EP 18 Is The Assault On Gaza Class Struggle?

More properly, is the conflict, resistance and all, class struggle?

Plus, the latest fuckery out of RFK's pro disease clown cavalcade.

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Transcript

0:25

I’m Odysseas. I'm your nephew. I'm here with my uncle. I mean uncle. Yeah, he's the uncle right there. Doctor. Abraham. Joseph. Layon. And, we are here to talk to you once again. And happy to be back. Happy to be back. Happy. Well, you know. And so happy to be back. I'm not sure that, happy is the term I would use for. The. News while now, but. But happy to be back. Happy to be happy to be here with you. I'd much rather process, this bullshit with you then, then then, then alone. And I hope, I hope, everyone else feels that way, too. I think that, So, better together. Yeah. Solidarity is, is the ticket to overcoming this crap. So what are we here to talk about today? My my my uncle. Well, I think we probably need to, at least since the genocide. Keep in Gaza keeps getting worse. Yeah. Since, Trump's, effective secretary of state, I think is Wyckoff is his name has failed miserably at getting any kind of, agreements signed. From my reading of and, in the press and, and listening to other people who've spoken. It sounds as if Wyckoff senses of witchcraft might be a a guy who's trying hard, a decent, you know, what do I know? And doesn't really matter. But at least he's acting in good faith. Yeah, it sounds like. But it sounds like he met with, the, interlocutors from Hamas. They came up with an agreement. The Israelis didn't like it, change it. And then Wyckoff blamed Hamas. So? So it's the murders. The genocide continues. It is genocide. The Israelis continue to deny it's genocide, with some exceptions. A, a brief amount of hope slash light slash. I don't know what else you can call it is that there are hundreds, not thousands, but hundreds of Israelis, with photographs of the kids who have been killed in Gaza saying, stop the war, stop the genocide, and, get the hostages out. And this is in, in, in Israel. So, so, you know. It takes a lot of courage. It takes it takes whole dramatic amounts of courage and courage. And and I would I would point out to whomever listens to this, that those Israelis I don't know their names, I don't I'll never meet them. But those people are our family to my mind. They are our family. They're our comrades. There are people who, if they said, we need something, there are people who I would say, let's figure out a way to help them. This these are people who are willing to stand up for what's right and very difficult circumstances. Yes. So so that is going on. The starvation is also, continues. Yeah. My I have, probably much too much been on. Social media, blue Sky as well as Twitter. Yeah. Where I, where in I refer to the Israeli occupation force and the Israeli government as worse than Nazis. Yeah. Which is a little strong, I grant you. And I'm bringing it up now because somebody might say, well, why would you say that? The Nazis were pretty bad. But, you know, the Nazis tried very hard to hide what they were doing. All right. The Israelis appear to relish in the butchery and the debauchery in the murders in the starvation and the absolute and the genocide that they're perpetrating. So it's. An across, across a wide swath of, of the, well, yes. The of the country, something like 80% of, think that it should be five ethnically cleansed. The last one, the last thing I said, the Penn State survey, 87, 84, I forget, said. Yeah, percent of the population surveyed, Israeli population surveyed said that the ethnic cleansing should happen. Full stop, 47% said everybody there should be killed. Yeah. Wiped out. Yeah. So the fact that that survey again, Penn State survey, the fact that survey has been done, that that exists and that there are our Israeli brothers and sisters standing, demanding and and to this horror, to these crimes, again, just speaks to how risky it is for them and how much how closely we should hold them to ourselves. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is and I mean, I know I don't need to say this to you and probably not to most of the people who would listen to this, but there are those who go on and on and on about Jews, this and Jews that. This is not a Jewish issue. This is a Zionist, an ideological issue. That's all right. Our comrades, many of them are Jews. Some of them are Muslims, some of them are atheists, some of them are socialists, some of them are you and me. You know, it's like, this is not a Jewish. It's not a clarion. It's not. It's not a Jewish and Muslim. It's not. It's not sectarian. There's Palestinians who are atheists. There's Palestinians who are Christian. There's, you know, and in the US, there's more, more Zionists that are, that are Christian than anything else. It is, you know. And so it's important to say, sure. It's just important to, to, I think to raise that issue now to state it's it's should be clear and I think it's important to state it. Absolutely. This is ours is an ideology of ours is not a religious good. God