Kings
of Leon have dropped a new single, "Nothing To Do," along with a music
video for the track shot by frontman Caleb Followill. The hand-held clip
was directed by Kings of Leon and Casey McGrath, with Followill
shooting the entire thing in one take.
The raucous song sees the band taking on a more high energy vibe as Followill sings,
"I'm
a man on a mission of going insane/ There's a gold in the breeze/ It's
running in your hair/ Is it in my head is neither here nor there/ And a
picture framed of the day we met/ It's a mystery/ How could i forget
that you/ You want nothing to do with love."
Here's the video.
I've
never been a fan of the band. That doesn't mean I hate them. I have
no problem with them. It's just that in the past, their music hasn't
spoken to me. For me, there are the artists who speak to me, there are
the ones who don't and there are the ones who are awful. You can be a
good artist and just not speak to me. It's just our world views not
lining up or whatever. Or it can even be a defect with me.
I
bring that up because I share that Jennifer Lopez has never spoken to
me as a singer (love her acting) and I get a few e-mails where people
agree. I share the same on Taylor Swift and I've been buried in
e-mails. To which I say: If you're a community member, I read it -- or
at least the summary from Martha & Shirley (they work the e-mails)
-- but if you're not, I'm lazy and I'm not going to dedicate myself to
reading 114 e-mails. I do have a life.
Taylor
is not one of my favorite artists. I don't make a point to trash her.
Was it RED? I think that's the album I reviewed. It wasn't my first
Taylor listen and it wasn't my last. That album spoke to me. What came
before and after has not. Again, she's a great pop artist. She's
Carole King.
I like
Carole. I love TAPESTRY -- the album where Carole pretends to be Laura
Nyro (as advised by Lou Adler) and ends up with art.
That's
what Carole did her whole career: Pose. She'd pretend to be a Drifter
to write "Up On The Roof" (co-write), the same with the Shirelles to
write "Will You Love Me Tommorrow?" and pretend to be Aretha for "(You
Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman." Producer Lou Adler gave her
Laura's music and got her to pretend to be Laura for an album and
suddenly Carole King wasn't just a successful songwriter, she was a
successful singer-songwriter with everyone praising her for finding her
voice. She found Laura's voice. She discarded it quickly and that's
why none of the other albums ever really sold.
But Taylor can write a pop hit.
Maria Sherman (AP) notes, "On Friday, the pop star released her 11th album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” an
amalgamation of her previous work and reflecting the artist who — at
the peak of her powers — has spent the last few years re-recording her
life’s work and touring its material, filtered through synth-pop anthems, breakup ballads, provocative and matured considerations."
I'll listen, maybe it will speak to me. If not? I won't write about
it. Unless it's awful. If it's awful, I do review things. But if I'm
just not connecting with the artist for whatever reason, I don't write
about it.
I also don't
write if I can't think of a way to write about it. Maybe the album
conjures up a memory, for example. Okay, I can write about it. But I
don't do a review just to do one.
Now let me gripe. Apparently, in 2012, this week, Dick Clark died.
My
gripe: I keep seeing it in news feeds. And they don't included "2012"
in the partial headline before I click on it so I think, "Oh, Dick Clark
just died?" Sometimes I then think, "I thought he was already dead."
But sometimes, including this morning, I don't think that and get sad. I
am very forgetful. If you read this site often, you know I'm lazy and
I'm forgetful.
I've been
through the wringer on Dick Clark this week. So let me just say that as
a TV host (AMERICAN BANDSTAND) he really changed the way we saw and
heard music. There was a time -- the 70s -- when we rarely saw music
outside of the variety shows. And if you wanted to see someone with a
hit song, you had very few options. You had the once a week programs:
SOUL TRAIN and AMERICAN BANDSTAND (both Saturday programs) and you had
THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (once a week, late night). In 1975, we got the
musical act on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE doing two songs a show each week.
That was it. There was no channel playing music videos. There was no
streaming. There was no catch a video on YOUTUBE. He created other
programs (and has a bit of a payola history, which I will ignore). But
for me, he brought a lot of joy and good music on Saturdays.
Isra Hirsi, the daughter of American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, said she has been suspended from New York's Columbia University and its associate institution, Barnard College, after participating in a pro-Palestine protest on Thursday.
Writing on X, Hirsi said she is "one of
three students suspended for standing in solidarity with Palestinians
facing a genocide".
Hirsi said that despite being an organiser
with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, she had never been
reprimanded or received any disciplinary warnings in her three years at
the college. The organisation advocates for the university to divest
from "companies complicit in genocide".
AMYGOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!,
democracynow.org. As Columbia University President Shafik testified
before Congress about accusations of antisemitism at the school, Democracy Now!
spoke to Columbia and Barnard College students yesterday who set up a
Gaza Solidarity Encampment early Wednesday morning with dozens of tents,
occupying the South Lawn of the campus outside the main library. As we
broadcast, students have been threatened with suspension and discipline
action but are still refusing to leave until their demands are met. They
spoke about what they’re calling for.
PROTESTERS: Down, down with occupation! Down, down with occupation! Up, up with liberation! Up, up with liberation!
MARYAMALWAN: My name is Maryam Alwan, and I’m with Columbia SJP,
Students for Justice in Palestine. And we are here today to demand that
Columbia divest immediately from all stakes in Israeli apartheid. Over
33,000 Palestinians have been killed. And as we speak, our president is
testifying in front of the House in a game of political theater that is
conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. We want to focus the
attention on what’s going on in Gaza and tell Columbia that we are not
going anywhere. No matter how much government suppression we face, we
will keep fighting until they divest.
They have been completely repressive. I mean, we’ve faced police
brutality. We have faced countless policy changes. I mean, my group,
along with Jewish Voice for Peace, was suspended in the fall semester
completely illegitimately. And I filed a lawsuit to counter that action.
And it seems like the repression is only getting worse and worse and
worse. But the more they repress us, the more we rise up. And that’s why
we’ve escalated — that’s also why we’ve escalated here today.
Not only are they not listening to us when we peacefully protest,
when we attempt to just pass referendums for student voices to even be
heard, they don’t even want to listen to the students. They don’t want
to know what the students think. And so, we’re here to tell them that we
will take up space and presence on this campus, and they’re not going
to be able to erase our support for Palestine.
PROTESTERS: What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! If Gaza doesn’t get it, shut it down!
SOPH: My name is Soph. I
am with Jewish Voice for Peace at Columbia. And I am here today because I
will not stand by while thousands and thousands of people are dying
because of our tax dollars in this country, as Columbia’s money is going
towards a genocide. The money that should be funding our education is
going to the bombs that are dropping on Gaza right now. Columbia is a
majority share — has massive amounts of shares in various organizations,
like Lockheed Martin, that are supplying Israel with bombs right now,
and we will no longer be complicit.
