Hi, welcome to this uh live stream and Q&A.
0:05>> [clears throat] >> Um I'm in the process of editing the proofs for the book I did with Joe Sacco, Requiem for Gaza. I'm some little exhausted. Um I'll be done on Wednesday. It proves mean you can you [clears throat] can't change the lines in the book. You can change very small spelling here or word there, which all it always happens at the end of a book.
0:33And it's [clears throat] um it's hard for writers to be their own copy editors, but um you almost have to read it out loud.
0:43And that book will be out in October.
0:45And [clears throat and cough] you can pre-order it on Fantagraphics and has a is publishing it. Um and we already have publishers all throughout Europe, Greece, uh Spain, uh France, UK.
1:02Um so, the first question from Pamela Hagan. All right, I will indulge you.
1:07Please have your dog with you. It will bring a huge following and help with the awful topics on hand.
1:15Set up his I have two dogs. I have two rescue greyhounds. One is a girl and one's a boy.
1:22In a chair next to you with a bone to chew on. All right, I'll see if I One of their so you know, greyhounds sleep 18 hours a day, which is quite the life, but I'll see if I can get one of them in here.
1:33Uh come here. Who wants a treat?
1:36Who would like a treat?
1:38Oh, here she comes. This one.
1:40Can you see her?
1:42Come here, Olive. Come on.
1:45Come on.
1:46There. That's Olive. Okay. Now, did she get on the camera?
1:50>> A little >> A little bit. Okay.
1:54I can't. They're very independent-minded. They do no tricks.
1:57Um Ned reclassified.
2:02Norman Finkelstein has recently been taking issue with a characterization by Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and others of American politicians doing Israel's bidding because of blackmail.
2:13Do you take issue with this explanation of the Israeli-American relationship, namely that Israel is the tail wagging the dog or wagging America the dog? If this is wrong, is this relationship more complex than this, even if it includes blackmail?
2:31Um no, Norm is right. I wouldn't use the word blackmail.
2:36I would use the word legalized bribery, which defines our electoral system. So, corporations do the same thing the Israel lobby does, which is buy off politicians.
2:50And if you don't do the bidding of corporations, if you don't do the bidding of the Israel lobby, then they spend millions of dollars to unseat you, to defeat you.
3:02>> [clears throat and cough] >> And that is the driving engine behind the power of the Israel lobby.
3:10You know, depending it doesn't matter which party. Biden, in fact, took more money, I think, from AIPAC than any other sitting senator, and Biden hasn't been in the Senate for, you know, over a decade. So, it's it's money.
3:25So, Kamala Harris runs for president, 77% of registered Democrats want to cut arm shipments to Israel. Doesn't make any It doesn't make any difference. Most Americans want the predatory nature of big banks and corporations across the political spectrum curbed. It doesn't make any difference.
3:45Most people don't want endless war.
3:47It doesn't make any difference.
3:50And so, the Israel lobby has learned how to play that game very effectively.
3:56Um, but I wouldn't call it blackmail.
3:59Israel does use blackmail. All security services use blackmail. Um, uh, and Israel is uh, not an exception, but I don't think they're controlling the political system through blackmail. I would agree agree with Norman on that.
4:15Christine Ho, please discuss the greater Israel project. Some analysts have predicted that the US empire will fall, the end of the war with Iran, but that Israel will emerge unscathed and will succeed in its imperial ambitions to create a Zionist empire not only in the Middle East, but beyond.
4:33>> [clears throat and cough] >> Um, this war did not go well for Israel.
4:39And tomorrow we will put up an interview with the Palestinian uh, journalist, uh, uh, Laith Marouf, uh, who had literally just came back from Southern Lebanon, and he will explain uh, how badly the war went for Israel, um, uh, against Hezbollah. Um, uh, so Israel is, you're right, Christine, seeking to build greater Israel, um, and that means seizing uh, Gaza. It already controls 60% of Gaza, uh, the West Bank, uh, it would like to occupy as it did uh, in 1982, Southern Lebanon. Uh, it has already seized, of course, it took the Golan Heights in the 1967 war, um, but it's now moved beyond the Golan Heights,
5:34>> [snorts] >> almost up to Damascus. And then it is you it it would like to use proxies uh, to control the rest of the Middle East and destroy uh, unified states as in Syria, as in Iraq, as in Libya, that's its goal in Iran.
5:50But, I don't think things are uh are abode well at the moment for either the United States or Israel. I think in fact, this conflict with Iran has seen Iran uh empowered and uh and uh will will probably because it's of its decision to control this control the Strait of Hormuz uh walk away with uh more uh regional power than it had before this war began.
6:24Grain of truth, has Israeli intelligence merged with the American government and are there mutual interests in using AI and military assets to control and dominate energy and resource markets?