Almighty, I don't I'm uninterested. The great religions are interesting. I like reading about them. I like hearing about them. I like being taught about them. But this is not a religious battle. This is an ideological political battle. That's right. And you know, it is fundamental. I'm sorry. Go ahead, go ahead. No, no, I was just going to I was going to touch on the some of the class aspects just to what I was. No, no. So no, no, no. It's, Those. Exactly my thoughts. Precisely. And fundamentally, this is, a colonialist. You know, imperialist, function of of capitalism. And when you break it down, in its, in its most basic sense, what's actually going on is class warfare. You have, a subject population, an underclass, proletariat. Right. Being essentially exterminated to make way for what? So that their resource resources can be exploited so that, the functions of the Imperial Corps can be furthered, you know, whether that you consider that the us. I mean, I or I consider Israel a colony of the US. There's some, you know, it's a like a sort of neocolonial, thing going on, but but essentially, they're furthering our interests. We're furthering theirs. Well, not you and I, but, the US, and, and and it's happening. You know, nothing happens purely for ideological reasons. There's, in capitalism, there is a motivating factor. And that motivating factor is money. If it was not profitable to be wiping out, Palestinians, it would not be happening. It is. There's a vested interest. There's a whole bunch of gas underneath their their, feet. There's, you know, there's this space, there's the real estate alone. There's there's the prospect of, of having an imperial outpost, you know, and, and the resistance to that, be it inside of Palestine or globally is is a form you know, if Marx were to look upon it today, he would say, this is this is, this is class, conflict. This is, class struggle. So. Yeah, well, I mean, I think I think you're right, although I think the one thing where I might have a slight difference with you is nothing happens just for ideological reasons. There's there's money involved. I mean, that is ideological to my mind that you're right. You know, you're right. Yep. That's part and parcel, but but. Mildly good clarification. You're right. You know, you know Marx I mean again I, we I mean, Marx wrote about British capitalism in its most, vibrant stage. Both. Yeah. Vibrant, also just destructive of the working class. It, you know, one of the things that I think we don't even have to pay attention so much to Gaza, we can stop for a second and just look, look at France. I mean, France with an advanced working class and advanced socialist and communist Party. I mean, very advanced. But look at the, the, the interaction interaction is that if that's the right word that France had with Algeria. Yeah. The absolute horror that was perpetrated upon Algeria by the French, colonialists. Yeah. Not withstanding the fact that, that, that France had an advanced, Workers Party notwithstanding. In fact, I believe it was Camus who said, you know, yes, I'm, I'm, I'm I'm grossly paraphrasing. I'll get this slightly wrong. But he said, you know, you know, I'm a socialist drummer. I'm a whatever I am a communist, but I'm a Frenchman. First, he was, supportive of the colonialist, enterprise. It was, you know, so it is it is true that one of the ways I think that class struggle works and it's it speaks, you know, I mean, to the to the, deviousness. Brilliance. Not in a good way. Yeah. Of of the capitalist class that they will turn working class people of different with different hues of skin, with different actions against one another from different countries. One of the reasons I'm convinced remain convinced that Trotsky and, the early Bolsheviks, that there's got to be an international, a worldwide revolution because they recognize that without that, it's not just that Russia was a backward country, it's it. Without that, the capitalist class would turn other workers against them. And in fact, that's what's happened. Yeah. You know, again, we, we we've stated our state one more time. This is not a Jewish religious issue. Yes, but but it's important that that Judaism and some of the beauty of Judaism is a struggle for justice. And Jews have been in the forefront. Yeah, for my God, for centuries. Yeah. In the struggle for justice. Yeah. How this ideology, which, you know, predates, the name may not predate but to some extent predates Herzl. But how this ideology, this Western colonialist ideology takes, Jewish workers working class and turns them into colonists. Is is a challenge in some ways to understand but clearly understand. And I think we've started to lay out something of what it looks like. And and it can be and it can be laid out, maybe not in its conclusion, but certainly in the way it comes into being to some extent. By looking at the French example, I think in Algeria. And, and you know, and it's, it is, I mean elements of the working class become convinced that their enemies are not their class enemies, the capitalist class. Yeah. Right. But are these other