Monday, June 17, 2024

Bill Maher Mutates Into A FOXite Propagandist By Conflating 'The Left' With "Jew Haters"

 Israel is led by a prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has to stay in power to avoid potentially being sent to prison on corruption charges. To do so, he sold his soul to form a government with far-right Jewish extremists who insist that Israel must fight in Gaza until it has killed every last Hamasnik — “total victory” — and who reject any partnership with the Palestinian Authority (which has accepted the Oslo peace accords) in governing a post-Hamas Gaza, because they want Israeli control over all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, including Gaza.-  Thomas Friedman, NY Times, American Leaders Should Stop Debasing Themselves on Israel


Bill Maher, for those unaware, has been on a tear now the past several months, undermining the coming election by conflating "the left" with anti-Semites on the issue of pro-Palestinian Gaza protests.  In his latest episode of Real Time (June 14) I counted no less than eight times this smarmy ass monkey cited the "Left" and "Hamas" in the same sentence. A perfect example of what I am writing about can be found at this link :

Bill Maher unloads: 'How come it's okay for the left to hate the Jews?' (msn.com)

(And note the FOX News source.  Obviously they are putting up more and more of his BS and you need to ask why)

This smug fucker has no clue that "the Left" does not hate the Jews. It doesn't because it is not one single indistinguishable entity. The vast majority of what's called "the Left"  hates the sumbitch authoritarian assholes like Netanyahu that use the cover of Israel and the Jewish state to carry out indiscriminate mass slaughter in Gaza under the cover of waging war.

 As one Reddit commenter aptly put it:

Bill Maher has been on his "Progressives love Hamas and support terrorism" propaganda for a few months. He makes a point to repeat it 5 times every show. I lost all respect for him, and after the 5th show of his constant, deceitful propaganda; I stopped watching his show for good. He's far too smart to be that ignorant and way off-base. He's intentionally trying to slander and mischaracterize people's views in order to demonize them. I NEVER thought I'd see the day when Bill Maher turned into a alternate facts, fake narrative, propagandist hack...Bill's labeling the Left as "loving Hamas and supporting terrorism" is the EXACT same tactic as labeling the Left as baby killers etc. He's literally doing the bidding of the same MAGA propagandists that he PRETENDS to be against

Which is exactly the take I had after viewing his latest Real Time. Generally, I let pass most of Maher's blathering - as he did on the Covid vaccines in 2020-21 -   e.g.

Bill Maher Dings The Left About Misinformation From A Poll When He Ought To Be Focused on The False Beliefs Of The Right 

And:

Because he also delivered punch backs on Trump.  But those return fires have gotten fewer the last year as his "both sides" baloney has increased. Ordinarily, if this were not a critical election year I'd let this pass. But when one equates one side of the political spectrum as 'haters' with the other side of cultists and genuine haters (on the Trump right) there are serious issues and problems and people need to be made aware. This is given it gives incentive for unthinking voters and social media obsessives to make careless generalizations.  As the Reddit commenter also noted:

Then next episode he'll be absolutely appalled and shocked at how so many Americans can vote for Trump and all the "cultist" nonsense. So many vote for lesser of the two evils, so when they view the Left and Progressives as baby-killing, groomers who support Hamas terrorism; it's EASY to see how they can stomach Trump's mean tweets and all the other lies and bullshit

This is also a perspective shared by blogger Jaime O'Neill, e.g.

Can You Believe This Smug Asshole? I Mean, Really, Can You?

by Jaime O’Neill | May 5, 2024 - 5:48am

Bill Maher still says that are routinely kept from Fox viewers. But, as is increasingly the case, he once again gave up trying to suppress his inner-Fascist, unable to resist bitching about how the government is spending his tax money on people who hate Jews, by which he meant those students now protesting American policy toward Israel. So, Bill Maher, “comedian,” now transforms himself into the cliche of a fist-shaking old fart who builds arguments against damn near anything by first citing his onerous taxes.

By doing so, Maher engages in the most reckless of generalizations, repeating the toxically dangerous lie that all these hundreds of thousands of American students hate Jews even though no small number of them are, in fact, Jews themselves. The vast majority of the protesters aren't pissed off at Jews, per se. They are, as I am, righteously sickened by what Netanyahu (who just so happens to be the Jewish leader of Israel) has been doing since October of last year. Which, if it isn't merciless genocide, will have to do until the real thing comes along. No one should be labeled a "Jew hater" for being sickened by that. Common decency and morality demand that we be sickened by that. All of us. Not ju students


That emphasis in bold above is mine, because it's also exactly where I am at. I am goddamned sick of the tyrant Bibi Netanyahu blowing innocent Palestinians to smithereens - including thousands of innocent kids and even medical volunteers- then asserting he is going after Hamas. No he is not. He is reducing Gaza to rubble and slaughtering at will in order to keep his sorry, autocratic ass in power. Indeed, it was his carelessness in reducing security long before the October 7 Hamas attack that laid the basis for it. 

