I'll soon be singing at antiwar rallies around Europe, but it's unlikely you'll see me on stage singing at any of the upcoming protests in Portland, Oregon. I'll explain why, because it matters.
Cancel culture is just another form of hate speech. It comes from a belief that they are the owners of truth and everyone must agree with their truth or face their wrath. You are right, this is no way to treat others or build a movement. Keep up the good work and ignore the distraction.
Another great article! Your courage is inspiring. FYI the word “transphobic” has become meaningless. It’s the go-to insult of the cultish identitarian minions. THEY can’t even define it. Stay strong fellow worker!
Oh, David. I'm so sorry you and your family have to experience this shit. As I read every word here, I could picture you sitting there writing, wanting to say everything perfectly, so as to not be further misunderstood or misinterpreted or attacked. Forced obsessiveness is a horrible thing to experience.
This is because I have been there too. It's just as I had to experience the attack the messenger tactic in Earth First! when attacked by Darryl Cherney, Karen Pickett and Julia Butterfly. Sadly, their corruption continues to this day unabated in any way because everyone else is afraid of being targeted by them and their cult if one stands up against them for what's right. I fear you will not get your peace back. Twenty-five years later I haven't gotten mine back. My PTSD from it too is unabated.
I'm so sorry that, in this context, you have been taken out. Tragically, even the left is a movement of sheeple.
i think of all the folks you mention often, and others that i could mention that you also know. the targeting seems very systematic and goes back a long way. what's so sad is how often it's successful, and creates a general suspicion around some of the most amazing people you or i will ever meet, such as all the folks you mention and so many others in the same circles.
Unfortunately, the next phase in the operation is when they start to get people to physically gang up on you or physically attack you. Watch out for that (it seems like you already are), because no one will stop them at that point.
Of course, since we live in a pathocracy (govt run by psychopaths) our demos are almost useless if their aim is to reach the consciences of the politicians (they can be useful for other reasons, like building solidarity, teach-ins, supporting victims, etc.). And the more fun we make our rallies, the more likely they are to bring out the psychopaths on our side.
Thank you, David, for your defense of the indigenous people of Palestine. You may not want to use the term, but to me, 80% of Americans are supporting #nazionism
An historical note. Because they live in the same region, many people think the Dine and Hopi are related and lived on this continent for millennia. But the Dine arrived around 500 years ago, just like the Europeans. Hopi have been in their homeland for 10,000 years.
Before the 20th century, except for the 6 or 7% of Palestinians who were Jewish, the others had been out of Palestine for 1,000 years, in Europe mostly. The Palestinians have been there for 12,000 years, since the founding of Jericho. Haggee was wrong. If Abraham actually lived or if he represents a group of people who lived, historians think that was 3,200 years ago.
The last time before 1948 that there was a Jewish state in Palestine was 2,600 years ago. I saw a video of Zionist Christian Rev. Haggee in which he said God gave Palestine to the Jews 4,000 years ago. What he and other zionists don't mention is that after that, God took it away from them three times for their failures in his eyes (sic). Since he is omnipotent, it must have been what he wanted when Babylonians, Assyrians, and Romans took it over and kicked them out. Apparently he never gave it back to the Jews: there has been no new covenant with God and the Jews since then.
So the homeland claims of the white European zionist Jews who took over Palestine in the 20th century would be like the Dine making a claim that North East Siberia is their homeland because they lived there 1,000 years ago.
The reason I think nazionism is a valid term is that zionism is nazism without the Christianity. Both claim racial specialness and superiority. Both are nationalist. Both were/are looking for lebensraum. Both are movements of white European imperialists. Both have concentration camps and practice ethnic cleansing and collective punishment (according to Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling, Gaza is the biggest concentration camp in world history).
It makes me wonder, if Hitler didn't have a hatred for Jews, if the German Jews would otherwise have been Good Germans and been OK with Hitler and nazism, with putting slavs, gays, communists, and union organizers in death camps, but no dead Jews.
And now, because a group that Israel says does not actually legitimately represent the Gazans, Hamas, launched an invasion that killed 1,000 Israeli civilians and 400 soldiers, Israel has massacred 4,000 Gazan children! That makes Israel one of the most monstrous states on the planet right now. That is more than all of the children killed in all of the other wars on Earth since 2019 according to someone I saw on Al Jazeera today. Obviously, the government of Israel is a fascist pathocracy like the US.
