Thank you for promoting a channel opposing the harmful narratives on the right
in regards to the crimes against the Palestinians!

Daniel Maté and his father are wonderful people of great compassion and insight,
and Daniel exalts this channel whenever he shows up. However,
I've watched a few of the shorter videos, and the conversation quality
scales with the guests a lot, ranging from fairly involved and deep reflections
and news analysis, to the kind of carefree hangouts intended for younger audiences
that leave me upset, because there is a market there for selling edgy left-wing slogans
to bubbled up viewers, and whenever I see someone utter the word "genocide" with a smug grin,
this is the kind of content that I think about. Maybe there is a place for more casual
exploration of heavy subjects like that, but it's something I give a wide berth to.

I've yet to watch their larger videos, hopefully they have more substance to those conversations,
and in this day and age, we can't be choosers when it comes to progressive platforms,
so I'm wishing them well.

I would tend to agree with you on that. While there's unquestionably a genocide going on, it always needs to be treated with due seriousness.

They ARE trying to be an example in opposition to much of a similar type of Youtube podcast.

Yes, their format is very reminiscent of the other talk panels I've seen,
hopefully that accessibility will earn them greater exposure down the line,
they are still nowhere near as big as the likes of Hasan Piker
or even the left-wing video essay channels.

I also can't say that I've come across any such episodes on there yet, but I'm still just beginning to delve into their content.

I've listened to a few longer-form episodes, one with Nora Barrows-Friedman,
and one with Anthony Fantano, and my general opinion of the show has improved a lot.
When Matt Lieb and Daniel Maté have an interesting guest and a deep topic,
they can work well together, with Maté especially exposing his depths of knowledge
and patient regard for details and context. It's only when they find themselves
in that "So... what else are gonna talk about?" lulls that are inevitable
in any talk show like that, that the hosts sometimes fall into the slog
of restating the things they both agree with and making tired jokes.
But when they're good, they're good.

I guess I'm overfed with other progressing talk shows of that nature,
so I'm harsher on them than I would be if it were my first time discovering
something like this.

Thank you for helping promote that channel, again!

I've watched very little of this sort of content myself from the right or left.

You have your own very qualified and respectable sources!
The streamer/podcaster format can be soothing for the soul
vie the parasocial illusion of closeness to all these people with good values
hanging out and talking freely about their perspectives
outside the urgent constraints of the radio shows and studios.

I've certainly felt less lonely by listening to channels like
No Justice for the UK politics and Leeja Miller for the U.S.,
the talk show episodes of Some More News,
Ekaterina Schulmann's show for the Russian politics,
some other channels here and there.

But it better suits someone who seeks a quiet spot
on the sidelines, after having grown despaired or tired,
while those who are still in the good fight would be
better served by more impersonal journalism
and document-based research.

While I can understand that, I definitely find myself more inclined to the latter.

For one thing, I consider everything I come across as fodder for future journals, not that some of those things couldn't be as well.

I just watched episode 119, where in talking with Tucker Carlson Ted Cruz, another Christian Zionist, at about 1:10 Claimed that in the Bible it says that "Those who bless Israel will be bessed", but he was unable to point out just where that was said. "I'd have to look it up", he claimed.

Mindboggling.

Thank you for the pointer! Religious leaders have been picking and choosing the right passages
to justify their bloody agendas since the dawn of time, and in the absence of such passages,
they'd invent them. The right-wingers have mastered the vile art of bombarding
their audiences with easily disprovable lies, accurately calculating
that more people would believe them implicitly
than be disgusted at the deception
after researching the clam
independently.

The Dems do that quite a bit, too, but they generally try to have facts on their side,
unless they conflict with some of their sacrosanct commitments.
Trump's party, on the other hand, will just blatantly say
that the sky will be fall tomorrow, and deny ever saying that
by the end of the week.

Yup.

And Ted Cruz is particularly an ass.

Forgetting about Ted Cruz, here's fantastically dark and morbid,
but also sincerely endearing and funny moment
from an episode that stars both Matés. It lasts until around 32:20.
The whole episode is amazing, really.

Yes. Let's please forget about Ted Cruz.

I'll watch that one next.

I watched that one. It WAS really good.

I also just watched the one with Roger Waters. I despise the way that the Israel lobby has tarred him as an antisemite. I've even run into people here doing that.

Watched that one, it's great! Thank you! Didn't follow Waters' career much,
excited to see him so active, engaged and passionate,
and clear-minded, too.

Man, I grew up on Floyd. Their early work was brilliant.

Nice to see someone stand up

Pink Floyd was phenomenal music collective, but I only even enjoyed their most popular works,
from The Wall and Wish You Were Here, Animals and such.
Their body of work deserves a deep and thorough study.

I would encourage you to do that.