people and in this case I mean, in fact in this case we see what the Israeli government has done to its dehumanization of Palestinians isn't just, again, mirror image of, or I guess, mirror images, right face of what the Germans did to Jews, German Jews, Polish Jews, in the last century, during the 30s and 40s, 30s and 40s. So, so it is, it is colonialism. Imperialism is a tool, a very well handled, very well wielded tool by the capitalist class, international capitalist class asset that puts, barriers between, the working class of different countries and basically makes it difficult to, for them to work together. Right. We have seen in the in Palestine before the foundation of Israel, that there was a Communist party that it was comprised of, Christians, Muslims, Jews, you know, I mean, atheists, but it didn't matter, you know, in other words, the religious component I only referred to to try and differentiate the different groups of people, but it was there. And that party to some other, to some extent still exists. It does not carry the weight to that, of course, once did. So I so I deliberately undercut. Yeah. I mean. So but that, I mean, this is a weakness of, workers parties. This is a we actually see a weakness of the working class to, to be able to be bamboozled in this way so that workers, Israeli Jewish workers, are now picking up guns and taking out their frustrations. And and there are clearly many before this war, before this. Sorry. Forgive me. It's not a war before this, genocide started, there were demonstration after demonstration after demonstration about the cost of living and housing and food and on and on. The horror of the transport system. Just on and on and on. In Israel, rather than tying that in with the demand for justice by the Palestinians, it was lopped off and redirected to this genocidal fury that the Israeli military. Now, yeah, it is a truism that, capitalism's response to crisis is fascism. It, you know, rather than, you know what what are they going to do, redistribute, wealth? Absolutely not. Well, yeah. And, and and it's liberalism's. I mean, this is the problem. I mean, I, you know, I'm not taking a cheap shot at liberals. Liberals have done lots of wonderful things. But when. Well, no, no, but but but it is. I mean, it's true. Class. We can. Go through that I don't know but. Not mere liberals. No I'm not I'm not talking liberals. But you know, liberalism has has pushed us forward. But the the challenges is that it is way too easy for liberal liberals to basically back away when they see, yes, difficulty, as we're seeing in Gaza and say, you know, what's wrong with these Palestinians? I mean, what's wrong with them? Why don't they just, I don't know, do it peacefully, you know, you know, over I mean, you see this over and over and over again. It's frankly a lack of understanding. Is it a lack of reading Marx? I mean, I don't know, probably not, but it's certainly a lack of. Wouldn't hurt. Understanding. Well, yeah, it probably not. There's a lack of understanding of of the way the world truly works. Yes. The power centers in the world. Yeah. The the role of capital and the role of imperialism. Yeah. And so that that is a challenge, that we still need to overcome. Yeah. Yeah. Well, my voice. Yeah. Go ahead, go ahead. Continue. Oh, my fondest hope. Still, is that, you know, it's going to be up to, the Israelis and the Palestinians what that country looks like and is called when this is over, they're going to have to do what? Not us. But my fondest hope is a secular, democratic state with equal rights for all. From the river to the sea and even beyond the river to the sea. Because all of those borders in the Middle East on artificially drawn after World War One, they didn't exist. Our family, who lived near Mount Lebanon, walked into Palestine, walked into Syria. In fact, they were called Syrians. It was just there was no borders, there was no crossing. It was just places to go. It was one big area. And and, you know, you, you, you you break you break large areas up into smaller areas so that you can control them. Yes. And that's what, the French and the British and then the Americans did, attempted to do and successfully did, right, after World War One. All right. Empower one group to even within the areas that you carve up, you empower one group and use them to oppress the others. I mean, Lebanon boy, has that ever been, been the case? It is it is, you know, when Israel invaded, they used, you know, Christian minority groups to, to fight for them and to to commit horrible atrocities. It's. I mean, it's true. And, you know, one of the I've been thinking, because, I, I'm still trying to finish this book, The Reluctant Whistleblower, which I'm sure I've told you about before about that. And, and, and one of the things I've been thinking about is this, was is 1982. In 1982, there was a group of about eight, ten of us, Cook County Hospital anesthesiologists, surgeons, internal medicine people. I was just an internal medicine junior resident at the time. We were 24 hours away from flying out of O'Hare International to Damascus