6:36Yeah, that's a very good question.
6:38Um uh I think that there is a um uh a fusion of the AI industry um which are kind of agnostic, they'll work with anyone.
6:57Um Israel, of course, has used AI to uh target uh Palestinians in uh in Gaza and the West Bank.
7:08>> [cough and clears throat] >> Um apparently, AI was involved in picking out targets in uh Iran.
7:16Uh so, I think this kind of it you know, Yiannis Varoufakis wrote a book about it, this feudo techno technocrat, I can't remember the term title of the book. Um but it it it does represent uh a new form of dominance and a new form of control and um uh and Israel is, you know, very very much at the center of that.
7:48Um given this is Dirk Ambler, given the heightened skepticism about our subsidizing Israel's war machine, can you envision a future where the US withdraws our military from the Middle East?
8:02I can envision a future where we withdraw our military from the Middle East, but that will be not by choice. Um that will be because and I think that we've moved closer towards that uh because the the GCC states realized that American bases are magnets. They don't protect They don't provide protection. Um this is the message Iran has delivered. And remember Iran uh carried out significant damage, not only essentially wiping out American radar systems, some of these radar systems cost a billion dollars, but inflicting damage on American military assets. And then when they ran low on the interceptors, uh these what
8:43interceptors were there were prioritized for Israel. So, and no one The Trump administration didn't consult uh the Gulf allies, although they made them pay the price. They weren't just like Congress wasn't consulted, European allies were not consulted. They unilaterally acted and left everyone else to pick up the pieces.
9:02Uh there used to be free passage before the war through the Strait of Hormuz.
9:06Now, uh Iran is exacting 2 million dollars roughly per tanker in Chinese currency, by the way, not in US dollars because of course the goal is to and uh ultimately break the hegemony of the US dollar, which will be catastrophic for the empire because people won't buy our debt. Our debt won't be worth anything as Alfred McCoy, the historian, has pointed out. At that point, there's just uh an almost instant and massive contraction of the empire because you can't you you can't fund 800 military bases abroad. The empire can't can't afford it.
9:44So, um the countries like uh Russia, China, Iran are working very very hard to to sever the global economy from the dollar. And what we, of course, internally would be thrust into a pretty severe recession if not depression. We saw the same thing happen when the world's reserve currency switched from the English pound from the pound sterling to the dollar in the 1950s.
10:11Um Hui Reeves, what are the mechanisms that Israel Israeli interests used to capture the American political system?
10:22What are the origins of the lobby and is there a covert attempt on top of the legalized bribery?
10:30Um Well, the the Israel lobby was born uh after World War II the Zionist lobby in the I mean that's not correct. The the the Zionist lobby uh began in in Rush I think it was Rashid Khalidi who wrote about I can't remember one of those books.
10:57It might have been his book. Um but so it existed and that's what pushed through the Balfour Declaration etc.
11:04Um so the Zionist lobby has [clears throat] been with us since the inception of the Zionist project to seize Palestinian land and populate it with colonists.
11:17And then uh but Zionism itself didn't have widespread support until after the World War II and after the Holocaust. Uh and then uh using the kind of moral capital of the Holocaust uh the Zionists were uh able to coerce Jewish uh institutions and Jewish leaders into supporting Zionism, which before World War II had marginal support, not not huge support. Um and uh because of the resources available to the Zionist lobby in particular in the United States, they were then, as I mentioned before, able to start playing this game of buying up politicians.
12:04Uh Mr. Pennymoney Okay, well, that's a question for ask me to interview someone. Apparently, economic recession is inevitable. How likely is it that the subsequent social collapse will unite desperate US citizens politically?
12:21>> [sighs and gasps] >> I mean, social collapse, I witnessed it in countries I covered like Yugoslavia.
12:27That kind of economic and social clap collapse doesn't tend to unify country countries. It tends to see demagogues and power factions pit one group against the other. That's the more uh you know, unfortunately, the more probable scenario.
12:46Um and I've always long lamented the fact that we don't have a militant left, uh a socialist communist kind of left to push back against these capitalist forces and these uh you know, rising fascistic forces. You see them gathered around Trump, but not only in Trump. Uh they I mean, Orban just got ousted, but they're uh ascendant in places like France, Le Pen, and others. So, uh the breakdown of capitalism in the 1930s uh because of radical and powerful unions prevented us from becoming uh fascist, and Roosevelt instituted a series of measures including, you know, all around the New Deal that are so it's
13:33socialism. Uh, and it saved us from fascism. Fascism is what the uh, ruling capitalist class reaches for when the system breaks down. Um, and unfortunately, many of these are native fascists in the Christian right, uh, are ensconced in power. They're the people running the Trump administration and Project 2025. Trump is kind of clueless.
