Willztalks Podcast

Willztalks
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Leftist, Law Student, Slay. I’m here bc meta is gonna hate me willztalks.substack.com

  1. Why I Hate the US Military, and Why You Should Too

    MAY 8

    Why I Hate the US Military, and Why You Should Too

    The video/audio is better, more thought out and cognizable, I am extremely dyslexic so read at your own expense :) - Listen or Watch as a podcast on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5u4DM5WN78whovrOOU_9pQqJqYGUazgt - OR even better add RSS Feed directly to on Pocket Cast - https://pca.st/9c39a6q7 I recently fell down a rabbit hole of military recruiters, military wives, and military hustlers, and when I say fell I mean more jumped down, because I wanted a closer look into the largest terrorist organization in the world: the US DOD. And in my responses condemning their grooming of children in high schools, normalization of the extreme harm they commit daily, and rewriting of history to glorify war criminals, I kept hearing similar responses, and so this video is a response to those responses. So first I’ll make, though incompletely for lack of time, the pretty clear argument that the US military ought to be hated, and then go into why we should do that hating performatively and openly, firstly in response to these people defending the US military and then the things we gain from doing so. Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it. Why DO I hate the US military: Because the US military and its proxies have been the most lethal entity the world has seen in the past 70 years, if not ever. With just retributive attacks for 9/11 having direct deaths of almost 1 million, with indirect deaths bringing the total to almost 5 million. Not a single one of those invasions was justified (insofar as any action of a genocidal empire could be justified) and every single one of them was criminal. With a think tank institute estimating between 7 and 13 million direct deaths in US-supported and -instigated armed conflicts and 6 to 10 million deaths. But these numbers are too big for anyone to fathom, and before people comment, if we use the methodology of the fascist Victims of Communism Foundation this number would be 100 quadrillion (because they’re just straight up making shit up), so no, I don’t want to hear any whataboutisms with communism. And what’s really important is not the number, right, one criminal death is as significant as the other, but that this is the function of the US military: to protect capital abroad through violence and occupation, still occupying a majority of the countries in the world, and the arms of the American state being as expansive as any state apparatus the world has ever seen. This level of control, carnage, and harm should be condemned. This is an exploration not of whether it ought to be but of why this obvious conclusion isn’t taken. And the basic conclusion, to ruin it all, is that Americans identify with the criminals more than their victims, and if you humanize those in the Global South, the primary victims of US imperialism, even vaguely as much as you humanize the people that are doing the violence against them, then this worldview has absolutely no ability to maintain itself. If you use the language to talk about the US military, even domestically, that the US State Department uses to talk about other military apparatuses across the world, then this worldview falls apart. So I want to go into the actual discussions I’ve had and the actual points (that I think boil down to but are not limited to the above point) about why exactly even seeming progressives shiver at the concept of calling a spade a spade and a soldier a war criminal. But the Poverty Draft: “You don’t understand, you have to be nice to them” Whenever I do anti-US military propaganda I inevitably get the well-meaning, or sometimes not well-meaning, response from a “veteran,” military wife, or even self-apologetic current military member that goes something like this: I agree the US military is bad (they might even go so far as to recognize it as a war criminal or a terrorist army) but the people in it are not the thing itself, and in fact many of them are victims of the exact propaganda you’re talking about, so why are you attacking them? Actually, many of them are victims not only of the propaganda but are particularly so because of the targeting of impoverished and lower-class schools to recruit from. There are many responses to this, the most common of which I think tends to be “it doesn’t matter how much you need to feed your children, it never gives you a right to kill other people’s children,” or my favorite, “would you say this about any other terrorist group in the world? Would you say this about the IDF? ISIS? Because Israelis certainly do.” Both of these reassert the American exceptionalism and the extreme nature of American crimes, but I don’t think they hit the problem, which is that the archetypal apologetic military wife could actually say, yeah, I do actually say that, I try and understand everyone, and no, I don’t think it’s a justified move, I just think that attacking them doesn’t help the problem because you should be attacking the system even if what individual military members are doing is wrong. And that is why what I’ve tried to start moving toward is this response: if you really believed that they were victims of propaganda, me attacking the perpetrators of that propaganda would not bother you. I.e., if this argument is coming in good faith to protect people not just currently in the military but all people who might be susceptible to the pro-military propaganda out there, then me undermining it and using social tools that we have like shame and ostracization and exposure to undermine that glorification and cool factor that such recruitment ads often project would not be a concern. In fact, the reasonable response would be “wow, I’m so happy, because if my husband had seen this when he was making the mistake of joining the military maybe he wouldn’t have made that mistake,” or better yet, decentering your “victimized” war criminal in the first place: this may hurt my feelings but if it’s effective in undermining recruitment, that saves lives. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The Positive Argument for Being Mean to Them Why do I care? What’s the goal? In deeply Israeli-esque arguments, I consistently hear from low-level military recruits or, worse, recruiters whenever I call them out on glorifying the military, that they are just doing their job, just as Israelis glorifying Israel who I confront with the crimes they normalize consistently remind us that the state of Israel will not stop its genocide merely because we comment a Palestinian flag under a post. In Tel Aviv, soldiers in America keep reminding us that they’ll continue doing their jobs even if some random commenters that totally don’t bother them tell them they’re doing war crimes. And actually they tell us in a very Democrat way that if we keep on hating on them they’ll just become worse. And I don’t know about those individuals and that might be true for them, but if you were going to become a war criminal more because of internet comments I think you’re going to become a war criminal anyway, so what exactly is my goal? Well, my goal is to use the exact same levers that the empire is using to recruit people into their org to prevent that recruitment. And if you look at military advertisement, it is very clear that they are not just advertising that you will be able to feed your children, they’re not just advertising that you will be able to feed yourself or go to college. They certainly do mention that, but most important, as was true when Israel is trying to compel people to make aliyah, Rhodesia was trying to compel young white supremacists to join the Rhodesian Bush War, and army recruiters are trying to recruit you to the Navy: they care about looking cool, they care about bringing glory, and most importantly they want you to feel normal. Superior but normal. Whether that looks like feeling successful, or marrying or dating someone hot, or doing what you already had in you. These things matter, but importantly these things are in our control. We can’t stop them from spending on education or making it so impossible to live in America that the only way some people see (possibly rightly but mostly wrongly) the only way they can live or even move up on the ladder is to go tear other people down their ladder in the Middle East. But we can control whether downwardly mobile middle-class people will feel accepted, tolerated, and even successful if they join the military. And that’s why they’re so sensitive to the internet comments, that’s why Republicans lose their mind when you stomp on a flag or don’t salute a veteran. It is incredibly hard to convince someone to put their life on the line simply because they want money, but if your family will love you more, if your wife will be hotter, and if you will feel more complete and happy, yeah, maybe self-sacrifice can be a part of that: but it requires that you identify your needs and wants with that of the military. And if we elucidate to them as clearly as possible that that is not true (in the direct inverse of what the military propaganda is trying to convince them), then we are doing our jobs. The Possible Risk Now to actually address the naysayers: the form of the argument tends to come, sure, you could say all of this, but what actually ends up happening is you remove their ability to have an off-ramp. And this is true interpersonally. It is understandable that if you think your friendship with someone can be leveraged to help them make a better decision, as is done in some antifa circles, then keep that friendship and leverage it as such. Same thing with familial relationships: if you can stop your brother from becoming a Nazi, or even if you have to do the labor of pulling him out of a Nazi cult, do that. But will you promote that publicly? Will you say that that’s t

