Defunding UNRWA: From Containment to Destruction / Laura Robson

Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.

When I first saw David Frum, I said to myself, Damn, that guy’s ugly. Then I heard the bs that came out of his slobbering maw and said, aloud, “Uch, shut up.” Frum is one of those conservatives who fancies himself fair-minded, so he sporadically takes some positions which those defining conservatism at any given time call “liberal.” It’s like being a light-drinking alcoholic.

Last week, as current editor of the Atlantic, Frum took his ersatz common sense and applied it to what I’m going to call “the immigration question.” On the anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, I do indeed intend the phrase to echo “the Jewish question” which was posed by a certain common-sense party in Europe in the 30s and 40s. I don’t mean to call Frum a Nazi, but to aver that there is an unflattering comparison to be made between the way Jews were considered a problem back then and the way immigrants are being considered a problem right now, and Frum’s discussion highlights just about all of its unflattering aspects.

To Frum, immigrants lower the national IQ, strain our social budget, and pollute what it means to be American. That is an oversimplification of his argument, but not a gross one. I want to state plainly that, in this case, I am a bigot. Even if the above statements were true, I wouldn’t consider them problems.

If we had to rescue millions of severely mentally handicapped children from extermination in, say, Europe, or, say, Uganda, or, say, Syria, the fact that they would bring down the national testing average would not be one of my concerns. The real issue Frum elides, however, is that, as a nation, we don’t commit resources to our public schools. In our cities, “common-sense” Republicans and Democrats alike are bailing on providing education to the public. With or without immigrants, this would be true. Neo-liberalism, or trickle-down economics, or the Washington Consensus, or whatever those with “common sense” want to call it, is doing its best to starve the public of resources, or outright steal the public’s resources, and all the “immigration question” does is offer these “common-sense” advocates of privatization and “market solutions” with another crisis they can use to bludgeon the public sphere into... read more

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9:20 - Journalist George Joseph explores the surveillance machine IBM built for Rodrigo Duterte.

George wrote the article Inside the Surveillance Program IBM Built for Rodrigo Duterte for The Intercept.

10:05 - Writer Noah Kulwin examines the space between Israel's right and the Democratic establishment.

Noah wrote the articles How CAP Fuels the Right for Jacobin and No Reason for Optimism for Jewish Currents.

10:35 - Conflict researcher Andrew Tchie follows the revolution that toppled Sudan's government.

Andrew is author of the commentary How Sudan’s protesters upped the ante, and forced al-Bashir from power for The Conversation.

11:05 - Sustainability scholar Jem Bendell looks to deep adaptation in the face of inevitable climate-induced social collapse.

Jem is author of the paper Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy.

12:05 - Writer Anna Merlan explores the slow creep of conspiracy thinking into American life and politics.

Anna is author of the book Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power from Metropolitan Books.

12:45 - In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen tiptoes around Passover.

Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.

Spread the word to all the venture capitalists you know: I have the secret to eternal youth, immortality, invulnerability, invisibility, time travel, instantaneous transport, and control of all matter and energy. Right now it’s in the secret idea development stage, but just a few billion dollars will turn me and few lucky dupes into the saviors of humanity and make us wealthy beyond the limits of earthly human reason.

An investment of a million dollars will buy you “nice try” status, and you will receive a promissory coupon for an unlimited number of rides in the Mach 99 fat-tire stroller to oblivion. Two million dollars gets you twice as many rides. And so on until math runs out.

An investment of 400 million dollars will get you on the board of directors, 150% of voting shares, and an invisible royal garment.

I can take just a drop of your blood and turn it into enough loaves and fishes to feed a great multitude.

Now is our time! The time of infinite promise and zero fulfillment! We shall be gods, promising good fortune and, ultimately, heaven, but delivering only that which a mythical savior who lacks actual existence can deliver.

We promise you high-speed rail but we can’t even deliver potable water to people in Michigan, a state surrounded by the Great Lakes. We promise you 100% surveillance but we can’t even give you justice when cops are caught on video killing your children.

We are the best and brightest: when it comes to promising, we can do it all. When it comes to luxuries and miraculous sights, sounds, flavors and sensations, we procure them for ourselves.

And when it comes to solving the actual problems afflicting humanity, we, just like God, do absolutely nothing, almost as if we didn’t exist.

But we do. We are the living church, glories of architecture, marble and gold, the paragon of all the arts and sciences, and you can visit us long enough to worship and drop a few coins in our collection plate. After all, the people create the gods, and feed them with their blood and money.

