Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 372: Stealing The Voice Of Authority (feat. Writers Against the War on Gaza)

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

This week we're joined by Harry and Maya from Writers Against the War on Gaza to discuss the myriad crimes of the New York Times, as well as the newspaper's role and function in both empire-building and political economy. Harry and Maya also publish an alternative newspaper called the New York War Crimes, which can be found here: https://newyorkwarcrimes.com/ Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Welcome to the show this week everybody we are joined by two very special guests Maya and Harry who organized with writers against the war on Gaza. They're here to talk about that and to talk about their publication the New York war crimes. Maya, Harry, how are y'all doing today? Doing great guys. Thanks for having us Yeah, doing well excited to be on the show. Thanks. Thanks for coming on as I was just explaining to you all before we got started the New York Times is a bit of a Hobby horse of ours. I mean because like all right, like I guess just like cards on the table like favorites

op-ed writers, I'm just gonna go ahead like I Personally have had a years-long beef with Paul Krugman like that's been my Thing I think that I think he's about to retire though. I may have read or maybe I dreamed Yeah, he just announced his retirement. Oh shit. Sorry for you my off is he's like, what am I going to do now? Finding their nemesis. That's right. Brett Stevens is a little easier to hate. He what was his big thing over the weekend? He was Luigi Manch. Yeah, Brian Thompson is the real working class hero.

Exactly. Yeah, that's good. Good shit. Maybe we can read from that one a little later on. I like the classics. I think I always go for Thomas Friedman. The classics mustache. So yes, favorite. Yeah, I love a Thomas Friedman column because in the opening paragraph, you're going to get a Webster's defines X as Y like it's gonna be like a high school

Essay yeah, that's great. I worked on my college is a opinion Section and you know our daily paper and we had I would say like 30% of what we wrote was probably better composed And it's a standard Thomas Friedman column 100% yeah percent of what we wrote was probably better composed than a standard Thomas Friedman column. 100 percent. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all of his friends, he's got this cohort of like taxi drivers around the world that he refers to for all of his sourcing. Somehow able to communicate with all of them. Beijing, Beirut, everywhere. For that reason, I've always been like kind of skeptical to get my like Uber driver or taxi drivers like opinions on stuff.

Well, I mean, well, that's not true. I always get everybody's opinions on everything, but I generally don't like come to report it. Exactly. Right. Right. I know. I find myself sometimes saying sometimes realizing I am having an interesting conversation with like an Uber driver. And it's just it's sort of my head a little bit. Right. Thomas Friedman has fucked up the taxi driver, you know, interfacing. It's, you know, not just Friedman. There's a there's a fame. Well, maybe not famous, maybe famous to me, but there's an article at the Times wrote like right before the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 their quote, this taxi driver who's like,

we welcome the Americans with open arms. They're coming to for salvation. It seems like a running trope that they go with. That's true. They love taxi drivers. They love taxi drivers that work for the CIA. Exactly right. They also love like a fanciful unicorn like

Like they like people this is just like Tom, you know, Tom and I Tom is from Eastern, Kentucky I've lived there for a long time the New York Times reporting on like Appalachia has always been very funny because they always like to find like the it's a running bit with our show like they like to find one person whose Beliefs are kind of Completely unique and idiosyncratic. That's the this is the genesis of our bit Like the bath is coal miner that like you would find some like a bath is coal miner who voted for Trump or something

You know what? I mean like not regret his vote Exactly. Yeah, they just love that shit. There's a little slice They like the one guy the one guy for the opinion regret his vote. Exactly. Yeah. They just love that shit. It's a little slice of life. They like the one guy, the one guy for the opinion. I mean, like, you know, after Simwar was killed a few a few months ago, they they interviewed one anonymous man named Mohammed in Gaza and they were like,

he says this is the best day of his life. I remember that. And this was the I mean, you know, I'm sure there's a guy who exists like that in Gaza, but it is certainly not the full spectrum of of understanding. The most obvious name to like go with Mohammed to be safe.

Sure. I've been watching too much Superbad. Yeah. I liked when David Brooks took his hillbilly friend out for Stromboli and he was. Yeah, it's a classic David Brooks device, too. He's like, I was sitting on the porch with a with a black auntie in in South Carolina discussing the election and saying, OK, yeah, finger on the pulse. Yeah, I I have to confess, I don't read as much David Brooks these days.

I have to confess, I've actually been reading a lot of Ross do that. And I mean, he's he's an interesting guy like of all the right wingers that the Times employs. He's the only one that I actually enjoy reading. Like I don't agree with him on really anything. He's extraordinarily dense but he is kind of interesting sometimes. And I again I have to confess that I kind of enjoy. He's the most sort of like psychosexual Catholic, right? Am I using him? 100%. That's I love that shit.

I love like a sexually repressed Catholic working it out in full view of everybody. That's great. No, that's always really fascinating for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, OK, so I wanted to have you both on to talk about your publication, which is the

like the good universe version of the New York Times. You know, just maybe just like start off talking a little bit about how the New York war crimes got started. Yeah, like how and why did you did you all decide to start this project? Well, early on in, I guess, Israel's genocide on Gaza and its most recent iteration, I guess. In November, 2023, a group of us decided to form a kind of broad collective organization called Writers Against the War on Gaza. And together we came up with this idea

that was initially gonna be a sort of one-off. We staged an action in the lobby of the New York Times building in New York City, and we wanted to have a paper, sort of like a piece of agit prop that was meant initially to look exactly like the New York Times itself. And we compiled that, it was four pages, and it just contained the names of victims in Gaza up to that point from ages, I think it was zero to four. And even at that point, it had only been a month, we couldn't include every name, there were too many names. So that's how it got started,

it was just a piece of adjunct prop. And then we realized we got a pretty positive and sort of resounding response from people locally speaking, but also kind of all over. And we decided to keep going with it. And it's really evolved. It's now become a genuine newspaper and outlet with reporting, with archival material, photographs. So yeah, that was its genesis.

