Ep 375 Kathy Kelly On War, Media, Complicity and Resistance

Episode 375 of RevolutionZ has as guest Kathy Kelly. When journalists are barred and killed, doctors are targeted, and mountainous rubble hides unexploded ordnance, a society is violated twice—physically and narratively. Our guest, Kathy Kelly, connects what headlines obscure: how U.S. weapons shipments function as political green lights, how “ceasefire” rhetoric papers over daily violations, and how displacement in the West Bank is driven by soldiers, settlers, and a structure designed to make staying impossible.

Kathy brings the human scale back into focus. From a makeshift white flag walk into Jenin to evenings with families in Gaza, she shares the intimate choices people make under siege—protecting elders, scavenging firewood, teaching children to read the sky for drones. These stories resist the flattening of body counts, revealing what war does to witnesses and perpetrators alike. Kathy explores how international law erodes when powerful states flout norms, why nuclear ambitions can spread under the guise of “civilian” programs, and how those choices ricochet into U.S. life through policing exchanges, PTSD, and the quiet normalization of force.

Kathy also talks strategy. She tells how student encampments and divestment campaigns pried open university endowments and hedge fund ties. How cultural voices amplify names and memories that institutions try to erase. How growing activism keeps movements alive and oriented. Kathy reflects on practical commitments—from tax resistance to hospitality—that shift resources away from violence and toward care and building a revolution of values sturdy enough to change institutions: living more simply, sharing more fairly, ending the reflex to eliminate those who resist subordination to “national interests,” and actively organizing sustainable resistance. Her message: read and remember, organize locally, join boycott and divestment efforts, and align daily choices with the future you want. 

Transcript

Kathy Kelly’s Grounding And Bio

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, my name is Michael Albert, and I'm the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 375th consecutive episode, and our guest this time is Kathy Kelly. Kathy is an American peace activist, pacifist, and author, one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, and until the campaign closed in 2020, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She now serves as the board president of World Beyond War. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August of 2021, she and an informal group of international folks have worked to resettle over a hundred young Afghans who formerly hosted Westerners visiting them in Cabal. Kelly has served 18 months in U.S. federal prisons for various actions of nonviolent civil disobedience. From 1980 to 2024, she refused all forms of federal income tax. She has lived in war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Lebanon, and the West Bank in Gaza. She believes that children in those areas have been her greatest teachers. Cathy joined delegations to the West Bank's genet camp in 2002 during and after Israeli attacks. During 2006, summer war between Israel and Hezbollah, she and other voices activists went to Lebanon and lived alongside people in a working-class area of Beirut. After the ceasefire, they reported on conditions in southern Lebanon's battered villages. She was in Gaza in 2009 during Operation Castled and traveled there again following the 2013 Operation Pillar of Defense. From 2022 to 2025, she coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, which focused on holding U.S. weapons makers accountable for commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. In May to June of 2025, Kathy joined a 40-day Veterans and Allies fast for Gaza, outside the U.S. mission to the UN in New York City. The group highlighted starvation in Gaza, demanding an immediate ceasefire and an end to U.S. weapons shipments. Kathy is a frequent contributor to Z Network. Her recent articles and presentations have focused on the U.S. provisioned genocide against Palestinians. So welcome, Kathy. It is an honor and a pleasure to have you to talk to.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Well, thank you, Michael. Thank you very much for bringing me onto the podcast.

Media Blackouts And Silencing Witnesses

SPEAKER_00 2:49

To start, I think it might be helpful to explain where things are at in Gaza and the West Bank, and of course, to then talk about what to do. I suggest that because I think there is a diminishment, let's say, of awareness of what's going on and focus in recent months, I guess. And so clarifying that the ceasefire hasn't ceased, etc., um, would I think be helpful even for an audience of uh well-informed leftists at Revolution City.

