Gaza has become a testing ground for Israeli and Western weapons and surveillance tools — technologies that will inevitably be used to target populations across the globe.
Oh how the brutal technological and tactical chickens that empire exports elsewhere do come home to roost.
I remember a recorded speech Chris Hedges made in 2013 to explain the military history of the boomerang effect of tyranny. It had such a seismic effect on me that I transcribed the speech word for word, added notes (hopefully accurately) and filed it:
"What happens with dying empires—Thucydides [Greek commander circa 400 BC, author of History of the Peloponnesian War] wrote about this— is that the techniques of control, which are always about coercion—the only language most people speak in the outer reaches of empire is the language of force—as the impirium is hollowed out, these techniques migrate back into heart of the empirium, which is exactly what is happening. So you have the mercenaries working in Iraq and Afghanistan [Blackwater, DynCorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut and Israel’s Instinctive Shooting International, etc.] suddenly appearing in New Orleans after Katrina…"
Yes. America has been exporting the horrors of regime change wars for a long time now....and it does appear that they are resurfacing on home ground recently. Still, listening to American progressive channels...I still find American intelligence bottoms out, once certain borders are crossed.
Maduro is not a dictator......he's democratically elected. But on CNN all the pundits agreed that even though Maduro was a thug......Trump shouldn't be bombing boats without due process. So its hard for Americans........even after Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc, etc. etc., to admit their assessment of foreign leaders might just amount to a smelly load of jingoistic Kaka.
Now that Silicon Valley is a full fledged partner in tyranny, the only way to fight it is to use their tools to combat them. Software, algorithms, cameras and microphones have no loyalties and no masters. Nor do words.
I believe there are enough people in America willing to defeat this attempt at full control. I don’t believe there are very many in Israel. That’s a crucial difference, and it makes Israel the enemy of the people, and the enemy of freedom—freedom that millions died for in the last Holocaust, and is now twisting back on itself.
Zionism is not the result of Naziism. Zionism came first, and now they have merged.
The very first challenge is to take back the power of words:
Zionism = Antisemitism. We can hash out the details later.
To say that antisemitism is older than Naziism is like saying that people have eaten meat for longer than there have been hot dogs.
Zionism today is today no longer a Jewish movement. There are more Christian Zionists in America than there are Jews in the world. Beyond that, their actions today—genocide, ethnic cleansing, settler-colonialism—are creating an atmosphere of hatred for Jews precisely because people are unable to separate Judaism from Zionism, and this conflation promotes opposition to both.
Abraham Lincoln is seen as a defender of freedom and an enemy of slavery, but many consider him a quintessential racist, and a proponent of repatriation of black people to Africa. Can both be true? Of course they can. The Christian Zionists ultimately see Zionism as a cure for Jewishness, not a protection of it. Repatriation of the Jews to Israel is in itself antisemitic in the same way that Lincoln’s racism was expressed in his wish to repatriate Black people to Africa.
But let’s not miss the original point of Hedges’ article: Zionism is a handmaid of tyranny, and cloaking it in the victimhood of the Jewish people is very clever and very evil.
I really like your response to some muddleheadedness above on Zionism / Nazism. You brought the narrative back to what Hedges and his guest, a Jew, said.
I was truly horrified by the crying baby drones which bring Palestinians out of their homes only to be shot.
Oh my God please stop. Antisemitism preceded Nazism by thousands of years. Zionism is probably the dictionary definition of reactionary. This doesn't in any way justify reactionary violence but please just get basic history straight.
Fantastic read Antony; thanks for expanding my knowledge; and helping facts see the documented light of day. The world’s truth seekers owe you a debt of gratitude for compiling the mounds of evidence in a easy to navigate explanation.
Thanks for bringing this to everyone’s attention Chris.
Excellent interview, though quite disturbing, the global eagerness for and reach of these dark powers. Thank you for your good work Antony. There's something I don't quite understand. If Israel is becoming the 9th leading exporter of weapons and surveillance in the world, and the US is by far number one at at least 43%, then why is the US giving or selling billions of dollars worth of weapons, (and components?) and intelligence to Israel every year? Is some large portion of the overabundance of weapons and surveillance Israel has to export actually American made? What is the nature of this lethal partnership, this spider web? If Google, Thiel, Amazon, Musk, Boeing, etc. etc. are all woven in, who exactly is making most of the profit?