13:57He doesn't know what's going on, but the people around him do very much know what's going on. Um, so I don't know that that that breakdown is necessarily going to be good and of course America's an extremely violent country armed to the teeth. Uh, so in fact, it could be you know, quite ugly.
14:18Um, anti-and can you talk about Zionist sophist Can you talk about Zionist sophistry used to twist reality? For example, Judeo-Christian since Judaism denies Christ and Christianity's based on him. Yeah, that whole Judeo-Christian uh, trope, it was invented, uh, to uh, you're quite correct to link uh, you know, to somehow say that Western civilization is a product of Judeo-Christian. But that just was again a kind of Zionist trope uh, that has been quite effective. Um, but you're right, there are radical differences between uh, Jewish and Christian belief and um, there's long been antagonisms especially on the part with
15:16deep anti-Semitism that runs like a subterranean current through Christianity, you know, starting with the idea that the Jews killed Christ, although the Romans killed Christ.
15:28Not the Jews. Um this is Karen Kalopsia, "Having experienced the carnage of multiple wars and genocides, a close as your personal faith ever challenged?
15:41And if so, how?"
15:43Well, [clears throat] I I mean, having seen the worst of human atrocity or you know, you know, what human beings can do to each other, I have a very dark view of human nature. I understand the capacity we all have for evil. Um but I also have seen these magnificent figures in every religion and every culture rise up to defy the oppressor on behalf of the oppressed.
16:10Um and uh uh often, you know, understanding that to do so will mean the loss of their own life. Oscar Romero, I mean, Martin Luther King, I mean, they all these figures are there.
16:25And um uh and those people, you know, Auden called them ironic points of light that flash out wherever the just exchange their messages, they they provide, you know, a moral witness, but even more than a moral witness, they provide an example that you're inspired to follow.
16:47Um so, no, but I have a very uh you know, acute understanding of evil. Um and if you live in the cocoon of industrialized society, um it's often easy because of your privilege to be very Pollyannaish about human beings and human nature. When societies break down, um that there's a, you know, a very stark divide between the predator and the prey.
17:24Uh um but, you know, we when Joe and I just finished this book on Gaza, we interviewed 29 families from Gaza and Egypt.
17:33And yes, I mean, you had looters and you had uh uh you know, people who prayed upon those who had nothing, but then you had these amazing figures who gave what little they have to protect even strangers. So, I you know, I guess I would sum it up by saying evil is real, but good is real, too.
17:58Um uh Chip Abu Banat, "In the wake of the crash of the US empire, what does forming a more militant left alternative look like in a Balkanized state of repression?"
18:15Well, that's a good question. Um it it it is anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist at its core. You cannot have a militant left that has any illusions about the unmitigated evil of both capitalism and imperialism.
18:32And imperialism is really just an ex- the outward expression of capitalism and the outward expression of white supremacy, of course. Um but, those are our enemies that they, you know, they're that they're uh one has to uh speak and uh understand reality through class war.
18:53Uh and uh you know, the billionaires, I love Ralph Nader, but he's wrong. The billionaires are not going to save us.
19:01Um we're going to save ourselves and the billionaires are our enemy.
19:05Um the capitalist class is our enemy.
19:07I'm not actually a Marxist. Um I can live with capitalism when it's very heavily regulated and controlled through a socialist system. Um, but if you uh unfetter and unregulate capitalism as we have, um, then everything is commodified.
19:27Human beings become commodities, the natural world becomes a commodity that you exploit until exhaustion or collapse or death.
19:36Um, you know, what was what Frederick Engels called social murder.
19:41Like that was the term. Um, and uh and so a militant left would begin with that understanding.
19:51And the understanding that these forces cannot be appeased. Um, they must be you must pit power against power.
20:01The only power we have is our numbers.
20:03And um it is the uh use of numbers to disrupt the business of commerce and government through nonviolence, through strikes, through occupation, through boycotts.
20:18Um, that that's that's the only way out.
20:24Um, ML guy, if you aren't a Marxist, what why do you see preceding a working class What do you see preceding a working class rev- revolution? How does the working class take power without Marxist style takeover industry and the means of production in your view?
20:42Well, >> [clears throat and cough] >> um Well, yeah, that at the when the Russian Revolution happened, you had the Soviets largely led by anarchists who did take over the means of production.
20:56Um, but and they had workers' councils that controlled their own factories, um, which I embrace, of course. And then Lenin, I I this doesn't make me very popular with a lot of Marxists, but I do agree with Noam Chomsky that uh Lenin staged a counter-revolution in the name of the slogan was all power to the Soviets.
21:18But he centralized state power and created a form of state capitalism.