In a campus like this that is filled with repression, that is — every
day we wake up, and the administration tries to silence us more and
more. We are here to say, “The more you try to silence us, the louder we
will be.” We will not be complicit. We will stand in solidarity,
because we know that we keep us safe.
We refuse to believe that Israel is in any part related to our
Judaism. In fact, our Jewish values inform why we’re here, why we’re
standing in here — Jewish values of tikkun olam, of love, of
appreciation, of respect, of mutual liberation. And so, as Jews, we are
here to say that we will always support the liberation of Palestine,
because that is what historically Jews have done. We have stood up for
other oppressed peoples, because we know that there can be no freedom
until we are all free.
SARAHBORUS:
My name is Sarah Borus. I’m a student at Barnard College. And I’m here
because I was raised as an anti-Zionist Jew. It is important for me to
stand with Palestine. I go to a university that is actively profiting
off of the genocide of Palestinians and then is hiding behind Jewish
students by saying that they want to crack down on us because of
antisemitism. But as an anti-Zionist Jew, I know that that is the
farthest thing from the truth. They are doing that because they know
that we are on the right side of history, that they are doing something
that is profoundly wrong. And it is our job during this genocide to come
out and resist.
There were Jews protesting against this genocide who were harassed
and then attacked with a chemical weapon. That is not being addressed.
This is — quite frankly, we’re seeing McCarthyism once again. And our
administrators need to be aware of the experience of anti-Zionist Jews,
the way that antisemitism is being weaponized in order to crack down on
this movement.
AMYGOODMAN: Voices from the South Lawn of Columbia University, where students have set up a Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Special thanks to Democracy Now!’s Hana Elias and Tey-Marie Astudillo and Eric Halvarson for that report.
Columbia students were right in 1968. History proved it. Columbia
students are right today. The university has no good answers to their
demands that the school stop investing in genocide. Calling in the NYPD
proves it.
+ Abbie Hoffman: “The only reason you should be in college is to
destroy it.” In Columbia’s case, the administration is doing the job for
the students.
+ Columbia Professor Rebecca Jordan-Young: “The faculty who are
supporting the students do not all agree on the issue of Israel and
Palestine, [but] we are astonished and disgusted with the way the
university has cracked down on the students.”
+ From Wednesday’s House interrogation of Columbia University’s President, Minouche Shafik…
+ God also wanted Abraham to slit his son Isaac’s throat, which is
pretty much what Shafik did when she called the NYPD goon squad on the
kids in her care. Giordano Bruno she’s not…In fact, Shafik is a former
Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, and also enjoys a life peerage
in the House of Lords.
Antony Blinken has been asked why he's refusing to comment on the
apparent Israeli attack on Iran in the early hours of this morning.
He
responds: "I am going to be incredibly boring and not make your day by
saying again I am not going to speak on what's been reported."
He
also reiterates the line he's been saying throughout the conference:
"The United States has not been involved in any offensive operations."
I
am not Secretary of State Antony Blinken. But I'm also not going to
spend time this morning on Israeli's attack on Iran. Sunday, as we
noted Sunday, you couldn't find news of Gaza -- protests over it, deaths
caused by the Israeli government, not even a death toll -- because the
media was foaming over the thought of a bigger war. We're there again
today and it's not just western media, it's the Arab media as well.
We
cover Gaza, we cover Iraq, we cover feminism, we have a scope here.
The world doesn't need more wars -- or actually any wars.
World leaders reacted to Friday’s strike with calls to avoid further escalation. Egypt expressed
its “deep concern about the continuing escalation between Israel and
Iran,” calling for “the highest levels” of restraint and warning against
expanding “conflict and instability in the region.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said,
“It is absolutely necessary that the region stays stable and that all
sides refrain from further action.” China’s Foreign Ministry also said
it opposed any actions that escalated tensions, Reuters reported.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry in a statement
also called for restraint from “all parties,” but it pointed the finger
at Israel. “It is becoming increasingly evident that the tensions that
were initially caused by Israel’s illegal attack on the Iranian Embassy
in Damascus risk turning into a permanent conflict,” the ministry said.
As the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote Thursday on
Palestine's bid to become a full U.N. member, the Biden
administration—which claims to support Palestinian statehood—is lobbying
UNSC nations in an effort to wrangle enough "no" votes so that the
United States can avoid resorting to a veto.
Leaked cables obtained by The Intercept show U.S. pressure on Security Council members including Malta—which currently presides over the body—and Ecuador.
While claiming that President Joe Biden backs "Palestinian aspirations
for statehood," one of the cables asserts that "it remains the U.S. view
that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the
Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement
between Israel and its neighbors."
"We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of 'Palestine'
as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the
Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks," the
document advises.
The U.S. argument essentially is that the U.N. should not create an
independent Palestinian state by fiat—even though that's precisely how
the world body voted in 1947 to establish the modern state of Israel.
The renewed push for Palestine's U.N. membership comes as Israel wages a genocidal war on the Gaza
Strip. The Palestinian Authority, which hasn't controlled Gaza for
nearly two decades, rejected the Biden administration's requests to hold
off on seeking full membership.
"We wanted the U.S. to provide a substantive alternative to U.N. recognition. They didn't," one unnamed Palestinian official toldAxios
on Wednesday. "We believe full membership in the U.N. for Palestine is
way overdue. We have waited more than 12 years since our initial
request."
As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian
Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian
Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take
up consideration of its membership application. According to the first
State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April
suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia,
Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to
the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while
the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China,
France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the
UNSC, so they also have veto power.
Read Brett in full.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 196 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza
by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.
But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge
for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel,
the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover
for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily
basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to
school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe
Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll.
The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom
believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The
slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US
Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned
the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of
Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted,
"More than
1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza --
have
been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million
women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million
people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." Yesterday, THE NATIONAL noted "The
death toll in Gaza rose to 33,970 on Thursday after Israel killed
71 Palestinians in the previous 24 hours, the health ministry
announced. More than 100 others were wounded, taking the total number of
injured to 76,770 since the war began on October 7." Again, no one has
a death toll today, they're all frothing in delight over the prospect
of war on Iran. Months
ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained
on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000
Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of
their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe
Lazzarini Tweeted:
April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "n addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as
killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000
Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has
estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into
Israeli prisons. In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
As for the area itself? Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive
has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole
neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been
blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are
still standing, but most are battered shells." Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery
by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and
Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing
destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate
of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second
World War."
