Palestinian Resistance Groups React: New Boss, Same As Old Boss

While U.S. election drama was underway, the Pentagon took steps to hasten WWIII: it moved nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Qatar (with U.S. pilots), and it tested an intercontinental ballistic missile delivery system out of Vandenberg Air Base in California. The Democratic Party is seen as losing the White House and both branches of Congress in part because their wars -- in Ukraine and, with Israel, in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen -- are unpopular with voters, and because the austerity that endless wars require is deeply unpopular. 

https://x.com/BigBreakingWire/status/1854166174453375297

Our imperial overlords sneak their warmongering moves into the news cycle when they think it will be least noticed.

I thought it might be of interest to readers to see reactions from people impacted by U.S. foreign policy. This content is available on Telegram, but you will not see it in your corporate news feed.

New Secretary-General of Hezbollah,  Sheikh Na’eem Qasem (in translation, vetted by an Arabic-speaking friend):

https://x.com/swilkinsonbc/status/1854493691454345250 & see also https://x.com/V_Palestine20/status/1854505512777228688

From the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (English translation from same source):

Trump’s victory will reinforce the American anti-Palestinian approach, and the Democratic Party’s loss is a natural result of its direct involvement in the zionist war of genocide.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine affirms that Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s victory in the U.S. elections does not, in any way, signify a real change in the hostile approach that successive American administrations have pursued against our Palestinian people and their just cause. There is no fundamental difference between the Republican and Democratic parties; both have contributed to supporting the zionist entity and participated in the war of genocide against our people, whether through policies or unlimited military and diplomatic support.

Our people have never placed their hopes on any candidate from either the Democratic or Republican parties, as we have never witnessed any positive change in U.S. administration policies, which have consistently aligned fully with the zionist entity, providing it with military funding and all forms of political, legal, and diplomatic protection.

The Democratic Party’s loss is a logical result of its complicity with the zionist entity; it rejected calls from supporters of the Palestinian people, the Palestinian community, and Arab and Muslim communities in the United States to pressure for an end to the war of genocide in Gaza, continuing its support for aggression against our people. Today, the Democrats are paying the price for ignoring these demands at the ballot box.

We in the Popular Front do not expect any positive development from a Donald Trump administration; rather, we anticipate an escalation in hostile policies against our people, fully biased in favor of the zionist entity.

We call on supporters of the Palestinian people, as well as movements, organizations, and groups that stand with our cause in the United States, to intensify pressure on the new U.S. administration to end its support for the zionist entity. [emphasis mine]

We see in the popular and student movements that stand in solidarity with Gaza, along with the emergence of small, free voices and parties, a glimmer of hope that could contribute to even a slight change in the U.S. stance on our cause.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Central Media Dept, Nov 6, 2024

From the Popular Resistance Committees (English translation from same source):

The Republican and Democratic parties are two identical faces in entrenching American tyranny and supporting zionism in the genocidal wars it waged against our Palestinian and Lebanese peoples and our nation.

America is the enemy of peoples; it is a symbol of tyranny and arrogance, ruling the world with iron and fire, igniting wars and the flames of hatred across the entire globe.

America, with all its components, parties, and councils, stands behind the support for the zionist entity with all kinds of shells, rockets, and destructive weapons that wreak havoc on our people in Palestine and Lebanon.

Our people rely solely on their steadfastness, the valor of their resistance, and the support of the Axis of Resistance and the free people of the nation and the world in confronting the genocide and massacres they are subjected to. All successive American administrations are enemies of our people, our nation, and of free peoples.

Media Office of the Resistance Committees in Palestine

Wednesday 06 November 2024

https://x.com/gazanotice/status/1854491593207599356

From Hamas (English translation from same source):

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Press Statement on the Results of the U.S. Presidential Election

In light of the results indicating Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. election, we, in the Islamic Resistance Movement - Hamas, affirm the following:

1. Our position regarding the new U.S. administration will depend on its stances and practical actions towards our Palestinian people, their legitimate rights, and their just cause.