Thank you, Mr. Loewenstein, and Chris for introducing him to those of us who are not familiar with his work. I will look for his book and film. “Israel is becoming the model for the global far right.” And yes, a repository for the evil of the world. I remember in the last year a high-level German official thanking Israel for “doing our work for us.” And still, we continue to refer to Democratic politicians in the U.S. who support Israel and the corresponding crackdowns on our speech as “centrists” and “moderates,” labels they hide behind to do their dirty work. As Orwell tried to warn us, the corruption of speech is one of the first signs of totalitarianism. I recently listened to a discussion on a so-called liberal media outlet in which members of the Democratic Party were described as “leftists” or “centrists” or “moderates,” which include, of course, the Israeli (read genocide) supporters. That was it. No mention of the substantial right-wing of the party. Only two wings — the “leftists” and the “centrists.” I hope we all start referring to those people by their proper names. We could start a speech revolution right here on Substack.
This is one of the scariest visions of a present and future world that I have read for a while. A true eye opener. Thank you Antony and Chris for an incredibly informative conversation and article.
In an otherwise brilliant analysis of the Israeli laboratory “warfare”, there is one point on which I disagree with Antony. In my opinion, Israel is long past using the ubiquitous nature of Hamas as an excuse for their genocide of the Palestinian people. The enabling narrative has evolved from Hamas using its own people as “human shields”, using hospitals, schools and a pervasive tunnel network as their hideouts to their politicians invoking the biblical Amalek, declaring that “all Palestinians are Hamas, from men, women, children to the unborn”, variously labelling Palestinians as “subhuman, vermin and animals, that must be obliterated”. This ineluctably gave rise to the now cavalier and indiscriminate murdering of children by sniper fire for instance, the murder of children like Hind Rajab pleading for help, and the tens of thousands of other examples evidencing their declared intent. Innocent Palestinians have consequently become indistinguishable from their kin, those fighting for the lives of all Palestinians.
A brilliant job from Loewenstein and Hedges. The weapons of surveillance and death are coming for us next if we don't get rid of the real problem which is the deepening crisis of capitalism.
This is pretty scary stuff, but an essential read and we are going to track down the documentary and watch it as well. Thinking about how a determined support of Israel, no matter what, can actually support the rise of far right movements in every part of the world is an eye opener. But for sure, once it becomes alright to do what Israel has been doing to the indigenous people of Palestine.......copy cat authoritarians on the right will be encouraged to set up their own narrow minded versions of the ethnostate.
Democracy is under threat around the world, as the climate emergency heats up and arms manufacturers peddle their wares to those who see War as some kind of answer to problems caused by imperialisms fossil fueled rip and ship economies. And the sad reality is, we can't have Peace in our Time, if genocides like the one in Gaza are in any way supported or condoned.
But Peace in our time is essential, if we're to tackle the real threat, which is the changing climate.....and build a world that is sustainable and safe for all of us.
The folly of the mind that said - oh, on-line gaming loaded with virtual kill this and that won't cause criminality! Now like a virus the "gaming" has been deepened in psycho-emotional malevolence materializing for "actual" not virtual human (societal) destruction.Israel whether USA's "guard dog" in The Lavant or her jefe, their leadership and weapons/spy industries appear demonically possessed ."It helps to understand this word if you know a demon is a creature of hell. Demonic has that same kind of hellish, diabolical, fiendish, infernal, satanic, unholy quality. "(vocabulary.com) How is this not symptomatic of nihilism? "Nihilism is a philosophical viewpoint that asserts the absence of inherent meaning or value in life and the universe. Originating from the Latin word "nihil," meaning "nothing," nihilism posits that nothing holds true significance, including human actions and creations. This philosophical stance negates concepts of truth, value, and purpose..." (ebsco.com)
Oh how the brutal technological and tactical chickens that empire exports elsewhere do come home to roost.