Since everyone else appears to be is in war mode -- with no concern for the victims of war -- let's go to a different topic.
I
thought Medhi Hasan was trying to do something different. Thought he
was building something different, a media that was going to be real.
Now it appears he's just built another media that attacks women and
hides behind a forty-something female with Mommy issues to attack
women. Before we get to that special prize let's review some headlines
to provide the context that Mehdi apparently doesn't believe in despite
giving one interview after another in recent weeks talking about the
importance context.
Let's start. October 7th, Hamas carried out an attack in Israel.
Not content to deal with what took place, liars had to invent claims of beheaded babies. Claims of gang-rapes soon followed.
No women did.
And
as I've said repeatedly here and at THIRD, it doesn't play. If you
bought a ticket to a film and some bad guy got a woman alone and raped
her? You would buy it. If the bad guy raped her in front of her
family, you'd even buy that. But the rapist has invaded and is taking
time out from the assault -- and risking it being stopped as a result --
so that he and his accomplices can indulge in gang-rape?
It doesn't play. You hit the targets, you get out.
Could it have happened? Many believe it or not moments do happen.
But this didn't happen.
I'm
a survivor. I do not buy that another woman -- let alone many women --
would be raped on October 7th and be so fragile that they couldn't come
forward. It's April 19th.
So what did Mehdi
do? He published the gadfly Fatima Bhutto. And her awful column "Gaza
Has Exposed The Shameful Hypocrisy Of Western Feminism."
From the title, some may think it belongs to other recent literary fictions such as:
THE
TIMES OF ISRAEL, November 23rd, Amelie Botbol, "Global women’s rights
groups silent as Israeli women testify about rapes by Hamas"
NBC
NEWS, November 25th, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, "How feminists have
failed Israeli victims of sexual violence: The skepticism that met
Israeli women’s claims perpetuates traditions of dehumanizing Jews."
SLATE, November 30th, Dahlia Lithwick, Mimi Rocah, Tamara Sepper, Jennifer Taub, Joyce White Vance, and Julie Zebrak, "The
World’s Feminists Need to Show Up for Israeli Victims: Solidarity for
victims of sexual assault should trump other politics."
THE FORWARD, December 13th, Letty
Cottin Pogrebin, "Jew-hating is not a new feminist phenomenon: I refuse
to let Hamas’ brutal assault on Israeli women and girls be forgotten in
the fog of war"
THE NATION, December 15th, Katha Pollitt "Why Have Feminists Been So Slow to Condemn the Hamas Rapes?"
THE JERUSALEM POST, January 19th, Carly Pildis, "Why are feminists silent on Hamas's use of rape as a weapon of war?"
WINNEPEG FREE PRESS, January 26th, Jen Zoratti, "The battlefield between feminism and rapes of war"
We
could include about forty more articles but hopefully you get the
point. The articles in bold are trashing western feminists for not
rushing to endorse and support these mythical rape victims.
We're
such mean western feminists, we don't care about these fictional women.
That's what we've endured for months and along with columns there have
been speeches and remarks and we've been attacked over and over and
over.
I can't support women who
are fiction. Created solely as propaganda to promote war? Can't
support them. Didn't buy the lie about Iraq tossing babies out of
incubators in the 90s either. Or the WMD lie leading up to the 2003
invasion of Iraq.
And I don't buy that women
were gang-raped on October 7th and all these months later can't come
forward. Again, I'm a survivor. That doesn't mean everyone raped has
the same experience I do. I doubt, for example, they repeatedly stabbed
their rapist once he fell asleep. I doubt that they were in the
single-digit years as I was. But there I was a small child, just raped,
and I had the sense to wait for him to fall asleep and then to ensure
that he couldn't come back after me and then to figure out where he had
taken me and how the hell I got to safety.
So spare me the lie that grown ass women are raped six months ago and are still too traumatized to come forward.
Fatima
Bhutto does a list twist though. She wants to blame western feminists
-- remember, we've already been attacked for months for not taking up
the cause of these mystical and mythical women -- Fatima wants to blame
us for -- well her entire pathetic life, actually, let's be honest. Her
Daddy love for a father who was a failure, her hatred for her aunt that
she claims killed her father, her mother who just wasn't there for her
and the entire world which really didn't ever want her bad fiction and
still doesn't want any novels from her as evidenced by poor sales. Oh,
if only she could 'date' George Clooney again, life might be good for
her.
We, western feminists, just aren't doing enough for Fatima or, for that matter, anything.
This week, I mentioned Matilda Joslyn Gage in a snapshot
and noted that, if you didn't know the name, your media was failing
you. I then noted how so few women are guests -- even on left and
'left' public affairs programs and YOUTUBE programs, et al. I stand by
that and I feel the need to repeat it now due to Medhi Hashan's new
outlet publishing Fatima Bhutto's "Gaza Has Exposed the Shameful Hypocrisy of Western Feminism."
No, dear, what it's exposed is your shameful ignorance.
I'm
a feminist -- a western one. I've called out the attack on Gaza since
it started. We have largely skipped Iraq coverage to cover this and to
cover it daily. Susan Sarandon spoke out and got dropped by her talent
agency. She's a feminist as well. Melissa Barrera will not be
silenced. She's a feminist as well.
Your media is failing you.
I'm also getting damn tired of feminism being stolen from us.
Gloria Steinem?
People still don't get it.
I
was Gloria's friend and her friend for years. I believed her lie about
the CIA. It wasn't until the '00s that I found out differently. And
Ava and I wrote about it repeatedly at THIRD. Excuse me but people just
say "Oh, she was CIA!" That's Max Blumenthal and all the other lazy
asses. Uh-uh. She was CIA who ratted out leftists from other
countries. That's why she went overseas. She was to document
dissidents and turn that over to the CIA which then used it to 'barter'
with other governments. She is responsible for deaths so stop saying,
"Oh, she was CIA!" and thinking you've said something. You've said
nothing unless your noting that she harmed European activists -- some of
whom ended up tortured and some of whom were killed. Gloria hates it
when Ava and I write about this. And some friends say to me, "Can't you
just leave it alone?" No. I cannot. First off, I'm guilty and feel
guilty because I believed her lies. She looked me in the face and told
me she was not a part of the CIA. She'd just, in college, done some
work on an international festival. She lied. And what's appalling is
how long the lie held. Thanks to YOUTUBE, we can now all see her
bragging about being in the CIA because, before she was a feminist, she
gave on camera interviews bragging on it. But I believed her and I defended
her.