21:22Uh so um and and then the autonomy of those Soviets uh were oblit- was obliterated. Um and many of the anarchists were imprisoned and killed and that's Many people argue that's why we don't have a strong anarchist history. So, of those of the overthrow of the Tsar.
21:41Um >> [clears throat] >> Uh this is from Scurilla. To what extent do you anticipate this administration will commit to actions regarding Iran, be it ground forces, draft, nuclear escalation? And what is the prospect for the emergence of a more effective global judiciary?
22:05Uh well, we lost the war with Iran. I mean, you know, we lost and because Iran through asymmetrical warfare made it very clear that they had the ability to thrust the global economy. They already have crippled the economy in places like India and South Korea and the Philippines and >> [snorts] >> Japan has had open its strategic reserves of oil.
22:32Um and um they could create a depression.
22:37So um the war did not go well.
22:42I think that uh uh the United States is looking for an exit.
22:48Not Israel, by the way. Israel, I mean, Netanyahu has said that he's ready to continue or resume the bombing of Iran.
22:56Um and because Israel's goals are different from the United States.
23:00Uh I think the United States wanted regime change and then coupled with that is of course control of Iranian oil.
23:08Uh but I think Israel wants to do to Iran what it's done as I mentioned to other states throughout the Middle East like Syria which is just uh uh break it into warring factions. Remember only about 60% of Iranians are Persian, the rest are there's a Turkmens and Azerbaijanis and uh and then you have different religious groups, Baha'is and Zoroastrians and and they would like as they've done in Lebanon, they would like to to create internal civil war.
23:43Um so uh I but I think the the US administration realizing the potential for catastrophic economic damage that Iran could commit has decided they've had enough.
24:05River Musics, has there ever been a case where those who were genocided then go on to commit genocide within just a generation two or two and what do you think of the Orban loss?
24:20Sure, I mean the Israeli Jews are uh maybe it was a little more than a generation but they suffered generate genocide and then they commit genocide.
24:34>> [clears throat and cough] >> Um I think the Orb I mean I detest Orban and I'm glad he lost uh but I think until we address the underlying economic dislocations uh that have given rise to figures like Orban or like Trump, um these are Pyrrhic or temporary victories.
24:56Uh Adam Passamanick, please discuss how this moment might be used to get the oil economies unaddicted to fossil fuels and whether the threat of impending recession depression could spirit a genuine renewed shift towards renewable energies. Well, in the United States we've of course walked away don't even the Trump administration won't even acknowledge the reality of climate the climate crisis. Um you know, they're rolling backwards. I mean this is one of the most egregious crimes of the Trump administration is that they are uh facilitating our collective extinction uh by not addressing the climate crisis.
25:43>> [clears throat] >> And I I think that when I look at the Christian right as a kind of they call them crisis cults. This is what happens in disintegrating societies where people become so overwhelmed by a bleak reality that they in they retreat into magical thinking which is what the and Hannah Arendt would argue that all totalitarian movements are forms of magical thinking. I mean that's correct.
26:07And uh and and then uh you know, in many ways people carry out activities that accelerate their own annihilation.
26:17Um I mean for instance the denial of the climate crisis.
26:23Um and so that is very true within the Christian right, is true within the Trump White House. Um and you know, when a society reaches a point where it is not reality-based, its decisions are not based on verifiable fact um then they're unreachable because you can't have a discussion discu- all discussions all genuine discussions have to begin uh with the acknowledgement of fact of objective truth and you know climate deniers or you know people who believe that the world was created in six days and dinosaurs are in the Garden of Eden. I mean these are not you know you've checked out of the rational system and and you can argue
27:16with them all you want but it won't make any difference. I know I spent two years writing about the Christian right for my book American fascist Christian right in the war in America because they they were overwhelmed by reality and any attempt to push them back into reality thrust them into an existential crisis. I at the conclusion of that book I said if you want to break the back of this nascent or our native fascist movement you have to reintegrate these people into the economy and give them a kind of stability and a sense of hope and and short of that we're finished.
27:59um In the war with Iran JP what do you think the odds are of some type of nuclear armament being deployed whether from Israel or the US?
28:11Well [clears throat] Israel's not set up to endure a war of attrition.
28:16If Israel decides to reignite the war um and it feels in any kind of mortal danger I would not put it beyond the Netanyahu government to use a tactical nuclear device. They'd have to use more than one. Iran is a huge country. It's about the size of Western Europe. But I think a lot of us John Mearsheimer myself have not ruled that out and we're of course very frightened by it. But that is contingent on whether the war will resume.
28:49Um Netanyahu would like to resume it.
28:51Can Israel resume it? Um you know, and and see the Trump administration uh stand by the sidelines because of course the Strait of Hormuz will be closed again.
