You kind of have to wonder what they’re thinking.
BREAKING – SPREADING: Students stage walkout protest at the University of Texas over lack of ceasefire in Gaza. DPS riot troopers dispersing protesters. WATCH
NOTE: If police open fire on students, and kill them, this will become a nationwide protest. pic.twitter.com/jxoUK09Ik3
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) April 24, 2024
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com.au
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
It’s just a tough situation, with victims on both sides. On one side you’ve got people being slaughtered in droves by genocidal massacres and siege warfare, while on the other you’ve got people whose feelings get hurt when these atrocities are opposed. Hard to say which is worse.
I have dedicated every day of my life to the project of spreading awareness of the depravity and deceitfulness of the western empire, but I will never write anything more effective toward this end than what the empire is doing itself on university campuses right now.
[Students have been arrested at the University of Southern California and the University of Texas Austin while protests at Columbia University and other U.S. campuses continue.]
I mean, you kind of have to wonder what they’re thinking: “Yeah, that’s it. Violently quash pro-Palestine protests at universities, ban TikTok to ensure the suppression of pro-Palestine content, and saturate the boomer media with obvious propaganda. That’ll make the kids love Israel.”
[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predictably called the U.S. campus protests “anti-semitic” and said they had to be stopped. He went even further, saying in a video message that the protests are “reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s and he ominously said there would be “terrible consequences.”]
Anti-Semitism on campuses in the United States is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s.
The world cannot stand idly by. pic.twitter.com/oHlwig1vCl
— Benjamin Netanyahu – ?????? ?????? (@netanyahu) April 24, 2024
Meanwhile the U.S. empire is still playing games with each and every one of our lives by continually taking insane risks in its world-threatening brinkmanship with a nuclear superpower. It turns out last month the Biden administration secretly sent Ukraine long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which Ukraine has reportedly already used to attack a Russian base in Crimea.
In 2022 when Ukraine first started urging the United States to send it the ATACMS — which has nearly four times the range of the HIMARS weapons the U.S. has been supplying — Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova immediately responded with a warning that their use on Russian territory would make the U.S. a direct participant in the conflict, and Russia would respond accordingly. Crimea is considered Russian territory by the Russian Federation.
In an article published in Antiwar last year titled “ATACMS: Be Very Afraid of This Acronym,” West Suburban Peace Coalition president Walt Zlotow wrote that this missile system “has potential to draw the U.S. and NATO into all out war with Russia”:
“ATACMS are long range U.S. missiles that can strike up to 190 miles. Top U.S. officials, likely including President Biden, are seriously considering giving ATACMS to Ukraine in their battle to take back all Russian gains in Ukraine, including Crimea. They can reach both Crimea and the Russian mainland.
If so used by Ukraine to attack Russia, it may be a missile too far that could ignite Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Further escalation into nuclear confrontation between Russia and the U.S./NATO alliance seeking Russia’s defeat becomes more likely.”
Joe Biden proclaimed it “a good day for world peace” when he signed the World War 3 bill which will pour weapons of death and destruction into Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
This is the inverted reality the U.S.-centralized empire premises its narratives about itself upon. They’ve got the mainstream public espousing a completely backwards and upside-down worldview, which is why we live in a completely backwards and upside-down civilization.
The Ukraine war funding part of the bill was actually reportedly pushed through with behind-the-scenes collaboration between Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers. Anyone who still buys Trump’s “ending the wars, fighting the deep state” schtick is a fucking moron.
When Israel’s genocide funding made it through the House, Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted, “The U.S. Congress just overwhelmingly passed a much appreciated aid bill that demonstrates strong bipartisan support for Israel and defends Western civilization. Thank you friends, thank you America!”
And he’s not wrong. The U.S. Congress does have massive bipartisan support for Israel, and pouring war machinery into that genocidal apartheid state does in fact bolster the blood-fueled machine of nonstop murder and tyranny that is “western civilization.”
Anti-genocide protest at Columbia University, April 22, 2024. (SWinxy/Wikimedia Commons)
Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes. For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
I’m constantly reminded lately of the words of John F. Kennedy:
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible
will make violent revolution inevitable.”
We may well be just short of the tipping point.
Once, again, “Crank Up the Volume!!!” &, give a a “Shout-Out,” to CN’s readership’s “Spot-On” commentary! I agree, indeed, “SOLIDARITY, LIVES!!!”
NO doubt, “the land of the free & the home of the brave is a f/war zone!!!”
From sea to shining sea, the “chickens have come home to roost!!!” Obviously, Biden’s-Harris’ WH, Bd of Executioners, Congress, imo, the Hors’ d’War, are drunk on power, diligently executing their war on terra, plant, animal & human life, in “our” backyard!!! Basically, “tiki torch’n,” the RESISTANCE & “TIK TOK.”
