anas al-Sharif’s experience at Al Shifa hospital and the starvation of babies in Gaza. Image: Instagram/@hossam_shbat

    Like, for example, Al Jazeera Arabic’s Anas al-Sharif who was reporting live from outside Al Shifa medical complex when a woman behind him collapsed at the hospital’s gate.

    Al-Sharif, who had reported on the genocide of his own people for more than 650 days without rest or complaint, through Israeli occupation airstrikes, drone attacks, and countless “scenes resembling hell”, suddenly could not take it anymore.

    He broke down: “People are falling to the ground from the severity of hunger,” al-Sharif said through his tears. “They need one sip of water. They need one loaf of bread.”

    Al-Sharif has also been threatened by the Israeli military, accusing him of being a “Hamas militant”, an accusation strongly denied by Al Jazeera, denouncing what it called Tel Aviv’s “campaign of incitement” against its reporters in the Gaza Strip.

    Discredited for bias
    Many Western mainstream media – including BBC, CNN, Sky, ITN, and Australia’s public broadcaster ABC — have been repeatedly discredited for their “pro-Israel bias” by scores of journalists who have acted as whistleblowers about the actions of their own news organisations.

    According to a Declassified UK report, for example, the journalists working for a range of outlets from across the political spectrum have “painted a consistent picture of the obstacles faced by reporters who want to humanise Palestinians or scrutinise Israeli government narratives”. The US media is also under attack and has been putting up a lame defence.

    Last week, more than 100 aid groups warned of “mass starvation” throughout Gaza — predictably denied by Israeli government in the face of overwhelming evidence — with their staff severely impacted by shortages and serious implications for journalists already being threatened with targeting by the Israeli military.

    Israel faces growing global pressure over the enclave’s dire humanitarian crisis, where more than two million people have endured 22 months of war. UN Security Council member France has led a group of countries announcing that they plan to recognise the Palestinian state at the UN in September, with United Kingdom, Canada, Malta and Finland among those following with the total number now almost 150 of the 193 UN member states.

    A statement with 111 signatories, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam, warned that “our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away”. The groups called for an immediate negotiated ceasefire, the opening of all land crossings and the free flow of aid through UN-led mechanisms.

    Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh reported from Amman that the Israeli government had accused the UK of supporting the establishment of a “jihadi” state and of derailing efforts to reach a ceasefire.

    “But really,” she said, “the Israeli media, for example, is describing this as a political tsunami, a realisation of how significant the tide is, and how improbable it is to turn it back to countries withholding recognition because Israel said it doesn’t want it.”

    Calling for sanctions
    She also noted how 31 high-profile Israelis, including the former speaker of the Knesset, a former attorney general, and several recipients of Israel’s highest cultural award, were calling on world governments to impose crippling sanctions on Israel to stop the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and their expulsion

    “This was taboo just a few days ago and has never really been done before, certainly not at this level of prominence of the signatories,” Odeh added.

    "Israel is starving Gazan journalists into silence"
    “Israel is starving Gazan journalists into silence,” says the CPJ. Image: CPJ screenshot APR

    The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) added its voice to the appeal by aid agencies to call for an end to Israel’s starvation of journalists and other civilians in Gaza, backing the plea for states to “save lives before there are none left to save.”

    In a statement on its website, the CPJ accused Israel of “starving journalists into silence”.

    “Israel is starving Gazan journalists into silence. They are not just reporters, they are frontline witnesses, abandoned as international media were pulled out and denied entry,” said CPJ regional director Sara Qudah.

    “The world must act now: protect them, feed them, and allow them to recover while other journalists step in to help report. Our response to their courageous 650 plus-days of war reporting cannot simply be to let them starve to death.”

    ‘Bearing witness’ videos
    Also, last week the CPJ launched a “bearing witness” series of videos from Gaza giving voice to the challenges the journalists have been facing. In the first video, Moath al Kahlout described how his cousin had been shot dead while awaiting humanitarian aid.

    As Israel partially eased its 11-week total blockade of Gaza that began in May, CPJ published the testimony of six journalists who described how “starvation, dizziness, brain fog, and sickness” had threatened their ability to report.

    Among highlights cited by the CPJ:
    • On June 20, Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al Sharif — the journalist cited earlier in this article — posted online: “I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion, and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment . . .  Gaza is dying. And we die with it.”
    • Sally Thabet, correspondent for Al-Kofiya satellite channel, told CPJ that she fainted consciousness after doing a live broadcast on July 20 because she had not eaten all day. She regained consciousness in Al-Shifa hospital, where doctors gave her an intravenous drip for rehydration and nutrition. In an online video, she described how she and her three daughters were starving.
    • Another Palestinian journalist, Shuruq As’ad said Thabet had been the third journalist to collapse on air from starvation that week, and posted a photograph of Thabet with the drip in her hand.
    • During a live broadcast on July 20, Al-Araby TV correspondent Saleh Al-Natour said: “We have no choice but to write and speak; otherwise, we will all die.”