I think Biden is going to let Israel conduct a #FullDresden and murder from bombing 25,000 or more Gazans in the next month. It's so monstrous I think I'm going to explode (non-violently, of course lol). So your music and your words mean a lot to me in this time of catastrophe, in this epidemic of moral catstrophe.
The irony is that rapid sea level rise totaling 40 feet from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Greenland ice sheet is going to put all of Gaza and Tel Aviv under water by the end of this century. So much for the new Israeli reich!
yes, the rationale for occupation is very thin. also according to dna evidence, the palestinians are the jews, most of whom did not leave palestine, and just became christians and muslims a few centuries later. now they're being slaughtered by people saying that they're the real jews. it's just a ridiculous rationale for invasion and occupation of someone else's land.
as for the the psycho-"activists" getting physical, yes, that's what they do, but here in portland it usually becomes an armed stand-off between people with guns, rather than anyone throwing punches. progress...?
I find left and right labels worse than useless these days. Pick an issue and let’s ponder its merits free from all that baggage. Just because I’m in coalition with a few conservatives on one specific issue doesn’t mean we align on everything else.
I mostly agree with you Jess. That was, sort of, kind of what I was saying, I think. But David’s rant was pretty full of left labels, so he should know he’s welcome on the “right”; we’re open and affirming. It is astounding how many issues that were once clearly liberal or conservative are turning up on the other side. Evidence of that, I suppose, is the fact that I’m here. Perhaps on balance this will prove to be a good thing in the long run. If we make it there.
Do you listen to Glenn Greenwald's System Update podcast, Phil? I'm curious what you think of so many people on the right calling for banning Palestinian flags and pro-Palestinian demonstrations, along with the liberal establishment types like Biden or the governor of New York.
I rarely listen to Glenn Greenwald, (the podcasts are lengthy, he talks fast and is a bit overbearing) but I do subscribe to him, I read the digest and like a lot of what he says. I wish his style sounded more like Sam Harris; he’d be much easier to listen to.
I am certainly not in favor of banning anybody’s flag (except perhaps in US government offices and similar settings) nor am I opposed to pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
That said, my sympathy level for the residents of Gaza is much lower than yours seems to be. Of course I feel terrible for the babies and children, or any innocent victim, of which there are far too many. And I know it’s been a tough 75 years or so for Palestinians. But what happened on Oct 7 was horrific and I find it hard to condemn what I believe is Israel’s attempt to ensure it never happens again.
And it does appear that mixed in with the demonstrations is a fair amount of anti-semitism. Folks are free to say and write what they please, but they have to realize there may be consequences to doing so. Losing a good job, a professorship or even the presidency of a college may be an appropriate response to certain behavior. My sympathy level there is very low.
My apologies if I answered much more than you were asking. I have (obviously) listening to you, if often not agreeing, the past few weeks. Also sorry if this is the wrong place for the discussion.
In some people's eyes this unwillingness to be restricted in speech would put you on the right. I doubt the mainstream right would want to popularise your situation due to you having so many songs that explain articulately and accurately the state of the world we're in in.
What can be done to tell the truth and de-escalate?
How odd that Free Speech is now associated with the Right. But it’s true. Last year at UW’s Red Square, it was the young conservatives with a table and pamphlet about free speech.
Remember the Wobblies in Spokane WA? Mario Savio and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement? Senator Joseph McCarthy? This merely proves that fundamental political principles are more stable than the labels or parties we associate with them.
I'm not that familiar with the scene in the US, but I can't help but be reminded that some governments, the Israelis in particular have paid 'troll farms'. From what we are hearing, the person (and hir group) you refer to are not acting out of conviction. Mistaken convictions may be an error of some elements of the left, but not the irrational targeting of an individual. I would look beyond simple psychological imbalance to some other motivation, but you are not me and I know you won't. But, as a person presenting the injustices committed against the Palestinian people you have inevitably, become a target for the fundamentalist Zionists. Disappointing that the organisers don't see this.