I actually greatly prefer their earlier stuff. Great as those records were, by that time they got to Animals and The Wall, they were spending too much time on their records and they were getting overproduced

People say the same about many prog bands that evolved into pop like Genesis.
I like how The Beatles followed an inverse path, going from sugary boy band rock'n'roll
to cool experimental stuff, until they'd overgrown that format and broke apart.
Jethro Tull hold all their best work square in the middle of their discography,
where they did concept albums like Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play, Minstrel in the Gallery...

I don't go on musical discovery adventures these days, but I'll know where to look
if I ever find the will again. Thank you, all the same!

I'd have to agree.

It happened to Yes, as well.

Post Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins went on to ruin Genesis, and then to become a purveyor of even more peurile and shlocky Pop.

Damn shame, really. He was originally really good, working as a session drummer with people like Brian Eno, and performing with Brand X.

I guess he preferred making the big bucks to having artistic integrity.

BTW, Brian Eno has been speaking out for Palestine.

My terrible taste permits me to enjoy some of the Genesis songs,
but I can't deny they are as safe and tame and vanilla as it gets.

I've been introduced to the early Yes, they were stellar,
and the Roger Dean art is euphoric, to match their sound.

Good to know Brian Eno keeps his legacy bright and brave!
I've only heard a little about him, but it as all rapt adoration
from the people who are very stingy with praise for artists.

Early Yes was spectacular. Unlike a lot of bands who played a lot of notes and were flashy musicians, they backed it up with some REALLY good and unique tunes.

I saw them live a couple of times, and they were some of the best shows I've ever seen. They had stage sets designed by Roger Dean as well.

I saw Floyd on their Dark Side of the Moon tour, and that was definitely great. at that show they also polayed songs that evolved into the backbone of Wish You Were Here and Animals, that they spent the better part of the next decade or more working on.

Eno wasn't referred to as God for nothing. He's probably the single most innovative and revolutionary musician and thinker of our age.

My gratitude for those accounts!
You've lived a life rich in all the areas that matter.

And yes, Eno sure is deified often.
A reputation like that doesn't come easy.

BTW, I just watched the Rashid Khalidi episode of BH. BOY, is he ever the font of knowledge.

And apropos of the previous rave music, I noticed that in their theme song in the ending segment it says "Taking molly, us".

Thank you for informing me there was a show with Khalidi as a guest!

I remember that line, but I've only learned it means ecstasy! I remember Big Maté's explanation of that word.
For me, the best part of the theme song is the boasting about inventing the cherry tomato.

He says a bunch of funny shit in that.

Boasting is a classic rap trope, and he lampoons it pretty well there.

And I can also recommend the episode with Sim Kern.

They've written a book called Genocide Bad, and they're quite funny.

Also also, just saw ep 53 with Naomi Klein. Another great one.

Watched it, thank you! An interesting discussion of the helpful and unhelpful ways
of approaching identity politics. Matéllica!

I will watch the one with Rashid Khalidi, and lay off their longer episodes for a while,
as my TY watching queue has been pushed too far into the backburner.
I'll remember the show as a good resource, and I'll keep my admiration
for the Maté family, thank you for introducing me to those conversations!

Thank you for that recommendation, too!
This reply didn't come with a notification,
glad I caught it!

You can check which comment
you're replying to by clicking the "#parent" link
on the comment's control bar, where
the [Edit] and [Hide Comment] buttons are,
as I've recently found out.

Thanks. Don't think I've ever noticed that myself.

Hahaha!

https://mondoweiss.net/2015/10/repo.....sraeli-tomato/

It's amazing the way that Israel hammers that one.

I went looking for when cherry tomatoes came to IPalestine, and it's impossible not to come across that one.

If only that was the extent of Israel's attempts to legitimize itself through underhanded means!
There is also a long-standing debate over the country of origin for the borscht soup between Russia and Ukraine,
but sadly we've gone far part the point of neighborly ribbing over such amusing trivialities.

An amusing line from that article:
"Of course, as any self-deluding Lebanese knows,
the act of claiming a non-existent achievement
is itself a practice that the Israelis have stolen
from the Lebanese.”

Hah hah! I saw that.

I found it amusing that that cherry tomato with Bibi pic is the same one that BH chose to use.

Watched the episode with Rashid Khalidi, and I fully concur
that listening to him talk on the subject is uplifting and awe-inspiring,
he proves his dedicated expertise in all adjacent disciplines
related to the history of Palestine with every sentence.
He is also very sober in acknowledging the self-interest
of the states like Iran and al-Assad's Syria, that some left-wing commentators
like to count among their allies solely because they oppose the U.S.
He seems to still put a lot of stock into the democratic institutions
of a country, which is again something that is often dismissed
when younger and less studied people discuss geopolitics.

A refreshing and enjoyable interview, thank you for recommending it!

I was watching the episode under a U.S.-based VPN digital guise,
and I got an advert for PragerU in the middle of the video!

He's one of the very most educated, well spoken, and principled advocates for Palestine out there.

