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ammcgee-author · 6 months

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219. Sorry, I was Assassinated <3

As Mark Twain once said, “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” I’m not dead, yet, but trying to regroup and make some kind of sense out of the world around me.

In the old days, you could count being assassinated as an “occupational hazard” of being a Peacenik, an AntiWar Activist, or even holding a non-mainstream opinion. (Sort of like how losing an arm or getting sucked into a machine is an occupational hazard of working in a factory, dying in a fire is an occupational hazard of being a firefighter, getting shot is an occupational hazard of being a police officer; and having your whole family slaughtered in front of you is an occupation hazard of being a Palestinian journalist.) Just look at what they did to John Lennon, and more recently, the lead-singer of Audioslave, Chris Cornell.

My favorite half-baked conspiracy-theory is that he was assassinated for the AntiWar stance he took at his last concert. Although I know, that in reality, it’s just as likely he planned his suicide in advance; and wanted his last message to the world to be one of peace, love, and brotherhood.

I was never really much of a Soundgarden or Audioslave fan but I really liked their instrumental song “Night Surf," and of course “You Know My Name,” Chris Cornell’s Bond theme and one of my favorite 007 theme songs of all time! It’s worth noting that, although James Bond movies are fun and exciting action flicks, full of international intrigue and traditionally sexy women, they’re also composed of the most blatant pro-war propaganda; rivaled only by Disney/ABC’s Marvel Movies or HBO’s Game of Thrones, which tend to be slightly more allegorical; which is fine, as long as you’re aware of that going into them and treat them only as the lightest of all light entertainment.

Though, in spite of whatever Mr. Cornell’s personal issues might have been, I can’t help but think “selling out” to the war-machine is one of the factors that led him to suicide. At the very least, it probably didn’t help.

Speaking of “international intrigue,” my grandmother who was a pilot and an electrical engineer in the United States Air Force, (who also helped design the American-Made cruise missile systems Russia is currently using against the Ukrainians) was once questioned by the CIA because she ran a small airport gift shop, and routinely flew from continent to continent looking for exotic wares to sell in her shop. She was accused of being a spy, and sharing government secrets with overseas enemies. As outlandish as it sounds, stories like this are not uncommon, and cause a lot of generational trauma and general mistrust of the government within families. Of course, the government likes it that way, they enjoy keeping people on their toes and out of their way, especially militarily. Because of this experience I’m always sympathetic to people with seemingly “paranoid” or “schizophrenic” views of the government because the government does enjoy terrorizing people for their opinions. This danger obviously increases, exponentially, the more exposure and influence you and your ideas have. Both my grandmother and grandfather were in the Air Force, and being in the Military after World War II, caused my grandparents both to take a decidedly AntiWar stance against our wars of conquest, imperialism, and liberal interventionism overseas. Even as they worked as civil engineers for the Defense Industry and Military Industrial Complex.

Another notable member of my family is my distant cousin, Pat Robertson, someone who up until his death, recently, was literally paid to promote Zionism and Zionist pro-war propaganda on television. (He’s the reason why I feel I’m able to view the Israel/Palestine situation in a more fair and nuanced way, than I might otherwise be inclined to… And also the reason why most of my immediate family generally vote independent and identify as Democrats.) I don’t mention this because I’m at all proud of the association, but because it does seem to loom over my Christian family, our AntiWar history, and my activism; even if we’re not all doomsday Christian Evangelists like my famous cousin Pat and his televangelist heir, Gordon Robertson.

Understanding my history and ties to both the military and Christian evangelism is important to understanding who I am as a person, and why I choose to take such a profound moral stance on issues of justice and international policy. Though that association somehow seems particularly important to mention, now, even if it alienates me from the other Pro-Palestine demonstrators protesting today, because it makes me feel like a kind of mediator who can sympathize with the views of both pro-war Zionists and Palestinian AntiWar demonstrators. Though I myself am committedly Pro-Palestine, and of course, AntiWar.

