Brian O'Neill

#elxn2025

I figured out who PP reminds me of... #debate2025 #madmen

The corporate coup is global.

Trump's mad tariffs do not mark the end of neoliberalism or free trade or whatever you want to call it.

They mark the end game of what we have been fighting for decades: corporate rule.

They do not believe in the public. They believe in their wealth.

I keep coming back to what the Palestinian delegate said all those years ago, which is that the only way to peace is if Israel, Palestine, and the rest of the world are all willing to make a sacrifice.

A great place to start with this would be Naomi Klein's new book Doppelganger, which focuses on the world of misinformation online and culminates in an eye-opening and prescient chapter about Israel.

To understand what is happening right now, media literacy and an understanding of the history of colonialism are important. You must be willing to challenge certain assumptions and do a lot of unlearning.

I looked up for myself where the UN and Amnesty International stood on the issue and was shocked at how contrary their positions were to the narratives in the media and the films I had seen.

It wasn't until I was on the board of a queer organization in Vancouver and there was a blow-up over BDS and "pink washing" that I began to question the motives of those films, and of the Israeli government's financial support of queer organizations in Canada.

Still, in the years that followed, I backtracked as I saw several well made Israeli art house films that depicted improving relations between Israelis and Palestinians and portrayed Tel Aviv as a progressive, gay friendly place.

I had an Israeli professor who'd left because of her opposition to the government and showed films she'd made of displaced Palestinians. I met someone whose family had been displaced during the Nakba.

I came out of that with a "both sides" perspective, but that changed by the end of undergrad as I basically majored in media literacy with a minor in postcolonial studies.

because I'd only heard that Palestinians were irrational terrorists. To my surprise, he was articulate and reasonable.

I grew up believing the dominant media narrative, so that when I did a Model UN at age 18 I was surprised that they had a delegate from Palestine deliver an address along with an Israeli delegate,

If you have felt confusion or cognitive dissonance about Israel and Palestine in the past weeks, I more than understand.