Cancel culture is just another form of hate speech. It comes from a belief that they are the owners of truth and everyone must agree with their truth or face their wrath. You are right, this is no way to treat others or build a movement. Keep up the good work and ignore the distraction.
Another great article! Your courage is inspiring. FYI the word “transphobic” has become meaningless. It’s the go-to insult of the cultish identitarian minions. THEY can’t even define it. Stay strong fellow worker!
Oh, David. I'm so sorry you and your family have to experience this shit. As I read every word here, I could picture you sitting there writing, wanting to say everything perfectly, so as to not be further misunderstood or misinterpreted or attacked. Forced obsessiveness is a horrible thing to experience.
This is because I have been there too. It's just as I had to experience the attack the messenger tactic in Earth First! when attacked by Darryl Cherney, Karen Pickett and Julia Butterfly. Sadly, their corruption continues to this day unabated in any way because everyone else is afraid of being targeted by them and their cult if one stands up against them for what's right. I fear you will not get your peace back. Twenty-five years later I haven't gotten mine back. My PTSD from it too is unabated.
I'm so sorry that, in this context, you have been taken out. Tragically, even the left is a movement of sheeple.
i think of all the folks you mention often, and others that i could mention that you also know. the targeting seems very systematic and goes back a long way. what's so sad is how often it's successful, and creates a general suspicion around some of the most amazing people you or i will ever meet, such as all the folks you mention and so many others in the same circles.
Unfortunately, the next phase in the operation is when they start to get people to physically gang up on you or physically attack you. Watch out for that (it seems like you already are), because no one will stop them at that point.
Of course, since we live in a pathocracy (govt run by psychopaths) our demos are almost useless if their aim is to reach the consciences of the politicians (they can be useful for other reasons, like building solidarity, teach-ins, supporting victims, etc.). And the more fun we make our rallies, the more likely they are to bring out the psychopaths on our side.
Thank you, David, for your defense of the indigenous people of Palestine. You may not want to use the term, but to me, 80% of Americans are supporting #nazionism
An historical note. Because they live in the same region, many people think the Dine and Hopi are related and lived on this continent for millennia. But the Dine arrived around 500 years ago, just like the Europeans. Hopi have been in their homeland for 10,000 years.
Before the 20th century, except for the 6 or 7% of Palestinians who were Jewish, the others had been out of Palestine for 1,000 years, in Europe mostly. The Palestinians have been there for 12,000 years, since the founding of Jericho. Haggee was wrong. If Abraham actually lived or if he represents a group of people who lived, historians think that was 3,200 years ago.
The last time before 1948 that there was a Jewish state in Palestine was 2,600 years ago. I saw a video of Zionist Christian Rev. Haggee in which he said God gave Palestine to the Jews 4,000 years ago. What he and other zionists don't mention is that after that, God took it away from them three times for their failures in his eyes (sic). Since he is omnipotent, it must have been what he wanted when Babylonians, Assyrians, and Romans took it over and kicked them out. Apparently he never gave it back to the Jews: there has been no new covenant with God and the Jews since then.
So the homeland claims of the white European zionist Jews who took over Palestine in the 20th century would be like the Dine making a claim that North East Siberia is their homeland because they lived there 1,000 years ago.
The reason I think nazionism is a valid term is that zionism is nazism without the Christianity. Both claim racial specialness and superiority. Both are nationalist. Both were/are looking for lebensraum. Both are movements of white European imperialists. Both have concentration camps and practice ethnic cleansing and collective punishment (according to Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling, Gaza is the biggest concentration camp in world history).
It makes me wonder, if Hitler didn't have a hatred for Jews, if the German Jews would otherwise have been Good Germans and been OK with Hitler and nazism, with putting slavs, gays, communists, and union organizers in death camps, but no dead Jews.
And now, because a group that Israel says does not actually legitimately represent the Gazans, Hamas, launched an invasion that killed 1,000 Israeli civilians and 400 soldiers, Israel has massacred 4,000 Gazan children! That makes Israel one of the most monstrous states on the planet right now. That is more than all of the children killed in all of the other wars on Earth since 2019 according to someone I saw on Al Jazeera today. Obviously, the government of Israel is a fascist pathocracy like the US.