Life Under Rubble And Slow Death

SPEAKER_02 3:26

You know, it's so troubling to realize that uh not at all a leftist publication, but the Washington Post has just let go of their entire Middle East reporting group, and then uh Israel has managed to continue a law that prevents international journalists from entering Gaza and the West Bank. Over 260 press people have now been killed. You know, I I think, Michael, so often of the White Rose Collective, still you know renowned in Europe, the uh young people, Hans and Sophie Scholl among them, who said, we will not be silent. And they distributed their leaflets all over universities in Germany and then in Munich, they were caught and guillotined three days later. And as I say, that that group of young people are still known by name in many parts of Europe and even in some parts of the United States. But who knows the names of the 260 predominantly young Palestinians who were hunted down by snipers. They were firebombed in their press tents. They sometimes their whole families were taken out with them. 260. We know some of the names. Uh, and then the others who were witnesses to atrocities, the the healthcare workers similarly, uh assassinated, maimed, imprisoned, tortured, again, whole families being eliminated because people were witness to the atrocities. And the atrocities just pile up. You know, when you think about 60 million tons of rubble, rubble the size of apartment complexes and unexploded ordnance in the rubble. It would take 3,000 huge ships just to, you know, transport it all out. And then you've got the Board of Peace speaking about the glowing reconstruction they're going to accomplish. Well, eleven children have died of hypothermia in Gaza. Because, you know, we saw this in Iraq also. When the sewage and sanitation is wrecked, then there's no way to purify water. And when the heavy rains came, the uh contaminated waters, you know, uh uh untreated water sewage went all through the refugee camps and the places where people sought shelter in bombed-out buildings. And so children, when they have to sleep on soaking wet ground in clothing that's saturated by contaminated water and they're already going hungry, it's uh a slow, slowed down version of the genocide. And meanwhile, I think you know, the United States presidency completely bypassed the Congress last week and shipped another six billion dollars worth of weaponry, including Apache helicopters and these kind of like alternate terrain vehicles and materials for um the uh armored personnel carriers. Well, I think that we should see that as a green light. The green light goes on, and Israel bombed again, broke the ceasefire violations, broke international law again, at least uh I mean, we've lost count, maybe 30 people just in the last two days since the okayed yet another weapon shipment. So the United States is provisioning a genocide. And I think US people by and large think, oh, well, there's a ceasefire, isn't there? And meanwhile, um the Knesset is trying to fast forward a bill that would re uh that would allow the death penalty. And some of the people who might be most likely to be assassinated through the death penalty are among those whom we might have hoped could become negotiators, become people that might unify the very many different factions within uh the Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza. So uh you know the the people in the West Bank who thought maybe they could survive and hang on to their land are being forcibly displaced, and they're up against not only the Israeli military, but the settlers, some of whom are part of the Israeli military and part of the Israeli police, and some of whom are young, uh maybe late teens. Uh, they call them sometimes the hilltop youth, because they live up out in the hilltops, and uh, you know, the Israeli social services kind of wash their hands and said, we don't know what to do about some of these kids. They don't go to school, they get in trouble, and they'd send them out to the outposts, and then they get to just run wild uh with big herds that they can um corral and take right down into the bedouin or the small villages at the bottom of the hilltop, and they uh burn crops and torch vehicles and break into homes, terrorize children. So finally, people in Rasa Anja, uh, Masafariata, these places where you know many people had said, we're we're going to stay, this is our land, and they've said we can't stay here, and and and this is just what the I think the Israeli government wants to accomplish.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Yeah, it's uh I mean it's obviously an incredible series of events. I don't know what to call it. But um I just want you to clarify again when the US says uh we've broken a ceasefire, look at us, what's your reaction to that?

U.S. Weapons And The “Green Light”