29:05Uh I think I think Trump got so badly burned in Iran that uh he doesn't want to go back there. But, yeah, I think many of us were worried that um it is not out of the realm of possibility. It would probably be done maybe with US approval, but I think it probably be if it happens, it probably be carried out by Israel.
29:30Um [clears throat] Bill Astor We've had so much grim news lately. Who or what gives you hope? For example, it's encouraging to see Pope Leo speak out against the war and for peace.
29:46Yeah, I mean, hope. I I I don't I've said this before. I don't kind of share our culture's mania for hope.
29:54Um uh I mean, resistance gives me hope. Even if it's doomed, resistance gives me hope.
30:02I don't think you can use the word hope unless you resist. I mean, for 14 years I and others fought on behalf of Julian Assange uh you know, persecuted by the US, the UK.
30:16And honestly, I didn't think he would get out. But, I flew over to London and I have to thank my Substack subscribers for paying for those tickets. Um um I flew to London. I sat in on the court. I covered the court cases cuz it wasn't being covered and and or in in many cases, like with the Guardian and others, they if anything, they were contributing to the demonization of Julian. Um uh because I you know, I was a kind of moral imperative to stand with him.
30:56He's the greatest journalist of our time.
30:59Um and it was really the Australians who mobilized blocking bridges, mass rallies that pressured the Albanese government to demand his return and he was [clears throat] freed. Um but if we hadn't all resisted, that would have not happened. Uh so I think one you know, and again, this is something I've said many times, you resist because uh not because it it's going to succeed, although you may hope it succeeds, but because it is you don't not to resist is to be complicit, to be to acquiesce to evil.
31:37Um and uh resistance is a way to uh uh you know, I think retain the the possibility of hope. Resistance is hope in that sense.
31:58Um Marlon Kirby, it's difficult to conceive that Iran will bend to US Israeli demands.
32:10If Israel and or the US resorts to nuclear weapons, what are the potential responses for China?
32:17Well, I don't think Iran I think Iran holds all the cards. I don't I I'm not sure Vance and the Israeli assets of Jared Kushner and Steve Weikauf got it in Islamabad. Um I think it's Iran will determine how this ends.
32:34Um I Uh I can't begin to I mean, of course, the thought of using a nuclear weapon is just so appalling.
32:45Uh What would be Russia and China's response?
32:50>> [snorts] >> Um I I don't think they would nuke Israel.
32:56Um but then I would say at that point Israel's terminal because somebody There's 1.2 billion Muslims. Somebody's going to get a nuclear weapon and pay them back and Israel's a very small place.
33:08Uh maybe not immediately, but it will happen.
33:11Um I mean, it's so horrific. I I just can't even go there.
33:15Um But yeah, I don't think Iran has to bend. I think I mean, they've suffered damage without question.
33:22Uh but by all accounts, they have half of their ballistic missiles, huge stockpiles of drones, which prove very effective. And of course, China and Russia provided intelligence.
33:33That's why the Iranian attacks were carried out with such precision. Um They threw a Chinese and Russian satellite systems.
33:46Uh River Willow 95, where do you see Gaza after all this? Will Iran vouch for them at some point?
33:54In this where I wished I mean, I wish the Iranians had stood with the Palestinians in Gaza as they which would mean lifting the siege as they have with the Lebanese, but of course, Hezbollah uh very close ally of Iran is also Shia.
34:10The Palestinians are largely are Sunni.
34:13I don't even know that there are Shia Palestinians. There may be some, but not many. Um So, uh I I think that uh you know, it's clear what Israel's policy is in Gaza.
34:26And that is that uh it is going to keep Palestinians living in fetid uh overcrowded uh tent encampments um that without access to clean food or water or basic medicine uh you know, a kind of ghetto uh until they can push them out. That's the goal. Now, where are they going to push them out? That's been the issue.
35:00Israelis would love to push them into the Egyptian Sinai just as they would love to push the Palestinians in the West Bank into Jordan.
35:07Um uh but I think, you know, ultimately that's a question the Israelis have not been able to answer. Um uh but they they are going going to leave the Palestinians in Gaza in such horrible misery ration um as a way to pressure them to leave.
35:27Yeah, you know, through {quote} {unquote} voluntary transfer.
35:31But then the question is where do they go? And that's not been figured out by the Israelis.
35:41Uh Apple in Lunchbox. Okay, have you had any memorable dreams lately or that stand out during your lifetime? Which industries are most important to target with a general strike in America?
35:58Are there changes you wish you could make in your past books?
36:02Um I would for strikes it's clear it's Amazon and Walmart because they're such huge employers and they're at the epicenter of the American consumer society. So, Amazon and Walmart. That's where we And of course Amazon and Walmart have built sophisticated mechanisms to break strikes. Um um I mean striking anything Starbucks workers. mean, the the more we can collectively organize, the better off we are. But, I would say those are two principal targets.