and going overland from Damascus to, Beirut to go into the camps to provide medical care under the banner of the Red Crescent within, Assad's government. The dead, canceled the whole thing. I mean, this is a this is a, at least for me, this pretty much life long, journey trying to sort of say, how can we figure out a way that we work together to make our world just a touch better at the end? Not for your tribe or for my tribe, but for all of us, you know, and for and more importantly, for our kids who aren't tribal until we make them tribal. Right. Right. Anyhow, it's it's it's so it's remains disheartening. The horror is visible to for everyone to be seen. It is a genocide. I have little hope that anybody, including, by the way, somewhat disappointing. The first or second. Depends on what data you look at. Largest trading partner of Israel is China. No, China has spoken up against the genocide but they have not closed their embassy. They have not stopped trade. Yeah. Nor has Russia. Yeah. You know I don't expect the United States to do anything that is constructive. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Yeah. Yeah. But you know the EU they're a disaster. Russia I mean I know they've got their own, they've got issues. And so everything's more complicated than I'm making it. Of course. Well yeah. You know. But so I mean no I mean the least you can do Israel should be ostracized. Every single country in the world should do a lot more than just ostracize them. But, you know, the very minimum, you know, at the least, they should. Be boycott, divest, sanction, got put together a military force, a military force that will force. Yes, disengagement. Not a peacekeeping force, because there's no peace. Now, a military force is heavily armed enough that they will force disengagement and force the Israelis to stay in the pre 67 borders. Right. And I mean, there's I don't see any other way. Or dissolve that doesn't. Happen if that. Well, if that doesn't happen, it's going to take a massive military defeat of the Israelis to make this go away. And I don't know, they're taking casualties in. It's a problem. They've got economic problems. But I don't see on the horizon. I don't see that defeat. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll not talk about this more to, I want I wanted to, I wanted to get to some of our other stuff as well. We have, potentially a very, special guest, coming in to talk, with us a little further into develop, develop a Marxist critique of, of the situation. We'll talk about this more. We have pretty limited time right now. So I wanted to move on, and catch a couple of these other things, if that's all right with you. Sure, sure, sure. Oh, one thing I should mention is there is, Greta Thunberg and, And also Liam, I can't think of his last name. The guy who played on Game of Thrones right there on that boat. Yes. Yeah, there's a flotilla trying to that just recently was was, drone bombed by Israel, outside of Malta. Yeah. The, the the previous boat was bombed. Yeah. Yeah, I'm at the previous one, not the next. No, they haven't done it again. They have now left again. They are en route again. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Take some serious courage. Yes. Some serious courage. They're braver. Yeah. Than any soldier on in the Israeli army. That's all I can say. And it's a first. And it's the truth my man. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, Yeah, we can we can pick this, back up, next time and, and cover that other stuff you'd like. We can get you out the door. Another couple quick words. So we. So we have a couple quick words. Sure. Yeah. Covid is seems to be picking up again. And, RFK Jr, the, head of health and Human Services Trump appointee, a, a lawyer, an incompetent, an incompetent, a grifter, a salesman of supplements has now come out and said that women, pregnant women should not get Covid vaccinations. They did this without, discussing this issue with CDC. Experts. They did it without discussing this with the American College of Experts from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and, Acog American College of Obstetricians and going to colleges has come out and said, no, no, no, no. Yes. Get get vaccinated. If you're pregnant, it protects the mom from serious disease. It protects the child from serious disease because the kid, when it's born will have the mom's antibodies. So, It's it's all nonsense. Yeah, well, every single one of Trump's appointees I can think of. No variation on this. No, no, no, personally, that would cause me to vary the statement I'm going to make. But every one of his appointees are incompetent grifters. They belong anywhere near any place of authority, any place. Oh, yeah. So there's not RFK. So there's the comment about, not getting vaccinated, I think is a serious problem. Additionally, it appears and this was just, it was a, notation, in the in the publication of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, Double-A. Triple-A. Yes. Is that funding for an HIV vaccine, HIV, the cause of Aids? Yeah, the cause of lots and lots