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Well, I think that ultimately the United States is going to find multiple ways in which this policy-making boomerangs. Because when you chip away at international law, uh that kind of lowers the the possibility throughout the world of any norms being uh established that can be obeyed. And and if the people will, I think, quickly say, well, if it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. If if the United States can uh assassinate civilians and torture people as they did in Guantanamo and flaunt international law, well, why can't we? And if the United States can have nuclear weapons, uh we want them to, and we know that Israel does have at least 90 thermonuclear weapons, quite possibly 200 to 400. And they never allow the International Atomic Energy Association to come in and look at what they've got. And so I think Saudi Arabia uh is very likely going to say to the United States, well, if you want us to normalize anything with Israel, you better give us the green light to get the technology for, you know, the they'll say civilian nuclear uh use, but it's a pretty quick jump, as we've seen, to go from the civilian use into weapon use. So that will make the Middle East even more dangerous than it already is. When we look at what's happening in Minnesota, many cities across the United States, you know, a lot of the police who are part of ICE or part of regular police departments can go to Israel for training. And I don't have the statistics on how many, but but when we you know look the other way or shrug our shoulders as people engage in horrific abuses in uh the West Bank and in Gaza, uh, well that could also come back to our own cities. Um I was just gonna say that uh I know of at least one veteran from the war in Iraq who suffers from PTSD and got work doing construction, but is now out of work because so many of the people on the construction site were Latinos and they can't come to work anymore. They've either been picked up or they're afraid to emerge out of their houses. And so what kind of work is available? Well, uh sometimes the work that's available for veterans uh who know how to use weapons is to join up with ICE. Well, sometimes if those veterans have been sufficiently harmed by post-traumatic stress, then you know, if they think someone's coming after them, they'll pull out the gun. And so I think that's another way in which the constant maintenance of a permanent warfare state will eventually come back to harm the civilians who maybe hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to that permanent warfare state.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

I wonder, because one of the things that I guess distinguishes you in some sense is the amount of contact you've had with people who've endured this kind of stuff. But also I wonder if you've had any kind of interactions with uh Israelis. So on each side, when you say that it can come back to haunt us, one of the ways, I think, is what it does over time to people. I wonder if, you know, maybe you could speak to that a little bit too. See, the audience knows the body count, but I don't think the audience knows, and I'll include myself in that, beyond the body count, all that this kind of dynamic imposes on people, including the perpetrators.

West Bank Displacement And Settler Violence

Eroding International Law And Nuclear Risks

SPEAKER_02 14:06

You know, I'm banned from entering Israel uh unless maybe they uh uh my tenure ban is uh coming to an end. Maybe they would let me back in. But I have tried to listen to podcasts that are conducted between people in Israel who are troubled but feel more troubled, uh, according to the one that I was listening to, by the effect on their their family life. You know, the if a a soldier is called up into reserve duty two or three times, well then that affects the kids and it affects the spouse, and they're uh, you know, there's only one person at home to raise children, or the effects when small businesses close down. Um but I I did have an experience, and this is kind of dated, so I I hope not to take away from the present reality. But when the Janine camp was under siege, I was with the International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank, and we wanted to go to the Janine camp, and people said, Oh, that's just not possible. So finally we got a pillowcase and a broomstick and you know, made our white flag, and just decided, well, we'll walk. And we started to walk, and we were stopped many times, but it was it was remarkable. There were about five or six of us, one person had to leave early, and we just would sort of um divvy ourselves up talking to the Israeli military, and the younger guys would talk about punk baroque music, and I'd talk about you know novels that I'd liked or scripture study, and uh someone else would uh talk about you know the agriculture. So we had these really worthwhile conversations, and inevitably, all through this 13-mile trek going down into the Janine camp, the soldiers would say, Well, look, just cut across that tomato field and go past those two onion fields, and then you'll be back on the road again. Oh, thank you. And so by sundown, we were entering the Janine camp, which was a camp full of people who'd already been forcibly deported and um kicked out of their homes. And so the next morning we thought, well, okay, let's let's head out again. And we we saw quite a few vehicles with um press people, international press, outside of a collapsed building, and it was a strange scene. The press people were trying to sort of receive the body of a woman still alive who was a grandmother, and she'd suffered who knew what, a heart attack, asthma attack. And so they had agreed they'd get her to the hospital. And then there was like a Katusha rocket fired by some Israeli Defense Force vehicle, and the press just vanished. They were gone. And so there I was with my very good friend Jeff Guntzel and another fellow Andre from somewhere in Europe, and we said, well, okay, maybe we can get her to the hospital. So the the poor woman, I mean, she was quite heavy and terrified, and we speak no Arabic and she speaks no English, and you know, they were kind of it was like a sack of potatoes trying to move her toward this not too far away hospital until finally, you know, Jeff and Andres are sweating, and they said, Kathy, go get a stretcher. And they said, There, and they pointed me toward the hospital, and I took off running as fast as I could. And suddenly there were six Israeli soldiers running toward me. And um, they had their guns aimed. And I said, put those guns down now and tell me which entrance of the hospital. I mean, it was a total high school study teacher's voice, and they did. They put their guns aside and they showed me which entrance I could go into, and I ran into the entrance, and I said, This is what's happening. And the workers inside the hospital didn't dare leave and poke their heads outside because they wouldn't, you know, they couldn't save with those guns. They would have been shot. So I've got the stretcher on my head, and I'm running back to where Jeff is, and I see that he's fortunately had very long arms, and he's got his passport in his hand, and he's waving it because soldiers, you know, maybe like the ones who told us, yeah, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, the ones we could imagine having pizza and a beer with, the ones we talked about music and scholarship with. They were throwing plates and glasses and anything they could find from a second-floor balcony from a Palestinian's apartment onto the old woman who was terrified and on the ground. And Jeff was trying to protect her. So this is what war does to people.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

