Happy Monday! Sam and Emma speak with Naomi Klein, professor of Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia, to discuss her recent book Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Israel and Hamas’ prisoner exchanges and ceasefire, the arrest of an individual over the shooting of three Palestinian men in Vermont, the return from Congressional recess, labor action with Portland’s teachers, Seattle’s Macy’s workers, and European Amazon workers, COP28, Meta’s exploitation of kids, and Twitter’s ad-emergency, also touching on Christ Murphy’s comments regarding conditioning aid to Israel (like we do with everyone else). Naomi Klein then jumps right into her metaphor of “doppelgangers” in politics, and the mirroring and corruption of various political movements in the age of the internet. Expanding on this, Klein dives into the role of COVID as a major accelerant in this corruption, looking to the sudden unified radicalization of the wellness left and the ultra-religious right, and how it played into an increasing trend of rapidly dropping faith in US political institutions and their systems of accountability, with right-wing conspiracy offering a (pseudo) solution as the center and left continuously failed to provide theirs. Next, Naomi walks Sam and Emma through the far-right’s active organizing around this tactic, with Steve Bannon’s global network of far-right parties fusing the age-old phobias of fascism with weak claims of economic populism, and why the only true counter to that is a strong left-wing that presents and fights for genuine solutions to rampant economic and social inequality. After briefly touching on Israel’s role as a doppelganger of Bannon’s politics, attempting to solve anti-semitism not through acceptance and justice, but a hyper-nationalist project, before wrapping up with the coincidence of the loss of Bernie’s campaign with the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it forced the left to reflect on its failures.

And in the Fun Half: Sam and Emma watch Dave Rubin and Trump’s Ambassador to Israel rant about the immigrants behind rising anti-semitism, Meir Baruchin discusses his arrest and abuse by Israeli police over pro-Palestinian Facebook posts, and Lisa Booth and Charlie Hurt reflect on the biggest political story of the year – the woke crusade against gas stoves. They also reflect on the recent history of US-Israel relations, and Biden’s legacy of an extreme commitment to Israel’s imperialism goals, plus, your IMs!

Check out Naomi’s book here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374610326/doppelgangerhttps://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374610326/doppelganger

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