You know who contributed the altarpiece? Henry Kissinger. Just think, you could pray to a sculpture that Henry Kissinger paid for! The man who won the Nobel Peace Prize for killing the greatest number of Indochinese in a single war.

We have all the money. Do you want some? You’ll have to make it worth our while.... read more

Listen live from 9AM - 1:00PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM / stream at www.thisishell.com / subscribe to the podcast

9:20 - From Ankara, journalist Max Zirngast reports on a new, narrow opening against the fascist slide in Turkey.

Max is co-author of the article Daylight in Turkey? for Jacobin. Listen to Max's earlier reports here.

10:00 - Writer Glen Ford explores the possibilities of reparations, and the limits of the Democratic party's racial politics.

Glen wrote the article Reparations Means Global Social Transformation for Black Agenda Report.

11:00 - Writer Shireen Al-Adeimi examines the bloody US hand in the ongoing atrocities in Yemen.

Shireen wrote the article As War on Yemen Hits the 4-Year Mark, Here’s a Brief History of U.S. Involvement for In These Times.

11:45 - Writer Tarence Ray explains what liberals miss when they look past rural America.

Tarence wrote the article Get Real for The Baffler.

12:30 - In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen sells you the secrets to infinite promise.

Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.

I’m going to say this twice. Once here at the top, and a second time near the end. The first time because I think it’s something on which everyone who opposes the controlling economic, political, and information system, as it is, can all agree. The second time because I will want to remind us all of its salience in light of what I’m about to lay out: the basis of a unified conspiracy theory of global fascist movements, large and small, in governments and in the streets.

This is the statement I wish to color all that will proceed hence: The establishment opposed to Donald Dump believe there is a line, below which he sits, on his tasteless gold toilet, tweeting his misspelled words and doing his second-tier, declasse-collar crimes, while they look down their noses from their understated, right-thinking, right-acting positions of propriety. What they don’t realize is that, while they bend over to scold him and dirt-devil up the shards and crumbs of the taco bowl he left on their lovely carpet, Dump is actually their own ass crack hanging shamefully out of the back of their silk-linen blend trousers.

I’m not arguing that Donald Dump conspired with Russia to break laws and undermine the 2016 election. He and/or his shitty family may have done that, and there may be evidence in the Mueller report that warrants further investigation into that. There is certainly the appearance of impropriety, which is one reason there was an investigation in the first place.

Hillary Clinton didn’t lose the 2016 election because of Bernie Sanders or because of Russia. The British public didn’t vote “leave” because of Russian interference. I want to make it clear that I am in no way pushing those narratives. But that doesn’t mean Russia’s noodling around, egging rightward mischief here and there, while entangled in shady deals for a few million here, a few million there, isn’t a dark-money connection worth understanding. It is. John Gotti was a little tiny parodic maquette of the larger capitalist system, but he had to be brought down. Jon Burge wasn’t in charge of all the racism in Chicago, but he was a problem, and if he could die again much more brutally, that would be a good thing.

The premise that, as a wise man named Chuck Mertz has said time and time again, “Everybody’s... read more

Listen live from 9AM - 1:00PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM / stream at www.thisishell.com / subscribe to the podcast

9:20 - Political economist Andrew Fischer studies poverty, and the study of poverty, beyond the neoliberal frame.

Andrew is author of Poverty as Ideology: Rescuing Social Justice from Global Development Agendas from Zed Books.

10:05 - Writers Duncan Tarr and Noor us-Sabah explore the Midwestern oil pipeline that ties us all together.

Duncan and Noor wrote the article The End of the Line for Commune.

10:35 - Journalist Claire Provost traces money fueling Europe's far right back to US Christian fundamentalists.

Claire Provost is co-author of the report Revealed: Trump-linked US Christian ‘fundamentalists’ pour millions of ‘dark money’ into Europe, boosting the far right from openDemocracy.

11:05 - Philosopher Cinzia Arruzza examines the anticapitalist, eco-socialist and antiracist reach of a feminist for all.

Cinzia is co-author of Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto from Verso.

12:05 - Live from Ankara, journalist Max Zirngast reports on Erdoğan’s autocratic grip tightening over Turkey.

Max is co-author of the article Discontent Is Brewing In Erdoğan’s Turkey from Jacobin.

12:45 - In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen pulls a thread and unravels a unified conspiracy theory of fascism.