And also, when I was in Gaza in 2009, I stayed with a family, and they were so, so welcoming and dear, and their kids were just uh delightful. And um Yusuf was about eight or nine, Shahita maybe six, and then there was little Mahmoud, I think he was four. And when the ceasefire was declared, and I should mention that Yusuf would tell me, oh, that was a 500-pound bomb dropped from an F F. Oh, that was an Apache helicopter firing. Um, I'm sorry, that was uh a hellfire missile fired from an Apache. He knew all the ballistics, all the weapons. And then when the ceasefire was declared, the kids were so excited. Little Mahmoud was running around, he'd make them like imitate being a nose, uh, uh, uh, an a nave uh sorry, uh, an air, an Air Force dive bomber and then dive into his father's lap, and everybody would laugh. And then the kids wanted me to go outside with them. They pulled me outside and they quickly found a tarp, and they started heaping up on the tarp twigs and branches, anything they could find so they could bring it to their mother as firewood so that she could fuel get the stove to cook. So that little boy Mahmoud, he was all grown up after October 7th, 2023. He had children of his own. He was asleep in a building and he was killed. And just uh two uh well in the London Review of Books I just read about two little boys. I think one was uh 11 and the other was seven from uh U Yuma and Abbas Asi. And they were out looking for firewood. But they went close to the yellow line and they were both killed. Children. So the children that die of hypothermia, the children that are killed from bombings, the children that are killed by snipers. Um, you know, it's it's a it's an erasure of a generation. And that yellow line is uh you know right in line with the divide and conquer strategy. And so they're trying to divide Gaza, and uh the the Israelis are actually hiring mercenaries from gangs that are so desperate. They're Palestinians, and they they agree to act as mercenaries, and and they are among the ones who are then sent out to kill other Palestinians, which you know could lead towards civil war. It's it's a desperate situation. And a lot of people say, oh, Marwan Baraguti is a terrorist. Well, there are lots of terrorizing uh forces at play, but Marwan Baraghuti has been in prison now for over two decades. And some fear that one of the reasons the Knesset might be pushed to rush through that death penalty is so they could assassinate Marwan Barhouti before a campaign to release him because he has some capacity to unify people, it would seem. And and maybe he could be a new leader. There's uh quite a lot of discontent with the Palestinian Authority as it is right now.

War’s Boomerang: Policing And PTSD At Home

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Your biography, even the short one that I read opening this discussion, is hard to fathom. How do you explain? I know this is not going to be comfortable, but too bad. How do you explain the difference between your approach and most people's on the one hand? How do you think about it? How do you make your choices? And then, you know, most people can't engage the way you do. And what I want to know from you is what you think is the way for people nowadays uh to to engage. When someone says to you after hearing you, what can I do? How do you answer? But before you jump to that, I do want to hear if you if you think about yourself and what you do as compared to most people, and have any explanation of it.

