Context creator, co-author of "The Myth of Normal", theatre songsmith, mental chiropractor. 2 time Hip Hop Karaoke NYC finalist. I co-host @mostmoralpod too.
I hear you’re actually going to play @JesseBrown’s rebuttal which I cut out of the debate video, the entirety of which you also sent to Jesse to publish it if he pleases, @kthalps . Your continued attempts to bury this story and censor Jesse’s voice will fail, this I vow!
Tonight 7PM ET journalist @SMohyeddin reports back from Nakba exhibit & responds to Jesse Brown of Canadaland. @OliverALarkin on why he's running against Jared Moskowitz. Palestinian-American lawyer Jawad Ali on settler attack on his family home. https://t.co/mfTgb5UKj1
@MarkBourrie@JesseBrown I remember him asking questions in a cultural studies class that sounded smart and I figured I just hadn’t read enough Foucault to understand, but now I question that assumption. Then again, that might have just been the nature of cultural studies classes.
Here's my full conversation with @JesseBrown about anti-Zionism, hate, Jewish-Canadian safety, and what exactly he thinks he's doing.
NB: this is not a debate about the history of Zionism itself, nor genocide, nor apartheid. Jesse claims not to take a position on these things, or at least side-steps them at every opportunity, so there was no point in trying to pin him down on the facts. Still, I think it was an illuminating exchange and I hope a lot of people get to see it.
https://t.co/gfaoCZGMkj
NEW: The Board of Directors at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) will formally change its definition of who qualifies as a journalist, to broadly exclude slain Palestinian and Lebanese journalists who worked for government-funded media outlets. Israeli, American, and Ukrainian journalists who work for state-funded outlets or are embedded with the military will remain recognized as journalists, of course.
The move was catalyzed to appease the right-wing Zionist rag The Free Beacon, which has repeatedly accused Palestinian and Lebanese journalists of being undercover militants or used their political opinions or affiliations as justification for their killing by the IOF.
This is a racist scandal of massive proportions for everyone involved, and it makes a mockery of the purported mission of the organization. It is absolutely abhorrent that the organization’s resources are wasted on this cowardly witch-hunt, at a moment in history that is the deadliest for journalists, especially in Palestine and Lebanon.
"You cannot hate Zionism as a political ideology, no matter how vile or how fascist it becomes, no matter the number of atrocity crimes committed in its name, because 97% of Jews support it." - Jesse Brown, wondering what went wrong
But… @JesseBrown told me it’s an antisemitic lie to suggest this sort of thing happens. I’m confused. Maybe that just applies to Canada, where everyone is honest and sincere at all times and no one would ever exploit Jewish fear to drive support for Israel. Too polite!
The “rising tide of antisemitism” panic machine just ran into one of the facts it would rather bury.
Florida prosecutors seek a significant prison term for Israeli Michael Ron David Kadar, convicted of making *thousands of hoax threats* against Jewish community centers, schools, and airlines.
Michael Ron David Kadar, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen from Ashkelon, was already convicted in Israel over a campaign of thousands of fake bomb threats targeting Jewish community centers, schools, hospitals, airports, airlines, and other institutions. Times of Israel reported in 2018 that he admitted to roughly 2,000 hoax calls, including threats against JCCs, and told police he “liked to see people running around in panic.”
Now Kadar has been extradited to the United States and arraigned in Orlando on federal charges tied to bomb and active-shooter threats against Jewish institutions in Florida, including community centers and preschool programs.
The Justice Department says the calls forced evacuations, lockdowns, and emergency responses. No explosives were found.
The fear industry never wants to sit with the facts: threats used to justify surveillance, censorship, militarized policing, and sweeping accusations against Israel’s critics have, in one of the most infamous cases, been traced back to an Israeli-American hoaxer.
Every accusation is a confession.
Karl: You’ve got Josh Gottheimer, a Democratic member of Congress, who says, “Many of us believe, as do I, if you’re a socialist, you are not a Democrat.”
And in fact, they put out a manifesto today. Have you seen this thing?
Mamdani: Sounds pretty socialist to me.
Karl: It’s not a communist manifesto. It’s a moderate manifesto saying we are capitalists, not socialists. We believe in a growing, fair, and competitive economy, entrepreneurship, ownership. I mean, this is a direct response. They’ve made it clear what they think about what you did here on Tuesday.
Mamdani: Well, I mean, you know, that’s great, but what’s a party if not its voters?
And I’m proud to sit in front of you as the mayor of our city, having received more than a million votes a little less than a year ago.
And when we’re talking about these incredible congressional candidates, they won their races, and they won their races with a vision of what politics should be—one that actually speaks to working people.
And for a lot of people who ask themselves, “What does democratic socialism mean?” you can tell them the answer at a theoretical level: it’s the choice to extend democracy from the ballot box to the rest of their lives.
But in terms of what it means, over these last seven months, we’ve seen a city with democratic socialist principles at the heart of our administration. And what we’ve delivered has been record lows when it comes to murders and shootings.
Karl: So is it pragmatic democratic socialism?
Mamdani: I think democratic socialism, at heart, is pragmatic because, if we cannot deliver for working people, then what is this for? I'm not interested in writing a manifesto or frankly, in reading one. I'm interested in delivering. And that's exactly what we've been showing.
I grew up in Israel. I was educated there. Served it. Studied it. Taught about it. No one knows it better than I do. And there is no doubt. It was built on racism and the destruction of the Palestinian people.
Is he really posting the exact same clip as yesterday, just with a new caption? Were there not other moments in our long conversation where he can convince himself that I looked like the dogmatic, unreasonable, generally contemptuous one?
I didn't have time yesterday to reply substantively to @JesseBrown's slimy rendering of this clip (which apparently is the most damningly clippable moment he could find in our 49-minute conversation, in which case I must have done pretty well) because I was in Victoria at the bar mitzvah of two dear friends' son, surrounded by some of my favorite people, doing Jewish Canadian shit all day. The hate was just wafting off of me. Anyway, I'll be putting out the full video later today. Looking forward to everyone seeing what it looks like when one person who admits he feels contempt sometimes goes up against someone whose every word and action drips contempt but won't admit it because it would ruin his objective journalist shtick.
I don't like to call antizionist Jews "self-hating." I have no idea if @DanielBMate hates himself.
The problem is that he hates the rest of us. Here, he admits his "contempt" for other Jews.