36:37Um What was the other question?
36:43Uh I guess it's gone. Um So, okay.
36:59Asymmetrical, not spelled correctly on purpose.
37:02Uh you are more of an advocate for heavily regulated capitalism, like social democracy, more than socialism.
37:08Do you believe that heavily regulated capitalism is actually capable of defeating growing inequality and the ambition of the capitalist class? Yes, and the example is Sweden.
37:18Not now, Sweden's a horror show, but Sweden in the 1960s.
37:23I lived in Switzerland. Um we had one of the best health care systems in the world, which was not uh which was private.
37:33It but it was heavily regulated. So, we all, if I remember, had to pay 350 Swiss francs a month.
37:40And then, if you're poor, you didn't pay anything.
37:42Um and everybody got access to great care. Um so, it was a private system, but it was heavily controlled and regulated by the government.
37:52Um the reason I don't like capitalism, and I don't really like capitalists. Um uh but, again, it it gets back to that uh understanding of human nature that you know, there are people, and capitalists are certainly emblematic of that, who uh whose entire lives are revolve revolve around their own uh self-enrichment, self-promotion.
38:19I don't like it. They're not I don't hang out with these people.
38:23Um but if they're going to exist in our society, they have to be heavily, heavily regulated and controlled, otherwise they destroy your society.
38:30Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation writes about this.
38:34A brilliant book. He And he says that unregulated capitalists first create a mafia economy and then they create a mafia state. And now we live in a mafia state because they created a mafia economy. So, I I my acceptance of regulated capitalism is not because I believe capitalism is good or like it, but but because I believe that there's always a fairly significant segment of the population that will work almost exclusively for their own self-interest.
39:09And if we're going to live with them, they have to be heavily controlled, otherwise they'll destroy us.
39:17Um Oh, yeah, that's right. Are there any changes you wish you could make to your past books?
39:29Um you know, my most of my books are so heavily reported that they're and because they're grounded in that reporting and I like reporting. I I I like it because when you report it, it shatters your assumptions. I mean, you're always learning. I mean, for instance, when I wrote American Fascists, I you know, I as you know, I graduated from Harvard Divinity School, my father was a minister, my mother was a seminary graduate. I grew up in the left-wing church, the kind of social gospel uh Catholic Worker type. And I've never really deviated from that belief that the fundamental definition of the religious life is to stand with and on
40:15behalf of the crucified of the earth, to quote James Cone. So, um I went in there with all of the prejudices that a left-wing or a, you know, liberal religious believer would have to the Christian right. And I listened to the and I and I two years I was on the book. I listened to the stories of utter despair, the the struggle with alcoholism and gambling and evictions and domestic abuse, which was rife when I interviewed women.
40:48Uh you know, the chronic unemployment, underemployment.
40:54And you could you'd have to be heartless not to feel for these people. Now, and I I came to see that in these mega churches, these pastors, like Trump, preyed on their despair to get rich, just like Trump did with his sham university or his casino. And I wrote a book, America the Farewell Tour, where I had a chapter on that which when I was when I wrote the book, Trump I didn't know Trump was going to run for president, but it was about on the edge of bankruptcy and half of the casino was mothballed.
41:29There were rodents. People were shooting up in the elevators. I mean, it was the perfect example of where Trump is going to lead the country.
41:38Um So, yeah, I I I ended up having a lot more empathy for those people. And the first chapter of the book is called despair.
41:48>> [snorts] >> So, that that is, you know, a little off your question. Um uh but I think reporting like that um is a way to check your own prejudices, your own assumptions, which are often wrong.
42:07Um I I I'd have to really think. I don't I mean I'm sure that there are passages in books I would you know would take out but I don't it's very hard to go back and reread your book because like take this book that we just did with Joe Sacco.
42:28I mean how many times have I read it? I mean literally hundreds and you just reach a point where you can't look at it anymore.
42:36You just you you never really happy as a writer. It's just a moment of exhaustion.
42:42Um so I don't think there's any book out there that in terms of its thrust or its focus I would change.
42:55But I'm sure that there are small things I'd change.
43:02But right off the top of my head I can't think what they are.
43:05That's probably because I don't go back and read my books.
43:08Um Dmitry Smith, what's your position on the efficacy and morality of nonviolent resistance?
43:16Historically has it been as effective as we're often told or has it been encouraged to us in hopes of placating the masses?
43:24Um no it's quite effective and and most revolutions this is Crane Brinton's book Anatomy of a Revolution.
43:32Um but there are others point out that it's that mass mobilization.