Human Stories From Jenin And Gaza

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Well, you know, Michael, as I grow older, um I I'm not so likely to get on a plane and go anywhere, to be honest, because I I feel like the fuel consumption has to, you know, have a very, very good justification these days. And um uh I I think probably my lifestyle now is often in some ways akin to people who think, oh my god, I'm an armchair radical. I I I I read and I study and I maybe I write uh uh letters to the editor. Many people I think feel like when you know they can get out to a local demonstration, but um the ability for us, I think, in our world right now to to identify as best we can with the the people who are bearing the worst brunt of the war is a little bit different these days because I believe it it's increasingly true that we need to lean out so that others can lean in. It may be that it's the Pan-Africanism that's you know resurgent in Africa that will help lead us toward greater safety in our world. It could be that the global south, you know, I I I I look at activists in Colombia and Venezuela, uh, Brazil, uh, Spain, uh which I know isn't the global south, but I think you know there are there are people who have a capacity to unite people in in various parts of the world, and and maybe you know supporting that group is is a way forward as well. I I do think that I was pretty fortunate at a young age because some people whom I just deeply, deeply admired said try to always make the poorest people in the world your number one priority. And once you do that, a lot of things fall in place. I mean, uh you know, you do that, and how are you gonna pay your taxes? So I I managed to successfully avoid all payment of federal income tax from the age of well, from 1980, I think I was 28 years old then, uh until I started taking um Social Security. I I I do receive that. But when when you don't have a lot of um belongings to protect, uh it gets a little bit easier to let go of some things, you know. I mean, I don't I I never wanted to well well the other thing I want to say is that I got to know many people within Catholic worker houses who maintained uh uh houses of hospitality that tried very hard to keep the door open, not to exclude or shun anyone until they were completely full and sometimes too full. But I think over the span of 40 years, only on maybe three or four occasions can I remember and it w it's very sad to think of it, but people who were killed inside those houses. Um they were uh opening the door to people with severe mental illnesses, to people who had, you know, uh scarcity that would be, you know, overwhelming to most of us, to people who sometimes uh were inebriated or you know, maybe had weapons. But no one ever called the police, hardly. Hardly ever did any one of those houses say, we can't cope with this, we're gonna have to call the cops. And in fact, the police would come. I remember they they used to, one there was one guy that was particularly obstreperous in the uptown neighborhood in Chicago, and he'd say, drop me off at the school teacher's house, and the police would bring them over. Um it isn't the case that the people best equipped to help us build security in our neighborhoods or in our world are the people who have invested in weapons, keep making weapons, train one another to use weapons, celebrate weapons. There there's there's so many killers in place right now that are supposed to offer us security. So I think sometimes when people just take some time out to slow down and be rational and ask, you know, what are the greatest threats we face? Especially, you know, grandparents who adore their grandchildren, what do those little types face?

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Uh I don't know whether you saw, but after the killings in Minneapolis, the purchases of guns went up uh substantially in various uh white suburban and you know working class areas, not by the right, but by liberals and by even progressives. In any event. Um you know when you when you mentioned the the possible uh ripple effects of activities in in areas of the world, so for instance in Africa or where you mentioned a few areas, it's true for sure, but I think an irony is um that such effects spread fastest, I think, from here, from the United States. So when uh you know Occupy happens, all of a sudden it's all over the world. And there's a reason for that, I think, which is that because it gives people a inclination to think maybe the United States won't crush everything because its own people are upset and and becoming uh engaged. Uh so I would add that to the list. Uh, I think No Kings, for example, you know, I have differences with it, but its impact is huge, both in the United States and overseas. And we're finally starting to see, I mean, as I'm talking to you and the two of us, uh, you know, elderly, old folks, whatever it is we are, right? Finally young people are starting to engage, I think, in the U.S. And also cultural people. You know, the artists are starting to engage. Something is seriously happening in the United States. Whether it'll continue or not isn't clear.

