cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28249292
Generated Summary below:
Video Description:
National Co-Director of feminist anti-war group Code Pink joins Bad Faith to discuss Tom Cotton’s attacks on Code Pink and Senator Jim Banks’ allegation that Code Pink is in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. In the wake of huge protests on April 5th and since October 7th, establishment politicians have been cracking down on protests. What is the future of protests? Are they effective, or tools for the managed release of public discontent? Does Code Pink have insights and/or strategies to maximize this moment?
Generated Summary:
Main Topic:
The video discusses the current state of protest movements in the US, particularly focusing on anti-war activism, the shift in public opinion regarding Israel, and the challenges faced by organizations like Code Pink. It also addresses accusations against Code Pink of being funded by foreign entities and the broader implications for activism and political discourse.
Key Points:
- Code Pink’s Protest Strategy: Code Pink focuses on actions that educate and inspire people to take action against war and in favor of peace, disrupting events to expose politicians’ stances.
- Shifting Public Opinion on Israel: A recent poll shows a majority of US adults now have an unfavorable view of Israel, with significant shifts among Democrats and young Republicans.
- Accusations Against Code Pink: Code Pink is facing accusations of being funded by the Chinese Communist Party, which they vehemently deny. They are filing an ethics complaint against Senator Tom Cotton for spreading these lies.
- Repression and Fear-Mongering: There’s a concern that the establishment is cracking down on dissent, using tactics like deportation threats and spreading misinformation to create fear and discourage activism.
- The “Miss Rachel” Controversy: The video touches on the controversy surrounding “Miss Rachel,” a children’s programmer accused of anti-Semitism for expressing concern for Palestinian children.
- Foreign Influence and Hypocrisy: The discussion highlights the hypocrisy of accusing anti-war groups of being funded by foreign entities while ignoring the significant Israeli funding of various causes and political campaigns in the US.
- Need for Organized Action: The speakers emphasize the importance of organizing people into movements and providing political education to empower them to take more concrete actions beyond protests.
- DHS Screening for Anti-Semitism: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is going to begin screening aliens’ social media activity for anti-semitism.
Highlights:
- Code Pink’s representative details the organization’s strategy for deciding on protest actions, emphasizing education and inspiration.
- The discussion of the poll revealing a significant shift in public opinion against Israel.
- The detailed explanation of the accusations against Code Pink and their response.
- The analysis of the “Miss Rachel” controversy and the broader implications for free speech and criticism of Israel.
- The emphasis on the need for organized action and political education to translate public sentiment into meaningful change.
About Channel:
based on the hit tv show
With Briahna Joy Gray
I know whenever I attend a protest, the first thing people do is start talking to me about NATO and how much they like it. Don’t even get me started about Gaza. I can’t even bring it up because so many of these protestors are pro-Israel. You know.
Can we maybe do something about this guy? I mean it is a more systemic problem, a lot of the more subtle propaganda people are actually more effective, but this dude is just annoying which is its own kind of problem.
Many attention seekers in forums, self-censorship is your right; no need to inform us of your disdain for dissent and those against the status quo.
Let me know if you would like to have a substantive discussion of the video instead of pushing for more censorship for those that do not think like you want them to.
All is well, though. Peace!
P.S.: I hope we may come together on other topics or just have a discussion on what is posted and the topics discussed in the video.
Sure. What’s up with this?
https://www.codepink.org/ukraine
https://www.codepink.org/whatside
https://www.codepink.org/china
Highlighting is mine.
Any of that that you would want to defend?
I’ve heard sketchy things about Code Pink’s leadership’s relationships with people who would make this kind of thing make sense. That doesn’t necessarily have to be the worst thing in the world, I don’t actually know how big a factor it is or even if it would be a problem if it were a big factor, but it is weird that an activist organization is taking any side other than “let’s fight Trump right now at this pivotal moment” and “genocide in Xinjiang is bad” and “Russia killing innocent people and ignoring diplomacy is bad”.
I did find some ICE resistance toolkits, buried deep deep in the site. It’s not like an obvious China-aligned honeypot or anything. But they do have a peculiar total lack of concern about anything that’s currently happening internal to the US. Everything on the front page is still along the lines of “let’s resist the US State Department” and not “holy shit the US is on fire let’s stop it before the SA evolves into the SS.” There’s no publication about the protests on the 19th, nothing about the recently kidnapped immigrants.
What’s your take on that? Any of those images or decisions by them that you would want to defend in a substantive discussion?
Thanks for replying!