I remember a recorded speech Chris Hedges made in 2013 to explain the military history of the boomerang effect of tyranny. It had such a seismic effect on me that I transcribed the speech word for word, added notes (hopefully accurately) and filed it:
"What happens with dying empires—Thucydides [Greek commander circa 400 BC, author of History of the Peloponnesian War] wrote about this— is that the techniques of control, which are always about coercion—the only language most people speak in the outer reaches of empire is the language of force—as the impirium is hollowed out, these techniques migrate back into heart of the empirium, which is exactly what is happening. So you have the mercenaries working in Iraq and Afghanistan [Blackwater, DynCorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut and Israel’s Instinctive Shooting International, etc.] suddenly appearing in New Orleans after Katrina…"
Yes. America has been exporting the horrors of regime change wars for a long time now....and it does appear that they are resurfacing on home ground recently. Still, listening to American progressive channels...I still find American intelligence bottoms out, once certain borders are crossed.
Maduro is not a dictator......he's democratically elected. But on CNN all the pundits agreed that even though Maduro was a thug......Trump shouldn't be bombing boats without due process. So its hard for Americans........even after Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc, etc. etc., to admit their assessment of foreign leaders might just amount to a smelly load of jingoistic Kaka.
Amerika scares me....has for decades now.
Now that Silicon Valley is a full fledged partner in tyranny, the only way to fight it is to use their tools to combat them. Software, algorithms, cameras and microphones have no loyalties and no masters. Nor do words.
I believe there are enough people in America willing to defeat this attempt at full control. I don’t believe there are very many in Israel. That’s a crucial difference, and it makes Israel the enemy of the people, and the enemy of freedom—freedom that millions died for in the last Holocaust, and is now twisting back on itself.
Zionism is not the result of Naziism. Zionism came first, and now they have merged.
The very first challenge is to take back the power of words:
Zionism = Antisemitism. We can hash out the details later.
To say that antisemitism is older than Naziism is like saying that people have eaten meat for longer than there have been hot dogs.
Zionism today is today no longer a Jewish movement. There are more Christian Zionists in America than there are Jews in the world. Beyond that, their actions today—genocide, ethnic cleansing, settler-colonialism—are creating an atmosphere of hatred for Jews precisely because people are unable to separate Judaism from Zionism, and this conflation promotes opposition to both.
Abraham Lincoln is seen as a defender of freedom and an enemy of slavery, but many consider him a quintessential racist, and a proponent of repatriation of black people to Africa. Can both be true? Of course they can. The Christian Zionists ultimately see Zionism as a cure for Jewishness, not a protection of it. Repatriation of the Jews to Israel is in itself antisemitic in the same way that Lincoln’s racism was expressed in his wish to repatriate Black people to Africa.
But let’s not miss the original point of Hedges’ article: Zionism is a handmaid of tyranny, and cloaking it in the victimhood of the Jewish people is very clever and very evil.
I really like your response to some muddleheadedness above on Zionism / Nazism. You brought the narrative back to what Hedges and his guest, a Jew, said.
I was truly horrified by the crying baby drones which bring Palestinians out of their homes only to be shot.
Oh my God please stop. Antisemitism preceded Nazism by thousands of years. Zionism is probably the dictionary definition of reactionary. This doesn't in any way justify reactionary violence but please just get basic history straight.
Fantastic read Antony; thanks for expanding my knowledge; and helping facts see the documented light of day. The world’s truth seekers owe you a debt of gratitude for compiling the mounds of evidence in a easy to navigate explanation.
Thanks for bringing this to everyone’s attention Chris.
✌🏼🇵🇸🇱🇧🇸🇾🇮🇷🇮🇶🇾🇪❤️🙏🕉
Excellent interview, though quite disturbing, the global eagerness for and reach of these dark powers. Thank you for your good work Antony. There's something I don't quite understand. If Israel is becoming the 9th leading exporter of weapons and surveillance in the world, and the US is by far number one at at least 43%, then why is the US giving or selling billions of dollars worth of weapons, (and components?) and intelligence to Israel every year? Is some large portion of the overabundance of weapons and surveillance Israel has to export actually American made? What is the nature of this lethal partnership, this spider web? If Google, Thiel, Amazon, Musk, Boeing, etc. etc. are all woven in, who exactly is making most of the profit?
Israel does the 'battle testing' on Palestinians. But yes , USA is complicit .
Fine, in-depth interview. Thank you for providing legit info!
Disturbing and entirely consistent with prophesy.
