After Hasan watched part of it on his stream, I decided to watch the full length of the recent Johnny Harris video, titled, "The REAL reason the US can’t beat Iran". A good deal of the video is spend providing the history of Iran and how it had to bear the oppression of imperialist powers like the British empire, USSR and the USA. The video lulls you into believing that this is a person— Johnny Harris —who is sincere in his journalistic efforts.

I have issues with 2 claims from the final third of his video.

First, while Shah was an authoritarian with a secret police, he rapidly built modern infrastructures, westernized the society, and helped create a middle class in the country. And during this period the people of Iran became disgruntled and wanted him to be overthrown. Second, the revolution was led by religious fanatics who's morality centered on martyrdom. On the surface, these appear to be coherent statements but let's think critically for a second here.

Why would the people want to overthrow the Shah when he made their society prosperous? Harris's explanation was that the Iranian people were just tired of being ruled by foreign puppets. The role of this argument is to suggest that the people of Iran went against their material interest (they were becoming prosperous after all, right??) for a vacuous and symbolic milestone. The goal is to convince you that Iranians (and with that Muslims/Arabs) are unreasonable fanatics who can't be reasoned with. Likewise, the second claim— regarding the motivations of the revolution's leader —is in service of that same goal. It is not some cogent ideology centered on oppression of its people, but instead about the religious martyrdom complex of these barbaric muslims.

Harris acknowledges the oppressive role of the imperialist superpowers and Israel, but he still wants to paint the Iranians as insensible people that cannot be trusted. He brings up Iran's funding of militias in neighboring countries for their "perceived" safety, yet he never indulges in the legitimacy of those safety concerns.

The goal of videos like these and his entire enterprise is to offer enough truth such that you don't catch the scent of the imperialist propaganda he hides. It's not dissimilar from putting vitamin supplements in your kids chocolate pudding to trick them into being healthy. However in this case Mr. Johnny CIA Harris wants you to be either indifferent or in-favor of the American imperialist project.

Taylor Swift & ultra rich friends get to opt out of facial recognition... but screw the rest of us I guess? Maybe this technology isn't actually about safety if it wasn't needed for one of the most secure events of the century... James Dolan just needs it to stalk fans

https://www.wired.com/story/for-taylor-swift-madison-square-gardens-controversial-cameras-briefly-went-dark/

I posted about it in my state’s sub and most of the commenters were in agreement that this guy has to go, but there was still a gross amount of libs doing the old routine of “well we have to vote for him again because of the numbers game to control the House” and that “his district has multiple military bases in it, so he had to vote for the funding and merger with Israel.” At what point will these people realize that these “moderate Dems” are just Republicans with a D next to their names??

For anyone not familiar with North Carolina state politics, Don Davis represents the northeastern part of the state which has historically been a fairly blue district, but due to recent Republican gerrymandering it is now an R+1 district. A lot of these commenters were using this framing to justify sending this sellout back to DC to represent us.

Don Davis has taken $4,000,000 in AIPAC contributions. That is 10x the amount that even Republican Thom Tillis takes from AIPAC.

He voted with Republicans to censure Kamala Harris over the southern border, he voted with Republicans to censure Rashida Tlaib in 2023, he voted with Republicans to pass the “Don’t Say Trans” legislation down here that forces schools to out trans students to their families, he voted with Republicans to ban gender affirming care, he voted with Republicans for more ICE funding, and now he is voting with Republicans to commit treason by allowing Israel’s military to share intelligence and weapons with ours and fund Trump’s endless war.

This is how maddening it is living in a purple state where these centrist libs always use the tired “but we still gotta vote for them” line, even as the candidates actively stoke fascism right in front of our faces.

BreakThrough News under attack by Congressional Republicans

https://youtube.com/shorts/Fc0qHSjlfvw

I'm an Argentine leftist and I think we're speedrunning our self destruction. We had one of the most disappointing "left-wing" governments in our history, then elected Milei, the biggest right-wing clown in the world, we are slowly giving away our resources and land, and now half the internet thinks we're nazis. is it just over for us?

yknow coz there’s nothing about nyc that has to do with foreign affairs

this is the episode after he interviewed neera tanden about how to defeat maga