I can't be silent
now that I know I was wrong. It's not something I need to bring up every
day, no, but when it's appropriate it needs to be brought up and that's
why Ava and I have written about it repeatedly. And done more than
that, we've also lobbied -- since we discovered Gloria was lying --
corporate media to stop providing cover for her and you can now go to
any mainstream media outlet and find that, yes, she was CIA. (And
that's why it's nothing for Max Blumenthal to tweet that obvious
reality.)
Feminism in the
west has always railed against media figureheads -- including Gloria and
I agreed with that long before I discovered she was lying.
Bhutto
knows nothing about Western feminism other than what the corporate
media has told her. First thing any feminist learns is: Don't count on
the media to reflect us honestly.
I love how we're ignored by the media over and over.
But Gaza's under assault and suddenly we're the cause and we're the reason and everybody attack us.
Western
feminists have been speaking out against that slaughter in Gaza for
months now. Maybe Fatima doesn't know it because she doesn't understand
the real world.
Reading
her bad column, I had to drop back two paragraphs to see who Carrie
Bradshaw was. I couldn't find her in the previous paragraphs and then I
realized, "Oh, she means Sarah Jessica Parker's character in SEX AND
THE CITY." And that may be SEX IN THE CITY. If I write of it, I have
to look it up because it was not my show and Carrie was not my
touchstone.
Fatima fumes over the 90s TV character. Way to utilize your space to deal with reality, Fatima.
And
we get BARBIE trashed because Fatima hates women. Mommy issues.
BARBIE is a movie mainly aimed at young children -- girls and boys who
love Barbie. If the scorn and hate that so many of you have aimed at
the movie was ever aimed at a GI Joe movie, we might actually be able to
end wars. But you only trash a film, rip it apart, if it's aimed
primarily at females. Then it can be mocked and held accountability for
every crime in the world. But target children with a movie where
everyone's shooting each other and it just passed by without comment --
even as school shooting continue to multiply in the US.
Stop it.
We're
not all powerful. If feminists were all powerful, why would we have to
constantly point out how we're not given equal seating at the table?
The
mainstream media has spent the last six months ripping apart everyone
who calls for a cease-fire or just ignoring them outright. How nice of
Mehdi's new outlet to render those of us in the west who are feminists
and are calling for a ceasefire invisible.
At the same
time, the biggest nobodies in the world have been treated as voices to
listen to. Julianna Margulies? No one likes her. She can't get work
because of her image that she made on the set of THE GOOD WIFE. She was
a freak show and a nightmare to work with which is why so many people
left that show. After that? She went slumming to NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
because that's all she could get. Do you not realize how awful that
is? She starred in a network TV show but is such a nightmare to work
with that no one -- no one -- wanted to work with her and she had to go
to NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.
Now she's on APPLE!
Uh, now she's like the eleventh billed in an APPLE show, let's not pretend she's a star because she isn't.
And where are we getting this idea that she's a feminist? What has she ever done?
Don't
give me when the cameras are around and recording her 'good' moments.
What did she do for women? In season one of THE GOOD WIFE, women
directed five episodes. In season two, they directed six episodes.
That was embarrassing low. In season three, she becomes a producer.
And the number of women directing episodes increases, right? Women
direct at least 11 of the episodes now each season because Julianna is a
woman, right?
Wrong.
The
number directed stays the same or dropped. (It dropped to only four
out of 22 episodes directed by a woman in the final season.) She's not a
feminist.
Mayim
Bialik? She was producer of her show CALL ME KAT. Third season had 22
episodes. How many women got hired to direct? Two. Well one woman,
she got to direct two episodes.
That's not a feminist producing a TV show. A feminist would be creating equal opportunities.
Stop calling these people feminists when they aren't.
Hillary
Clinton is not a feminist. She's a Me-ist. It only matters if effects
her. If she's not impacted, she's not there. Which is why she could
and did betray Iraqi women when she was Secretary of State -- as we
documented here repeatedly including when her last remaining real friend
called her out for it. Julianna's a Me-ist.
Stop mistaking these women who give lip service to feminism to advance themselves as feminists. Just stop it.
There
are many different strands of feminism in the west. And I don't think
the term's elastic nor should it be treated as such. "Oh, it's good
because the more women that use it, the better."
No.
Because misusing it means we get blamed as in the Bhutto column.
If
you're not willing to help other women -- I mean real women, not
mythical women who supposedly were raped over six months ago but can't
come forward and have no evidence or proof -- I guess they're all taking
the rest cure, maybe dealing with some YELLOW WALLPAPER (don't get it,
then your media has failed you).
The
same media that trashes those of us demanding a ceasefire is not your
go-to -- or shouldn't be -- for the pulse of the feminist movement.
The
only people who think Julianna is a feminist are the same idiots who
didn't realize two decades ago that you weren't seeing her real hair,
that it was a wig. You have to be that stupid to think she's a
feminist.
Stop calling
those women feminists. They're false representations and you're
ignoring the voices and actions of so many women in the west who
actually are feminists.
I don't want to hear any whining about how this or that is distorted when you've got Mehdi's outlet distorting feminism.
When
you start calling those genocide apologists "feminists," you silence
those of us who are feminists -- just like the corporate media silences
all of us calling for a ceasefire.
How
many times has, for example, Diana Ross performed at Ceaser's? And
where's Dean Martin? I hear Shania's lip synching in Vegas. I can't
imagine Donny and Marie did more at Vegas than they did on TV so don't
get how they made the list. Or how Wayne Nobody Newton did either.
Along with Diana Ross and Dean Martin needing to be on the list, where is Ann-Margret? Where is Judy Garland?
The
2024 BET Experience returns to Los Angeles with a lineup of
star-studded concerts and more. Set to take place from June 26-30, the
events conclude with the 2024 BET Awards. This year marks the revival of
the multi-day event following a five-year hiatus due to a cancelation
in 2020 caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Legendary talent Queen Latifah is set to headline a show at The Hollywood Bowl on June 29, as well as Common, Jungle Brothers, and The Roots, per the Associated Press. At
Crypto Arena, a new generation of talent is booked to perform the day
before, including Cardi B, Gunna, Davido, and Sexyy Red.
Additionally,
BET Experience will also include the BET Fan Fest at the Los Angeles
Convention Center featuring seminars on fashion, health, food, and financial empowerment, per AP.
Vanessa Williams is returning to her music roots with the announcement of her new single, “Legs (Keep Dancing)” from her new album - her first in 15 years.
The LP will be distributed under her own record label, Mellian Music, a joint venture with Mod Squad, LLC, GoDigiPath, LLC, and ADA Worldwide.
