Another year of putting yourself in harm's way, learning and reporting the truths about populations beaten down by those in power. I'm glad you're so young.
The ruling class in the UK and elsewhere bounces from Islamophobia to an equally ridiculous hypersolicitousness, as a way of keeping the populace divided.
Does anyone believe the following hearing is islamophobia?
"Arab American Leader Responds After GOP Senator Says at Hearing, “You Should Hide Your Head in a Bag” democracynow.org 09/19/24
"We speak with Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, after she faced racist and hostile questioning from Republicans at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, including Senator John Kennedy, who told Berry, “You should hide your head in a bag.” The experience illustrated the very problem of dehumanization the hearing was meant to address, Berry says: “That kind of bigotry and hatred is difficult to hear from anyone, but to actually experience it at a hate crime hearing from a sitting member of this institution was pretty extraordinary.”
Just a little sample of this hearing made me to lament that our country can elect another clown for senator who is incapable to allow the interviewed to speak:
"SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Do you support or oppose Iran in their hatred of Jews?
MAYA BERRY: Again, I’m going to emphasize, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, none of them is going to —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You can’t bring yourself to say no, can you?
MAYA BERRY: This discussion — sir, I don’t support —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: It’s real simple.
MAYA BERRY: Excuse me. I’m going to —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: And —
MAYA BERRY: If I may?
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Nah, nah, no!
MAYA BERRY: As a Muslim woman — as a Muslim woman, sir, I’m going to tell you —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: I —
MAYA BERRY: — I do not support Iran. But what I will tell you is that —"
This is what is waiting for all of us if we allow these fundamentalists to grab more power.
It is hard to read the heartbreaking stories in this newsletter, both in CH’s pieces and in the comments. It is also hard to then proceed to making detached observations about these pieces and comments. Doing so is still another way of feeling broken.
However—
It is good to read another interview with a journalist, Peter Osborne, of great talent and accomplishment, who has contributed so much—and whose reward follows the principle that no good deed goes unpunished. As is more and more the course of authentic journalism in our time. It is heroic.
Though the history related in the interview was a bit hard to follow, going from one topic to another as the discussion did, it is good, for those of us who are still waking up to the fact that we do not live outside history, to begin to learn something about contemporary and near-contemporary history. And it was good to hear about it from a British perspective.
Peter Osborne is a rare bird in contemporary life: a political observer who calls himself a Burkean conservative. It’s been a long time since conservatives spoke that way. But then, actual conservatives and liberals—or progressives, or the left—no longer exist, at least in America. Now the “conservatives” (the Republicans) are fascists, and the “liberals” (the Democrats) are neoliberal creeping corporate fascists.
The British and American empires having gifted us with a linguistically imperial world, one in which it seems that nearly everyone speaks English, this interview leads me to wonder if CH might do interviews with people from other countries such as Germany, France, Brazil, India, Australia and so forth. Everyone in the world has opinions about America, I think.
The best thing Pope Francis could ever do is to go to Gaza, or now, to the West Bank. Make his stand in Bethlehem. He has an opportunity that is unequalled, to say "no" to genocide. Not in our name, not on our watch.
Let us make our donations to honor Aaron Bushnell, in memory of Hind Rajab, or Dr Jumann Afra, the mother of newborn twins killed by Israel using US bombs. Now, sorrowfully, we must also add Aysenur Ezgi Egyi and Matt Nelson’s name to our honor roll.
I'm an avid fan of Oborne and read and watch him wherever he appears. I loved his book The Fate of Abraham -- thoroughly recommended, a terrific read and full of great insight, information and beautifully written. I came at the Islam issue originally without at all thinking of it as a racist issue. I had the same attitude to it, as a religion, as I have to all religions, including the -- Jewish -- one in which I was brought up. I'd started as a Dawkins fan because of his really excellent popular writings on evolution and Darwinism but then I followed him when he went on to write and talk about religion and its influence on the world, or at least the parts of that influence which weren't good, but bad. And then there was Sam Harris and Maryam Namazie and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and even -- forgive me -- for a time reading Douglas Murray (sorry). For some years I was also a member of the National Secular Society. That was the intellectual end of the spectrum, but there were also the rantings and ravings of the thuggish end.
For a long time I resisted seeing opposition to Islam as a "racist" position and to be honest I think I still do. It's an intellectual approach not to a distinction between good and bad, but what's true or false, although it might be truer to say between evidence, the meaning of words and whether there are things we can put into words or not, even, logically, what's falsifiable or not, or in the phrase you sometimes hear, "it's so meaningless it isn't even wrong."
Perhaps oddly, what began to change my mind was coming across the work of the late cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, who wrote The Denial of Death, Birth and Death of Meaning, Escape from Evil and other books, and then in particular the work of Prof Sheldon Solomon and his colleagues on Terror Management Theory. That didn't make me think that religions, including Islam were necessarily true, but my view was softened considerably into understanding the human need for culture, which could be secular or religious, to cope with what could be the sheer terror of really considering the plight of an animal -- us humans -- with the capacity for language and ability to form symbols, to have the imagination to look to the future and, as the late psychoanalyst Otto Rank put it, to be able to make the unreal, real.
