Supplementing the Record II
What's been left out? For another thing, the difference between action and speech
On February 21st, 2024, Matthew Miller, the outgoing U.S. State Department spokesperson, denied that a holocaust had taken place in Gaza even though an Israeli cabinet minister had said one occurred.
[Beat.]
The video at the top of this post doesn’t capture the U.S.’s official denial.
Instead, it sets the stage for the rhetorical black hole of the typical State Department press conference, in which the head flack—Miller—literally repeats the same talking point—the latest sanctions against Russia are going to be “robust”—while an exceedingly casual reporter keeps asking how these new penalties could be more robust than the last.
Miller, of course, has no answer for this query and the journalist eventually relents. The next correspondent then tries to pierce the veil of White House spin anew.
[An aside.]
I’ve been called “crazy” a lot in my life, no more so than when I was retaliated against by management and their enablers at Gettysburg College in 2020 for daring to back my rhetoric of “Black Lives Matter” with action.
But the only thing “crazy” is is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
So whether it’s reporters trying to get White House actors to speak truthfully or settlers trying to settle a land that’s not theirs, the same tactics won’t yield different strokes.
Hence the reason Sam Husseini protested the White House’s stonewalling on Gaza at Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s final press conference on Thursday—and was disappeared by security because of it.
[Exeunt stage left.]
People have been up in arms over Meta’s decision to relinquish its fact-checking scheme in favor of greater personal expression. As a creator whose original Instagram account was taken down twice, the second time permanently, any reform against corporate censorship is one I support.
Indeed, the larger problem—as my sketch of the February 21st State presser shows—is the corporate media’s lack of interest in holding the U.S. government accountable for what it says and does.
In that respect, why should the average person posting on social media be held to a higher standard than the Founding Fathers and their servants like Miller?
I mean, Biden had the audacity to warn about “oligarchy” in his last speech on Wednesday, which reminded me of his failure to cancel federal student-loan debt at scale because of opposition from Big Money.
My friends at the Debt Collective monitored Robinette’s back-and-forth on that matter; a rejoinder they issued following the Supreme Court’s ruling against the administration’s proposed relief program makes clear—at the very least—that Pal Joey wanted to have it both ways: to appear to be aiding borrowers while also caving to “billion dollar corporations and Republicans.”
To Washington observers who’ve paid attention to the ripple effects of the Third Way normalized by the Clintons, Forty Six’s antics on a bread-and-butter policy issue—and one with great electoral significance—are no surprise.
But the Delawareans take the cake in wanting to have their pasteles and eat them too.
And Miller, the mouthpiece for Blinken, was exemplary in this regard.
For one thing, he’s the former spox for Bob Menendez, the New Jersey senator ousted from Congress last year after his conviction on 16 counts of corruption for carrying water for the Qatari and Egyptian governments.
Although Menendez is now appealing that decision, he’s been fingered for corruption before. Indeed, during Miller’s tenure as the disgraced senator’s chief communicator during the mid-2000s, Menendez was investigated by the Feds for using his official office for personal gain.
And in 2015 Menendez was again indicted on federal charges, though the case ended in a hung jury.
I detail this history because it shows Miller has no compunction about whom he serves—whether that be bona-fide criminal Bob Menendez or unofficial con Antony Blinken, who’s consistently laundered the U.S. and Israeli states’ actions in Gaza in defiance of U.S. and international law.
Too, Miller’s stints in both Menendez’s and Biden’s employ show there’s no daylight between the two career politicians when it comes to criminality, formal or otherwise.
As every reference to 46’s “legacy” throughout his presidency has shown—and especially since his brain fog was exposed in that debate, revealing the White House cover-up—Biden and his family make decisions in consideration of his place in history.
Well, here’s his place in history, my friends: as the coitus interruptus between two Trump presidencies.
His single term in office is about to put him in a tie for 22nd longest serving president with a bunch of forgotten Founding Fathers.
And his tenure will be bookended by asterisks: the pandemic that altered everything about the 2020 campaign and his quitting the ticket at the end.
Which, by the way, is why the joke’s on Biden that he believes his administration clinched this week’s ceasefire deal.
How could that possibly be the case when he’s been a lame duck since the night of June 27th, 2024?
Meanwhile, as I shared Friday on Instagram, the United States and Israel—what I now think of as the United States of Israel to emphasize the Judeo-Christian fascism at the heart of this special geopolitical relationship—apparently didn’t actually negotiate till they agreed to Hamas’s demand for a prisoner swap.
That could’ve happened immediately following 10/7 and 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza—at a minimum—wouldn’t have been slaughtered.
By just November 22nd, 2023—only six weeks into the collective punishment—“more than half of healthcare, education, and water facilities were damaged by Israeli attacks…across all five governorates in the Gaza Strip,” per a report by international academics promoted by Harvard University last April (and which I wish I’d found sooner than while composing this post).
Moreover—and foreshadowing what I’m going to do in the next section—the Harvard press release highlights the Israeli leaders’ own words in describing their campaign of annihilation.
Again, where have the fact-checkers been?
And where have the reporters—not the stenographers—been?
To repeat: On February 21st, 2024—none other than David Geffen's 81st birthday—U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked repeatedly about the ongoing offensive in Gaza by the Israeli “Defense” Forces.
The question that stuck out to me was the seventh or eighth in the series.