"What a joy it is to be making new music behind
the [mic] again with old friends," said the 61-year-old in a
statement. "There's a certain comfort in creating new works in the
studio while reminiscing about how so many years in this business have
brought successes, excitement, and lasting memories. Always moving
forward is what drives me. Every challenge is exciting. And more new
music to share with my fans is the fuel that lights my fire."
Want
to have some fun? Go to YOUTUBE and pull up Vanessa Williams'
"Dreamin'," then let the first line play "I'm living in the middle of a
dream" and immediately bring it back to the start and do your own mix.
Maybe you just want to hear "I'm living" 10 times in a row? Or "middle"
over and over. The first time I ever got on YOUTUBE, my friend Dak-Ho
grabbed the mouse and did that (this was decades ago). I always think
of that when I think of Vanessa Williams.
I'm glad she's doing a new album. Long overdue. Let me do my top ten favorite songs by Vanessa:
Thursday, April 18, 2024. Iraq's prime minister continues visit to
the US, The Met returns stolen property to Iraq, a new revelation on
Abu Ghraib goes under-reported (either outlets run the AP report or
they're silent), the Israeli government kills five more children in
Gaza, and much more.
This week, the Prime
Minister of Iraq, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, has been making his first
visit to the United States where he has met with US President Joe Biden,
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and various business leaders -- among
others. The visit coincides with the return of stolen property. Adam Schrader (ART NET) reports:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has returned an
ancient Sumerian sculpture to Iraq following an internal review by the
institution, which recently appointed a head of provenance research.
The restitution of the Sumerian sculpture happened at a ceremony in Washington D.C., the Met said in a statement. The return takes place just weeks before Lucian Simmons, the former head of Sotheby’s restitution department, is expected to head up
the museum’s provenance research team in May. Simmons has worked on
restitution and provenance matters since 1997 but will now lead a team
of researchers working across many of the museum’s 19 collecting areas.
The copper alloy figure dates to 2900–2600 B.C.E. and depicts a nude
man carrying a box on his head, according to the museum’s listing of the
work—which now notes that it has been returned. The museum called it a “fine example” of Sumerian sculpture in metal.
Last year, the museum responded to renewed attention from restitution
advocates by launching a landmark effort to review its collections for
evidence of looting, such as suspicious gaps in ownership records. An
internal provenance research team was formed and Lucian Simmons, who
previously oversaw restitution disputes at Sotheby’s, was appointed head
of the museum’s provenance research in May.
The Met’s efforts follow a rise in inquiries from the Manhattan
district attorney’s office into private antiquity collections assembled
between the 1970s and 1990s and their links to looted sites; the museum
has since returned items acquired from private collections and linked to
countries including Turkey, Egypt and Italy.
The museum’s director, Max Hollein, said in a statement that the
museum is dedicated to the shared preservation of the global cultural
legacy as well as the ethical acquisition of artifacts.
The study that resulted in the repatriation of the sculpture made of
copper alloy and labeled ‘Man Carrying a Box, Possibly for Offerings’
was not discussed by museum officials.
The artifact, according to the museum, was acquired in 1955 and has
been a part of its collection ever since. It is believed to date from
between 2900 and 2600 B.C.
RUDAW reminds, "Iraq’s artifacts have been subjected to frequent looting and vandalism
since the invasion by the United States in 2003, with the theft
worsening after the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group swept through
large swathes of the country in 2014. The country has in recent years
taken strides to return the lost antiquities."
The
Iraqi prime minister's visit also coincides with a US District Court
in Alexandria trial. The trial's focus? One of the great crimes of the
US government in the 21st century, the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal.
Prisoners in the Iraqi prison were tortured by Americans. Matthew Barakat (AP) reports a new revelation has emerged in the trial:
A civilian contractor sent to work as an interrogator at Iraq’s infamous
Abu Ghraib prison resigned within two weeks of his arrival and told his
corporate bosses that mistreatment of detainees was likely to
continue.
Jurors saw the October 2003 email from Rich
Arant, who worked for military contractor CACI, during testimony
Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by three Abu Ghraib survivors. The former
prisoners are suing CACI, alleging that the Reston-Virginia based
company shares responsibility for the mistreatment they endured. CACI
had a contract to supply interrogators to the Army after the 2003
invasion of Iraq, and scrambled to supply the needed personnel.
The
first CACI interrogators arrived at Abu Ghraib on Sept. 28 of that
year. Arant sent his resignation letter to CACI on Oct. 14. He informed
his bosses about his concerns over the handling of prisoners, including
what he described as an unauthorized interview of a female inmate by
male interrogators. He wrote that “violations of the well-written rules
of engagement will likely continue to occur.”
Your visit
comes at a sensitive time for U.S. relations in the Middle East,
following Iran's unprecedented strike on Israel over the weekend.
The
attack has inflamed concerns of a wider regional war. President Biden,
whom you met with earlier this week, says Iraq has a role to play in
maintaining the peace. How do you view your role?
Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani (through interpreter):
The region is witnessing turmoil in the Red Sea, Lebanon,
Syria, and recently this escalation, which happened after the attack on
the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which is a dangerous development and
a violation of international law.
Iraq has tried after the
Damascus event to de-escalate, and we urge the Iranian side not to
respond to that. The attention of the Netanyahu government is for these
regional tensions to continue. And, unfortunately, when these wars
continue in our region, that impacts the security and the stability of
those who live there.
Geoff Bennett:
The U.S. helped block Iran's attack on Israel last
weekend by using Iraqi airspace to shoot down drones and shoot down an
Iranian missile over Iraq, but your military did not participate in that
effort.
Why not?
Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani (through interpreter):
Our security capabilities are still developing, so they
can protect our airspace. Iraq and its security policy aims to keep the
country away from any conflict or attack on other nations, because the
ultimate goal is the security and stability of Iraq, especially in these
difficult times.
Geoff Bennett:
If there is an Israeli attack on Iran that uses Iraqi airspace, what will you do?
Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani (through interpreter):
Iraq rejects the use of its airspace from any country. We
don't want Iraq to be engaged in the area of conflict. And I reiterate
and stress that this escalation will engage the region in dangerous
calculations, that nobody will control the reactions.
This is why
part of our talks with Mr. Biden were to urge the parties to de-escalate
and to end these developments. From our side, we will exert efforts in
order to achieve this objective.
Geoff Bennett:
Let's talk about the U.S. security arrangement in Iraq.
The U.S. has some 2,500 troops in Iraq largely advising and assisting
local forces to prevent a resurgence of ISIS.
The Iraqi Parliament
declared that U.S. advisers should leave. Is that departure based on a
timetable, or is it based on the security situation on the ground?
Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani (through interpreter):
Our Parliament's decision in 2020 and the October 2022
government program called for the end of the global coalition's mission,
which was done in coordination with the United States.
This
coalition emerged upon the invitation of the Iraqi government in 2014.
We are speaking about 10 years ago. Now there is a noticeable stability
in the region. There is preparedness of the Iraqi security forces. And
ISIS now is no longer a threat to the safety and security of Iraq.
This
led the Parliament and political forces to end the mission and to
transition into a security bilateral relationship with the United States
and the rest of the countries of the global coalition.
Geoff Bennett:
I hear you say ISIS is not a threat, but, this week, the
defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, while standing next to you, said ISIS
remains a threat to your citizens and to ours.
How is ISIS no longer a threat?
Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani (through interpreter):
ISIS inside Iraq doesn't represent a threat to the
security of Iraq. The elements of ISIS are in Syria, and we are working
with the global coalition to secure our borders with the Syrians in
order to prevent any infiltrations.
The cells of ISIS are there.
We are not speaking about armed people. We are speaking about ideology,
extremist ideology that believes in killing and violence. We are
tracking the recruitment and financing cells, and we are working on
limiting them, controlling them. This is one of our concerns. What
happened in Gaza will lead to a double escalation and violence and maybe
we will regenerate a new [. . .], ISIS.
Geoff Bennett:
The last time the U.S. withdrew from Iraq, ISIS took over
a good deal of the country, and the U.S. military had to come back into
Iraq to fight against them.
What's to prevent that from happening
again? Are the Iraqi security forces that have been trained by American
troops, are they now capable of fending off a resurgent, potentially
resurgent ISIS?
Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani (through interpreter):
This is an important question.
Certainly, the
situation in Iraq is different radically now than in 2014. Now ISIS does
not have popular domestic incubators everywhere in the region,
especially the liberated area. Also, the Iraqi security forces have
gained unique experience at the advanced level, the top levels among
forces in the region, in counterterrorism.
Another thing is the
political stability. My government is supported by 280 members of a
broad coalition of 329 members that include all the components of the
Iraqis. This is a factor of strength, and there is the economic
development. In Iraq, we are not speaking about ISIS anymore. Only here,
when I speak with the media, do we talk about ISIS. In Iraq, we're
speaking about development, about investment in companies, universities,
culture.
Geoff Bennett:
I do want to talk about economic development, but, first, do you expect any U.S. advisers to leave Iraq this year, in 2024?
Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani (through interpreter):
We have agreed on a framework in the joint security
dialogue and then also issued a joint statement with President Biden and
committed to the outcome of the U.S.-Iraq Higher Military Commission,
which will assess the capabilities and operational conditions.
According to that, we will have a timetable about how to end this mission.
Geoff Bennett:
Iranian-backed militia groups continue to operate from
Iraq, and this is even after they killed three U.S. troops on the border
with Syria.
You say you won't allow Iraqi territory to be used by
any nonstate actor, but the fact is, they still operate on Iraqi soil.
Why is that?
Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani (through interpreter):
The government has repeatedly stated its commitment to
not allow any one side to play an outsized role in any operations that
will lead to destabilization and lack of security.
We have made
that clear and we have taken practical measures against all those groups
attacking diplomatic missions and military bases in Iraq. And we will
not hesitate to take legal measures against anyone who wants to tamper
with our security.
Turning
to Gaza where the Israeli government has killed at least another five
children -- already, close to 14,000 children have been killed in Gaza
in the last six months (13,800 per Save The Children and UNICEF).
ALJAZEERA reports on the latest murder of children in the video below.
The
head of the UN's main relief agency in Gaza (UNRWA) has said that an
“insidious campaign” is underway to end its operations, warning of
"serious implications for international peace and security.”
UNRWA
Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told the UN Security Council on
Wednesday that the agency was being “denied permission to deliver this
aid and save lives."
UNRWA
has been under fire since Israel alleged that some of its employees
were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack. Israel has long campaigned
for UNRWA, the main distributor of aid in Gaza, to be disbanded. Israel
has also banned UNRWA from operating in Gaza’s north.
More than a dozen countries pulled funding for UNRWA after the allegations, some of which have resumed donations.
“Dismantling
UNRWA will have lasting repercussions. In the short-term, it will
deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and accelerate the onset of
famine,” Lazzarini said. “In the longer-term, it will jeopardize the
transition from ceasefire to ‘day after’ by depriving a traumatized
population of essential services.”
Lazzarini
said children were "bearing the brunt of this war," with more than
17,000 separated from their families and "left to face the horror of
Gaza alone."
He also warned that "a man-made famine is tightening its grip" across Gaza.
In his statement on Thursday, Lazzarini warned that dismantling Unrwa would have “lasting repercussions”. He said:
In the short-term, it will deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and accelerate the onset of famine.
In the longer-term, it will jeopardise the transition from ceasefire
to ‘day after’ by depriving a traumatized population of essential
services.
It will make nearly impossible the formidable task of bringing half a million deeply distressed girls and boys back to learning.
Failing to deliver on education will condemn an entire generation to
despair – fuelling anger, resentment, and endless cycles of violence.
A political solution cannot succeed in such a scenario.
Lazzarini called on the security
council’s members to “safeguard Unrwa’s critical role both now and
within the framework of a transition”.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 195 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza
by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.
But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge
for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel,
the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover
for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily
basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to
school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe
Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll.
The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom
believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The
slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US
Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned
the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of
Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted,
"More than
1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza --
have
been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million
women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million
people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes,
"The death toll in Gaza rose to 33,970 on Thursday after Israel killed
71 Palestinians in the previous 24 hours, the health ministry
announced. More than 100 others were wounded, taking the total number of
injured to 76,770 since the war began on October 7." Months
ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained
on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000
Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of
their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe
Lazzarini Tweeted:
April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "n addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as
killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000
Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has
estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into
Israeli prisons. In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
As for the area itself? Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive
has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole
neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been
blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are
still standing, but most are battered shells." Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery
by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and
Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing
destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate
of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second
World War."
AMYGOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman in New York, with Juan González in Chicago.
Several Google employees, at least nine, were arrested Tuesday
evening after staging sit-ins at the company’s offices in New York and
in California to protest the tech giant’s work with the Israeli
government. The sit-ins, organized by the activist group No Tech for
Apartheid, took place at Google Cloud CEO
Thomas Kurian’s office in Sunnyvale, California, and the 10th floor
commons of Google’s New York office, which is right around the corner
from Democracy Now!
Protesters are calling for Google to withdraw from a $1.2 billion
contract to provide cloud computing services to the Israeli government,
known as Project Nimbus. Last week, Time magazine reported Google’s work on the project involves providing direct services to the Israeli military.
