J. Blake Turner

Sociologist, epidemiologist, and political gadfly.

[J. Blake Turner @JBlakeTurner]

@Liberation_Blk Amen!

[Sony Thăng @nxt888]

There is a mythology the U.S. built around the American War in Vietnam. It goes like this:

Young idealistic soldiers were sent into an unwinnable situation by confused politicians.

They came home broken and unappreciated.

It was a tragedy. A mistake. A lesson learned.

Notice what that story does.

It centers Americans.

Their trauma. Their confusion. Their homecoming. Their feelings.

In this story, the Vietnamese people are a backdrop.

A jungle. An obstacle. An abstraction.

Three million dead Vietnamese people are the scenery for a story about American self-discovery.

They made hundreds of movies about Vietnam.

The Deer Hunter. Apocalypse Now. Platoon. Full Metal Jacket. Born on the Fourth of July. Hamburger Hill.

Count how many of them center a Vietnamese character with a full human life, a family, a name you remember after the credits roll.

They turned our genocide into their coming-of-age story.

They lost the war and still managed to make themselves the main character.

And then, with extraordinary arrogance, they put their soldiers' names on a wall in Washington and call it a memorial, as if the dead to be mourned were the people who flew 10,000 miles to do the killing.

Where is the wall for our three million?

There isn't one.

Because in their telling, we were never quite real enough to mourn.

[Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI]

this shift presents a new challenge for the pro-Palestine left in the US, such as it is. Namely the rise of more sophisticated PR that seems pro-Palestine, or gestures towards it with squishy rhetoric and signaling but is ultimately just rebranded liberal zionist time-wasting.

[Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI]

Underrated sociopathic element of US-Israel violence is after they kill The Bad Guy, typically along with 1000s of civilians, they feed the “inside story” to baby bird NatSec reporters at NYT or Atlantic who do a glowing Zero Dark Thirty write-up about how sexy and slick it was

[J. Blake Turner @JBlakeTurner]

The Dem Party leadership is utterly despicable at this point.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

⭕️ Ryan Grim on Democrats’ cynical political calculations

Grim argues that many Democrats quietly support US strikes on Iran and even regime change, but understand a broader war is deeply unpopular. He says that helps explain why party leaders did not advance a War Powers vote before the attack, allowing it to stall until after the strike.

Publicly, Democrats demand explanations and warn Trump is acting “recklessly.” Privately, Grim suggests, they see a political win-win: if the war goes badly or leads to U.S. casualties, Trump pays the price.

@jeremyscahill | @ryangrim

[Mark Ames @MarkAmesExiled]

Have any Democrats or European leaders, who always pontificate about international law and the liberal order, denounced the grave US-Israel war crimes committed over the last 2 days, ie unprovoked war of aggression + assassinating a head of state?

[J. Blake Turner @JBlakeTurner]

@minakimes @willmenaker 😂

[Briahna Joy Gray @briebriejoy]

Turning "dead Gaza baby" into a punchline is such an evil choice that I'm struggling to even engage with the outrageous lie that we only care about Gazan deaths because of an Iranian social media campaign.

[Sana Saeed @SanaSaeed]

The reason Van Jones can get up, use “dead Gaza babies” so crassly, toss in a joke about Diddy mid-sentence, and have an audience erupt in laughter - without hesitation for either context or content - is because of the depth and breadth of dehumanization that’s been permitted toward Palestinians (including by those who call themselves “allies”). There is no America in which “dead Jewish babies” could ever be invoked in such a vulgar way on such a platform.

So long as Palestinians are denied full humanity - which includes the right to the language of their liberation without deference to the “feelings” of their oppressors; the right to resist extermination; the right to speak for themselves; and the right to have their humanity disentangled from their oppressors’ “security” - this casual, crass dehumanization will persist.

[Luke Savage @LukewSavage]

Even as the target of condemnation, Israel still gets to be the protagonist here. It might err or overreach, but its motives and objectives are still, somehow, being cast as fundamentally benign.

[Eric Hovagim @EricHovagim]

Peak neoliberalism is missing the vote to stop arms sales to the guys killing the starving kids while talking about how we should feed the kids

[J. Blake Turner @JBlakeTurner]

@Bryan_Duncan I did not know that!

[CUIMC Stands Up @CUIMCStandsUp]

Out today in the Columbia Spectator — faculty from CUIMC Stands Up & CU Faculty Alliance reframe the narrative about antisemitism at Columbia through an analysis of the HEALS data. Read it here ⬇️ (1/6)

https://t.co/o0aQFKIaU7

[CUIMC Stands Up @CUIMCStandsUp]

Thank you to Rise Up, Columbia for the astute analysis and for the shoutout to CUIMC Stands Up!

We’re a group of medical campus faculty & staff firmly AGAINST the exchange of our values for grant funds, even with our jobs at risk.

https://t.co/YY2hsXJa5a

[Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI]

Absolutely shameful, NEA leadership overrode its members. The head of the ADL went on MSNBC and compared a keffiyeh to a swastika and these are the clowns tasked with teaching our children about “hate.” Note how the “safety” of Palestinian kids never matters in any of this.

[J. Blake Turner @JBlakeTurner]

@LunaticFriend2 One of the worst experiences one can have. 😢

[J. Blake Turner @JBlakeTurner]

@LunaticFriend2 I’m doing okay, hope you are too.

[J. Blake Turner @JBlakeTurner]

@LunaticFriend2 I hope she is okay. 🙏

[J. Blake Turner @JBlakeTurner]

@Deadspin What a dumb-assed article.

[Hala Jaber @HalaJaber]

🥀 This image, showing Dr. Marwan Sultan & his family smiling, waving, normal, human, alive, makes it hit even harder. They weren’t militants. Their “crime” was healing the wounded in Gaza under siege, under bombardment, under the world’s indifferent gaze.

An entire family, gone… A doctor, his wife, their children, targeted, erased. And for what? Running a hospital, refusing to abandon the sick & refusing to abandon Gaza.

This isn’t “collateral damage.” This is Israeli style assassination, in its ugliest form. This is obliteration & calculated cruelty disguised as “security.”