Kierkegaard, Rank and a greatly modified Freud were a great influence on Becker's thought and there's one great insight from Kierkegaard that is fundamental to it. To humans alone is it given not only to be here on this planet but to *know* that we're here. For Kierkegaard that was a basis for an overwhelming feeling of awe. But the negative of that, the basis for anxiety and -- his word -- dread, was if you knew you were here you would soon arrive at the thought that there'll come a time when you won't be here, and at a time and manner you can't know.
Hence the terror, hence culture, hence religion, the need something larger than ourselves. As Prof Solomon puts it, each of us needs to feel that we're persons of significance in a world of meaning. What we call self-esteem is based in large part on our immersion in a shared culture. And for Becker, that formed his notion that everyone needs to feel heroic in his or her life. It doesn't mean heroic in the grand manner, necessarily, but must be significant to each of us in small or big ways. We have to be able to feel that we bring something of value to the world and there are as many ways of bringing that about as there are people.
So I know the arguments made that religions are a force for bad in the world, but also the ones showing that they're a force for good. Perhaps it was too cynical of the person who said that religion makes good people better and bad people worse. I think Otto Rank had it right -- all culture because it's so important to human beings is in the broadest sense religious. Culture makes human life possible, makes us larger than ourselves, gives meaning to the universe and to ourselves in it and as part of it.
Great report, thank you. I've never heard about George Bush the pastor and his story reminded me that the origins of islamophobia and antisemitism are in the way those Christian fundamentalists interpret the bible. Sad history then, sad history now.
Happy Birthday to Chris Hedges - he is 68 today. I am grateful we have such a truth-teller among us.
Another year of putting yourself in harm's way, learning and reporting the truths about populations beaten down by those in power. I'm glad you're so young.
Stay safe; keep reporting.
Thank you so much, brave warrior.
Many more must support.
Dear Chris,
If Kamala continues to not shout-out against Israel, Zionism, Genocide, NUTANYAHU, and TRUMP — the only message on her ledger in history will say:
“Here lies Kamala, the potential first female President of America — who now has only accomplished absolutely nothing in 2024”
My newest double-sided, ad-hoc, focus-group tested, and highly favorable Protest/Demonstration signs, which simply says:
FUCK ZIONISM
NUTANYAHU
TRUMP AND
END AIPAC
(Other side)
CRONY
CORPORATE
CAPITALISM
IS CANCER
(All sign CAPS text is in RED)
The ruling class in the UK and elsewhere bounces from Islamophobia to an equally ridiculous hypersolicitousness, as a way of keeping the populace divided.
Does anyone believe the following hearing is islamophobia?
"Arab American Leader Responds After GOP Senator Says at Hearing, “You Should Hide Your Head in a Bag” democracynow.org 09/19/24
"We speak with Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, after she faced racist and hostile questioning from Republicans at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, including Senator John Kennedy, who told Berry, “You should hide your head in a bag.” The experience illustrated the very problem of dehumanization the hearing was meant to address, Berry says: “That kind of bigotry and hatred is difficult to hear from anyone, but to actually experience it at a hate crime hearing from a sitting member of this institution was pretty extraordinary.”
Just a little sample of this hearing made me to lament that our country can elect another clown for senator who is incapable to allow the interviewed to speak:
"SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Do you support or oppose Iran in their hatred of Jews?
MAYA BERRY: Again, I’m going to emphasize, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, none of them is going to —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You can’t bring yourself to say no, can you?
MAYA BERRY: This discussion — sir, I don’t support —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: It’s real simple.
MAYA BERRY: Excuse me. I’m going to —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: And —
MAYA BERRY: If I may?
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Nah, nah, no!
MAYA BERRY: As a Muslim woman — as a Muslim woman, sir, I’m going to tell you —
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: I —
MAYA BERRY: — I do not support Iran. But what I will tell you is that —"
This is what is waiting for all of us if we allow these fundamentalists to grab more power.
It is hard to read the heartbreaking stories in this newsletter, both in CH’s pieces and in the comments. It is also hard to then proceed to making detached observations about these pieces and comments. Doing so is still another way of feeling broken.
However—
It is good to read another interview with a journalist, Peter Osborne, of great talent and accomplishment, who has contributed so much—and whose reward follows the principle that no good deed goes unpunished. As is more and more the course of authentic journalism in our time. It is heroic.
Though the history related in the interview was a bit hard to follow, going from one topic to another as the discussion did, it is good, for those of us who are still waking up to the fact that we do not live outside history, to begin to learn something about contemporary and near-contemporary history. And it was good to hear about it from a British perspective.
Peter Osborne is a rare bird in contemporary life: a political observer who calls himself a Burkean conservative. It’s been a long time since conservatives spoke that way. But then, actual conservatives and liberals—or progressives, or the left—no longer exist, at least in America. Now the “conservatives” (the Republicans) are fascists, and the “liberals” (the Democrats) are neoliberal creeping corporate fascists.