Yeah, I mean, I was reading the past few editions of it. You're right. It is now at this point a full-fledged newspaper with a lot of really great analysis. For example, I think a few editions ago you all had had something about India's relationship with Israel. I think that, yeah, you're not going to read about that in the New York Times, obviously. But another thing that you all break down or have been breaking down over the past few months is kind of comparing the Russia's war in Ukraine versus Israel's war on Gaza. Could you maybe talk a little bit about maybe some of the differences there? Like what we are seeing, like how they report on what's happening in Ukraine versus how they report on what's happening in Gaza and maybe how that fits into their historical trends of how the New York Times operates.

Yeah. So we know because we've dove through the archives and because a lot of us have lived through some of these events that the Times, they're not just bad on Israel. They're not just a Zionist newspaper. They're truly like a mouthpiece for US empire. And that takes a lot of forms. It can mean a lot of different things. But if you look through the history of the Times, particularly like post-World War II, they've, you know, pretty much always been in lockstep with the State Department. You know, the most famous example of this is before the Iraq War in 2003, they were laundering all of this phony intelligence, these Iraqi defectors like Ahmad Shahloubi into basically legitimate people and legitimate reasons to go to war with Iraq. And like the paper of record, the the kind of definitive

voice of authority in American like liberalism and in in American news, they're able to put their their kind of like stamp of authority on things. And they did this before Iraq, they also did a lot of work to lay the groundwork for like the NATO intervention in Libya, for instance. And you know, many, many other examples stretching back to Guatemala in 1954, when they like pulled out their reporter, because the CIA and was saying that they were too too friendly to our Ben's regime right before the CIA back coup. Yeah, I know it's like specifically requested them to pull. He talked to Solzberger. Yeah, he just called him and he was like, you got to get this guy out of here.

So that's kind of their history. And there's a lot of other examples like that, like, for instance, in 2003, they the State Department was like, hey, you can't run this story or maybe not the State Department, but the Bush administration was like, you can't run this story about NSA spying that they had gotten. And they waited until after Bush was reelected to run the story, stuff like that. But Ukraine, I think, provides a really, it's not a perfect parallel, but it provides a really interesting parallel to understand their coverage of Gaza because it's also an invasion, but it's by

a foreign power that is an enemy state of the US. And this is really how you can trace how the times will react to things. It's like, are they reporting on an enemy state or are they reporting on a friendly state like Israel in terms of like US foreign policy goals? So if you look at the reporting on Ukraine, I think something that really jumps out is they're just like completely enthusiastic about the prospect of Ukrainian civilians becoming armed to fight the Russians, which is, you know, you can imagine children by the way, child soldiers. Yes. And you can, you know, you can imagine how absurd it would be to see an article in the Times that's like,

Hamas is handing out weapons to civilians to fight back against the Russian occupiers. This is just like, it doesn't even exist in the universe of things that a New York Times editor would consider possible. So there's things like that. There's also just a lot of language. For instance, one of the things that the Times has just been horrible on over the past 14 months is they're reporting on

famine in Gaza and how, you know, pretty much every NGO, even these like Western NGOs like Amnesty, which tend to be kind of like wishy washy, sometimes good, sometimes bad, have, you know, these places that the Times would usually trust and report on have been saying that this is a manufactured famine, that Israel is intentionally starving the people of Gaza. But they won't say this. They'll write headlines, like one of their famous headlines from like March, they wrote this thing, it was like, why isn't more aid getting into Gaza? Yeah, it's like, why is this happening? It's the Chris Hayes, like, yeah, like a kind of like suspended disbelief or something. Yeah. And then, but then if you look at, you know, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, like literally a month into that, they're writing headlines, and then but then if you look at you know, the Russian invasion of Ukraine like literally a month into that

They're writing headlines and I'm quoting the one of their headline switches how Russia is using starvation as a weapon of war, right? So like they're they're very declarative. They're very quick to call out Russians and call them war crimes. They're even like entertaining ideas of that Russia is committing a genocide very early on in that conflict, which they just haven't done at all In Gaza. So yeah, there's a I think it's a useful It's a useful kind of comparison point because it demonstrates that when it comes to like Russia China Iran Venezuela, Cuba They're very hard line going to like go after these nations But when it's a when it's a friendly state to the State Department to the US foreign policy Interest they just report on it in a completely different way and I think it exposes

Kind of one of their core functions, which is you know, like they are mouthpiece for you know The Imperial elite for their foreign policy goals. Yeah, actually I want you maybe all to say a little bit more about that Like what what is going on here? I mean, maybe we can say that like The the what is the function of the I mean, maybe we can say that like the the what is the function of the New York Times? Right? Like, I don't. Ostensibly, they have a very large readership. It's certainly their daily newsletter has like 14 million readers or something like that. It's an insane number. But what is the function of the New York Times?

What does it do? I mean, I think predominantly, as Harry says, they operate as a mouthpiece for American imperial interests, for the US State Department, I think probably for the Democratic Party more specifically. And broadly speaking, on a cultural level, they are the predominant voice of authority. More than I think any Western media entity in the U.S. and, you know, in the Western world more broadly, they are cited as the be-all end-all of what is the truth in the

West. You know, we have been very openly critical of, I mean, their coverage on Gaza, broadly speaking, of course, but specifically when they publish pieces like Screams Without Words about sort of alleged, you know, systematic sexual violence against Israelis on October 7th, which are, you know, specious claims, very dubiously sourced. It's something that the Democratic Party in the U.S. immediately cites. Kamala Harris gets on the debate stage and says Jewish-Israeli women were raped on October 7th.