2. It is unfortunate to note that all successive U.S. administrations, since the occupation of Palestine in 1948, have held negative stances on the Palestinian cause. They have consistently been the primary supporter of the zionist occupation in all fields, and the previous administration followed a path biased towards occupation and aggression, providing political and military cover for zionist war criminals to continue some of the most horrific acts of genocide in modern history, solidifying its role as a full partner in the killing of tens of thousands of our people, including children, women, and the elderly.

3. We call for an end to the blind bias toward the zionist occupation and for serious and genuine efforts to stop the war of extermination and aggression against our Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, to end the aggression against our brotherly Lebanese people, to halt the provision of military support and political cover for the zionist entity, and to recognize our people’s legitimate rights.

4. The elected U.S. President is urged to heed the voices that have risen from within American society itself for more than a year since the zionist aggression on Gaza, rejecting occupation and genocide and objecting to support and bias toward the zionist entity. [emphasis mine]

5. The new U.S. administration must understand that our Palestinian people will continue to confront the abhorrent zionist occupation and will not accept any path that detracts from their legitimate rights to freedom, independence, self-determination, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital.

Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas, Wednesday, 04 Jumada al-Awwal 1446 AH, Corresponding to: 06 November 2024 

Some Memes, And A Broken Glass

Roadside sign spotted in Maine's 2nd congressional district yesterday

Last time Donald Trump won the presidency I was so rattled that I threw my laptop across the room. Not on purpose, I just forgot to zip that compartment of my backpack and inadvertently launched it when I swung the pack onto my back to head out to school.

I'm retired now and we go to bed early around here. The 8pm robo call on election eve from what our answering machine described as "Donald G Tromp" rattled my husband and as I went to silence it I heard his water glass shatter in the living room. I knew the caller was not in Maine, because in my neck of the woods we do not call each other at that time of night, where a late call indicates an emergency.

U.S. national politics are an emergency, but there isn't anything you're going to do about it at the ballot box.

I figured that Trump would carry the 2nd congressional district where I live -- it is covered with strategic yard signs like: TRUMP SAFETY-- KAMALA CRIME; it has gone for Trump every time he's on the ballot (delivering a whopping one electoral vote); and our polling place was so full the clerk had to squeeze me into a makeshift voting booth.

My sister was convinced that reproductive rights were the #1 concern of voters while I remain convinced that the Biden-Harris administration's full throttle conduct of the U.S.-Israel genocide in Gaza was top of mind. What that mostly reflects is where we source our information, and we're probably both a little bit right, but it's murky: Democrats have failed to codify Roe v. Wade every chance they get, and Trump promised to be even more pro-Israel than VP Harris.

People I know in the pro-Palestinian movement debated whether the admonition to elect a Democrat because they are "easier to organize under" was misguided or a bold canard. As an old antiwar protester I can assure you that millions of people who come out into the streets against a Republican war will go back to eating brunch during a Democratic war.

https://x.com/sbg1/status/1854116340337881252

I hate to say I told you so, but I've been predicting for months that the liberal media's obsession with Trump (New Yorker piece above is typical) indicated that we would be getting him again. Elections are mostly about name recognition. Whose name is never out of the headlines? And who ever even heard of Kamala Harris before the Democratic Party undemocratically selected her as VP and then their presidential nominee?

So I am returning to my old ways -- I will no longer be helping the narcissist in chief build his brand and its value. I used to refer to him as "45" but henceforth he shall be known in these pages as "47".

Now back to organizing against U.S.-Israel and the imperial wars that never end. Never stopped under Bush Jr., Obama, 45, Biden -- and won't stop under 47 either.

See you in the streets.

Who Will Be Figurehead Of This Doomed Empire?

So the October surprise turned out to be major newspapers failing to endorse the current administration's candidate, albeit for different reasons.