I think Biden is going to let Israel conduct a #FullDresden and murder from bombing 25,000 or more Gazans in the next month. It's so monstrous I think I'm going to explode (non-violently, of course lol). So your music and your words mean a lot to me in this time of catastrophe, in this epidemic of moral catstrophe.
The irony is that rapid sea level rise totaling 40 feet from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Greenland ice sheet is going to put all of Gaza and Tel Aviv under water by the end of this century. So much for the new Israeli reich!
yes, the rationale for occupation is very thin. also according to dna evidence, the palestinians are the jews, most of whom did not leave palestine, and just became christians and muslims a few centuries later. now they're being slaughtered by people saying that they're the real jews. it's just a ridiculous rationale for invasion and occupation of someone else's land.
as for the the psycho-"activists" getting physical, yes, that's what they do, but here in portland it usually becomes an armed stand-off between people with guns, rather than anyone throwing punches. progress...?
I think there is some room for you here on the right. Come on over.
I find left and right labels worse than useless these days. Pick an issue and let’s ponder its merits free from all that baggage. Just because I’m in coalition with a few conservatives on one specific issue doesn’t mean we align on everything else.
I mostly agree with you Jess. That was, sort of, kind of what I was saying, I think. But David’s rant was pretty full of left labels, so he should know he’s welcome on the “right”; we’re open and affirming. It is astounding how many issues that were once clearly liberal or conservative are turning up on the other side. Evidence of that, I suppose, is the fact that I’m here. Perhaps on balance this will prove to be a good thing in the long run. If we make it there.
Do you listen to Glenn Greenwald's System Update podcast, Phil? I'm curious what you think of so many people on the right calling for banning Palestinian flags and pro-Palestinian demonstrations, along with the liberal establishment types like Biden or the governor of New York.
I rarely listen to Glenn Greenwald, (the podcasts are lengthy, he talks fast and is a bit overbearing) but I do subscribe to him, I read the digest and like a lot of what he says. I wish his style sounded more like Sam Harris; he’d be much easier to listen to.
I am certainly not in favor of banning anybody’s flag (except perhaps in US government offices and similar settings) nor am I opposed to pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
That said, my sympathy level for the residents of Gaza is much lower than yours seems to be. Of course I feel terrible for the babies and children, or any innocent victim, of which there are far too many. And I know it’s been a tough 75 years or so for Palestinians. But what happened on Oct 7 was horrific and I find it hard to condemn what I believe is Israel’s attempt to ensure it never happens again.
And it does appear that mixed in with the demonstrations is a fair amount of anti-semitism. Folks are free to say and write what they please, but they have to realize there may be consequences to doing so. Losing a good job, a professorship or even the presidency of a college may be an appropriate response to certain behavior. My sympathy level there is very low.
My apologies if I answered much more than you were asking. I have (obviously) listening to you, if often not agreeing, the past few weeks. Also sorry if this is the wrong place for the discussion.
In some people's eyes this unwillingness to be restricted in speech would put you on the right. I doubt the mainstream right would want to popularise your situation due to you having so many songs that explain articulately and accurately the state of the world we're in in.
What can be done to tell the truth and de-escalate?
Have I missed something?
How odd that Free Speech is now associated with the Right. But it’s true. Last year at UW’s Red Square, it was the young conservatives with a table and pamphlet about free speech.
Remember the Wobblies in Spokane WA? Mario Savio and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement? Senator Joseph McCarthy? This merely proves that fundamental political principles are more stable than the labels or parties we associate with them.
Why do the left continue to be bullied by these people? You owe him no respect!
I appreciate you writing this so I understand better where you're coming from in your sign-on statement. I will give it another look.
I'm not that familiar with the scene in the US, but I can't help but be reminded that some governments, the Israelis in particular have paid 'troll farms'. From what we are hearing, the person (and hir group) you refer to are not acting out of conviction. Mistaken convictions may be an error of some elements of the left, but not the irrational targeting of an individual. I would look beyond simple psychological imbalance to some other motivation, but you are not me and I know you won't. But, as a person presenting the injustices committed against the Palestinian people you have inevitably, become a target for the fundamentalist Zionists. Disappointing that the organisers don't see this.