    Little of this horrendous state of affairs has made it onto the pages of newspapers, websites of the television screens in the New Zealand mainstream media which seems to have a pro-Israel slant and rarely interviews Palestinian journalists or analysts for balance.

    "Stop media complicity in genocide" says the protest banner
    “Stop media complicity in genocide” says the protest banner in Washington DC. Image: AA screenshot APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Kurdish journalist Omed Baroshky’s imprisonment extended by 6 months

    Sulaymaniyah, July 30, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is appalled that Kurdish journalist Omed Baroshky will remain in prison for an additional six months following a decision by Iraq’s Duhok misdemeanor court. CPJ reiterates its call for Baroshky’s immediate release.

    On June 28, 2025, Baroshky’s lawyer, Reving Yaseen, informed CPJ that the court had reactivated a previously suspended six-month sentence from December 2021, citing a violation of its conditions — Baroshky was convicted in January of defamation over a January 2024 Facebook post. Baroshky, who is the director of privately owned Rast Media, was originally set to be released on July 31, after serving a six-month sentence for that conviction.

    “The use of overlapping defamation charges and suspended sentences to keep journalists behind bars has become a dangerous pattern for press freedom in Iraqi Kurdistan,” said Doja Daoud, CPJ’s Levant program coordinator. “Omed Baroshky has already faced retaliation for his reporting. We urge Iraqi Kurdish authorities to stop criminalizing the work of opposition journalists and ensure that they can operate without fear of reprisal.”

    According to Yaseen, Baroshky was sentenced in 2021 under the Misuse of Communication Devices law, following a lawsuit filed by then-Kurdish lawmaker Mala Ihsan Rekani. The case stemmed from Baroshky’s reporting that Rekani had returned to the Kurdistan Region without undergoing the required COVID-19 quarantine procedures, “but the sentence was suspended on the condition that he not commit any offense for three years,” he said. “The court has now ruled that his 2025 defamation conviction breached that condition and ordered that he serve the full 2021 sentence in addition to the current term.” 

    CPJ called Aram Atrushi, the director of Zirka prison, where Omed is detained, for comment, but did not receive a response.

    Baroshky previously served 18 months in prison between 2020 and 2022 under the same law because of social media posts critical of Iraqi Kurdish authorities. After Rast Media was raided and forcibly shut down in April 2023, he shifted his reporting to Facebook, which became his primary platform for publishing.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • It Shouldn’t Have Taken This Much For Mainstream Voices To Start Speaking Up About Gaza

    Israel’s top human rights group B’Tselem has finally declared that Israel is committing genocide, as has the Israel-based Physicians for Human Rights. The Israeli organizations join Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UN human rights experts, and the overwhelming majority of leading authorities on the subject of genocide in their conclusion.

    The debate is over. The Israel apologists lost. And we are seeing this reflected in mainstream discourse.

    Pop megastar Ariana Grande has started speaking out in support of Gaza, telling her social media followers that “starving people to death is a red line.” This is a new threshold. Opposing Israel’s genocide is now the most mainstream as it has ever been.

    MSNBC just ran a piece explicitly titled “Israel is starving Gaza. And the U.S. is complicit.”, featuring a segment with the virulently pro-Israel Morning Joe slamming the mass atrocity. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, himself a former AIPAC employee, has done a 180 and is now raking Israel over the coals on the air for its deliberately engineered starvation campaign. The New York Times finally overcame its phobia of the g-word with an op-ed titled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”

    We’re now seeing notoriously Zionist swamp monsters in the Democratic Party like Barack Obama, Hakeem Jeffries, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar changing their tune and attacking Netanyahu and Trump for their joint genocide project in Gaza, with increasingly forceful pushback from some on the right like Marjorie Taylor Greene as well.

    As western pundits, politicians, and celebrities suddenly pivot to denouncing Israel’s genocidal atrocities after two years of silence, it’s hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, we were being told that saying “death to the IDF” is a hate crime.

    People who’ve been staring at this genocide from the beginning have been asking the entire time, what is it going to take? What will it take for our society to stop sleepwalking through inane trivialities and vapid distractions and start opposing the holocaust of our day?

    Raining military explosives on a giant concentration camp packed full of children wasn’t enough.

    Burning children alive wasn’t enough.