She's able to say that because the New York Times reported it and was never even really made to back up these claims, which were claims that manufactured consent for an ongoing genocide. They continue to do that. I think that the role that they inhabit in the sort of collective imagination for the West is just, I mean, they are the people who define what is real and what is not, what's objective and what it's not. They fetishize this idea of objectivity. They maintain this most annoying and smug attitude of being the

sort of most rational guy in the room everybody else is like is a crazy hysteric but we know what is real and and we're objective and what we are working on as a project I think at the New York war crimes is to completely delegitimize that notion yeah I think that there's York war crimes is to completely delegitimize that notion Yeah, I think that there's several things there that I kind of want to tease out that I think are pretty interesting One of which is like the connection between the New York Times and the Democratic Party But another more fundamental thing and this has kind of been a hobby horse of this show going back to at least 2020 Is I guess what you could call broadly like

an epistemological crisis in America, which is like we the fundamental like understandings of any kind of consensus reality are kind of like breaking down and the New York Times has kind of weirdly been a main character in that story. So when you talk about, for example, like misinformation and fake news, the New York Times is at every step of the way sort of positioning itself as the first through the gate that would be able to, like you said, Maya, like be able to craft what would be an objective reality. Not only is that not true because of the things that you've pointed out but like something that is

Kind of just like blatantly in my opinion lays bare how absolutely like specious in and false that is is the number of journalists that Israel has killed in Gaza and the New York Times has barely said a fucking word about it I mean if the if your publication was all about like objectivity and Reporting reality as it is you would think that this would be a cause that Journalists added an organization like this would would want to you know get behind it in Raiders awareness up But they're not even doing that it goes back to what you were both saying earlier like they don't even see They first of all they don't even see

They first of all, they don't see the Palestinian struggle is real But second of all, they just like the Democratic Party don't see Palestinians as human beings. I think that's exactly it. That's exactly it I think that you you get to the heart of it there we constantly as a collective accuse them of ignoring deliberately ignoring the murder of as a collective, accuse them of ignoring, deliberately ignoring the murder of their colleagues, journalists in Gaza. And they're able to do this because the reality is that for them, those are not their colleagues. They're not real journalists. They're just Palestinians. They are Palestinian subjects who don't, I mean, they belittle them, they infantilize them. They, you know, insinuate in so many ways that the Palestinian people aren't actually capable of covering what is their own reality, certainly without

being subjective in their approach, as though the New York Times is ever capable of being objective about anything. You hear things that are really outrageous about various New York Times correspondents, bureau chiefs even, whose kids are in what we call the I.O.F., the IDF. That's never an issue for them. Anecdotally speaking, I've talked to New York Times reporters who brag about not being able to speak Arabic when they're assigned to the region because

that's supposed to be some sort of evidence that they have objective distance when it's just jaw dropping and fucking insane. You don't speak the language of the place you're covering and you're proud of this? It's just completely nuts to me. I mean to expand on what Mai is saying too, there are numerous New York Times reporters who have connections to the IDF. Ethan Bronner for instance, this is a story that Electronic Intifada broke many years ago that his son was serving.

He was the Jerusalem bureau chief for the Times while his son was serving in the IDF. Their main Israeli intelligence source, Ronan Bergman, is a former Israeli intelligence officer. The person who wrote Screams Without Words, the main author, is a former Israeli intelligence officer. Is there records of her calling supposed witnesses to write that story where she's like you need to do this for the sake of of Israeli propaganda like she's like explicitly saying that has bara. Yeah. Yeah.

It's it's absolutely wild. The editor in chief of the New York Times Joe Khan his father Leo Khan was on the board camera, which is a sort of Israeli media watchdog, Zionist watchdog organization. These offices are across the street from the Times. Yes. I mean, it's almost and it's almost like they're sort of play acting a kind of adversarial relationship to the New York Times just to sort of shore up the New York Times bona fide. They're constantly being critical of the New York Times saying that they're anti-Zionist when it's the guy's son is the editor in chief.

It's like a joke. Right. It gives them kind of plausible deniability in the event that they are actually criticized or anything. Yeah. Which is also, I think, is an interesting element of like, you know, the Times as an institution is like very, I think, it thinks it's very self aware, and it's very like, constantly thinking about its image almost. And so you'll see these like pieces that they'll occasionally put out that are like ostensibly kind of sympathetic to like Palestinians or to like the plight of

Palestinians. Like Maya and I have talked a lot about this this piece that they that was on the front page a few weeks ago called Survive in Gaza. They were so self-congratulatory about this piece. Like, look how we are changing tones, how generous we're being. We really care about the kids in Gaza. Right. 13 months later. Right. And there's almost no mention of like, they're like, you know, I don't have it up in front of you right now, but there's essentially a line where they're like the conflict has just has left many Gazans disabled. And it's like the conflict like the war has left many Gazans disabled. It's never it's never like

Israel has for decades has deliberately used this as a strategy. Like people have written books about how this is a strategy of Israeli occupation that they try to maim people and they try to leave people disabled so that they can't live real lives. Like this is, but the reporting that comes out of the Times is like, oh, it's like this, you know, it's this grand tragedy. It's like when they report on-

A natural disaster that's happening from on high. There is no one responsible. Famine like quote unquote like stocks Gaza is something that they said multiple times, right? Like they imagine Palestinians as as You know as my as my I said like they're like born to suffer and like so when the sympathy comes It doesn't come as a result of like a criticism of Israel. It's just like oh Gaza is a place where people die Yeah, and that would explain why in their coverage of Ukraine

they are almost frothing at the mouth with the of Ukraine they are almost frothing at the mouth with the concept of Ukrainians taking up arms. But yeah, there's no... I mean for them, Palestinian resistance is Hamas and Hamas is terrorism and therefore it's just not legitimate. And I mean you broke down like within like the Ukrainian Gaza comparison like these kind of four categories like war crimes Resistance what you would call Ukraine needs weapons like these are types of stories and then arts and culture I think the arts and culture one is very interesting too because like with with regards to Ukraine you pointed out this article where it's like art in the time of war or whatever where they're talking about Ukrainians using art but like The concept that the Palestinians would even have a culture for them to raise that they would have to address the fact that like mosques mosques and churches have been destroyed and

you know universities and these other like Institutions that actually prove you know what I'm saying, what they don't want to admit. Yeah, there can. We can never acknowledge that people living in Palestine are people. Right. It that's that's going too far.

