JOHNSTONE

"I want my legs back," the girl cried in Arabic. "I want my legs back." You can't have your legs back, little girl. They have been eaten by a hungry machine who needs them for fuel to power its gears. The machine needs your legs to keep the sky raining bombs and to make its death robots fly. Your legs power the bulldozers digging mass graves and the tanks blowing holes in the hospitals. A glorious kingdom is held together by the amputated limbs of children. A pentagon-shaped castle is built from the bones of the amputated limbs of children. Wall Street werewolves and bank boys dine on the amputated limbs of children. Movie stars treat their wrinkles with creams made from the amputated limbs of children. Suburban families prop up their smiles with the amputated limbs of children. The news man lies and in his eyes you see the amputated limbs of children. The podium man smirks and between his teeth are the amputated limbs of children. And the little girl cries, and the news man ignores her, and the podium man smirks at her, and the bank boy bites her, and the machine rolls on, limbs fed into its furnace with pitchforks, crushing houses and blackening the sky, poisoning the oceans and bloodying the earth, while the air fills with the crying of children, for limbs that will never come back, for homes that will never come back, for mothers that will never come back, for childhoods that will never come back, for brightness that will never come back, for innocence that will never come back, for dreams that will never come back, for joy that will never come back. And we are here, eating cheesy meatcarbs and watching funny haw-haws and gossiping and prattling and wishing we looked better and trying not to think about all the tiny arms and legs we see covering the earth whenever we step outside. Reading by Tim Foley.

Israel's allowed to bomb an Iranian consulate, but Iran's not allowed to strike back. The US is allowed to surround China with war machinery, but it would be World War Three if China ever tried to militarily encircle the US. NATO is allowed to expand to Russia's doorstep and amass proxy forces on its border, but the last time Moscow placed a credible military threat anywhere near the United States, the US responded so aggressively that the world almost ended.  The "rules-based international order" that the US-centralized power structure purports to uphold just means an order in which the US makes up the rules and nations had better obey them. It means rules for thee but not for me. Reading by Tim Foley.

So they're really doing it. The Biden administration is really ignoring Australia's request to end the case against Julian Assange, and they're proceeding with their campaign to extradite a journalist for telling the truth about US war crimes. Reading by Tim Foley.

The destruction of Gaza proves the entire mainstream western worldview is bullshit, because if the mainstream western worldview was accurate, the destruction of Gaza would not be happening. Reading by Tim Foley.

Both Israel and the US are pretending to be powerless in this situation, when in reality they're both anything but. They're like two muggers getting ready to mug someone and saying "If only there was something we could do to stop this terrible mugging!" Reading by Tim Foley.

The more I think about it the more obnoxious I find the Biden administration's "Gee whiz, I sure hope Israel doesn't drag us into a giant war in the middle east" posturing and the imperial media's facilitation of it. Reading by Tim Foley.

Anyone who wants the US and its allies to attack Iran is a psychopath. People who want to unleash a war of that scale upon our species should be rejected from our society as aggressively as child molesters and Nazis. Reading by Tim Foley.

A new report from Axios says Biden has personally told Netanyahu that the US will not be supporting any Israeli military response to the Iranian strike. An anonymous senior White House official told Axios that Biden said to Netanyahu, "You got a win. Take the win," in reference to the number of Iranian weapons that were taken out of the sky by the international coalition in Israel's defense. Apparently helping to mitigate the damage from the Iranian attack is all the military commitment the White House is willing to make against Iran at this time. Reading by Tim Foley.

It's like if someone ran up and sucker-punched somebody at the bar, and then everyone started screaming at the guy who just got punched that he'd better leave the other guy alone and stop being a bully. Reading by Tim Foley.

Gaza is a test of the absolute bare minimum requirements for someone to be worth listening to about anything at all, because if you got this one wrong then there’s just something wrong with you as a human being. Reading by Tim Foley.

I'm sick of hearing October 7 mentioned in the same breath as Israel's incineration of Gaza as though they're equal or even comparable. A thousand Israelis dying (probably hundreds by indiscriminate IDF fire) is not comparable to tens of thousands of Palestinians (probably more) being deliberately exterminated by high tech war machinery, even if before you account for the fact that Israel was the aggressor and that the violence of the oppressed is not comparable to the violence of the oppressor in the first place.

Dopey Republican pundits and politicians have begun claiming that Joe Biden has "abandoned Israel" and has fallen under the control of Hamas, because this is a presidential election year and everything needs to be ten times dumber than usual. Reading by Tim Foley.

This is the same CNN who at the time reported on the Flour Massacre in ways that advanced Israel's information interests with headlines completely exonerating Israel of any wrongdoing like "At least 100 killed and 700 injured in chaotic incident" and "Carnage at Gaza food aid site amid Israeli gunfire". CNN also repeatedly refers to the killings as "food aid deaths", as though it's the food aid that killed them and not the military of a very specific state power. Reading by Tim Foley.

The main reason I've focused so hard on Gaza these last six months isn't so much because of how evil and horrific Israel's mass atrocity is in and of itself, but because it's so intimately intertwined with all our world's other problems, and with the future of the human species. Reading by Tim Foley.

Australia's Defence Department has refused a Freedom of Information request about the details of an arms deal with Israel on the grounds that such information "could harm Australia's international standing and reputation," which suggests the details must be pretty damning. Reading by Tim Foley.

Dancing outside the concentration camp, rave music pounding through our bones like bombs. A disco at the genocide, baby. A disco at the genocide. Twerking outside the open-air prison. Raving while Gaza asphyxiates. Twirling glow sticks while a Final Solution is planned. Just an innocent bit of fun. Chill out and dance outside the concentration camp. What could possibly go wrong? We've got the IDF looking after us. They'd never let anything bad happen. So dance while the Palestinians are squeezed to death. Dance while the polar ice caps melt. Dance while the oceans fill with plastic. Dance while the rainforests disappear. Dance while nuclear warheads are primed. Dance while mothers scream impossible screams. Dance while the arms industry reaps record profits. Dance while fathers pick up pieces of their kids. Dance while AI helps exterminate families. Dance while Gazans dehydrate under rubble. Dance while limbs are amputated without anaesthesia. Dance while death machines patrol the sky. Dance while the news man fills our heads with lies. Dance while the podium man denies everything he sees. Dance while the sharptooth manipulators scheme. Dance while our minds are turned into machines. Dance to the beat of imperial psytrance. Dance to the beat of the Pentagon Polka. What could possibly go wrong? Dance outside the concentration camp. A disco at the genocide, baby. A disco at the genocide. _________________ Reading by Tim Foley.

We cannot allow them to neuter this political moment with spin and propaganda. Reading by Tim Foley.

Israel has generously and compassionately reopened the Erez crossing to allow aid into Gaza, as it is the only way to ensure that the US will keep sending them weapons to kill the people in Gaza. Reading by Tim Foley.

Israel isn't being "forced" to kill Palestinian children, it is knowingly choosing to. Reading by Tim Foley.

Stop telling us about the president’s feelings. Stop telling us he’s “angry” and “frustrated” with Israel. No one cares. Nobody gives a shit how Biden’s feelings feel about the government he’s helping carry out a genocide. All that matters is that he’s helping them commit genocide. Reading by Tim Foley.