For context, the Israeli cabinet member quoted in the reporter’s question—May Golan—has described herself as “proud to be racist.” Wait for it—she’s the country’s current Minister for Social Equality as well as the Minister for Women’s Empowerment.
In response to May’s comment stating a holocaust—“the ruins of Gaza”—had occurred, here's what Miller had to say.
I would encourage you to take a close look at the comments the Secretary made in Tel Aviv...two weeks ago where he talked specifically about the effects of dehumanizing language and why it’s important that no one on either side of this conflict dehumanize anyone else.
The problem with this response, of course, is that Golan wasn't using "dehumanizing" "language" at all but was accurately describing and putting on to the official record the fact that Gaza had been ruined. Indeed, Golan’s speech act proves the intention—the willful malice—at the center of the sea of circumstantial evidence documenting Israel’s colonial retaliation against a captive population.
So either Miller simply didn’t understand the question he was asked or—more likely—chose to bulldoze past it with “woke” vocab like “dehumanizing,” never mind that actually killing people is far more dehumanizing than saying people should be killed. In the former case, the lives of people are permanently ended. In the latter case, a statement has been made and no one’s dead.
(What was that nursery rhyme I learned as a child? Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me?)
And yet in another switchback, when Miller is confronted with plain old dehumanizing language, this time by an American politician—U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee saying all Palestinian children should be killed—he repeats his line about refraining from dehumanizing language.
The problem once again—anyone feeling crazy?—is that Ogles (what a tell) is not just doing things with words but also taking actions like introducing a bill that would legally define the main social-services agency for Palestinians as a terrorist group. Meanwhile, the U.S. had stopped funding that agency, a matter Miller was asked about prior to this question.
To reiterate: At the same time the U.S. under Biden continued its flow of money and arms to Israel to decimate the Palestinians of Gaza, the U.S. also halted the flow of humanitarian aid to the same group of people.
And in this joint maneuver, the Biden administration perfectly displayed the two sides of the practice of fascism: world-shattering violence on the one hand, and the withdrawal of life-sustaining resources on the other.
At the same time the U.S. under Biden continued its flow of money and arms to Israel to decimate the Palestinians of Gaza, the U.S. halted the flow of humanitarian aid to the same group of people, perfectly displaying the two sides of the practice of fascism: world-shattering violence on the one hand, and the withdrawal of life-sustaining resources on the other.
One more exhibit before moving on. When Miller is next asked about the Israeli parliament's—the Knesset's—vote against recognizing the state of Palestine, the mouthpiece again resorts to fantasy in the face of fact, saying the U.S. is still committed to a two-state solution.
And when the reporter follows up—and note there was no follow-up to Miller's evasion of fact in response to Golan's statement of fact—how the U.S. is going to make two states happen when one of the states has just voted against that exact prospect, Miller says nada.
Instead, he just offers more hot air. To wit: “Ultimately, Israel will have to make its own decisions, as every sovereign country does."
Which is strange, because since when does anyone—or any entity—give away $17.9 billion to another party without expecting anything in return?
Only in Biden World apparently, where the powers that be expected us to buy the lie that Hunter got hooked up at Burisma out of the goodwill of Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky.
What was that that Great-Grandpa warned about in his final word?
Oh, right.
Oligarchy.
Without realizing it till close to the end, I posted up a storm on X the day the Amnesty International report on the genocide in Gaza was released.
The NGO’s damning assessment—literally: “Israel has unleashed hell”—follows the International Criminal Court’s issue of arrest warrants for Israeli leader Bibi Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant on November 21st for “crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed in Gaza, including “starvation as a method of warfare.”
Meanwhile, on July 19th, the International Court for Justice released a comprehensive white paper on the full scope of the situation in Israel and Palestine, which it correctly identified as apartheid.
I say correctly because I happen to be an expert on apartheid.
Not that anyone cares about expertise anymore.
At any rate, together the views of Amnesty, the International Court for Justice, and the International Criminal Court amount to a trifecta, my friends.
I used to be a reporter. Indeed, I spent my twenties as a journalist, first as an editorial assistant at Interview, then as a—wait for it—fact-checker at New York, and then as a writer and editor at The Advocate, where I was recognized for my investigative prowess.
When all roads—ahem, Rhodes—point to the same conclusion, that means you’re done reporting.
And the verdict’s in.
Hell on earth.
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING
“The rise and fall of ‘fact-checking’" (Silver Bulletin) — Nate takes apart the Meta decision in his typically brilliant way (and I concur with his take)
“An Open Letter to EPA, DOE, and the White House: Palestine is an Environmental and Climate Justice Issue” (Federal Environment and Energy Workers for Justice in Palestine) — “We emphasize that the devastating loss of innocent civilian life is inextricably linked to environmental injustice.”
“Thousands of Authors Pledge to Boycott Israeli Cultural Institutions” (Lit Hub) — Was extremely pleased to see this, and to see so many familiar names!
“Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory” (Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect) — Additional documentation of the evidence for atrocity crimes across Gaza as well as in the West Bank and East Jerusalem
George Santos’ lies are casting a harsh spotlight on a powerful Republican who endorsed and raised money for him” (CNN) — I don’t know why people are so afraid of Elise Stefanik, Harvard alumna, House member (R-NY), and Trump’s pick for United Nations ambassador. She has such bad taste in men!
Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden (Verso) — Speaking of bad men, author Branko Marcetic is a mensch for exposing Robinette’s career-long misdeeds. I only wish I’d read it when it came out in 2020!