And so, I mean, we I mean, in our in the latest issue of our paper of the New York war crimes, we called it the messenger's issue. And we profile several journalists on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank and in Lebanon. And we just realize how rarely we see that on the pages of the paper of record of the New York Times. They act like it's impossible for them to do. It's impossible for them to vet these journalists who,

I mean, in our experience, have been some of the most professional writers we've ever dealt with. And they're living, I mean, in the most horrifyingly violent circumstances. And nonetheless, they are so professional. And if we, you know, the sort of kind of ragtag collective are able to get their reporting on the pages of our newspaper, there's just no excuse for a place like the New York Times not to do that. And it just seems so obvious that one should in the midst of genocide. But again,

they're not going to acknowledge that it's genocide. They, you know, this is just a tragedy that happens. And I think, unfortunately, it's clear now, then it's not even newsworthy for them. What's happening in Gaza is, is kind of old news for the New York Times, it hasn't really appeared. happening in Gaza is kind of old news for The New York Times. It hasn't really appeared. And you can then just kind of deduce that the consensus in media now is going to be that this conflict is kind of over. And that's about it. Wrap it up.

Yeah, the there's a few things from this week that I think are kind of indicative of the New York Times approach to like sort of backstopping U.S. foreign policy, one of which is what just happened in Syria. The Israel's invasion of Western Syria was like was I don't remember the exact headline wasn't it something along the lines of like they Inter-us really stroll Yeah, they strolled over the border and found themselves in the Golan Heights I mean, it's like so there's that but like another thing

This is something and then maybe we can use this to pivot to like kind of how they cover But like another thing this is something and then maybe we can use this to pivot to like kind of how they cover domestic issues because I also kind of want to I do kind of want to dig in to this connection between the New York Times and In the relationship with the Democratic Party a little bit But like the way they cover domestic issues is very interesting too I mean, I just pointed this out on Twitter today But there was a headline on the main page of the New York Times today serious shutters as Bishara loss That's prison atrocities come into the light. And so like this has been a huge story in the media the last week of serious prisons being opened up and people

You know coming out and you know seeing the light of day and everything but like you never see in my opinion Maybe in the entire like 15 years have been reading this newspaper maybe like one time on the main page have I seen anything about like us united states prison conditions which I guarantee you you take like your average prison in like Louisiana or Mississippi and it would give a Syrian prison it's run run its money. I mean like we're talking horrific conditions But there's just this like sort of like naturalization of like how American How like all these people like from Gaddafi to Assad and Saddam Hussein all the things that they do

Are you know quantitatively evil beyond any kind of human comprehension, but that would never be the case Here in america like it's not you know what i'm saying. It's just an interesting Yeah, I mean I think even like if we if we want to talk about it I think the their coverage of of luigi has been also like really kind of indicative of this in the ways that they um That they understand like political violence, you know, for instance, even when like there was a Trump assassination attempt, there are all these like kind of hand wringing about like political,

how political violence is coming back in America and how this is like a disastrous trend, right? I remember this, not to cut you off Harry, but just to point this out. I remember this distinctly for fucking six months, they were talking about how Donald Trump, he would win was going to end democracy This is not even a hyper hyperbole in my part. They were saying this He would end democracy all of our institutions or whatever and the day after he gets shot They're like the headline or the editorial board published their editorial on it, which was basically like

Yes, Donald Trump is bad. But yes, political violence is not the solution. So it's like, if you believed any of this, what I mean, I don't know. It is Hitler, but we have to piece together. Right, right, right. Yeah. Would you have killed him as a baby? You know, which, which by the way, is actually one of the all-time Thomas Friedman or Rock War columns is about him going back to kill Hitler as a baby, but I digress. But yeah, I mean, I think, like, okay, so here, for instance, like, this is one of the

headlines that was, I think, two days after the assassination of Brian Thompson. I want you to guess what the end of this headline was. It begins with the growing cost of... Milk. to guess what the end of this headline was. It begins with the growing cost of... Milk. The growing cost of making CEOs safe. All right. Okay. I remember this. So this is the kind of stuff that's like... You've got inflation in CEO security.

Yeah. But it's just kind of indicative of the way that they they, you know, just like reflexively, there's like defensive of kind of like ruling class interests, like they, you know, they publish like all of these quotes over the past week from these executives. Like, I think I sent one to you guys earlier, where it's like this person and it's like, my wife asked me, why would anyone kill a CEO? Like, like, there's like all these things that, you know, there's, there's a person who's like a Harvard Business School professor that has this line where he's like, you know, I understand there's a lot of anger about, like, the healthcare system in America or like disasters like the BP oil spill, but this can't spill over into violence. I'm like,

what are those two things you just named? Are those things not violence? Like, yeah, you know, there's this real incoherence. Spilling over like literally oil spills. It's insane. Right. Right. But well, yeah, there's there's just this like understanding of violence as like, I mean, even like in this extends, I think, to the way that they have continued to just like justify just like on a daily basis, one of the most heinous things that the Times does in Gaza is that they they present Israeli airstrikes that kill dozens of people every single day as legitimate acts of war

because they are, you know, quoting, like literally just quote the Israeli military saying, well, we targeted militants that were there. That's all they need. They move on. This is a legitimate act of violence. It's not even cast as an act of violence. It's just a necessary act. But as soon as someone punches upwards, right? Like punches upwards towards a CEO, as soon as, you know, like on October 7th last year, like Hamas dares to break out of the prison that is Gaza, this is like quotidian violence that is every day.