A pragmatic way of looking at Israel’s current campaign of ethnic-violence and genocide in The West Bank and Gaza, in particular, is that is not a “war” but the result of the Palestinians losing a war in 1948. This is hardly “politically correct,” and is probably the most politically insensitive thing you could say to people on both sides of the conflict. It also in no way delegitimizes Palestinian resistance to Israeli Apartheid, but does explain the situation better than simply damning and condemning vague things like “colonialism” and “whiteness,” altogether. (Which, let’s be honest, was only ever a trick or tactic used by Jewish protesters to manipulate Blacks and People of Color to take either side, which when used outside of the limited scope of Black Muslims, like Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, who have always stood by Palestinians, where the language was first borrowed and misappropriated from, is often used to keep people of all races and nationalities from understanding the issue; while also distracting attention away from the larger issues at hand, ones that may or may not actually affect them; such as how America’s unfettered support for Israel could potentially lead to a U.S. war with Iran.) The world has taken on the overly vague and sometimes idealistic language of Jewish-Israeli Peaceniks and Refuseniks without knowing what, specifically, they were protesting. If those protesters just said, “We’re against Zionism and Jewish-Supremacy” rather than mincing words, then they surely would have gained a lot more followers and supporters on both the left and right, though they might not be the supporters they wanted.

Actually, in a recent video of Israeli IDF refuseniks (a slang term referring to conscientious objectors) they do just that, refer to Zionism as Jewish Supremacy. Which a refreshingly positive change of course from the usual vague allusions to “indigenousness,” (in regards to who is or is not indigenous where) “white-supremacy” (to describe several only vaguely related and oftentimes incompatible political ideologies) and other debatable variables, coming from the far-left.

Nowadays, it’s much easier to silence people.

You don’t even have to assassinate them, for their views and opinions, because you can just as easily discredit them by “cancelling” them, locking them out of social media, downvoting or shadow-banning their comments to keep them from having a prominent voice by limiting their influence on public discourse; and otherwise intimidating them into compliance. (Usually through a combination of online and IRL terror-tactics and good old-fashioned character assassination.) Or by simply confusing them with political double-speak until their ideas disappear into oblivion.

Celebrities, today, rarely take an AntiWar stance because the entertainment industry is run by, well, Zionists — And thus anyone “fated for fame” is heavily vetted by the Military Industrial Complex before you ever even hear their names or see them on a marquee. (Though that very likely may be a coincidence, because most people today aren’t really very political, especially on international and foreign policy matters, except for performatively, and because most celebrities only have a high-school or grade-school education.) Jewish guest, Timothee Chalamet’s, recent rather distasteful mention of Hamas on SNL, during Israel’s current genocide of Gaza, is just one example of how Hollywood acts as an eternally out of touch propaganda machine. Thankfully, Tim’s character offed himself at the end of the skit, which was funny and well-deserved, but which might also be read as a distasteful reference to Israel accusing Palestinians of causing their own destruction.

This kind of gross insensitivity and feigned ignorance might have been forgivable if Americans had forgotten that this is the exact same comedy and variety show that held prayers and candles for Ukraine, after the U.S. forced Russia’s hand by manipulating Putin into intervening in the region by first orchestrating the U.S.-backed illegal Maiden coup, and creating a civil-war, there, under the Obama Administration; and then threatening to make The Ukraine, which is historically part of Russia, part of the NATO alliance, (which was only created to oppose Moscow and the former Soviet Union, in the first place,) during the Biden administration. (Simplifying the issues of today is of course this current movements’ greatest weakness, because in order to understand what is happening in Syria and Ukraine, you have to have an in-depth understanding of American foreign policy over the last decade, at least. Gen Z may seemingly have a greater sense of morality when it comes to America’s wars of conquest and colonialism overseas, but not when it comes to holding members of their own generation accountable, like Mr. Chalamet.) SNL did that, of course, because “standing with with Ukraine,” a U.S. puppet ally like Israel, is obviously a pro-war not an AntiWar position.

It’s also more than merely noteworthy that Ukraine’s acting President, Zelensky, is a Zionist himself; and thus any attempt to equate Palestine with Ukraine, or Russia with America’s ally, Israel… (especially when the current Banderist government in Kyiv has been massacring ethnic-Russian civilians in the Donbas region, critical of the U.S.-led coup, since the Obama administration) Is a bit of a stretch.

Nor is the humor lost on me, that many of the people in the George Floyd/BLM/ANTIFA rallies who worked so hard to get President “Genocide Joe” into office, are the exact same ones who are currently protesting his foreign policy in regards to Israel/Palestine, now. It’s pretty damn hilarious, in fact! Are they all just fools who genuinely feel betrayed by the person they campaigned and possibly also voted for, or is something deeper going on? And who exactly is funding and organizing these protests, anyway?