43:38I mean for instance a national strike can will bring down the whole country.
43:43And you had a national strike in Cuba to the eve of the revolution that brought down Batista. You had a national strike in Iran that brought down the Shah.
43:54So the thing is that when you have repressive societies repressive governments that thwart all possibility of reform through democratic or internal mechanisms, uh then you give birth to violence. And in a revolution, I mean, take the Cuban Revolution.
44:18Uh Fidel and and everybody up in the mountains, it took them 4 days to get to Havana.
44:24Um but they got the guns, so they take over. In fact, they rewrote the history of the Cuban Revolution and gave birth to this fantasy of the foco theory, the foco theory being that you form an arm a small armed group, and then that uh is the seed that sprouts the revolution.
44:45That's not correct. And um as Che found out in Bolivia, sadly.
44:51Um uh as the Weather Underground The other Weather Underground broke from SDS, which was the largest anti-war movement against the Vietnam War in the country.
45:02Uh they broke and and based on the foco theory.
45:07Um and that foco theory is just not correct. And it's interesting.
45:10Um My next book will be on uh genocide in Guatemala.
45:17And that's written out of guilt. I got to be honest. I was there I was in covered the war in Salvador for 5 years.
45:22Uh and then also Nicaragua and Guatemala. But in Guatemala, which was far worse than Salvador, and Salvador was pretty bad.
45:29Uh we were constantly blocked by the military from getting up in the highlands. 600 villages were raised.
45:36Carter had cut military aid in '77.
45:39And so the Israelis came in to fill the vacuum. The gun the Guatemalan army used was the Galil.
45:46Uh they had about 200 military advisers.
45:48They went up in the highlands where the rebel movement was based.
45:51Uh and it was called in Spanish the Palestinianization of the highlands. That was their word.
45:58Uh and they uh did to the Guatemalan indigenous resistance movement, what they had done to the Palestinians. Um, and I always you know, human rights people would it would constantly be asking us because the genocidal, they call the silent genocide.
46:18Uh, but we couldn't get up there for and the and unlike with the FMLN in Salvador, we traveled frequently with the rebels in Salvador, the Guatemalan, there were four main groups of the Guatemalan resistance, but they were very insular and did not trust outsiders and it was very hard to you had to go to Mexico and wait for weeks and try to make contact and even then usually didn't get in and um, so uh, I I've always >> [snorts] >> felt that I should go back and write it.
46:49Um, and I checked and there's just very little written on it both in Spanish and English and then the government of Guatemala is actively uh, erasing the evidence of the crimes.
47:00They're exhuming mass graves and burning the bodies and uh, blocked, you know, there was a brief period of opening that the church managed to after the genocide document many of the mass killings, but and the archbishop who oversaw the project was assassinated a week after it was put out. So, and I'm fluent in Spanish and I was there. So, I kind of feel I should my agent doesn't think anyone's going to buy the book, but that's not why you should write books. Um, I'm not sure how we got off on that, but uh, that's the next project. Um, regarding the American Israeli relationship, to what extent do you
47:41think Israel controls America?
47:45Uh, to what extent are their interests intertwined? To what extent is Israel more a faction of capitalists with powerful interests?
47:55Essentially one lobby exerting pressure.
47:57Yeah, I think I kind of answered that.
47:59Um I don't think they control America, but you know, that they own the Congress or just the same way Goldman Sachs owned the Congress cuz these guys are just immoral pieces of who can be bought, including the hierarchy of the Democratic Party.
48:16Um I'm curious with the Republicans losing Trump, they have no face. How do you see the evolution of the Republicans going forward? Do you see them gradually losing their Trump-like populism?
48:36That's an interesting question. I mean, you're right that I mean that and I wrote a column several years ago that said we had to think of uh the the Republican Party or the you know, the MAGA base as a cult.
48:51Not And if you think of Trump as a cult leader, then everything he does makes sense because you want in Margaret Singer wrote a book about cults, which explains all this called Cults in Our Midst, but you want your cult leader to be all powerful.
49:07Uh omnipotent because and it's an extension of your own power.
49:12>> [snorts] >> Um But the loss of the cult leader I I think that that in this case uh I I'm not sure that that there would be a cult leader to replace him, certainly not J.D. Vance.
49:30Um but I think at that system at that point the system would uh kind of dispense with the cultish quality and just become you know, really nakedly authoritarian, although you know, Trump is clearly with his ice cones and everything else an authoritarian.
49:49Um but without the veneer of of the great leader.
49:53I I I don't see a transition uh to another cult leader. I think that would be difficult, but that doesn't mean that they would uh you know, be pushed from power. And I think we have to take into consideration the possibility that uh given how bad things with Trump's gotten and approval rating of about 35%.