    15 min
  2. Americans are the Israelis of the world - The Myth Patriotic American Anti-Zionism

    APR 21

    Americans are the Israelis of the world - The Myth Patriotic American Anti-Zionism

    The video/audio is better, more thought out and cognizable, I am extremely dyslexic so read at your own expense :) - Listen or Watch as a podcast on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5u4DM5WN78whovrOOU_9pQqJqYGUazgt - OR even better add RSS Feed directly to on Pocket Cast - https://pca.st/9c39a6q7 Stop asking people if they are America first or Israel first - we don’t want either. I’ve heard this question asked consistently, by likely well-meaning and otherwise aligned people, but we truly have got to stop and this little blurb is my view as to why and what we gain from changing, and what we lose from failing to. Firstly, my basic thesis - anything you say about an IDF soldier, can and should be said about an American soldier. Anything you say about Israeli politics can and should be said about American politics. And anything you say about an Israeli can and should be said about an American (specifically a white American) American nationalism is not better than Zionism, and in the current political context they are almost indistinguishable. If you are ready aligned on that, fantastic, this essay is a set of arguments for that that you might find helpful - if you aren’t sticking around and you might be compelled. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. What is the phenomenon? In my time in anti-zionist spaces especially online there have become two distinct views: Israel runs America and America runs Israel. I am staunchly and principally on the America runs Israel side, and I think literally everything about reality demonstrates this - From the fact that things like AIPAC are primarily funded by Americans, and American Christian Zionist at that, the fact that people like Henry Kissinger described Israel explicitly as doing Americans bidding and aims, and the fact that even more low-key imperialists like Joe Biden, famously said that if Israel did not exist America would create one. I’m not going to contend substantially with the overwhelming often vacuous and often repackaged anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Israel controlling America. From my view, having clear eyes and a functioning mind is enough to demonstrate that a small country with an almost entirely imported economy and dependent defense infrastructure is not the one in control of the largest Empire the world has ever seen. Almost every single proof of this supposed assertion is better understood as the simple alignment of Israel’s interest with the oligarch class of America’s interests, which I once again feel called to point out are majority Christian. If you have a serious contention on this, I would love to see an actual fundamental response and one that does not conflate any jew acting ever with Israel acting always. Until then I’m going to move on and presume we are all on the same page on basic material reality. The consequence though of falling into this other camp of not viewing Israel is an expansion of America, but either as a unique unexplained evil or as a unique unexplained evil controlling America, is lots of very compelling viral clips and sound bites that I bet we have all heard such as “ do you believe in America first or Israel first?”, but there are also some obvious ones that I often run into, such as the idea that Israel pulled us into the Iraq War or that Israel alone pulled us into this current war on Iran. so that’s what I’m talking about, and as I flesh it out I hope you can recognize both the communities that engage in it and the particular taste of that ideology. What’s the Danger? Now you may be saying what’s the problem, don’t we want to undermine Israel? even if we think that there’s some fundamental different theoretical explanation for the power relationship between these two entities, why does it matter? Why do you care? Well my friends I have a list for that too. The dangerous threefold: Liberal Co-optation of Anti-Zionism, Fascist co-optation of anti-zionism, and Immediate and Actual Harm. Liberal Co-optation of Anti-Zionism This is the one that keeps me up at night: Liberal politicians coming out condemning Israel for pulling us into the Iraq War, condemning Israel for pulling us into the conflict with Iran, condemning arms to Israel, and saying that American Military members should have been the ones with those arms. What this does is it satiates the anti-imperial impulses that observations of the extreme Imperial violence that we are seeing out of Israel, but it allows the imperialists themselves to completely reconfigure. Take for example of recent post that I saw out of a progressive candidate who was asking the question “Does South Korea have the right to exist” and idealizing the fact that South Korea pays for its own defense, suggesting that Israel should do the