……“Tik Tok. Tik Tok.” The public’s being totally flocked. Ultimatums, $anctions aka Social Murder being clocked. Tik Tok. Tik Tok. It’s the dickory, trickery POTUS. Mired in muck w/his FLOTUS. They fear there will be blood in the streets. FLOTUS knows POTUS got lotsa blood on his hands. Hence, their focus is to smoke us!!! The Hors’ d’War shuffle the political corpse, posing as POTUS masquerading as human, away from an open mic, avoiding the questions,
……… “How many more innocent people have to die?”
………. “Who is the “invisible government” shufflin’ the deck in the WH?”
…….… * “How many more such tragedies will occur b/c the [Nation’s Corporati$t Zionists] have accumulated so much power?”
Hocus. Poke Us. Everybody, focus, “Zionism, in short, rules America; &, America, under the Zionist thumb (or so it seems) seeks to rule the world.” * ‘The New Jerusalem-Zionist Power in America,’ by Michael Collins Piper.
TIK TOK. TIK. TOK. “The mouse ran up the clock,” the White House residents, larping as president, creepily crawl back to REHABoth, by the Beach, in Delawhere?!? Hickory, the dick & his doc, remind us, “curses are like chickens; they come home to roost.”
TY, Caitlin Johnstone, Tim Foley, CN, et al. “Keep It Lit!” Ciao
I don’t know how this will end but…it’ll be a very long time for israel to ‘be loved’ again. “Never again” becoming ‘never forgetting’.
The national number of students protesting, in total, is only a fraction of Vietnam War protesters of all ages. Back in the day, counting a literal Million Man March on Washington Mall or half-million casual arty-goers at Woodstock,
Are you saying that this indicates that not many care, and/or that the protests made no difference, so why bother?
It’s true though, isn’t it ? The current protests don’t match the vietnam protests, yet. Maybe, when their draft papers are delivered they might wake up. However, the protests are having an effect which is why genocide Joe and Bibi are sending in the heavy’s. Let’s hope we don’t end up with another Kent State massacre by the storm troopers, just following their orders …
Reminder: The Vietnam war began, for the US, some time during 1955. The massive protests against it took more than a couple of 3 weeks to percolate, before boiling over and exploding into the streets.
Question: It appears that the camels back has not yet broken! How far does the repression have to go before the protests finally snap it and the regime is forced to relent, if it even will this time out, fifty years on?
Rationality is even more diminished than it was yesteryear, plus a couple of decades!
George Orwell said it first, ‘war is peace’. Newspeak. It used to be science fiction,
Things are really being exposed in this country as they truly are. Zionists have always wielded enormous, enormous power and influence in academia, Hollywood, law, finance, and of course the news media.
What we’re witnessing now is unprecedented and has the potential to effectuate serious geo-political change.
There ain’t no puttin’ this genie back in the bottle!
Washington — totally beholden to a genocidal maniac foreign leader — has shown to the world just how debased and craven it can be by manhandling its own young college students.
The Zionists are obviously terrified over these massive, magnificent and burgeoning campus protests.
Netanyahu actually just gave an address to the Israeli people saying that these protests are akin to what went on at anti-Semitic German colleges in the 1930s. The guy is clearly off the wall paranoid and unhinged.
We all must make common cause with these protests. Regardless if some of them are a bit kooky and goofy; regardless of what race, religion or ethnicity they might happen to be; regardless of whether they consider themselves socialists, right-wingers, communists, libertarians, etc., solidarity now.
No anti-Israel movement has ever been this big in this country: the country that foots virtually the entire bill for that arrogant, racist, sadistic, creepy land-grabbing artificial state.
History could be happening quite fast right now.
The pro-Israel zealots are frightened out of their skulls — keep up the pressure.
Superb comment!
Oh my. Biden apparently just read that early novel “1984,” and has decided that’s what he will do as he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to crazy Bibi.
Meanwhile , WEE the people have become even smaller and so unimportant to this current government. .
I have no idea why Biden wants to murder so many humans , and why at his age, does he think it matters.
No doubt all will be investigated as the USA under its new name ( USA =nUnidentified Scary Assholes . ) will come up with unnecessary lies that still won’t even be very creative.
We only have the one planet and Life here seems to be turning downward with lack of water, food, purpose, and most of all SANITY. Like that old poem,,,, “this is the world ends—not with a bang—but a whimper.” : (
Like Biden would know anything about Peace.
Hot wind blowing through the mouth of demented paper chicken hawk, zionist, neocon.
“a good day for world peace”!? – seriously, somebody needs to put this guy in a straight jacket!
From a straight racket to a straight jacket!
How do you propose this will ever come about.
Use Donald J. Trump as your example par excellence; three years and counting, and those who pull the puppet strings haven’t yet reached their decision.
When it comes to throwing fuel onto the fires of perpetual war, they are not as indecisive as in a straightforward case of narcissistic fraud and self-serving sociopathy.