Most significant: the Los Angeles Times, a paper long in the grip of the Zionist lobby -- which is huge and particularly powerful in southern California (see UCLA and USC actions against student protesters for evidence) -- declined due to the influence of the 31 year old daughter of its new owner. Nika Soon-Shiong explained:

As a citizen of a country openly financing genocide, and as a family that experienced South African apartheid, the endorsement was an opportunity to repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children.

The Gannett newspaper chain, largest in the U.S. and including flagship publication USA Today, also will not endorse a candidate this year, giving no real reason other than a vague assurance that the decision was made a year ago. Washington Post owner, oligarch Jeff Bezos, published an op-ed explaining that in a close election some see as a referendum on the U.S.-Israel genocide, he is hedging his bets.

Glenn Greenwald commented:

To say that liberal elites were enraged by this news and have gotten into a spiraling meltdown of hysteria and betrayal is to understate the case. Some of these journalists and editors actually resigned in protest, including one of the longest-time and most influential neocons, Robert Kagan, who resigned today from The Washington Post. 

Kagan is the husband of Victoria Nuland, architect of the destruction of Ukraine. Perfect guy to have on your editorial board to pump up the jam for that particular disastrous imperial war.

Is it any wonder that a Gallup poll this month found corporate media have sunk even lower in the public's esteem than Congress?

The part that gets overlooked deliberately by nearly all corporate media: the U.S.-Israel empire is foundering, and a popularity contest for figurehead of the sinking ship is largely irrelevant.

We are nearing the end times. As British journalist Jonathan Cook observed:

Every empire falls. Its collapse becomes inevitable once its rulers lose all sense of how absurd and abhorrent they have become.

Along these lines, here's some of what I've been reading this week that's worth considering.

For starters, I think these two articles belong together:

"Trump's Madison Square Garden event turns into a rally with crude and racist insults" (Associated Press, October 27)

"Collapsing Empire: China and Russia checkmate US Military" (Kit Klarenberg's substack Global Delinquents, October 29)

Here, I got a kick out of Aussie blogger Caitlin Johnstone riffing on the poor quality of our candidates in these declining days of empire:

Iranian cleric Shahab Moradi after the US assassinated Iran’s immensely popular general Qassem Soleimani in 2020 complained that Iran can’t even really retaliate for the assassination because the US doesn’t have any real heroes of its own. 

“Think about it. Are we supposed to take out Spider-Man and SpongeBob?”

But we're laughing through our tears as the dying beast destroys many lives on its way down to perdition.

A useful analysis of this election is from Chris Hedges:

The choice this election is between Corporate and Oligarchic Power

There is a civil war within capitalism. Kamala Harris is the face of corporate power. Donald Trump is the mascot of the oligarchs. Either way, we lose.

This answers the oft asked question, if both corporate parties answer to the same donors and pursue the same genocidal policies while competing to be the most pro-Israel, what's a voter to do? Something like 40% of eligible voters declined to participate last time around.

Hedges, who has already voted for pro-Palestine Greens Stein and Ware, as I will do on Tuesday: 

Corporate power needs stability and a technocratic government. Oligarchic power thrives on chaos and, as Steve Bannon says, the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” Neither are democratic. They have each bought up the political class, the academy and the press. 

Both are forms of exploitation that impoverish and disempower the public. Both funnel money upwards into the hands of the billionaire class. 

Both dismantle regulations, destroy labor unions, gut government services in the name of austerity, privatize every aspect of American society, from utilities to schools, perpetuate permanent wars, including the genocide in Gaza, and neuter a media that should, if it was not controlled by corporations and the rich, investigate their pillage and corruption. 

Both forms of capitalism disembowel the country, but they do it with different tools and have different goals.

If you're in Maine, consider complaining to the Portland Press Herald which today published two articles on the election, including one focused on what's driving college students' votes, without once mentioning the genocide in Gaza. Journalistic malpractice is what I call it. Democratic Party aligned media want you to believe their party will protect abortion rights (they haven't and won't) and the environment (don't make me laugh), and that these are the issues that brought tens of thousands of young people out into the streets over the past year.

