Catilin Johnstone: Quashing University Protests and Banning TikTok To Make the Kids Love Israel
You kind of have to wonder what they’re thinking.
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.”]
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.
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