Ep 226: The Importance of 'Seriousness,' or Why Palestinians Can't Be Witness to Their Own Genocide (Part I)
Release Date: 08/06/2025
Ep 234: TikTok, Gen Z's Move to Social Media and Elite Panic Over Unsanctioned News
Citations Needed
In this episode, we examine our political class' TikTok neurosis, how Gaza fueled its sell to US and Israeli military contractors, and the long history of elite panics around unsanctioned information flows. With guest Omar Zahzah.
info_outline
News Brief: ICE, Senate Dems' Counterinsurgency PR, and the Limits of Body Cam Liberalism
Citations Needed
In this News Brief, we detail the fundamental problems with Senate Democrats' cosmetic reforms, the strategy of letting outrage blow over and the conspicuous absence of any proposal that touches ICE's obscene budget.
info_outline
Ep 233: How US Media Naturalizes Capital Strikes and Helps the Rich Undermine Democracy
Citations Needed
In this episode, we examine how billionaires and corporations threatening capital strikes and capital flight to discipline populist politicians and movements is treated as normal, obvious, and healthy by US media.
info_outline
News Brief: As Dem Leadership Waffles—Labor, Organizers, Immigrants Fight Back in Minneapolis
Citations Needed
In this News Brief, we break down Dem leadership's fatuous "body cam" and "training" response to ICE brutality, and how organizers in the Twin Cities are not settling for cosmetic reform. With guest Janette Corcelius.
info_outline
News Brief: For Media Reporting on Iran, Trump Suddenly Morphs into Pro-Democracy Humanitarian
Citations Needed
In this News Brief, we discuss mainstream media coverage of ongoing protests across Iran and how nearly every major Western outlet has been uncritically framing any potential regime change plans by the US government—including Trump ordering a military attack on the country—as being motivated primarily, if not solely, by concern for the lives, safety and rights of demonstrators.
info_outline
News Brief: How Corporate Media Laid the Groundwork for a Rightwing Incitement Campaign in Minnesota
Citations Needed
In this News Brief, we detail how CBS, Fox, WSJ, and NYT promoted an essentialized, overblown narrative on the "Somali Minnesota fraud" story, teeing up a full blown rightwing incitement campaign against Minneapolis's immigrant communities.
info_outline
Ep 232: US Meddling, the Limits of 'Agency' Discourse and How Media Chooses Which 'Voices' To Center
Citations Needed
In this episode, we discuss the uses and misuses of liberal standpoint theory to promote US meddling, sanctions, and bombing. With guest Vincent Bevins.
info_outline
News Brief: BBC's Gaza Double Standard and Western Liberalism's Crisis of Legitimacy
Citations Needed
In this News Brief, we interview journalist Daniel Trilling and discuss his investigation into the BBC's systemic anti-Palestinian bias.
info_outline
Ep 231 - How To Oppose Genocide Without Opposing Genocide (Part 2): AIPAC Dems' Fake Israel Criticisms
Citations Needed
In this episode, we detail the buyers' market for superficial Gaza critiques that permit ambitious Democrats to look pro-Palestine without the downside of actually being so. With guest Tariq Kenney-Shawa.
info_outline
Ep 230 - How To Oppose Genocide Without Opposing Genocide (Part 1): Biden World's Reputation Laundering PR Tour
Citations Needed
In this episode, we detail recent attempts by former Biden officials to rewrite history and absolve themselves of responsibility for the horrors of Gaza, and lay out the emerging Dem-aligned media industry of vibing past Democrats' lockstep support for genocide.
info_outline“12 UN Relief Works Agency staff members are accused of involvement in Hamas' attack against Israel,” reports NPR. “Details Emerge on U.N. Workers Accused of Aiding Hamas Raid,” announces The New York Times. “Hamas Military Compound Found Beneath U.N. Agency Headquarters in Gaza,” claims The Wall Street Journal.
In January 2024—literally on the same day the International Court of Justice deemed Israel was committing “plausible genocide”—a number of sensationalistic headlines broke across U.S. media, namely The Wall Street Journal and New York Times, telling us in 40-point font that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the single most important supplier of food and medical aid in Palestine, was in fact a front for "Hamas." Western audiences were told that, based on “Israeli intelligence”, 12 workers at the agency may have been involved in the attacks on October 7, 2023, and, in another blockbuster claim, that “Around 10% of Palestinian aid agency’s 12,000 staff in Gaza have links to militants, according to intelligence dossier.” Given this history, the logic went, who knows how else the agency might be operating at the behest of Hamas?
It would have been a major revelation if there were any evidence to support it. But there wasn’t and the story was later dropped, walked back or ignored by the media. But the damage was done: President Biden quickly defunded UNRWA and Israel criminalized it, helping fast track mass starvation in Gaza. So why did media outlets publish so many breathless and lurid headlines about Israel’s claims without an ounce of independent confirmation? To what extent, if any, have outlets acknowledged their journalistic and moral recklessness? And how has this contributed to the mass starvation, immiseration, and wholesale murder of the population of Gaza?
On this episode, Part I of our two-part season finale on “The Importance of Seriousness, or Why Palestinians Can’t Be Witness to Their Own Genocide,” we examine the role of legacy news media in inciting the starvation of millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the racist double standard of what sources and experts can be trusted and the broader incitement campaign against the UN Relief and Works Agency which directly caused today’s mass starvation in Gaza.
Our guest is Moureen Kaki, Head of Mission at Glia.