    Systematically destroying Gaza’s entire healthcare infrastructure — up to and including entering hospitals they’ve attacked and destroying individual pieces of medical equipment one by one — wasn’t enough.

    Killing more journalists than were killed in both World Wars, plus the US Civil War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Yugoslav Wars, the War in Afghanistan, and the ongoing war in Ukraine wasn’t enough.

    The systemic rape and torture of prisoners wasn’t enough.

    https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1949587236434931921

    IDF soldiers routinely sharing photos and videos of themselves mockingly dressing in the clothes of dead and displaced Palestinian women and playing with the toys of dead and displaced Palestinian children wasn’t enough.

    Israeli officials openly expressing genocidal intent for the people of Gaza wasn’t enough.

    The US president and Israeli prime minister openly declaring their goal of the complete ethnic cleansing of a Palestinian territory wasn’t enough.

    Field testing new weapons of war on Palestinians like they’re guinea pigs in a laboratory wasn’t enough.

    Leaving countless civilians to slowly suffocate or die of dehydration, trapped under the rubble of bombed buildings, wasn’t enough.

    Creating an AI system to ensure that suspected Hamas fighters are bombed when they’re at home with their children and naming it “Where’s Daddy?” wasn’t enough.

    Using Palestinians as human shields wasn’t enough.

    Burying injured civilians alive with bulldozers wasn’t enough.

    https://x.com/GozukaraFurkan/status/1949232008216887774

    The IDF admitting to running a popular Telegram channel called “72 Virgins,” which posted extremely gory and sadistic snuff films of people in Gaza being butchered by Israeli forces, wasn’t enough.

    IDF snipers routinely shooting children in the head and chest throughout the Gaza Strip wasn’t enough.

    The IDF flying drones, which play the sounds of crying babies at night in order to lure out hiding civilians to murder them, wasn’t enough.

    IDF troops telling the Israeli press that they’re being ordered to massacre starving civilians seeking food from aid sites wasn’t enough.

    Israeli snipers targeting different body parts of starving civilians on designated days — leg day, head day, genitals day, etc — wasn’t enough.

    Far right Israeli citizens setting up blockades to stop aid trucks from entering Gaza while they enjoyed parties and barbecues at the blockade sites wasn’t enough.

    https://x.com/mamoun_linda/status/1949190406211825696

    Using lies and propaganda to dismantle the aid system for bringing essential food and life-supporting supplies into Gaza, to replace it with a US/Israeli op where aid seekers are massacred every single day, wasn’t enough.

    Using siege warfare to starve Gaza for the previous 22 months deliberately wasn’t enough.

    But now that starvation has hit a critical point and deaths from malnutrition are skyrocketing, now that images of dead skeletal children are filling our screens, now that the damage to organs and brains from starvation will be irreversible in many cases — now it’s enough.

    That was the line, apparently. That’s what mainstream Western consciousness has decided is too much. Everything up until that line was fine, but now it’s not fine anymore.

    And the killing is still going on. The sudden awakening of conscience hasn’t translated into any material actions or changes at all yet. If it had come in October or November 2023, like it should have, we might be seeing that opposition translate into actually saving Gaza by now, but the light has only just been switched on. It’s not even guaranteed that those who are speaking up will continue to do so.

    https://x.com/d_boeckner/status/1949137485776265514

    I’m glad people are waking up to the cruel reality of this nightmare. I’m grateful to each and every influential voice who uses their platform to speak out, even at this late date. I truly am.

    But I also think we need to take a very hard, very uncomfortable look at ourselves as a society right now. If all those monstrous abuses were tolerable for us over these last two years, there’s something deeply and profoundly sick about our civilization.

    We are not living right. We are not thinking right. We are not feeling right. We are warped and twisted. The information we consume and the norms we’ve been conditioned to accept have corrupted our souls.

    We have been made into something bad. Something ugly. Something shameful. Something we need to do everything in our power to change.

    We need to rescue ourselves from what we have become. We need to transform, deeply and radically, into something that could never again allow something like this to occur.

    https://x.com/BlakPantherBabe/status/1949834226343293339

    The way things are clearly isn’t working. The mainstream worldview is clearly a lie. Everything we’ve been taught to believe about our society, our nation, our government, and our world was clearly false.

    We need to fight our way through the cognitive dissonance of recognizing that our entire way of looking at things as a collective has failed, and we need to find a new way of being.

    Otherwise, we’re going to keep being smashed in the face with increasingly horrifying reminders of what we have allowed ourselves to become.

    The lessons will repeat until they are learned.

    We had better start learning them.

    The post It Shouldn’t Have Taken This Much For Mainstream Voices To Start Speaking Up About Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.