Another great book interview by Chris Hedges, again with an extremely erudite author who’s written a book about Gaza. Their discussion ranges to places that most are unwilling to go, like: why should the rest of the world grant primacy to the Jewish holocaust as a historical occurrence? Why should they even know about it when they’ve suffered their own holocausts, at the hands of the same empire that is browbeating them to bow in obeisance to the memory of the horror of the last holocaust it... [More]

Pretending cancel culture never existed

Let’s start with a terrible take from a terrible source: the article The big idea: what do we really mean by free speech? by Farrah Jarral (Guardian) writes,

“What the right calls cancel culture, philosopher Arianne Shahvisi writes, “is often just the supersized celebrity version of what the rest of us experience all the time: consequences for our mistakes and bigotries. You do something shitty and people distance themselves from you, especially if you refuse to acknowledge your... [More]”

Remember that Russia is irredeemable

The following citation illustrates what I consider to be one of the dumbest (simplest? Most ignorant?) but extremely popular interpretation of the changing alignment of the U.S., NATO, Europe, and Russia in early 2025,

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stand down from all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions.” Because the US is a Russian ally (or satellite?) now I guess.”

It comes from a post... [More]

This is a fantastic seven-minute refresher on what the first amendment means in the U.S.—specifically the right to free speech, The government is bound quite strongly to respect one’s right to say anything one wants, even if one is benefiting from a government program, like unemployment or a visa program. While the government is allowed to curtail benefits in the case of criminal prosecution—predicating them on being law-abiding—it cannot retract them based on one having expressed... [More]

This was an interesting 21-minute discussion about the importance of multi-polarity, multi-civilizational humanity. Dugin points out how the globalism that we’re seeing trying to take over everything has deemed itself the winner and chooses not to integrate anything from other, “conquered” civilizations. He cites the Chinese Confucian approach to law and philosophy, the Russian Orthodox Church, and so on, as deep and ancient influences on cultures and civilizations.

Alexander DuginHe calls out globalists for... [More]

This is an absolutely brilliant 45-minute video: as history lesson, as political analysis, as military analysis. Many, many more people should be watching this.

In particular, the two sections comprising about 18 minutes and starting at 15:35, called “EU’s militarisation & Russia’s plans” and “EU’s fiscal discipline” are brilliant and are well-worth listening to in their entirety.

Vijay Prashad – The Collapse of NATO and Europe's Dilemma by acTVism Munich (YouTube)

At 04:56,

“Vijay PrashadTrump interestingly said, ‘look, this is not a prestige issue for us in the United States. We don’t... [More]”

The article Trump bans transgender athletes from entering the United States by Isla Anderson, Evan Winters (WSWS) writes,

“SemenyaRubio justified the ban on international transgender athletes under the 1952 Immigration and Nationalities act, which authorizes a “permanent fraud bar” as punishment for “lying” on a visa application. The pretense is that a gender marker matching a transgender person’s gender identity, rather than one that aligns “with their sex assigned at birth,” amounts to “misrepresenting the purpose of... [More]”

The article European Leaders Voice Support for Zelensky Following Heated Exchange With Trump by Kyle Anzalone (Scheer Post) describes Trump’s feelings about where he and Zelenskyy differ.

“Following the presser, Trump expelled Zelensky from the White House, and posted on Truth Social that the deal was off. “I have determined that President Zelensky is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE,” he wrote.”

... [More]

In the following seven-minute video, Glenn “responds” to a critique of the Trump administration, written by Chris Hedges and sent to him by a listener. I’m a bit confused by the response, though … it seems as if Glenn thinks that Chris Hedges supports the continuation of the empire. Chris’s admonition is not a lament for the end of the empire, it is more a warning to pay attention to and to influence what will replace it. I think Glenn should have Chris on his show to make himself more... [More]

This was a great conversation that is absolutely worth the ~100-minute running time. Catherine eloquently and brashly discusses a lot of the topics and themes that she presents in her broadside against the PMC (Professional Managerial Class). I’ve included a bunch of cleaned-up transcription from the video.

Catherine Liu: Trauma, Virtue and Liberal Elites by Doomscroll /
Joshua Citarella (YouTube)

At about 12:00, Catherine says,

“I was like what are you doing girl? Like, how are you like assimilating your sexual assault, which is really bad a private thing—you haven’t even told... [More]”

US military and CIA interventions since WW2There are people who used to write quite well and have gotten incredibly lazy, repetitive, and just plain non-constructive and useless as information sources in just the last month. The drop in quality is noticeable because they’re once again cruising on their TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome).