That is the violence that they will name as like unacceptable outside the bounds violence, which is kind of like underscores the fact that they are just speaking from a certain position, which is the position of the ruling elite. It's undeniable. Of course. Stuff as benign as people breaking windows in riots is violence for them. violence for them. Right. Whereas bunker buster bombs that annihilate city blocks is just an unfortunate necessity. It's really, it is at that level.

And then when you see, I mean, you know, like thrilling stories, like what happened with the United Healthcare CEO and Luigi Mancione. I don't want to say his name wrong. I don't want to disrespect my king. Luigi's Mansion. But what happened with them, I mean, obviously you see how quickly the ruling class, which is, you know, which like the New York Times is like the perfect emblem of, how quickly they close ranks and, you know, work to support each other. But it's so completely out of touch. I isn't it true?

I might be wrong. Don't quote me. But I think it's true that United Health Care had to take down their LinkedIn post, their sort of memorial to Facebook. OK, Facebook, because it got so many laugh reacts and they were just like, OK, it's too much. It looks bad. Everybody that I know, even just sort of liberal people in my orbit were completely thrilled by this story. They were so excited to see this because it felt just for a moment that there is justice in this world. That's a great point, Maya. The thing and we pointed this out. I think on a few recent episodes

something that's very interesting is that they um You would think that like as a journalist as a journalist institution You would want to find out why people are so angry why a Facebook page post would get 20,000 smiley face reacts about a killing of a CEO like that would be cause for investigation instead they go out and they try to scold and then craft the parameters within which you can Be angry or they sent the most charismatic man in America Brett Stevens to lead the charismatic man in America, Brett Stevens to lead the show.

I mean, they published an op-ed like yesterday by the CEO, or like, I guess the new CEO, I saw that of UnitedHealthcare. And they had to turn off the comments, because everyone was just like, even the New York Times readership was like, this is a step too far. Like this guy, because this op-ed was just like the most vacuous, like, nothing. He was like, we understand that there are frustrations with the health care system and we're working. Brian Thompson was working harder than anyone to fix them. They had to turn off the comment.

This is the you know, the meme where it's like a white guy kills his family and it's like they show him with like a see do like in his family writing on the back. That has been their whole approach to Brian Thompson the whole past week and a half it's just like he was a great family man and now two kids aren't gonna have a dad and you know what I'm saying like they've been working over time trying to prove that he was a good person but there's another thing that they do and this is I think indicative you see shades of this in Gaza as well. But this, this is a headline from the New York Times from two days ago. Health insurance

workers fearful amid public anger after slaying of CEO employees at United Health Care and other companies described being anxious after an outpouring of online vitriol. First of all, like the way you know that this article is mostly bullshit is that it has four reporters on it. Like the more reporters a story is, it's going to have some goofy stuff. But like the the the premise of this article is that the, actually the employees at Private Health, like when you target a CEO, you're not just targeting the CEO, you're targeting all the people that work there too,

including middle management and even low, even the janitors at these places. You know what I'm saying? Like it's like, they try to do this whole like, I don't know what the word would be like they actually care about people who work at these Uh institutions does that make sense? You know, you know what I say to that is that I mean the united healthcare shouldn't have human shields like he shouldn't be Or you know

I mean those are like literally speaking of janitors, they ran a story on the janitor who was inside of Hamilton Hall when the Columbia students occupied it in April. They ran it, you know, because this guy, he was like, you know, props to him. He like tried to fight the people who were occupying it. It was a kind of an interesting story. But they ran a story. It was like, look at the human cost of your protest. This janitor couldn't mop, it couldn't work that day that night.

Yeah. But they, you know, they ran like a whole feature on him. They took like photographs of him and it was like more interesting. It was more like intense than any of their coverage of the actual like occupation. Yeah. I mean, they can understand the idea of like the collective punishment in these very specific instances. Right. Right. Right. Outside of that, you know. Yeah, this this article is interesting.

United Health Care officials said the company began providing support services for employees. The company also held an internal ceremony to mourn Mr. Thompson that was attended by hundreds and reported receiving many phone calls of support at his call centers. I don't know if you work at one of these private health care companies, you probably just hopped on that call just to try to get some PTO or something, right? Like or a PITE paid over time. 100%. Who wouldn't?

Right, right. Like, no, they don't care. I feel really unsafe right now. Someone hold me, please. I mean, and even that focus is like, I think is deliberately trying to like obscure the broader conversation like they're trying to like, a like prop up that there is some base of support for this guy, but also they're trying to marginalize like, you know, they have like these articles in the past week where they've written about, like, oh, this hate is like,

just like what you'd see out of 4chan and 8chan. I'm like, this is not what you'd see out of 4chan and 8chan. This is like my aunt who voted for Trump twice that is like on Facebook liking posts about how, you know, like, you know, thoughts and prayers aren't covered by the deductible, like whatever. Like this is like the type of thing that's happening. This is not like online trolls. Yeah, the median response was like, well, you know, it's awful, but what are you going to do? Yeah. Yeah.

That I that's I think that's the thing. I think that what what gives them so much cause for concern is the rise. I think you pointed it out, Harry, earlier. The rise of political violence like they. There's no world in which they can actually take an honest look at it it's just like on its face bad and I you know I'm I guess at one on one hand I guess I'm kind of conflicted because

I one hand I guess I can't really expect the New York Times to actually like look at something like political violence and actually be like, this is good. But we're not even really asking that necessarily. We're just asking you to like actually maybe be honest about the causes of it rather than like going out there and trying to run interference for the people who would be on the opposite end of it. You know what I'm saying? Like they don't, they're just not interested in that