50:23I think it's 61% disapproval rating.
50:26That they will seek to sabotage if not invalidate the midterms if they feel that that will uh you know, rest power from them. I don't think I think they've the signals that they've sent are uh quite uh clear. And I don't think they're joking. Um that's my big fear.
50:47But yeah, I don't I don't I don't know that he'd be replaced with another cult leader.
50:52Uh Bobby boy, what do you think will be the future of America in the Middle East given the loss in Iran? How will it affect the occupation forces and our relationship with Well, I think it is the you know, I we did a show called this, you know, America's Suez Crisis with Alister Crooke.
51:09I'll say this on the live stream. I'm not allowed to say it on the show.
51:13But he was in British intelligence for many years in the Middle East. The Israelis outed him, outed him, and blew his cover, and but he's he really knows his stuff.
51:25I think it is the Suez Crisis. I think this is uh catastrophic blow to US hegemony um certainly within the Middle East.
51:35Um and uh and I think we have watched Iran walk away far more powerful than when this conflict began.
51:45Um How will it affect our occupation forces?
51:50Uh I mean, in the short term, I don't think it'll affect it. In the long term, well, I think you I think there will begin to be pressure on the removal of US bases from the region. Um in the And remember, Trump very foolishly insulted Mohammed bin Salman at Mar-a-Lago to his face. Um I mean, Trump is just out of control. He is kind of dynamiting friends and foes alike. Um which every empire, no matter how strong it is, needs allies.
52:22So, in the short term, I think Israel will continue its genocide. It's just kind of slowed [snorts] the pace.
52:32And it's massive violence and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. In the long term, uh it's finished for Israel because the next generation isn't buying the Israeli myth. They're not.
52:46And even among American Jews. So, uh So, and yeah, in the short term, Israel will be able to get what it wants. In the long term, it's in big, big trouble.
52:58Um So, this is uh Reepus here. Is that right?
53:18You always describe power structures and the failure of traditional resistance with a lot of clarity. You once called for more creative revolutionists. Where do you think the bottleneck is today between widespread awareness and sustained collective action that actually holds over time? Not just episodic actions or isolated national moments of disruption, but something that persists and accumulates.
53:42Well, that gets into the nature of uh our modern society where we're entranced with these electronic hallucinations.
53:52It's a post-literate society and that is really a focus of my book.
53:57Um uh society of spectacle the Empire of Illusion the end of literacy in the triumph of spectacle. So, um if you're not grounded in political theory, if you don't know Marx and Marxists are most important and Engels critic of capitalism or you know, somebody who dissects capitalism. If you haven't read um [clears throat] Proudhon or Bakunin if you Emma Goldman and if you don't if you don't understand revolutionary theory, if you don't under Gramsci, um you're kind of blinded, which is how they want you. And that the rise [clears throat] of the post-literate society worries me because these are the people, you know, we we
54:49can learn from it's a huge shortcut. We can learn from the past. We can learn from their analysis. We can learn from their struggles. We can learn from their mistakes.
55:01Um but if we're cut off from the past and it may even It's not like I can't go down to the bookstore in Princeton and buy the books. Well, I have them here, but uh if we can't learn from the past, then we can't affect the present. And that worries me the most.
55:17Um so, take a look at the film that uh Milena and Thomas Max made in Italy Resistance 101. It's on YouTube.
55:31And this was when I went with Francesca Albanese, Greta Thunberg, and Yanis Varoufakis to Genoa where the dock workers uh called a strike and uh uh have refused to load weapons on the ships bound for Israel because it it was a physical representation of what we have to do, but you then had all these amazing figures from around the world.
55:56You know, people I really admire um kind of saying, you know, why we have to do it and then what the cost is and um so uh that that worries me. The severance from a print-based culture cutting us off from our past because they're never going to teach you Gramsci in school. They're not going to teach you uh you know, this stuff. You've got to go You've got to be proactive. You've got to go out and read it on your own.
56:26Um the the system is uh created as a you know, education is a form of indoctrination. It's not a I mean, I you know, went to a lot of these schools. These schools are formed and taught at others. They're formed to perpetuate the plutocracy.
56:44And they do it very well.
56:46Um so I think that is I'm told that we're at 1 hour. Um so thank you very much and um again uh if you have a chance, go on YouTube and watch Resistance 101.
57:08And if you can, pre-order our book um from Fantagraphics Requiem for Gaza. It's uh was a crucible of a year. As Joe said, I never want to go through that again. Um but because Israel blocked and block and blocked foreign journalists from going into Gaza and murdered assassinated over 250 of our Palestinian colleagues.
57:36Um it's a story that Israel and the Zionists have worked extremely hard to uh prevent people from hearing.
57:46Um thanks.
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