They are being lazy and stupid, acting as if the U.S. used to be good until one month ago, when Trump came back into power. They are acting as if things have gotten markedly and provably worse for... [More]

This was a sane and sober discussion of what is actually happening in the U.S. empire. Katie Halper and Aaron Maté have a long discussion with Brian Berletic about what USAID actually does, with its arms like the NED.

Extended episode: Former Marine DEBUNKS USAID Rumors by Useful Idiots (YouTube)

Former U.S. Marine Brian Berletic, who focuses on geopolitics in Eurasia and hosts the informative Youtube show The New Atlas, joins Useful Idiots this week as Elon Musk and the Trump administration are gutting USAID and attempting to move it under the control of Marco... [More]

Chris Hedges has some of the most interesting, and unique, interviews you can find. I’d never heard of Farah before but she was a great interview.

Arab Regimes and the Betrayal of Palestine (w/ Farah El-Sharif) | The Chris Hedges Report by The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel (YouTube)

The first 15 minutes were an absolute tour-de-force of history and erudition by Farah El-Sharif. She is extremely well-spoken and brilliant, works at Stanford, and “served as Stanford’s Abbasi Program’s Associate Director from 2021-2023”.

Check out the people in this video:

People mentioned in this video − including Muhammad

Farah was being interviewed, OK. Muhammad has no picture 😹. And I... [More]

I don’t even know what to transcribe because, whenever Chris Hedges speaks, it’s worth citing, and he speaks for nearly the entire 30 minutes, as Hill allows him to speak at length. This is an excellent distillation of the situation in the American Empire as it is, rooted in the historical context of both its own past, as well as similar contexts in the Roman Empire as well as in Italy and Germany in the first half of the 20th century.

Yuck it up, assholesThey discuss the failures of so-called liberalism at... [More]

Dwindling glaciersThe Umweltverantwortungsinitiative is best translated as “How do you say virtue-signaling in German?” Predictably, it failed. The following are some notes from conversations I had about the initiative with friends.

The referendum is basically Switzerland promising that it will be climate-neutral per citizen as a proportion of its population’s share of the world population.

I am basically for every country on the planet doing this thing but I also think that it has no chance of happening.
... [More]

What is the difference between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and Syria?

In both cases, a country has taken action to establish what it calls a “buffer zone” in a neighboring country that it finds threatening, out of what it considers to be legitimate “security concerns”. Security concerns arise whenever there is animosity between neighbors.

By dint of their respective overwhelming military advantage, Russia and Israel can force their neighbors to... [More]

The article Given George Stephanopoulos’ Carelessness, ABC’s Defamation Settlement With Trump Seems Prudent by Jacob Sullum (Reason) writes,

“In an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R–S.C.) on ABC’s This Week last March, host George Stephanopoulos repeatedly and inaccurately asserted that Donald Trump, now the president-elect, had been “found liable for rape.” A week later, Trump sued ABC and Stephanopoulos for defamation in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, noting that a jury had deemed... [More]”

Simon ShusterThe interview in the video below was quite good for showing what “manufactured consent” looks like in person. Simon Shuster is an affable, seemingly reasonable person who represents exactly what the U.S. empire wants him to represent. When Aaron pushes back, though, he concedes that Aaron is right but then doubles down on his opinion anyway—and always expressed in a friendly manner, negating the disagreement for the untrained listener.

If you listen to what he’s saying, he admits that... [More]

Breaking the Public Schools / Jennifer Berkshire by Chuck Mertz (This is Hell!) is an excellent interview about public-school funding with the very articulate—and clearly a trained podcaster—Jennifer Berkshire.

Jennifer BerkshireShe was a bit hesitant to go all-out revolutionary in some cases, preferring the more mealy-mouthed liberal-style formulations like (possibly paraphrasing here),

“It’s interesting that Republican representatives who otherwise oppose government expenditures are so generous with the public wallet when it comes to... [More]”

2024 Election was the Oligarchic Elite vs. Corporate Elite (w/ Chris Hedges) (YouTube)

This is a fantastic and wide-ranging interview by Brianna. Hedges is at his morose and realistic best.

Near the end, they discuss the possibility of Hedges going on Rogan to teach him about Gramsci. I, for one, would absolutely watch the hell out of Chris Hedges on Joe Rogan. Joe would take a week off just to think about what had just happened.