same. This is not Anti-Zionism, this is alter-zionism - instead of directly funding isreal, we should indirectly boost its economy and its industry through free trade agreements and selective sanctions of its competitors like we do for South Korea. We should Aid and abett it in its founding genocide (as we did for South Korea) and then provide continued extreme diplomatic support for them. This is doing what liberals do best, which is take the demands of the populist left, give the least but important concessions that they can give - direct arms sales - and maintain and obscure the system upon which that very violence was predicated. this has the largest chance of demobilizing revolutionary movements, of forcing them to a table where they are not in a seat, but they are on the menu, and creating social norms to shame and limit them at the least cost to the empire. Fascist co-optation of anti-zionism This one is slightly more obvious, and thus doesn’t keep me up at night as much ( though likely because I am also privileged to not be a direct target of it… yet) - this is the one we have all seen, Nick Fuentes proclaiming how Israel controls America and is forcing us to do all the bad things we did, from slavery to the Vietnam War to (from his view) a bad side in World War II. We see how he shifts basic populism against American imperialism into specific anti-semitism with a very cohesive yet entirely nonsensical worldview. It provides explanatory ease to people who are seeing the harm and don’t want to be responsible for them, an ease that is simply not present from my worldview where I as a tax paying american do unfortunately get moral obligations to make the world better from the harm my state has caused. There is occasionally though luckily quite quiet a left anti-zionist voice that perks up its head and notices that all of these Nazis say they want to work with us, and in fact quite often beg us to work with them… why are we not taking advantage? We only have to sacrifice our trans comrades and our Jewish comrades and our muslim comrades? Is that too much to ask for the liberation of Palestine? are you being pragmatic, are you being a purist? Now of course I phrased that in a way that it should be obvious what I think of that argument - poor - but it still must be contended with and the obvious answer is that it cost us too much to work with them, because it cost us everything we have. The only Power that leftists have is our solidarity the only Power that leftists have is are clear-eyed worldview, and if we sacrifice that then we simply cease to functionally be leftists, we could be Strasserists, but just as America Firsters ultimately get humbled and be forced to be honest about their imperial aspirations: Nick admitting he supports the imperial invasion of Venezuela, We would be an instrument in a movement that we wouldn’t control but would control us. which leads me to the Third, and final on my non-exhaustive list - Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it. Real Immediate Harm - Every second we engage in American nationalism ( the words America First leaving our mouth) we are causing harm to the people that are harmed in the name of American exceptionalism. invading Iran is in fact putting America first, because what America is, is the American Empire which is predicated upon violence to countries like Iran. Every second we forget that Nick Fuentes does not believe in our Jewish comrades’ right to live, we do harm to our Jewish comrades, and we enable zionists as well to degrade our movement in the name of countering his antisemitism ( not that they need much enabling In fairness). And as I will set out below, we are simply failing to be effective We do not at least internally and ideologically reject this nationalism because doing so allows us both rhetorically educatively and practically to be more effective not only in our anti-zionism but our anti-imperialism as a whole. So what do I do then? Don’t resist the differences between America and Israel. There is often a knee jerk, though Justified response to this to suggest that that is merely a Zionist talking point that downplays israelis crime. though I am compelled to tell you that failing to recognize the extreme intrinsic violence in Americanism just as there is in israelism, downplays that violence and those victims of americanism. Instead of downplaying one extreme Colonial violence off of the other you can understand them together - you can understand how America First genuinely does lead to Israel first. how the genocide of the natives was a playbook for genocidaires of the world, how the concentration camps and the slave holding is a playbook for what’s going on in the West Bank and what’s going on in Gaza. Instead of working to reach American nationalists and convince them to work against what is fundamentally a benefit to their ideology ( as American nationalism merely is the ideology of worshiping Violence by America, specifically