Fragmentation, Leadership, And The Death Penalty Push

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Well, you know, the student movement with the tent encampments became a globalized effort. And uh, I'm not surprised that the powers that be came down hard and wanted to squelch that movement because they were, I think, very wisely, going for the information about the hedge funds that their universities were directing toward paying for weapons. And um, but those those encampments uh reflected what Dr. Martin Luther King had wanted people to understand. They weren't trying to say it's us and them. They were really looking to create atmospheres where people would talk with one another and recognize diversity. But um I, you know, in a way it looked as though they were disappeared. But uh that's not possible. I'm sure that the young people in all of those campuses are still thinking, okay, we got the boot, but what can we do next? And I think that boycott and divestment campaigns are important. And in some ways, I, you know, some say maybe Gaza's the canary and the coal mine. Uh and so I I think that, well, I I I know through World Beyond War work that when we've tried to do kind of a um, oh, there's one project called the Peace Wave, and and and people string together over 24 hours of representation from each country all around the world. And the African countries have repeatedly came out with their deep concern for people and for Palestinians and the West Bank. And um I I hear that uh repeatedly, and also when people are saying, you know, we don't want a repeat of the colonial oppression, the extraction of our resources, the enslavement of our people, the destruction of our homes, we don't want to have that dressed up in new costumes, basically, but continuing that sort of oppression. And so there's a lot of wisdom that's coming forth from young people in various parts of the world. But how can those young people feel strengthened and united? And you know, the internet is something you didn't have when you were leading uh the campuses during the Vietnam War. You didn't have anything even remotely like it. So, but then on the other hand, I think of these coolers.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

It's got its downside too, though.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Yeah, it sure does. I mean, the environmentally, you know, it could be game over.

unknown 33:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

But even in terms of consciousness, it's you know, it's we probably shouldn't get into that. I don't know. It would take us off track. But from something you said earlier about uh call it empathy, call it uh some kind of understanding of of the plight of other people. When Sanders ran in uh, I guess the first time, he had an ad on. It wasn't on much, but I saw it once. And I was addled by it, you know, with him talking to the audience, and he basically said, When we can feel about people across town who we don't know, like we can feel about our next door neighbor or even our family, the battle will be over. Which coming from the TV, it just I I couldn't believe it. But but there's a lot of truth to it. But you can't jump to it, I don't think, um, by starting out empathizing with people 5,000 miles away. Some will. I mean, you will, but what's happening in Minnesota and various places in the United States, and you know, there's an awakening, I don't know, I hate to use that word, but there's a consciousness-raising project, uh process, and then you become empathetic with uh so that you can no longer even relate to uh, you know, if one person's in jail, I'm not free. So that that becomes the kind of feeling that that starts to pervade. And that was starting during the uh the encampments, I think. I think you're right. And but then it got hurt. And uh I'm with you in thinking that the students, even the ones who are saying uh, no, I don't want to have anything to do with it. I want to pursue my uh career, which is gone anyway, but I want to pursue my career, even those inside there's something about to explode. And I wake up every day looking to see did it happen, you know, at the level of the encampments and indeed more. Partly I could not believe when uh you know Trump went after the universities, and he's still doing it, but now of course it's old news because uh that students on campuses didn't say no and just shut them down and and say get out. And I I just couldn't fathom how that could not have happened, but it didn't, uh at least not on a big scale. But I think it will.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

Studster used to talk about institutional amnesia, and uh I I've been kind of surprised if I was at one of the local universities around here speaking, and I mentioned the tent encampments to uh people who were undergrads, and they didn't really know.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

They don't even know. Yeah.

Making Choices: From Taxes To Hospitality

SPEAKER_02 36:53

They they just didn't even know. So so that might seem like a sort of one brief shining moment. But you know, when Hindra Jab was killed along with her aunt and uncle and four of her cousins, I think the intent on the part of the Israelis was to say, okay, that voice is not going to be heard, which her voice is being heard. Do you know there are three movies that have been made about Hindra Jab, and one of them is up for an Academy Award. Uh that there's a Hindra Jab Foundation, and of course, at Columbia University, the students who were part of the encampments threw a sheet out the window of Hamilton Hall that's renamed it Hinds Hall. And I think that little girl who wanted to be a princess when she grew up, her voice is being heard in remarkable ways. And uh, you know, Macklemore did a rap uh song, and there's a couple of other uh very popular social media type um viral videos that circulate. So so that could, you know, I think that little girl's voice is is going to be a bridge, you know, when she said, please come, I'm so scared. Uh you know, that now there are little children who might say, I'm so cold, I'm so sick, please come. But I I think that we can expect uh more and more audience in a way for for those voices that, you know, and kind of a which side are you on? Reckoning, do we really want to side with uh some entities that are so incredibly reckless and dangerous for our world?