If I sound cynical, it’s only because I remember the (20 year!) long period of Hipster political burnout and apathy to U.S. foreign policy following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. That was also a landmark year for AntiWar protests, but as the years went on people became more and more indifferent to the joint Republican/Democrat-backed wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. (It might even be too optimistic to refer to the protests that are going on now as “AntiWar Protests” since they’re really “anti-genocide” protests with a more narrow focus and simpler demands. Which is honestly great! Since in order for a protest to work, it needs to have clear demands that can be achieved; but at the same time I think many of these protesters are missing the bigger picture, that Zionism isn’t just a threat to Palestinians, but to the whole world. This is true mainly because of the relationship between war and industry, banking, lobbyists, and foreign investors. What we AntiWar protesters sometimes refer to as “The Military Industrial Complex” describes this relationship between war, industry, finance, and propaganda; and regardless of whether it’s labeled a “Jewish conspiracy theory” or not, for most of Israel’s 75 old history the MIC has been decidedly pro-Zionist.) Many of these protesters weren’t even alive back then, or were simply too young to protest, but many of us who have been carrying the AntiWar torch are turned-off by the phoney political correctness and “wokeness” demonstrated at these rallies. Mostly, since these are the exact same “politically correct” ideas that got us here in the first place. The same censorship, and the same policing of language and ideas, and the same silencing of sincere foreign and domestic policy discussion.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the numbers are great! And I wish we saw this same turnout when the U.S. and NATO bullied Russia into war on its borders in the Ukraine, or when America’s “Worst Black President” Barack Obama, and his Vice President “Genocide Joe,” created ISIS and invaded Syria in 2012… But I digress. It’s just that begging your oppressor for a ceasefire, rather than getting to the root of that oppression — U.S. foreign policy towards Israel — is asking for far too little far too late. The only way to reverse course, though it will never bring back the lives of the roughly 12,000 Palestinian civilians who have been killed in the last few weeks, is to sanction Israel rather than supplying it with the weapons it needs to continue to commit genocide against innocent people.

Protest and protesters have the power to block the shipment and dissemination of weapons, temporarily, but not permanently. Only policy can do that, that’s why more action is needed. By action I don’t mean more reactionary protests, when the fires of the obscene immorality of our sacrificing literally tens of thousands of innocent civilians for our foreign interests grow too hot to bear, but the kind of sustained action that puts pressure not only on Israel, but on American policy makers, as well.

I was locked out of my Facebook account, without explanation or violation, right before the U.S. publicly sent depleted uranium and cluster munitions to Ukraine, (which is surely a coincidence) and that’s why my usual online activism on my AntiWar Pages: Peace & Love and The AntiWar Independent Party, have been silent throughout this most recent escalation in Israel and Palestines’ 75 year old long conflict. While I obviously feel both inspired and encouraged watching the younger and older generations marching together for peace, and while I wish I could somehow position myself as Gen-Z’s foreign policy professor, since I know so much of the brainwashing “information” they’re getting is incorrect, just as it was when I was young. I believe moving forward we have to be more direct with the particular policies we oppose, if we ever stand a chance to make a real difference in the world, and limit the influence of foreign bad actors (like Benjamin Netanyahu, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Benny Gantz) on American politics.

Like Chris Cornell said in his final speech, at his final concert, “They don’t give a sh*t about me, and they don’t give a sh*t about you!” He was talking about American politicians, lobbyists, and war-profiteers who perhaps in their own minds are looking out for long-term American interests, (or their own short-term financial or political gains,) but at the sacrifice of American soldiers and our National Conscience.

I say this with all humility, since I was only ever really an outspoken AntiWar Activist during the Obama years when the AntiWar Movement was most dormant. I created my own political party, simply because I could not abide by the pro-war policies of either major political party, as a lifetime AntiWar Activist. As an American I believe I should have some say in who dies in my name, and why. As an Independent I wanted to create a political party that I would be proud to be a part of, one that I felt was looking out not only for my country’s best interests, but the best interests of my fellow countrymen. (Although I first became politically aware as a child during Kosovo, and opposed “The War On Terror” campaign in Afghanistan and Iraq, as a teenager; I only, truly, politically came of age during Obama’s invasion of Syria; something that even many American veterans and active duty servicemen protested.) Nor do I delusionally count myself as some kind of charismatic leader, quite the opposite in fact, as I often limit my own activism (such as paying for advertising for my political party) simply because I know that I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be. (And also, because I can’t afford it!) Rather, I am simply a concerned citizen who cares about peace and the future of American Foreign Policy; as just another American who, like millions of others; is right now witnessing the results of our policies of endless war, rampant political Zionism, capitalist imperialism, liberal interventionism, modern-day colonialism, war-profiteering, Genocide, and destruction overseas.

— A.M. McGee

#prose poetry #freepalestine #AntiWar #truthisshadowbanned #stopthewar #stop censorship

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