Haha! fucking PragerU...

Apparently, it was a big meme back in the day.
Searching or "Netanyahu tomato" produces that picture from the same article.
And Netanyahu had a tomato thrown at him in 2019, perhaps that's is the part
of the meme picture's origin.

That picture was him at the UN.

Yeah, he was using that childish prop to explain how Iran's nuclear program was nearing completion.
That photo was a source of much ridicule for Netanyahu, with the tomato photoshopped version being one of the resulting memes.

How long has Iran's Nuke program been "Nearing completion" now? Like 20 years or more?

Obviously, it was never as urgent a threat as it was claimed to be,
and the common counter to that fearmongering has always been
to ask Israel to let the IAEA inspect Israel's own nuclear program.

North Korea and Pakistan have had their nukes for decades,
and no one is falling over themselves to bunker-buster their silos and enrichment plants.
I loathe Iran's vicious theocratic leadership, and wish the Iranians to embrace
the international community and make their government work for them,
with that wish applying to my own country as well,
but the cruise missile diplomacy of the West
will never get them there.

Every time a "precision strike" kills someone like Layla Al-Attar,
it justifies another decade of paranoid military dictatorship.

Guess why no one is attacking thec DPRK or Pakistan?

Drumpf unilaterally pulled out of the JCPOA because of his pissy attempt to dismantle everything Obama had done.

Israel attacked Iran in the middle of negotiations for a new nuke agreement.

Iran could be in a very different place if, instead of funding war, they spent that same money on making Iran a better place for its people. (Hmmm... what other countries does that remind you of...)

Layla Al-Attar's murder was just "Collateral damage". (Not)

After Trump's in the ground, at least politically, there will need to be
a major overhaul for the presidential authority restrictions,
it's baffling what one can get away in that position.
What was the point of denouncing monarchy
if all the parliamentary and judicial branches
can be wrangled into submission
so easily?

About the DPRK and Pakistan, one is assumed to be under the control of China,
or better and for worse, and the other has been open to playing ball
with the West even under the most Islamist and dictatorial rule.
My point being, clearly a nuclear state can be managed
even if its government is hostile and antidemocratic,
but the possibility of Iran getting *a possibility*
of the same level of threat is apparently
fundamentally intolerable.
Even though the JCPOA was a massive international bargaining achievement.

A nuclear-capable Iran would certainly make Israel think twice before
launching another assassination and airstrike campaigns, maybe make the region
safer in the long run. Not my first choice, as all nukes are bad, and the peaceful nuclear power
is a menace, as you have previously argued, but it's sad to see people still trying the use
the notion of security as justification for crudely and brutally derailing Iran's atom splitting.

We DEFINITELY need some restrictions on the power of the presidency. We haven't enacted any of those since post Watergate/Nixon.

I would question just how much the DPRK or Pakistan are under anyone's "control."

And referring back to BH, I noticed that pretty far down in there list of videos theres a version of their theme song with the lyrics.

I find myself rather fond of "White phosphor us".

Oh, yes – I did find the theme song among their videos!

Not under direct control, of course, but nowhere near the state of rampant hostility
where those countries are launching invasions with impunity.
Even PRC, the world's second great power, stops short of annexing Taiwan
for all their rhetoric and military gestures – that's not "under control"
in any serious way, but it means that country stays within certain boundaries.
Iran, on the other hand, is presented to have the kind of government
that will nuke everything the second they get their first handful of warheads.

But you're right, I should have used those terms.

China realizes that they don'need to annex Taiwan. Their trade is already completely intertwined. The can bide their time.

They've reportedly promised Drumpf that they'll hold off until at least after he's out of office.

Meanwhile, Israel is a complete nuclear rogue state, and almost everyone ignore that.

True. Impunity spoils any soul,
and Israel has had too much of it.
Hopefully, the next U.S. administration
will have the spine to reassess
their support, now that Israel's reputation
is in the gutter worldwide.

With the current one...
I'm still reeling from that
Alaskan meeting with Putin.
If Trump is really playing 4D chess,
he's really fond of putting himself
in 4D checkmates.

Hah! Good one.

And yes, that whole Alaska thing was just appalling.

I've heard that Russian tanks in Ukraine are now flying Russian and American flags...

Apparently it was an M113 APC
that the invaders had captured
and repaired, and then mounted
those two flags onto it,
probably for a propaganda photo op.

The local state news media
have been making obsequious
exceptions from their routine
bloodthirsty hostility to EU and the .U.S.
for Trump ever since his inauguration.
All this buttering up of his ego
seems to have paid dividends.

It's baffling that Netanyahu
didn't attend the meeting, as well,
it would have been perfect:
three criminals trying to escape justice
by digging themselves deeper
with ever more heinous atrocities.

Ah.

I heard that Israel's war against Gaza was mentioned in the recent meeting with Zelinskyy a couple of times.