Thank you, very best reporting! The Darkness of Mordor threatens all.
Thank you, Mr. Loewenstein, and Chris for introducing him to those of us who are not familiar with his work. I will look for his book and film. “Israel is becoming the model for the global far right.” And yes, a repository for the evil of the world. I remember in the last year a high-level German official thanking Israel for “doing our work for us.” And still, we continue to refer to Democratic politicians in the U.S. who support Israel and the corresponding crackdowns on our speech as “centrists” and “moderates,” labels they hide behind to do their dirty work. As Orwell tried to warn us, the corruption of speech is one of the first signs of totalitarianism. I recently listened to a discussion on a so-called liberal media outlet in which members of the Democratic Party were described as “leftists” or “centrists” or “moderates,” which include, of course, the Israeli (read genocide) supporters. That was it. No mention of the substantial right-wing of the party. Only two wings — the “leftists” and the “centrists.” I hope we all start referring to those people by their proper names. We could start a speech revolution right here on Substack.
This is one of the scariest visions of a present and future world that I have read for a while. A true eye opener. Thank you Antony and Chris for an incredibly informative conversation and article.
In an otherwise brilliant analysis of the Israeli laboratory “warfare”, there is one point on which I disagree with Antony. In my opinion, Israel is long past using the ubiquitous nature of Hamas as an excuse for their genocide of the Palestinian people. The enabling narrative has evolved from Hamas using its own people as “human shields”, using hospitals, schools and a pervasive tunnel network as their hideouts to their politicians invoking the biblical Amalek, declaring that “all Palestinians are Hamas, from men, women, children to the unborn”, variously labelling Palestinians as “subhuman, vermin and animals, that must be obliterated”. This ineluctably gave rise to the now cavalier and indiscriminate murdering of children by sniper fire for instance, the murder of children like Hind Rajab pleading for help, and the tens of thousands of other examples evidencing their declared intent. Innocent Palestinians have consequently become indistinguishable from their kin, those fighting for the lives of all Palestinians.
A brilliant job from Loewenstein and Hedges. The weapons of surveillance and death are coming for us next if we don't get rid of the real problem which is the deepening crisis of capitalism.
This is pretty scary stuff, but an essential read and we are going to track down the documentary and watch it as well. Thinking about how a determined support of Israel, no matter what, can actually support the rise of far right movements in every part of the world is an eye opener. But for sure, once it becomes alright to do what Israel has been doing to the indigenous people of Palestine.......copy cat authoritarians on the right will be encouraged to set up their own narrow minded versions of the ethnostate.
Democracy is under threat around the world, as the climate emergency heats up and arms manufacturers peddle their wares to those who see War as some kind of answer to problems caused by imperialisms fossil fueled rip and ship economies. And the sad reality is, we can't have Peace in our Time, if genocides like the one in Gaza are in any way supported or condoned.
But Peace in our time is essential, if we're to tackle the real threat, which is the changing climate.....and build a world that is sustainable and safe for all of us.
-----All these governments around the world, whether they’re so-called democratic or repressive, are obsessed with these tools.---
I will leave out the word THESE !!!!
ALL STATE GOVERNMENTS
(as opposed to the term GOVERNING in general)
Here I use my IDEOLOGOGICAL view of JURISDICTION of governing a territory usually called a state (country is more geographical than political)
Outside of that jurisdiction of governing I call it POLICING THE WORLD.
The folly of the mind that said - oh, on-line gaming loaded with virtual kill this and that won't cause criminality! Now like a virus the "gaming" has been deepened in psycho-emotional malevolence materializing for "actual" not virtual human (societal) destruction.Israel whether USA's "guard dog" in The Lavant or her jefe, their leadership and weapons/spy industries appear demonically possessed ."It helps to understand this word if you know a demon is a creature of hell. Demonic has that same kind of hellish, diabolical, fiendish, infernal, satanic, unholy quality. "(vocabulary.com) How is this not symptomatic of nihilism? "Nihilism is a philosophical viewpoint that asserts the absence of inherent meaning or value in life and the universe. Originating from the Latin word "nihil," meaning "nothing," nihilism posits that nothing holds true significance, including human actions and creations. This philosophical stance negates concepts of truth, value, and purpose..." (ebsco.com)