Imagine Hedges bringing his message to Rogan’s audience. I really wonder what that would look like in terms of viewer numbers. Would the same people... [More]

Julian AssangeI covered this in my notes at the time but it’s really worth repeating and celebrating that Julian Assange didn’t rot to death in a prison. It’s honestly the best news we’ve had at an international level. He wrote about it at the time in the article ‘I’m Free Because I Pled Guilty to Journalism’ by Julian Assange (Scheer Post). In the article, he took time to point out that, despite his 14 years of imprisonment, he’d gotten off comparatively easy, citing the plight of Joshua Schulte.

“In February this year, the alleged... [More]”

Behind the News, 11/7/24 by Doug Henwood (Apple Podcasts) was an extremely dense podcast, starting with Henwood reading his excellent article It Was Always About Inflation (Jacobin) (from which I cited a few passages in Links and Notes for November 8th, 2024), before going in-depth on a survey of Israeli public opinion: politics, polls, and inclinations with the extremely lucid and quick Dahlia Scheindlin, who works for Ha’aretz, then moving on to James Foley and Vladimir Unkovski-Korica, who afford the war Ukraine the same treatment.... [More]

Here are two videos of the inestimable Norman Finkelstein. The first one is just under ten minutes while the second is much longer: it starts at about 28 minutes into the 100-minute video.

'Gaza is GONE:' Prof. Norman Finkelstein on Israel's Destruction by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

“Norman Finkelstein: There’s no question in my mind what’s going to happen: Israel is going to say we’re not letting cement into Gaza. It already did that after Cast Lead. It said that Hamas will use the cement to build tunnels. ‘We’re not going to let cement in.‘ And nobody in the international community... [More]”

The article Sinwar Is Dead, So What Happens Next? by Scott H. Greenfield (Simple Justice) writes,

“The last moments of Yahya SinwarThe mastermind of the October 7th tragedy, Yahya Sinwar, was fortuitously killed. Other than the terminally ignorant, this is recognized as both a great thing and a necessity for the future of the middle east. Of course, it wasn’t necessary before, as so many clamored for a ceasefire while Sinwar remained alive and ready to do it again and again, a detail that didn’t seem to prevent fantasies of peace. But hey, now that he’s dead,... [More]”

Scott Ritter has a very strong pedigree and background but has some odd verbal and facial tics that make him look disingenuous. Sometimes he makes broad statements that are backed up by information that he has on good authority, but that he hasn’t presented. He also talks very quickly in a decidedly non-beginner-friendly style. Those looking to disagree with him will be able to do so quite easily. However, if you listen to what he says, you will learn something. And his analyses have been... [More]

I published most of this article in my notes in the middle of October 2024. This video still marks the longest that I’ve listened to Kamala Harris speak. Trump is a nightmare to listen to, but Harris also feels like every second is wasted. Give it a listen and see how you feel about it. I don’t generally listen to presidents anymore—I stopped analyzing State of the Union addresses when Trump became president—but, if there’s a silver lining to Harris’s loss, it’s that this kind of insipid... [More]

I was pleasantly surprised at how cogent, well-reasoned, and calm Dore’s conversation with Hedges was. I’m used to his show, of which I usually only see 10–15-minute clips—and that only rarely—where he’s joined by a peanut gallery of yuk-yukkers and where he often plays videos in chopped-up snippets, analyzing and taking them apart, but it’s often a bit much.

The 52-minute interview below, though is very, very good. I’ve cited at length below the video.

The Liberal Class’s Ultimate Betrayal (w/ Jimmy Dore) | The Chris Hedges Report by The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel (YouTube)

At 05:58, Dore says

“The people... [More]”

This is an amazing if sobering interview. Thanks to Haim Bresheeth-Zabner for taking the time to tirelessly, quietly, and reasonably lay out his case. He spoke almost without interruption for over an hour about how Israel isn’t acting on its own, it’s working for Empire. But what is happening now doesn’t represent the interests of the country, “but not the leadership; the leadership is abandoning their humanity.” He talks at length about the very real danger of nuclear war. Every minute was... [More]

The elections are over and the Green Party did not even come close to getting 5% of the vote required to qualify for public funding in four years. Now that I’m writing it, it’s so stupid that it works this way. The parties that need money the most are the ones that can’t get it. The parties that need ballot access the most can’t get it. There is almost no hope of an electoral path to getting more than a single party with two heads in the U.S.

Still, here are a couple of good interviews with... [More]

I watched The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for years. I stopped watching when Stewart and Colbert retired. John Oliver used to report for the Daily Show. Although I’ve long since stopped watching the Daily Show, I still watch John Oliver, although he’s often a bit frustrating. He has what seems like the right attitude, the right politics, a whole lot of empathy, a huge audience, and a global platform. But he still sticks to the extremely narrow channel of approved opinion.

The election is... [More]