Then meet us at the No Votes for Genocide rally in Monument Square today, Saturday November 2, at 3pm. It's part of a national mobilization ahead of the election. 

Then, see NAILA AND THE UPRISING at 7pm at nearby Space gallery (reserve your free tickets here). Co-presented by the Maine Palestine Film Collective, the Maine Coalition for Palestine, and Multitude Films. Trailer available here on YouTube. 

The U.S.-Israel war on Palestinians didn't start on October 7, 2023 and it won't end on November 5, 2024. But it will end someday, and people in the U.S. cannot escape forever the consequences of imperial bullying around the globe.

Cringe Video Kicks Off Vote Shaming Season

Honestly, it's always vote shaming season in the false dichotomy show that constitutes U.S. electoral politics. 

I'm immune to vote shaming for several reasons: I live in Maine where we have ranked choice voting so candidates literally cannot be spoilers; I left the Democratic Party for good in 2008 when Obama got the nomination and his first two votes back in the Senate were to pass the war supplemental bill and to extend immunity to the big telecoms for spying on us all; and Democrats failed to protect abortion rights, pass universal health care, or cancel student loans like Biden promised. They are the ones who should be ashamed.

I'm also immune to being called "Putin's spokesperson" or "you sound like Tucker Carlson." While I might giggle at a cartoon like this one, 

I don't agree with the underlying thesis that the ruination of the U.S. can be laid at the current administration's feet. Both parties in the U.S. serve their corporate overlords, and it is they who have gutted both quality of life and life expectancy for working class people.

So this cringe video of white boomers in Philadelphia "dancing" is unlikely to move me in any way other than activating my gag reflex.

https://twitter.com/adamcurtisbroll/status/1777708042563510465

I saw it shared on Twitter, but the original video can be found here on TikTok.

Ok maybe you're laughing instead of gagging. Either way, I doubt that you're feeling much shame.

A friend of mine stepped into this quagmire with a letter to the editor of the Portland Press Herald today. They printed her critique of Biden administration complicity in the genocide in Gaza, but did not enable comments.

A vote-shaming letter in the same edition did allow comments, and that is where a lively debate ensued about censorship, media bias, and...vote shaming. 

Why am I immune to the common liberal malady, Orange Man Bad Derangement Syndrome? Because the old white boomer Trump and the old white boomer Biden are both very, very bad. 

When your "lesser of two evils" candidate is the incumbent who's actively arming Israel's genocide in Palestine, the correct sign between the two candidates is an equal sign.

Who's Meddling Now?

 
https://www.seacoastonline.com/elections/results

As the old (circa 2000) saying goes, the election's not over until your brother counts the votes. In this case, the New Hampshire primary isn't over until we find out how many of the "unprocessed write-in" plus "other write-in" votes are counted to see if "Ceasefire" pulled in 20.5k votes or fewer than that. Of total votes cast, that would be 20.3% or slightly more than 1 out of 5.

Now do you see why Democrat Shenna Bellows, Maine's Secretary of State, is trying to kick Donald Trump off my state's ballot?

The crocodile tears of Trump haters ignore so many things, like the steadily eroding mind of the incumbent, and the steadily escalating mediocrity of Democratic machine candidates. Unpopular president in office? No problem. Just skirt the primaries and don't hold a nominating process. This is to ensure that you nominate a candidate unappealing to the majority of voters in your party.

Because who cares what voters want? As in 2016, the liberal press has long since signaled that our corporate overlords would prefer Trump as the next celebrity spokesman who explains their decisions to us.

That way they can continue to fan the flames of Russophobia as the U.S./NATO loses its proxy war in Ukraine and Europe lurches toward fascism.