They're trying to just craft a narrative Yeah, I mean I think that in some ways I don't mind it because I think it exposes them even further to just like this you know the contradictions that Are constitutive of a place like the New York Times and I think that you know ultimately like why we care about the times is because we see it as in a lot of ways like as a barometer for like liberal consensus for you know, the kind of American foreign policy like Maya was talking about a little bit earlier, but I mean, like even on a very granular level, like I think that people like that produce the news even at like CNN or BBC or MSNBC

or NPR, like I'm sure that the first thing they do when they wake up in the morning is read the New York Times and they they look at the Times and they're like, this is what is important. These are the topics that matter today. This is what we should be talking about. And like, I think that, you know, I don't mind that the Times is in a way like, especially on this, it's like so comically bad, that like, I think it brings a lot of people into every time they post a story like this and we can get out critique about it and we can get one more person to look at the times

as this debased institution, it's like another level of undermining them. And by proxy, you're also just like undermining this like general understanding, this like liberal understanding of the US's place in the world of like how class politics work in the US of how racial politics work in the US So, you know, I mean they can keep putting their foot in their mouth I think it's it's fine by me, but I think ultimately like part of our work is to make people aware of that and

to try to like Unravel it's also like it's not just unraveling like the news media But it's also even you know, I like I've like the news media, but it's also even, you know, I like I've like taught, you know, like high school history before, right. And I've like, I've like taught through the curriculums and, and stuff. And like the stuff that you learn, and I remember it a little bit from back when I was, you know, 1516, whatever, but like what you learn growing up about like the US place in the world and like, how these things were generally this kind of likeent empire. All these truths are

through school, through media, they're constantly reiterated. And every kind of plank that you can take out, like the New York Times, for instance, and you can destabilize, you're undermining this conception of the world, of the US as this kind of benevolent hegemon. And I think that's useful. Definitely. We always talk at the New York War Crimes, we talk about stealing the voice of authority as the sort of basis of our entire project. And I mean, yeah, we have to begrudgingly

acknowledge the fact of the New York Times as like enormous influence. And we do see the way it trickles down into places, like as ridiculous as CNN, as laughable. But yeah, I mean, that's the fundamental basis of our project. And on top of that, I guess, like what we're trying to encourage

and really our biggest demand is, you know, among media workers to try to encourage a total boycott of the Times as an institution. We want people, writers, journalists, to stop working for them. There have been a few prominent examples so far. Nan Golden comes to mind. She said that she would refuse to have her work appear

in the Times and she was very vocal about it. So we're really, really appreciative of that. And we're encouraging people to unsubscribe, which also includes recipes and games, which as far as I'm concerned is all they're really good for. So I understand that that is a big sacrifice, the recipes and the games.

You can steal the recipes. You can steal the recipes and you can steal the games. Like I'm doing those connections on different browsers. There's like, there's plenty of ways to steal the games, you know, Wordle is, it exists elsewhere. Yeah. Well, so what you're saying is like it's not like we're trying to reform the New York Times, right? It's not like we want a better New York Times like we're trying to do two things

Point out like the role and function that it serves within the political economy of both the media and the United States Empire and then the second thing would be to actually use it as a way to chip away at people's understanding of how these ideologies get reproduced. Would that be accurate? Yeah, for sure. And I think also that's where we like view the paper as kind of a, you know, I think there's an important, the paper being the New York war crimes that we produced as being like a replacement in a way. It's obviously never gonna replace the, you know, we're not gonna be publishing 36 pages a day.

It's just not feasible. But like- We're not delusional. We're not delusional. But you know, we have like, the recent issue that came out was the 14th issue in 14 months, and they're all fantastic. They range from our Juneteenth issue, which is talking about Black-Palestinian solidarity.

We had a full issue that was just devoted to breaking down screams without words. The October 7th one-year issue was a fantastic summation of a year of struggle and resistance and genocide and loss. Or the most recent issue, which is like, you know, commemorating and honoring the 193, I think now journalists who have been killed by Israel. And so I think that like, yeah, the point is to undermine this institution and also like start to build out like movement infrastructure. However, kind of like, you know, I mean, it's fairly large, like for the October 7th issue, we distributed 50,000 copies across, I think,

12 cities in the US and it got to abroad. There were copies in Brazil and other places. So it is a serious project. It's also trying to follow in the lineage of a lot of really important movement papers. Even going back to Young Lords and Black Panthers produced papers that they would distribute on the subways. We take our name from a paper that was made by ACT UP in the 80s and 90s called the New York Crimes, which was to critique the times like coverage of the AIDS crisis. So yeah, it's kind of a critique and then also a replacement or like using our skills and our connections and our, you know, our pure labor of love, unpaid labor of love to produce something that hopefully is useful to people.

Well, I think that the it'll be interesting to see how the liberal connection with the New York Times plays out in the next few years. The. Democratic Party's like autopsy of what happened in this recent election, maybe as best expressed on that Pod Save America episode where they interviewed like like David Plouffe and like these

other Democratic Party operatives. I've heard about these people. They have such they're like they're made up names. It's insane. Yeah, they're kind of like C tier like NPR names. They are. They totally are. On that episode, something that I found fascinating was that liberals are kind of under the impression that what cost them the election was like negative press coverage. It's almost like a kind of like it's almost kind of like a conservatives view of the Vietnam

War. It's just like we would just do what we wanted to do without the press getting in the way and like highlighting all this stuff. And they really they really were very critical of the New York Times which I found very fascinating because the Times is, as we pointed out, kind of the party line. They parrot the party line of the Democratic Party. So I don't know, maybe these contradictions are maybe going to be even too acute or top heavy to include even on the liberal left anymore. Like maybe they'll start turning on their own institutions. I don't know. I guess we'll see.

I mean, one can only hope, you know, but only hope right. Well, I think like maybe before we we depart for today, maybe we can do we have any stomach for trying to read Brett Stevens? Why? Why Brian Thompson is a working class hero. But it's a fun one. There's also some some you know, this is a couple of good Thomas Friedman ones from the past that we could really use to hammer home if you want to stick on on Palestine. I feel like we could go.