The video addresses your concerns; it seems you do not take them at their word and instead solely only believe what politicians, like Tom Cotton, claim while appealing to authority, instead of questioning their narratives.
The video shows that these “US politicians,” like Tom Cotton, receive AIPAC money and are, in fact, paid agents of a foreign country. Funny how politicians continue to smear protestors with what they themselves do on the regular.
Open Secrets:
Cotton, Tom (R-AR) | Arkansas | $237,577[1]
It is important to know the views of independent journalists and commentators, not only the owner class-owned mainstream media narratives.
If you only consume US military propaganda, I can see why you think the highlighted areas are of concern.
Like Code Pink, I am also anti-war.
The video addresses your concerns
I thought you wanted a substantive discussion? If you wanted to just say “watch the video” then I didn’t need to type all of that.
it seems you do not take them at their word
Literally everything I posted was their word.
instead solely only believe what politicians, like Tom Cotton
0% of what I said is based on what Tom Cotton said. Literally 0%. My source is the Code Pink website.
The video shows that these “US politicians,” like Tom Cotton,
Again: This is just me looking at their own web site. Nothing from Tom Cotton.
Are you interested in talking about these things? I attempted a substantive discussion, and literally all you said was that I can watch the video, and that Tom Cotton is wrong. Both of those I already knew.
I did snag the transcript and then click away, to check if the answers were, really, in the video. I don’t really like watching videos like this as I don’t want to give views to open propaganda, so I like to click away early in the play which hurts it with the algorithm as opposed to helps.
Looking over the transcript for answers to the questions you said were in there, I see:
- They do say they’re opposed to sending any weapons to Ukraine. That’s kind of a red flag for me.
- They seem to do a similar dodge that you do, in which they take reasonable criticism (that they’re strangely pro-China in their messaging and seem to have financial links to China) and then twist it into this extreme caricature (that they’re 100% funded by the CCP).
- They do mention the recent Gestapo-ization of ICE, which is good. I do feel like their solutions are kind of lackluster (try to find someone near you who has student loan debt? Who has a working-class job? Then lay the foundation for future work where maybe they can grow into something more meaningful and educated as an ally in the future which will take time as they get educated? WTF? That’s only a slight exaggeration of what they said)
Just so I’m not misleading about any of this, here’s the interview excerpt:
Q: “Some combination of all of the messaging has worked, as evidenced by the shifting polls that I just read out. But is that the sum total of what the goal is? The majority of people are against—or have negative views of Israel now. Is that mission accomplished? If so, does that mean that we should move into a different sort of frame, or in addition to the protest, start using the appetite for mass mobilization for something a little bit more concrete?”
A: "Yeah. To speak to both those points, I see you have ‘If We Burn’ behind you. I also have it behind me. And the basic thesis of the book was that these movements of the early 2000s weren’t successful because the masses didn’t have an organization to lead. Like it wasn’t an organization. It didn’t have leaders. It didn’t have an agenda. That kind of thing.
And I think I can speak to what Code Pink’s goal is in all of these things. I can’t really speak to other organizations as much, but what we’re encouraging all of our chapters to do—and our chapters have grown exponentially in the last 2 years alone—is bringing out your neighbors, people you work with, regular people that you know can be sympathetic to this idea and bring them into the fold so they have an organization to be part of.
And I think, when it comes to the movement as a whole, I think we have to start thinking of what are our most powerful blocs. I think it’s workers, right? People who work wage labor. And I think also something interesting that I read about recently is debtors—people who owe debt. So people who owe medical debt, which is millions and millions of people in this country; people who owe student debt in this country, which is also millions of people—organizing to create debtors unions and refusing to pay debt that they owe would be a huge power bloc, I think.
But for Code Pink, it’s to get people into an organization—whether it’s us or whoever they align with—but so they could actually be organized and bring more people into the movement. Because it’s not just people who show up to protest. It’s actually getting those people who are ready to take the next step and do civil disobedience rather than just make a poster and show up to a protest.
You have to get them there. And that takes time. It takes political education. It takes people feeling empowered to actually do those things, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Like we actually have to take these people and give them political education, give them community, give them an organization to be a part of for them to feel ready to take that next step. So that’s what, you know, Code Pink’s idea of it is."
This just seems kind of laughable. They are building the concentration camps right now, they are snatching people. “Mission accomplished”? Not paying student loan debt? What the fuck?
There is an organization of millions of people who were out on the street a couple of weeks ago. They’re going out again this weekend. Is Code Pink going to do them a favor by giving them an organization to be part of?