But wait -- maybe we won't see a tally of those 20.5k write-in votes, because Israel doesn't want us to. Seeing a large number there would be evidence of the deep unpopularity of its genocide on Gaza. 

Democratic Majority for Israel PAC letter source on Twitter

Never mind the millions upon millions of world citizens shutting down ports to Israeli shipping, or interrupting Biden's campaign speeches, or blocking roads to demand an immediate ceasefire and opening Gaza to receive shipments of humanitarian aid before its surviving children starve to death.

Hey Israel, guess what? If you have to have your agents in the U.S. send a letter like that, or suppress pro-Palestinian content on social media platforms -- you are losing. 

Unlike Donald Trump. I'm not a fan but, at this particular juncture in the decline of U.S. empire, he's the candidate that doesn't have the blood of Gaza's children on his hands.

Rich Men North Of Richmond vs Try That In A Small Town

Two summer anthems of disaffection with decay in the U.S. could not be more different. Yes, they're both in the country genre and feature male leads but one is a pro-policing screed that couldn't be slicker, and the other is as genuine as it gets.

Viral hit "Try That In A Small Town" from Jason Aldean's 11th album was written by a team not including Aldean, recorded in a studio, and then embellished with one of the more incoherent music videos I've seen. Granted I don't see that many music videos, but my impression of this one was that the lead singer is mailing it in while the montage of images behind him -- flag-draped White House, looting, assault -- do the heavy lifting. Basically a 2nd Amendment commercial laced with the kind of threats you may remember from your elementary school playground.

The artist denies it, but dog whistle racist imagery abounds. It's possible this song could be construed as a campaign ad for Trump since the disorder depicted is widely viewed by Republicans as occurring under the Biden administration and Democratic mayors of big cities.

(For an insightful discussion of disorder and other electoral issues, I highly recommend Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn's "America This Week: Campaign Preview" available here.)

Newer viral hit "Rich Men North Of Richmond" is performed by singer/songwriter Oliver Anthony in a lightly amplified outdoor setting. He nails the aggrieved white working class male lament in a way that the wealthy Aldean's performance only mimics. 

Or maybe it's not even a particularly white point of view? Rapper TRE TV nodded along in sympathy before sharing his reaction to Anthony's intro, I been selling my soul, working all day, overtime hours for bullshit pay:

That's how we all feel. We working, ain't getting nowhere, the money ain't adding up. You get your check and you're like, What. Is. This?...Hell, this thing missing a couple of zeros! 

I thought the vocals were tough.. and the message. I give this a 10. 

Anthony also takes a potshot at riders on Epstein's "Lolita Express," excess taxation, and references the suicide epidemic among young men suffering under top down control from the rich men north of Richmond. An interview with the singer revealed he was specifically thinking of Washington DC swamp monsters when he penned the alliterative line (he appears to like puns, rhyming, and alliteration).

He goes off the rails only once when he engages in fat shaming aimed at food stamp recipients. Hard to know for sure, but maybe he has an ex-girlfriend who's 5 foot 3, weighs 300 pounds, and is partial to fudge roll?

It cracks me up how conservatives are trying to claim Oliver Anthony for their own. Did they listen to his words? Cue the mainstream media, now in overdrive claiming the song is a big hit with the right but leaving leftists cold. Wealthy media are having to spin extra hard to depict the ballad as a rallying cry for Civil War 2.0. You know, the war the wealthy hope we have instead of the revolution we need.

The problem with their analysis, of course, is that right and especially left have become so diluted in meaning that the terms are increasingly useless. Anthony has shared with journalists that he considers himself a centrist with no allegiance to either of the corporate parties.

Chris Hedges writes searingly about this from time to time. His latest is set in rural Maine aka northern Appalachia where I live and which, this time of year, looks nearly identical to the West Virginia setting of Anthony's video. "Forgotten Victims of America's Class War" lays out about as well as anything I've read how left vs. right or red vs. blue are increasingly meaningless in a gutted economy that's failing working people.