The sit-ins were accompanied by outdoor protests at the Google
offices here in New York and in Sunnyvale, San Francisco and Seattle,
Washington. Workers and outside activists have opposed the contract
since it was signed in 2021, but protests have ramped up over the past
several months since Israel’s latest bombardment of Gaza.
No Tech for Apartheid says Google is enabling and profiting from
Israel’s use of artificial intelligence to develop a “kill list” to
target Palestinians in Gaza for assassination with little human
oversight. The Israeli military is also using Google Photos for facial
recognition across Gaza and the West Bank to identify and detain
Palestinians en masse.
No Tech for Apartheid has published an open letter,
co-signed by 18 other groups, that demands Google and Amazon
immediately cancel their work on Project Nimbus. The letter has gathered
more than 94,000 signatures from the general public.
For more, we’re joined by two of the arrested Google workers. Ray
Westrick is with us. She’s a Google worker-organizer with the No Tech
for Apartheid campaign, among the workers who occupied Google Cloud CEO
Thomas Kurian’s office in Sunnyvale, California. She’s joining us from
Sunnyvale. And here in New York, we’re joined by Mohammad Khatami, a
Google software engineer who was arrested at the sit-in at Google’s
office in New York. He’s joining us along with Gabriel Schubiner, a
former software engineer at Google Research and an organizer with the No
Tech for Apartheid campaign. And before that, he was with Jewish
Diaspora in Tech.
We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Mohammad, let’s begin with you. You were, just hours ago, in the jail —
MOHAMMADKHATAMI: That’s right.
AMYGOODMAN: — in the local police precinct. Talk about why you were willing to get arrested.
MOHAMMADKHATAMI:
Yeah. Well, rather than, you know, consider the demands that we’ve been
raising for years now and listening to workers and considering the
things that we’ve been raising, Thomas Kurian and Google execs basically
chose to arrest workers for speaking out against the use of our
technology to power the first AI-powered genocide. So, we were willing
to get arrested for that, because at this point we aren’t willing to be
lied to by our higher-ups anymore. We aren’t willing to be disrespected
by our higher-ups anymore. And we wanted to take that to the offices and
make sure it was understood by them, yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: How do you
sense is the support that you have among other Google workers, the
degree of the dissatisfaction with the policies of Google?
MOHAMMADKHATAMI:
Yeah. I mean, Google has done a really good job at creating a culture
of fear and retaliation against workers in general. But what we noticed
was beautiful. So many people came up to our sit-in and basically showed
support and felt that they were inspired by the work that we were
doing, and felt inspired to speak out, which is exactly what we were
going for. We want workers to feel like we have the power to choose
where our technology is going and who we’re contributing to. So I felt
really happy to see that, yeah.
AMYGOODMAN:
Ray Westrick, you’re on the West Coast. You were arrested in
California. Talk about this Project Nimbus and why you were willing to
get arrested, and what the response — were you in the offices of the
Google Cloud CEO?
RAYWESTRICK: Yes, we sat in at the office of Thomas Kurian, the Google Cloud CEO,
to protest Project Nimbus, which is a $1.2 billion contract with the
Israeli government and military between Google and Amazon. We also were
demanding the protection of our co-workers, especially our Palestinian,
Arab and Muslim co-workers, who have been consistently retaliated
against, harassed and doxxed for speaking out about Project Nimbus and,
you know, the humanity of Palestinians. So, we were there in solidarity
with them. We were there to protest the contract, which is being
directly sold — providing technology directly to the Israeli military as
it inflicts a genocide on Palestinians in Gaza. And yeah, that is why
we chose to sit in Thomas Kurian’s office.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ray, could you — was there any response from the CEO or his office? And are you concerned about losing your job? Why — when did you decide to take this action?
RAYWESTRICK: Yeah. We did not receive any response from the CEO.
And I think it’s really telling that they would rather let us sit there
for over 10 hours and arrest us for peacefully sitting in his office
than have leadership engage in our demands in any way at all. So, we’ve
received no response from the CEO, and we were forcibly removed by the police.
And I — working at Google has been, you know, an honor. I really love
my team. I love the work I do. But I can’t in good conscience not do
anything while Google is a part of this contract, while Google is
selling technology to the Israeli military, or any military. And so, it
was a risk I was willing to take, and I think it’s a risk a lot of my
co-workers are willing to take, because a lot of people are really
agitated about this and have consistently made their demands clear and
have faced retaliation for it. So, I chose to sit in, knowing the risks,
out of care for the use of our technology, out of care for the impact
of our technology and care for my co-workers.
AMYGOODMAN:
For our radio audience, I wanted to let people know that Ray is wearing
a T-shirt that says “Googler against genocide,” with “genocide” in the
famous multicolor of “Google,” that it’s so well known for. I wanted to
bring Gabriel Schubiner into this conversation, a former software
engineer at Google Research, an organizer with the No Tech for Apartheid
campaign, and ask you — you know, we had you on more than a year ago
— this is before Israel’s latest attack on Gaza — talking about exactly
this. And you were with a Jewish organization of Google workers at that
time speaking out. Talk about the whole history of Project Nimbus.
GABRIELSCHUBINER: Yeah.
AMYGOODMAN: And the resistance against it.
GABRIELSCHUBINER: Yeah. Thank you so much.
So, Project Nimbus was signed in May of 2021 while bombs were being
dropped on Gaza, while Palestinians were being evicted from Sheikh
Jarrah and beaten at Al-Aqsa Mosque. That was really a point — when we
found out about Project Nimbus, personally, for me, it was a turning
point, where I no longer felt able to continue doing my work without
engaging and organizing. There was a group of people that felt very
similarly, so we started a petition. We were connected, got connected
with Amazon workers, with community organizations, Jewish Voice for
Peace and MPower Change, and spun a campaign out of that.
I want to be clear: Like, the campaign really is driven by worker
concerns and worker needs around the ethical use of our labor, as well
as the direct workplace concerns of the, like, health and safety
concerns around working at a company that is facilitating genocide.
We’ve known for a long time that this project was directly targeted at
the military. It’s been reported in press that Google was giving
trainings directly to the IOF. We know that Google gave trainings directly to Mossad. We know that the IOF —
AMYGOODMAN: When you say ”IOF,” explain the term.
GABRIELSCHUBINER: I’m sorry, the — yes.
AMYGOODMAN: Because people are used to hearing ”IDF,” Israeli Defense Forces.
GABRIELSCHUBINER:
Right, yes. Yeah, it’s Israeli occupation forces, just to indicate, so
we’re not repeating their messaging that their really aggressive
repression of Palestinians is an act of defense. We know that it’s an
act of occupation, so we say ”IOF.”