The British and American empires having gifted us with a linguistically imperial world, one in which it seems that nearly everyone speaks English, this interview leads me to wonder if CH might do interviews with people from other countries such as Germany, France, Brazil, India, Australia and so forth. Everyone in the world has opinions about America, I think.
The best thing Pope Francis could ever do is to go to Gaza, or now, to the West Bank. Make his stand in Bethlehem. He has an opportunity that is unequalled, to say "no" to genocide. Not in our name, not on our watch.
Please sign the petition and share widely.
https://chng.it/gkvBfY44rq
Let us also support UNRWA. If our governments won’t act in accordance with humanity, then we will. https://www.unrwausa.org/donate
Also we can all support the brave doctors who have gone to Gaza: https://palestinian-ama.networkforgood.com/projects/206145-gaza-medical-supplies-oct-2023
Or
Surgeons to Gaza
https://fajr.org/donate/
Let us make our donations to honor Aaron Bushnell, in memory of Hind Rajab, or Dr Jumann Afra, the mother of newborn twins killed by Israel using US bombs. Now, sorrowfully, we must also add Aysenur Ezgi Egyi and Matt Nelson’s name to our honor roll.
Here’s a petition to excommunicate Joe Biden: https://www.change.org/p/excommunicate-president-joe-biden-bf979783-ac08-4576-a53f-c786ea23dc9c
These are a few small things we can do. If we can do more, let us do more.
There are good Israelis supporting Palestinians under attack from settlers in the West Bank. They need our help: Combatants for Peace
https://drove.com/.2Mcf
I'm an avid fan of Oborne and read and watch him wherever he appears. I loved his book The Fate of Abraham -- thoroughly recommended, a terrific read and full of great insight, information and beautifully written. I came at the Islam issue originally without at all thinking of it as a racist issue. I had the same attitude to it, as a religion, as I have to all religions, including the -- Jewish -- one in which I was brought up. I'd started as a Dawkins fan because of his really excellent popular writings on evolution and Darwinism but then I followed him when he went on to write and talk about religion and its influence on the world, or at least the parts of that influence which weren't good, but bad. And then there was Sam Harris and Maryam Namazie and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and even -- forgive me -- for a time reading Douglas Murray (sorry). For some years I was also a member of the National Secular Society. That was the intellectual end of the spectrum, but there were also the rantings and ravings of the thuggish end.
For a long time I resisted seeing opposition to Islam as a "racist" position and to be honest I think I still do. It's an intellectual approach not to a distinction between good and bad, but what's true or false, although it might be truer to say between evidence, the meaning of words and whether there are things we can put into words or not, even, logically, what's falsifiable or not, or in the phrase you sometimes hear, "it's so meaningless it isn't even wrong."
Perhaps oddly, what began to change my mind was coming across the work of the late cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, who wrote The Denial of Death, Birth and Death of Meaning, Escape from Evil and other books, and then in particular the work of Prof Sheldon Solomon and his colleagues on Terror Management Theory. That didn't make me think that religions, including Islam were necessarily true, but my view was softened considerably into understanding the human need for culture, which could be secular or religious, to cope with what could be the sheer terror of really considering the plight of an animal -- us humans -- with the capacity for language and ability to form symbols, to have the imagination to look to the future and, as the late psychoanalyst Otto Rank put it, to be able to make the unreal, real.
Kierkegaard, Rank and a greatly modified Freud were a great influence on Becker's thought and there's one great insight from Kierkegaard that is fundamental to it. To humans alone is it given not only to be here on this planet but to *know* that we're here. For Kierkegaard that was a basis for an overwhelming feeling of awe. But the negative of that, the basis for anxiety and -- his word -- dread, was if you knew you were here you would soon arrive at the thought that there'll come a time when you won't be here, and at a time and manner you can't know.
Hence the terror, hence culture, hence religion, the need something larger than ourselves. As Prof Solomon puts it, each of us needs to feel that we're persons of significance in a world of meaning. What we call self-esteem is based in large part on our immersion in a shared culture. And for Becker, that formed his notion that everyone needs to feel heroic in his or her life. It doesn't mean heroic in the grand manner, necessarily, but must be significant to each of us in small or big ways. We have to be able to feel that we bring something of value to the world and there are as many ways of bringing that about as there are people.
So I know the arguments made that religions are a force for bad in the world, but also the ones showing that they're a force for good. Perhaps it was too cynical of the person who said that religion makes good people better and bad people worse. I think Otto Rank had it right -- all culture because it's so important to human beings is in the broadest sense religious. Culture makes human life possible, makes us larger than ourselves, gives meaning to the universe and to ourselves in it and as part of it.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Hedges.
Great interview; thank you, Sir.
Great report, thank you. I've never heard about George Bush the pastor and his story reminded me that the origins of islamophobia and antisemitism are in the way those Christian fundamentalists interpret the bible. Sad history then, sad history now.