I have also noticed Maher in the last few Real Times spewing lots of venom at the college crowd and I sensed it was not merely because some small fraction were protesting for the Palestinians.  Again, Jaimie O'Neill hits the nail on the head:

Maher has had a hard-on about young people ever since some college kids (theretofore the source of a lot of his income) spoke out against his well-paid campus gigs. He’s been throwing a snit-fit about that damn near every time he opens his mouth. “What’s the matter with kids today?” is at the top of his agenda, and in that, too, he perpetuates the stereotype of crabby old men. As with Trump, his constant whining about being treated worse than anyone has ever been treated before grows tiresome.

Maher has said, as he did in the recent episode - if it's Trump vs. Biden he will vote for Biden's "head in a jar of blue liquid" before going for Trump.  Fine, but in the next breath - to his guests Ana Navarro and Joel Stein- he admits he's pining for a "fiftyish someone" to take his place at the convention. Navarro tried to get him back to reality about this being a binary choice but Maher remains in fantasyland pining for fantasy options that will never materialize.  Maybe it's time for Bill Maher to grow up or maybe find a new profession. 

In the meantime we have to scan for cheapfake videos circulating in the Right's sewage conglomerate which "enraptures" their mutts but which are absolutely destructive to democracy.  See e.g.

‘Cheapfake’ Biden videos enrapture right-wing media but deeply mislead

 Andrew Bates, WH press secretary pointedly noted as this brain rot erupted:

"President Biden’s right-wing critics don’t respect their readers or themselves and resort to misinformation and cheap fakes because his performance in office — fueling the strongest economic growth in the world, bringing violent crime to historic lows, and advancing our national security in the world — is so threatening to them that they feel a need to make things up,” 

 At least if we can get Maher to cease spouting his "the Left hates Jews" bunkum on Real Time there might be a chance to steer voters away from the rest of the Biden is too old memes - while focusing more on Trump's mental unfitness.

See Also:

by César Chelala | May 30, 2024 - 5:29am | permalink

How much longer Bibi Netanyahu will you try to fool the world with your crimes? For how much longer Bibi Netanyahu will you call the actions of your armed forces technical mishaps, mistakes, blunders, unintended side effects, miscalculations?

What you and the armed forces under your command are doing are not mistakes, Bibi Netanyahu. What they are doing are called war crimes in the civilized world from which you no longer are part of.

You cannot feel pride for an army that carries out precision killings of your enemies but fails to recognize that among those you kill are children, women, and innocent health and aid workers.

You have fooled the whole world for too long, Bibi Netanyahu, but the world is now waking up. And the whole world is seeing you for what you are, Bibi Netanyahu.

And:

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by Joshua Frank | June 1, 2024 - 5:16am | permalink

— from TomDispatch

As Amal Nassar lay in pain on a bed at the Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in northern Gaza, the echoes of explosions and artillery fire could be heard all around her. It was mid-January and she had made her way to the embattled hospital to give birth to a baby girl she would name Mira. While Amal should have been celebrating her infant’s delivery, instead she was engulfed in fear, surrounded by the relentless nightmare of death and suffering that she and her family had experienced for months.

“I was muttering to myself, ‘I hope I die,'” she recalled.

Though gut-wrenching, Amal’s story is not unlike those of so many other young mothers in Gaza today. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 50,000 pregnant women are barely surviving there, while having babies at the rate of 180 births a day. Many of those women (especially in the north) are acutely malnourished, and few received any medical attention before their labor pains began, often weeks ahead of schedule.

And:

by Medea Benjamin | May 30, 2024 - 5:24am | permalink

Senator Lindsay Graham was bursting with contempt for the International Criminal Court when he grilled Secretary of State Anthony Blinken at a May 21 congressional hearing. Wagging his finger, he warned that, if the ICC gets away with issuing arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, “We are next.”

The audience at the hearing, stacked with CODEPINK pro-Palestine supporters, burst out in applause at the notion of the U.S. being hauled before the world’s highest court. “You can clap all you want,” an angry Graham retorted, “but they tried to come after our soldiers in Afghanistan.” Graham was thankful that in the Afghan case “reason prevailed” when the case was dropped, adding that the U.S. must level sanctions against the ICC “not only to protect our friends in Israel but to protect ourselves.”

And:

by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan | May 27, 2024 - 5:31am | permalink

Israel’s assault on Gaza has provoked protests around the globe, including in the United States. While attention lately has focused on college campuses, another protest movement has emerged: dissenters within the U.S. government, who offer a behind-the-scenes critique of U.S. policies that are devastating Gaza. Despite this wave of informed dissent, U.S. President Joe Biden, while calling for a cease-fire, continues to provide arms and diplomatic cover to Israel.

“There’s widespread sentiment within all levels of the administration and all agencies that the president’s continued support for Israel’s assault on Gaza is disastrous,” Lily Greenberg Call said on the Democracy Now! news hour. She was a special assistant to the chief of staff at the Interior Department and a Biden political appointee, but resigned her position on May 15, citing, in her four-page resignation letter, “President Biden’s disastrous, continued support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”

And:

by Bernie Sanders | June 4, 2024 - 6:52am | permalink

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