And so, we’ve known for a long time that this project was directly
targeted at the Israeli military. But it was only recently, through this
last contract that Google signed directly with the IOF,
that we recognized that Google was really doubling down, that this
contract is directly intended to facilitate military use. And we know
that Google was chosen over other companies because of the advanced AI
technology that they’re able to offer. So, given that we’ve learned how
the IOF is using AI in this war, we really see this as like a really critical campaign for Palestinian liberation.
To speak to your point about the resistance against the project,
we’ve been working against this project as workers for — since it was
signed three years ago. We have been doing organizing. We have been
doing, you know, base building and labor organizing. We’ve had protests
externally and internally. We’ve had signed petitions. We’ve done
outreach to our executives through internal forums, through chatrooms,
through every available means, because, I think — you know,
understanding, like, this contract really is — like, it really is an
incredible issue for our work, like, all workers’ labor at Google. So
many workers’ labor is contributing directly to this project, because
all of the technology at Google is like deeply intertwined with each
other. So, yeah, so we see this as really important, yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Gabe,
I wanted to ask you — the average person, who’s not a Google worker,
who might support your stand and who uses Google multiple times a day
around the world, what are you calling for them to do?
GABRIELSCHUBINER:
Right. So, I mean, we’re calling for everyone around the world to
really, like, help us with awareness, like, help us make it known that
Google is a war profiteer. I think Google is so deeply embedded in
people’s lives — right? — that it’s hard to ask for a boycott. But I
think we’re calling specifically on people in the tech industry to
divest from Google and Amazon. Google Cloud services and Amazon Web
Services underlie a vast majority of the internet, but there are other
options. So, technology workers actually have a lot of power to shift
this paradigm and to, like, remove technology from this deep complicity
with Israeli occupation.
AMYGOODMAN:
Mohammad Khatami, can you talk about your own family background and why
you so particularly care right now about what’s going on in Gaza?
MOHAMMADKHATAMI:
Yeah, yes. So, I come from a Muslim family. I was raised Muslim. And
it’s really hard to wake up seeing the images of children slaughtered
and know that your — you know, the work you’re doing is contributing to
this. I’ve lost sleep. It’s just been extremely difficult to focus on
work and think that you’re working for something that is contributing to
the mass slaughter that’s taking place. And for speaking out against
that, I’ve literally been called a supporter of terrorism, which is
something that —
AMYGOODMAN: Called by?
MOHAMMADKHATAMI:
You know, by co-workers and HR and people in the company, a supporter
of terrorism, which is, you know, something — it’s like a schoolyard
insult. It’s something I haven’t heard since middle school. And that’s
just an example of the retaliation and the harassment and the hatred
that we face just for speaking up against our work being used in this
way.
AMYGOODMAN: Are you concerned about losing your job?
MOHAMMADKHATAMI:
Absolutely. But it doesn’t — it’s not even important to me at all
compared to working for something that is meaningful and having a good
impact on the planet. I don’t want to have any association with this
genocide. And I would hope that Google would change their mind about it,
as well.
AMYGOODMAN:
And finally, Ray Westrick, where do you see this movement going from
here? And can you talk more about the Jewish-Muslim alliance around this
among Google workers and former Google workers?
RAYWESTRICK:
Yeah. I only see this movement growing and continuing to apply
pressure. We received so much support during the sit-in. I’ve received
so many personal messages from people, you know, thanking me for being
vocal, and asking how they can be more vocal and get more involved. So I
think this is absolutely growing. I think Google knows that this will
continue, that, you know, workers are very agitated about this and will
continue to speak up and apply pressure. And I think that’s why it was
important for them to silence us. But this movement is growing, and more
people are finding out about this, and more people are willing to
organize and risk their jobs in order to take a stand against complicity
in genocide.
AMYGOODMAN: Well, I want to thank —
RAYWESTRICK:
And yeah, I think this has been a really unifying campaign for people
of all backgrounds. And I know, specifically, a lot of us came together
because we were specifically concerned about how Google has treated and
retaliated against our Palestinian, Arab and Muslim colleagues,
especially, like Mohammad mentioned, a lot of them have experienced
harassment and doxxing for speaking out in like the appropriate channels
at Google and have been consistently ignored and harassed and
retaliated against. And so, we had to come together to say that we can’t
let this happen anymore. We have to come together in protection of our
co-workers and each other and in protection of, you know, the ethical
use of our technology, to make sure that we’re not building technology
that’s being used for harm. So, I think it’s been a really unifying
campaign that is really grounded in taking care of each other and really
grounded in making a positive impact and not facilitating more harm
with technology.
AMYGOODMAN:
I want to thank you all for being with us. Ray Westrick and Mohammad
Khatami are both Google workers who were arrested yesterday, Ray in the
offices of the Google Cloud CEO in Sunnyvale,
California, and Mohammad here in New York. Also Gabriel Schubiner, a
former software engineer at Google Research and an organizer with the No
Tech for Apartheid campaign, before that, with Jewish Diaspora in Tech.
Two of the above who spoke to Amy and Juan above have since been fired. Caroline O'Donovan
Google
fired 28 employees on Wednesday who were involved in a protest against a
contract with the Israeli government the cloud-computing giant shares
with its competitor, Amazon.
The firings came after nine employees were arrested
Tuesday while participating in sit-in protests at Google offices in
Sunnyvale, Calif., and New York City. The workers were held for a few
hours before being released, employees said.
The
employees, part of a group called No Tech for Apartheid, have been
writing letters and staging protests against Google’s deal to sell
technology to Israel since 2021. The tension over the
cloud-computing contract, known as Nimbus, among employees at Google and
Amazon has increased since the Israel-Gaza war began in October. The
project’s critics say it will bolster the Israeli government’s
surveillance of Palestinians and lead to further displacement and
discrimination.
UN experts have raised alarm over what they described as Israel’s
systemic destruction of the Palestinian education system as it wages its
war on Gaza.
“With more than 80 per cent of schools in Gaza
damaged or destroyed, it may be reasonable to ask if there is an
intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education
system.
More than 5,479 pupils, 261 teachers and 95 university
professors have been killed since the war began. At least 625,000
children have no access to education.
“The persistent, callous
attacks on educational infrastructure in Gaza have a devastating
long-term impact on the fundamental rights of people to learn and freely
express themselves, depriving yet another generation of Palestinians of
their future,” the experts said.
“When schools are destroyed, so too are hopes and dreams.”
Women and girls kept from education are also at greater risk of gender-based violence, it said.