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Yeah. I don't know. Do you do you uh is there something you'd like to discuss that you know I haven't talked asked you about and I should have?

SPEAKER_02 38:54

Um is there is there anything in particular you'd like to Well, it's interesting to me to think about the effort you've been making to imagine an outreach into the distant future, not so far distant future.

SPEAKER_03 39:09

Yeah, hopefully not.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

And and these imaginary leaders that are actually mirrors of people that really did exist in our time, then uh become teachers or prophetic witnesses. And it's interesting that Jim Douglas has written, uh, in fact, uh Zenat um just carried Sarah Ball's review of a book called Martyrs to the unspeakable. And it's the meticulously researched uh story of the assassinations of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X. And you know, when you then add in Gandhi, I think uh a week ago tomorrow would be the day when he was assassinated, I guess what, um was it 80 years ago?

SPEAKER_00 40:05

No. Skip the number.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

Yeah. And then when you add in, I want to just mention the uh Count Folk Barnadot, who had tried very hard to create a sort of an Arab-Israeli peace plan for the United Nations. He was somebody who had saved numerous hundreds of people, more than Schindler, from concentration camps and from the Nazis, the Gestapo. He got people to different parts of Europe to safety. And he was he was really a revered figure, and he went to work for the you know, fledgling United Nations, and he and Ralph Bunch put together what they thought would be a workable plan. They realized how unfair the Balfour Declaration had been. And so they were about to deliver it to the United Nations, and they were assassin. Well, there were Bunch actually was supposed to be in the car, and somebody else was there in his place because he uh I don't know if he had a delayed flight or what. But anyway, Count Volk Bernadotte was assassinated um by members of Stern Gang. Um so there have been many, many, many efforts to eliminate those who speak such wisdom. In in my tradition, we we think of Archbishop Romero who said, Me they may kill, and they did, but my blood, it will rise in the Salvadoran people. So the the martyrdom people may think is you know the end of the line, the utter upper hand and a triumph of CIA and FBI and other militarist forces, but maybe not.

Student Encampments, Divestment, And Global Links

SPEAKER_00 41:58

But there is a tendency, I think, among many commentators, to I don't want to make it sound too harsh. It's well meant, right? But to me, it feels like it's doing the other side's work to talk about how painful, how repressive, how powerful, instead of talking about, you know, people like yourself, talking about resistance and its effectivity. So I'll give you one example. Do you remember the Seattle demo? Okay. Seattle for the months months before, the whole discussion is about positive aims. Um why we're doing it, what etc. As you get closer and closer, the discussion, and I mean the discussion on the left, starts to be about tactics. And then it starts to be about the repressiveness of the police. And at this particular point in time, of course, the police are trying to convince everybody to stay away because we're so god-awful repressive that you'd be wrong to come. And we would be sort of advertising for them almost, if you know what I mean. And so, you know, your way of talking about the people who've died is different. You're talking about what lives on. But often what's talked about is, oh, it's grotesque and uh and the violence is grotesque, but it's being elevated, it's being highlighted, not not the other. I don't, you know, I'm not sure that's clear, and I'm not even sure I'm right. But I I do feel that way often.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Of course, the other factor is that as you know history moves on, we're moving into more and more AI intelligence. intelligence uh capacity to identify people and again you know the canary and the coal mine the uh Google and Microsoft and Palantir uh technology technological conglomerates have given to Israel the capacity to determine where people live and then cut them down. Well that that's again something that can come home to risk and I can imagine people would say well that is really scary get me out of this country. And and you know just I guess in the Washington Post maybe two days ago some fellow had gone to demonstrations but he wrote a letter just a very polite letter to somebody whose name he googled and found who worked with the Department of Homeland Security and uh the the uh federal government subpoenaed his entire Google account and there were agents at his door. So that kind of thing will have a very chilling effect I think on people's readiness to take action and yet it is remarkable what we're seeing in Minneapolis. I see what you're saying about people getting guns and um feeling like they have to protect themselves. But there's also there has been a relentless morning noon and night neighborhood organizing and coming together of groups. So and even in Chicago uh you know never before had we seen on the front page of the Chicago Tribune big color pictures of people undertaking civil disobedience and being attacked by the police. You know people with their whistles and uh determination they they have been able to push back in ways that we don't see elected officials engaging in.