Overall, I pretty much agree with this random thing I found (and, I’ll note that coincidentally they again aligned perfectly with Russia’s geopolitical goals as of this old random blog post). Both in terms of Code Pink’s venerable history, and in terms of my overall take on them in the present day and their productiveness level and naivety:
https://medium.com/muros-invisibles/code-pink-and-the-politics-of-privilege-475234e4490f
That’s I guess more my read of them as opposed to that they’re open foreign agents or anything. Just that they’re wading in with these solutions like “let’s stop sending weapons to Ukraine, that will end the war,” weirdly coincidentally often aligned with open enemies of people I consider friends and allies, without really having a clue what their solutions mean or what will happen.
I thought you wanted a substantive discussion? If you wanted to just say “watch the video” then I didn’t need to type all of that.
We can’t have a substantive discussion if you don’t know what they discussed and what views National Co-Director of Code Pink Briahna expressed.
Ah, you read the transcripts!
open propaganda
https://medium.com/muros-invisibles/code-pink-and-the-politics-of-privilege-475234e4490f
You label the video as open propaganda while posting a propaganda smear piece against Code Pink. The article does not speak to or question anyone from the organization; they just continue to spew government and US military talking points.
sending any weapons to Ukraine
pro-China
I do feel like their solutions are kind of lackluster
This just seems kind of laughable
aligned perfectly with Russia
The populace in the United States is for peace, and they want a ceasefire in Gaza and in Ukraine.
There is a reason why they did not vote for a continuation of Biden/Harris, due to the status quo of funding and arming foreign countries.
Trump’s pseudo-populist views of wanting to end the wars and stopping the funding of foreign nations are what the people were looking for.
Code Pink is a reaction to the populist views of the people in the United States.
Which is why they continue to confront so many politicians and question them on their actions of siding with foreign nations instead of helping the people in the United States.
Confronting these politicians helps them show what these politicians continue to vote for, the status quo, educating and inspiring people to join in on the movement; they want to build a working-class movement, since the majority of the populace is against war and for peace and a ceasefire.
I feel like we’re operating on two separate wavelengths here.
I think what I think because I looked at stuff. I didn’t get it from Tom Cotton or the State Department. A lot of your criticism of what I think boils down to… well, actually, you’re not really dealing very much directly with what I said. You’re just using the opportunity to repeat a bunch of stuff you wanted to say. When you do deal with what I said, it’s very cursory, just kind of discarding it all airily.
I actually read up what Code Pink had to say in detail, on their web site and in the transcript, and then I brought up parts of it that I thought were wrong and touched a little bit on why and how I take their stuff. Actually I don’t think it’s really “wrong” entirely, like I said there are big, big pieces that I agree with. You can disagree with me on any of the stuff I do take issue with, if you want. But there has to be a reason. Not just “propaganda smear piece” “Tom Cotton” and so on.
IDK. I feel like you think information has to be given from above, either from the State Department or from Code Pink, and it has to be one or the other. I generally check stuff for myself and dig into it a little bit. I asked you a bunch of questions, genuinely because I wanted to know what you thought, and it seems like you’re not comfortable with that, you just want to repeat and bash.
Good luck with it, I guess, I think I got out of this about the reaction I had expected to get out of it.
I feel like we’re operating on two separate wavelengths here.
Yes, sorry.
I was trying to keep the discussion focused on what was mentioned in the interview while answering your questions.
I try to keep it in simple terms.
Many of the working class are struggling, and groups like Code Pink are just one group that tries to show what the majority of people feel.
Which is questioning the politicians on their voting record and trying to stop the funding of foreign military budgets that cause mass slaughter.
These views are not only brought out due to being brainwashed or bought by Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, Code Pink, and other boogeymen.
We just came to the same conclusion: that these forever wars are not helping the everyday person in the United States; in fact, they do the opposite.
AIPAC and Israel are not helping the United States; they are just buying our politicians and getting us to fight their wars in the Middle East.
Then AIPAC and Israel, and their paid politicians, smear (example of being labeled an antisemite; the video discusses this) anyone who is not pro-war and for their campaign of slaughtering civilians.
New polling shows that the majority of people now see Israel in a negative light, especially those between the ages of 18 and 49.[1]
Again, the majority of people want peace and ceasefires in Gaza and Ukraine, not a continuation of funding foreign governments and their military ambitions.
Sorry for failing to communicate in the way you wanted to; I will continue to try and learn!
[1] Glenn Greenwald Commentary: Censorship and New Israel Polling | https://lemmy.world/post/28280813 ↩︎