I mean, yeah, I guess Brett Stevens is the more timely. Well, one of Brett Stevens' best ones is the settler colonialism, a guide for the sincere, which is actually a fun one. If you if you'll indulge me, I will indulge you. I'm not familiar with this. This is my fucking give me one second to pull it up. Yeah. Harry and I talked for a long time about which op ed we should refer to.

Well, this is interesting. And maybe we'll get into it by reading this. But the New York Times, honestly, kind of even more. And I read the Atlantic very regularly. Oh, my God. That's another one that's very, very hard to read. But the New York Times and the Atlantic were like neck and neck for how many articles they could publish that disparage the concept of settler colonialism. I mean, even in the Thomas Frank, who is like a left liberal writer kind of like a left populist writer like his post-mortem of the Democratic Party's loss was all because I

think the opening paragraph was like the first moment I knew Donald Trump was gonna win this was when I went to a museum and I heard the name settler colonialism and it's like They have been working over time to like disparage this concept since October 7th. It's really fascinating. Which museum was that? I guess the Museum of Ice Cream like it's one museum. Joe Biden Memorial Museum of Ice Cream. But we did have there is one that Thomas Friedman did that compares, you know, the actors in the Middle East to a bunch of zoo animals. It's a sort of insects and as everything will.

So the Israelis get to be lions. And I remember various Arabs are a different cast of vermin. Just one of them's locusts, one of them is cockroaches, something like that. So that's a highlight if anyone's ever curious, except don't look it up on the Times website, boycott. Okay. So-

Do you wanna do the reading times? All right, we'll do set. I'll read it, yeah, sure, since I've not read it before. Settler colonialism, a guide for the sincere. This is from February of this year. A former colleague of mine liked to say that there are certain ideas that vanish in the presence of thought.

Among those ideas is settler colonialism or rather the invidious, hypocritical and historically illiterate way in which it is often denounced in anti-Israel polemics and protests. What is settler colonialism? The Legal Information Institute offers the following definition, a system of oppression

based on genocide and colonialism that aims to displace a population of a nation, oftentimes indigenous people, and replace it with a new settler population. What is settler colonialism? It applies to Israel. The idea that Israel is a British colonial scheme that aimed to create a Jewish ethnostate by eliminating the native Palestinian society and crucially that the only way to right this wrong is to eliminate Jewish Israel as a Jewish state. Pretty spot on. Yeah. Spot the lie, really. Right. It's hard to know where to begin, but here's a thought. If settler colonialism needs pretty spot-on

Right, it's hard to know where to begin but here's a thought if settler colonialism needs to be eliminated Why not get rid of all settler? That would start with the United States which I got a hand it to Brett. He kind of um He's so dense sometimes that it actually kind of like reveals the truth What it really is? That would start with the United States which began as a settler colonialist colonialist enterprise under British Dutch and Spanish rulers and Fringe what what's the's what's why is he not

counting the fringe? He's a Francophile. That's why he is. He's a he is a Francophile. Some progressives try to nod to this fact with land acknowledgement statements, which are now common on college campuses, but that's a remarkably cheap and performative form of atonement. Also true.

I agree. Yes. Real atonement of the type that's now being demanded of israelis would look quite different if you're an american citizen of non-native american descent leave leave hawaii leave california leave massachusetts to return to the lands of your ancestors if they will have you if not that's your problem um i want to i want to open it up to the panel here what's what are our thoughts on that is that really a inaccurate or honest That's your problem. I want to I want to open it up to the panel here.

What's what are our thoughts on that? Is that really an accurate or honest representation of what an anti-settler colonialist? No, it would look like it's quite dishonest. I mean, I think there's some elements that obviously, right. But it's it's not I don't think that's like what any like like land back movement is asking for is a mass exodus. Right?

I mean, nor is the one state solution actually insinuating, you know, most often, that Jewish Israelis be forced to leave, they're asking for a state where everyone is equal. So it's just a sleight of hand that they constantly engage in. Right. And I think also part of it is that like, if you're looking at Israel right now, there's just a certain level, like the society is so far gone, that it's like, it's hard to imagine that those people would stay, right? Or like would want to participate in a single state alongside Palestinians, because it's just such a deeply racist and just like diseased society.

Right. Yeah. Where they're not privileged citizens. Yeah. Like I think they just would leave. Yeah, that's what happened in South Africa. A lot of whites in South Africa did leave because they couldn't stomach the thought of being equal to the natives, you know quote unquote, right? As far as I'm concerned, that's their problem. You can leave, you know

Yeah, I think if something would have happened in the 1810s or 1820s that would have turned the tables a Similar thing would have happened. Like I think that white Anglo Americans I've said this for a while, but I feel like looking in at Israeli society now is like looking in at American society in the early 1800s when you had like a very vitriolic You know violent racist hatred of the indigenous which again still persists to this day It's just that like now America is like yeah We've grafted on the institutions of multiculturalism and we do land acknowledgement and stuff If you are allowed to stay do so under an entirely different form of government one that isn't based on the Declaration of Independence or the

Constitution sign over the deed of your property to the descendants of those dispossessed by past generations of settler colonialists To the descendants of those dispossessed by past generations of settler colonialists live under new rulers not of your interest Okay, that's kind of funny sign over the deed of your properties descendants of the the dispossessed I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy What's true of the United States also goes for Australia, New Zealand and Canada. But why stop there? What are ethnic Russians doing east of the Urals or in the Caucasus or in Crimea? What are Han Chinese doing in Jingjing or Tibet? What are Iberians doing in Latin America?

And how did the people, culture and language of the Arabian Peninsula wind up in distant places like Morocco, Tunisia and for that matter, the Holy Land itself? I would love to see his Google search history just so he could tell these places, you know, Han Chinese, whatever. Yeah, there's no way he knew that off the cuff. Where are the Ural Mountains? Absolutely not. Yeah. Just giving like thestories.com, you know? There's no way he'd do that off the cuff. Where are the Ural Mountains? Absolutely not. Who are people? Just giving the stories.com, you know?