Tech, Surveillance, And Chilled Dissent

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Well you are I mean you're starting to see the officials not because they're wonderful people but because they're succumbing to pressure um splitting with Trump and uh you know I I do think something is seriously happening in in the in the growth of the resistance um but on the other side uh Trump is not going to just say okay I give up uh he will uh he will escalate also where it will go you know thrives part of the problem certainly part of the well that's his whole modus operandi you know it was Kissinger you remember it's basically act like a madman um keep changing up and threaten and you know repress and and make it that nobody knows and but Kissinger was good at it. Trump, for all everybody calls him a complete lunatic, et cetera, et cetera, is fantastic at it. I mean it's grotesque but he's very good at it it to the point where you feel like nothing is believable. You know it's you don't know what the truth is at any given time etc etc but uh I guess we'll see uh I uh I keep trying to reach to find a way to reach younger people it's sort of ridiculous I mean I'm Methuselah trying to reach younger people and it's you know but you gotta try and uh well you know I think February is a great month for people to come together get copies of the Riverside Church speech Beyond Vietnam and just take turns reading paragraphs from that speech uh when people ask what can I do that's one thing everybody can do.

SPEAKER_02 47:56

And then I I also recommend um reading about the assassinations of Dr.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

King Malcolm X the Kennedy I think we would part ways I would never find myself recommending that I would find myself recommending read about the movements in the street read about the you know they're gonna hear enough about there's there's no shortage ever of commentary about the other side's power.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

But I think that what we find in that book is is the uh Wait what book are you talking about? Uh Martyrs of the one you just mentioned Jim Douglas yeah because what it encourages is the poor people's resurrection camp concept that the whole encouragement that I think led to you know I mean uh when King gave the beyond Vietnam speech one of the other ministers said Martin you just signed your death warrant um but that's what he was calling for he was saying uh you know he didn't want ever to become adjusted to the injustices and uh so I yeah that's yeah yeah I mean it's also the case I mean right now right anti-Trump resistance is that to get us back to the condition that bred Trump or is it going to go further?

SPEAKER_00 49:30

In other words is victory really certainly part of victory is the election in a year part of victory is getting Republicans out of you know the et cetera et cetera but if that's the whole of it a tremendous amount of effort will have gone into returning to business as usual on the way to worse.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

So somehow there has to be an is so important but a revolution of values where people really want to ask okay how can we learn to live together without killing one another? How can we learn to live more simply share our resources more effectively and let go of the idea that if somebody in another country isn't subordinated to our national interest we can eliminate them. Yeah those are words that when I was in college I went to a talk that Professor Noam Chomsky gave and uh I didn't understand most of it to be honest. I was as dumb as a door and I said but I got that and I never forgot that line he said the United States um way of operating is to say to other people in every other part of the world if you do not subordinate yourselves to fulfill our national interest we will eliminate you.

Culture, Memory, And Voices That Persist

SPEAKER_00 50:54

And I'm so sorry to say every decade of my life since that time those words came true uh and and I was uh present and watching in some of those places in Iraq in Afghanistan in Gaza in Lebanon uh people who meant us no harm so how can we learn to live together without killing one another it's it's that I think has to fuel the stages of the end and the uh the you know the institutions in each country have to change it's not just okay we'll look uh um harmoniously and humanely on you meanwhile our system is built on greed and corruption and violence you're not gonna get the former unless you also get the latter and uh so that's the means you use determines the end you get yeah well that's certainly true too yeah uh anyway um okay I you mentioned uh when we were starting that you did have some things that you had to do we're almost at an hour if you you know if you have something that you that you want to get in before we stop please do but otherwise I guess we should sort of move toward conclusion.

SPEAKER_02 52:23

Well this has been very good to spend this time with you Michael thank you and thank you for all the energy that you and your colleagues have put into creating ZMag and um the podcast and all the many ways that I I think it's it's it's growing and it's it's sophisticated in a good way.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

I appreciate that thank you and it pales in comparison to your activities. Well bash on more I I think it's the case um in any event thank you for being on and uh this is Mike Albert signing off for Evolution Z. Until next time