and lots. Massive numbers of early deaths. And a vaccine is actually quite close. We can put onto the website, the paper that shows that there is there there is a, candidate that's immunogenic. Yep. But the but the funds for it have just been terminated by, the, by the, guy who runs NIH, which is under HHS, which is under Kennedy. Yeah. Serious a very serious problem. So it's and it's, you know, somebody could listen to this and, and they could say cynically, well, but I'm not I don't have Aids. And no one I know has Aids. So what do I care? But what these guys are doing is absolutely eviscerating. I think the term problem is defense trading. American science as well as American universities. Right. The multibillion, multi, hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars or is it billions? I may have that wrong that Trump pulled out of Harvard University. I'm no particular fan of Harvard. I mean, it's just a conservative university for wealthy people. But there's a lot of smart professors here, and they've done a lot of good work that will devastate Harvard University's ability to, advance science, to advance the social sciences. This, this well, this is not, well, a couple of years, and we can turn it around. Oh, this will be generational, the damage it's being done. So it's not just stupid comments related to Covid and they are stupid. It's not just idiotic policy related to HIV. And it is idiotic, but dangerous. Both of them will cost lives, but those the the, the the men and women and I use those terms in this case very loosely. I would rather say creatures, but I guess they are men and women that Trump has put into power to run the multiple bureaus, bureaus of our government are grotesquely incompetent. Yes, I'm the head of FEMA. Who's whose name I can't remember right now, but who said, you mean we have hurricanes in Florida? Had no clue to the, head of Department of Education? Oh, yes. Didn't seem to understand. What was the, Yeah, that was so, There was a query, and she had no clue. I'm. No, I'm blocking there's there's there's such there's such riches of their incompetence. I can't keep them all straight, I know. Right? She was asked a basic question, and couldn't get it right to the head of, Homeland Security who didn't know what habeas corpus meant. Oh, yeah, that was that was the one I was. It's, habeas corpus means that you, the president, can throw anybody in the country you wants. No, you moron, it does not mean that it's exactly the opposite of that. Yeah, exactly. You got to produce the body. So the due process is had otherwise. Otherwise, you know, if I look at you and I'm, ice agent and I say, yeah, I know you look like you're a foreigner to me. I can say there is no due process. How are you ever going to prove you're not? You can't. There's no due process. And you'll end up in El Salvador, too. So there are more. I mean, there are multiple areas of action. I, I got it, I got it, okay. Yeah. She thought, she thought a. She thought, I was a1 like A1 sauce. The steak sauce. Yeah. She, she didn't know I didn't know I from steak sauce. I like A1 sauce. Hey. Like I yeah, it's, you know, probably more useful than, Anyway, we can catch up. We can pick up more later. I've got to run. Unfortunately. Yeah. Get out of here. Go, go take care of your wife. It was so good to see you, uncle. I love you so much, man. Okay. Thanks. Bye. Love you. And you'll get this up and running with. I've been telling people about this. I tell them, make sure you listen to the opening and closing music, because that's the best. Better than you and I. Haha. Okay. Yeah, I love it, I love it. I'll see you next time and I'll see you soon. We'll talk to everybody else. Bye. Take care of yourself. Okay? So that's it, for today, guys. Uncle's hitting the road, am I uncle, your uncle, our uncle. Comrade. Uncle. And this is your, your comrade nephew. So, you know, I want you guys to stay strong. Remember, you're not alone out there. We're all in this fight together. It truly is a global struggle for peace, justice and equality. And I do believe that we will get there, sooner than later. It is, struggle is long. It's a marathon. You gotta take care of yourself. So, you know, whoever you are, wherever you are, you know, don't get don't get glued to the horror. If you can, take, take a few minutes for yourself. And above all, remember that, that we're here with you and, and you're not crazy. It is, that's the world, that's gone crazy. And it's gone crazy. Mostly due to, capitalism. Right? There's a, as it go. The point of life is not to find oneself in the majority, but to avoid finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. I think that's about I'm paraphrasing here. I believe that was Marcus Aurelius. Great stoic. So, stay out of the ranks of the insane, and, even if it keeps you out of the majority, although, as much as they want us to think that we're alone, I truly know deep in my heart that we are not. And part of that is because of interacting with you. Wonderful folks. So stay strong. Free Palestine. And, you know, asked la Victoria siempre, Lego by.