That's hilarious. At this point, some opponents of settler colonialism might reply that historically distant examples of settler colonialism don't justify current instances of it. But how ancient really is the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, the last major battle between Native Americans in the US Army? What about the American invasion of the Hawaiian Kingdom three years later? This is fascinating because it's like it's true. That was literally the Wounded knee massacre was literally Perpetuated by probably of people of like my great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents

Generation so as I've said multiple times on this show, America is the way it is for a reason. And it's because like I was raised by the descendants of the people that did those horrible things and probably inherited a lot of their trauma and their obsession with guns and their obsession with land. Like these things haven't dissipated into the ether. That was just like three generations ago But what is preg getting at here is he saying that like? Because try I mean he you know he kind of waffles on for a while But he eventually gets this point where he says to say that Israel alone must be eliminated on the grounds of settler colonialism

That it is a double standard. That's hard to describe as anything but anti-semitic So I mean that's really what he's getting at. You know, I see, I see. So he's saying that like, OK, all right. That's a double standard, which is an interesting thing also, because if you've met anyone in the movement, they would also obviously decry these other examples of settler colonial enterprises. It's not. Yeah, no one is a huge fan of Australia in the movement.

You know, yeah, yeah. It's a little bit bizarre, but it's movement, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's a little bit bizarre, but it's also, you know, I think you're right that Brett Stevens is in some ways he's kind of a useful barometer because he just is like this, like the kind of like not really liberal Zionist, but he's like this Zionist who's like anti-Trump kind of like respectable Zionist. And you know, but he also just says some truly like horrific things in his column sometimes. Oh he's far in a way I think the most racist columnist they have in my opinion. Yeah definitely.

I have to say about his growing up in Mexico. He grew up in Mexico? He did I think. Oh my god that's news to me. Is Brett Stevens Mexican though? Like I mean like ethnically, culturally, or did he? Was there was his parents like it's like a Mitt Romney situation. He really was sort of like weird Mormon.

His family was there. Right. No offense. No offense to all our weird Mormons. Yeah, I think Brett's Brett's like main go-to is like concern trolling and just bladen Like frothing at the mouth racism also all through the campaign season though He had a really hard time getting on board with Kamala Harris, which I found very fascinating very relatable

Well, you're right. It's you're right, right? Relatable well you're right. It's right, right But he famously has a column with Gail Stevens and like every week he'd be like not feeling Kamala Gail Gail would be like what the what the heck? Right on board look at the polling she's Eating Trump and every swing stuff well didn't it just recently come out that her like And maybe you got maybe I was listening to a pod where you guys were talking about this But that all of her internal polling was just saying she was like losing horribly the entire time Well, there's such clowns but this is another thing this gets at another thing which is that

the New York Times all thing, which is that the New York Times all year said that it was neck and neck. Like like this this election was going to be a razor's edge margin. And it was a fucking blowout, obviously. I'm like a complete conspiracy theorist about this. I feel like that was so fake from the beginning. I agree. I mean, how is it possible that that it's just this horse raised neck and neck to the minute? And then it's such a blowout. I don possible that that it's just this horse race neck and neck to the minute and then it's Such a blowout. I don't think that it's possible

100% agree. I think that like they In trying to like establish a consensus objective reality. They wind up living in a fantasy land And you saw that this year I I think, was maybe a prime example in that. I mean, how many articles now do they run about how Trump is going to end democracy and elections as we know it? Like zero now. Like before the election, it was every day. It was like Trump will end elections. We won't be able to vote ever again. Yeah. It must be like really conciliatory toward him in the same way you might be if

like you thought you were getting ready to get sent to a camp or something. Right. Right. Well, I think that that's that I think that's probably a good place to end it today. I think we've pretty thoroughly exercised the demons over at the New York Times, at least provided a cursory exam, examination of why they are the way they are. But if people would like to read the New York war crimes and support you, where would they go to do that?

Yeah. So we have a website, which is just newyorkwarkrimes.com. It's all spelled out. And if you go on there, there's an archive section that has PDFs of all 14 of our papers so you can read those if you're interested. If you're in places like New York, Chicago, LA, we often will have papers that are being distributed there when we release so you can probably get a physical copy. I'd love to send you guys some copies too if you're interested. And then the website also

contains like all a lot of our critique of the times, like various studies like the one you mentioned about Ukraine, but we've also done various other kind of like deep dives into their historical role in empire and stuff like that. So yeah, definitely go poke around the site. So yeah, definitely go poke around the site. You can follow us on Twitter at NY war crimes or wallog, W A W O G underscore now is wallog's Twitter and the same on Instagram. Wallog is writers against the war on Gaza, just to be clear. Yes. Really unwieldy acronym, but it is. It's such an ugly acronym, but we're stuck with it. I like it.

unwield the acronym, but it is an ugly acronym, but we're stuck with it. I like it. So yeah, and yeah, we do a lot of if you especially on like our Instagram, we do a lot of campaigns like I mean, we didn't get to talk about it too much today. But for instance, one of the main stories in the most recent edition of the paper is about Fadil Wahidi, who is a Palestinian journalist who works for Al Jazeera, who was shot in the neck in Jabalia, in North Gaza, and he's been paralyzed and he's seeking medical evacuation,

which Israel is not letting him get. So we've been trying to get the word out to everyone, especially like media workers to pressure their bosses, to call in favors, to start putting pressure on Israel in whatever ways they can to try to get him evacuated. So, you know, lots of like calls to actions like that, lots of participation in different boycott campaigns, actions, especially in like the New York and LA, Toronto and Philly, where we have local chapters and stuff. But yeah, Maya, sorry, is there anything else?

No, I think that was great. Great. Well, we encourage you all to go check that out. I'll put links in the show notes. I would also like to remind people we have a Patreon of our own that you can go and support. The link for that will also be in the show notes. I guess until next time, thank you guys. Great, thank you so much guys. I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a Thanks for watching!