Menu
Paynal © 2008
Opposing The War Machine Is Cool Again, And The Empire Is Getting Nervous by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
(2024-05-08 at 18:19:59 )
Opposing The War Machine Is Cool Again, And The Empire Is Getting Nervous by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
American rapper Macklemore has released a single titled "Hinds Hall", the name given to Columbia Universitys Hamilton Hall by anti-genocide protesters in honor of the six year-old Hind Rajab who was murdered in Gaza by Israeli forces.
American rapper Macklemore has released a single titled "Hinds Hall", the name given to Columbia Universitys Hamilton Hall by anti-genocide protesters in honor of the six year-old Hind Rajab who was murdered in Gaza by Israeli forces. The artist says all proceeds from the track will go to UNRWA.
The song with its accompanying video is such a scathing indictment of the United States-backed destruction of Gaza that Google-owned YouTube promptly age-restricted it.
Macklemore attacks Biden, the brutal police crackdowns on protesters, the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-semitism, United States politicians and the Israel lobby, with lines that will haunt you for days like "The Nakba never ended, the colonizer lied."
This marks the first really mainstream artist to take on this issue in their chosen medium with a track intended for widespread circulation. It probably will not be the last. Opposing the Gaza genocide is quickly moving from the right thing to do to the cool thing to do, which is a major problem for the empire.
HINDS HALL. Once it is up on streaming all proceeds to UNRWA. "please see here:"-Macklemore (macklemore) May 6, 2024
The empire can handle being on the wrong side of an issue; it has all the media and mainstream culture-manufacturing institutions on its side, which allows it to frame public perception of that issue in a way that quells dissent. What it absolutely cannot handle is a critical mass of young people deciding the imperial murder machine sucks, and that opposing it is fun and makes you cool.
That is when dissent takes on a momentum of its own. As long as opposing militarism and imperialism is just the morally correct thing to do it will always be a marginal position in an information ecosystem that is controlled by the powerful, because simply being on the right side of an issue has little natural magnetism of its own.
But the instant it moves from being about morality to being fun and cool it suddenly starts crackling with energy and drawing in huge numbers of people who normally would not be that interested on their own.
The empire has no answer to this. Seriously, how can a bunch of boring empire managers in DC and Virginia hope to compete once that happens?
What are they going to do, win the young back by writing another Wall Street Journal think piece? Have Netanyahu rap about how Zionism is rad while Tony Blinken plays guitar? They have got nothing.
This crackling excitement behind an antiwar protest movement has not happened since the sixties, and the empire had to retreat from Vietnam with its tail between its legs and dramatically restructure western civilization before it could recover from it.
And all the empire managers who worked on solving that problem are dead and gone now; the people working on it now have never had to deal with anything like this, which is why it took them by surprise.
The empire managers of today have only ever encountered protests against the war machine that were either very small or short-lived and easily diverted; this one is only gaining momentum seven months in.
And the northern hemispheres summer has not even started yet.
I guarantee you the swamp monsters are scheming very hard to try and shut this thing down before summer starts, because the kids are going to have a whole lot of fun at their expense if they can not.
"This Ms Caitlin Johnstone article, its pictures, and its links are here:"
Thanks for reading!!
Everyone has my unconditional permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I have written) in any way they like free of charge.
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my "sweet merchandise", buying my new book "Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone", or my previous book "Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers". The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for "my website", which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I am trying to do with this platform, "click here".
Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin speaks the truth!!! - Cousin Lucky