    26 min
  3. Takeaways from the “Nuestra América” Flotilla To Besieged Cuba - ft. Lily Eagla

    MAR 27

    Takeaways from the “Nuestra América” Flotilla To Besieged Cuba - ft. Lily Eagla

    Listen or Watch as a podcast on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5u4DM5WN78whovrOOU_9pQqJqYGUazgt - OR even better add RSS Feed directly to on Pocket Cast - https://pca.st/9c39a6q7 This week I spoke with my friend Lily Eagla, who has just returned from Cuba after participating in the Nuestra América Flotilla which brought critical humanitarian Aid at a time where the United States Empire has placed an illegal brutal blockade on essential trade with Cuba, from oil which has led to blackouts in hospitals to critical medicine to food. While this is a very serious issue, our conversation is quite late educative and informative, and I hope you can find some enjoyment in it and learn something. Lily is an activist based out of Chicago now (!!!) and you can find her on substack Lily Eagla and her instagram at lilyeagla, fantastic content, fantastic politics, fantastic person. 0:00 - Intro, Who is Lily 1:36 - What the Nuestra América Convoy Did 4:47 - Cuba's Government, Healthcare, and the Young Pioneers 8:44 - American Exceptionalism and the Cuba 13:11 - Trump, Empire, and the Leftist Theory of Change 17:16 - Democracy at Home, Genocide Abroad 19:39 - Lily's Conversation with a Cuban Who Wants Regime Change 24:52 - Imperial Contradictions and Siege Economies 28:17 - Diasporas, Right-Wing Global Coalitions, and Palestine 34:24 - Will Cuba Survive Trump? 37:09 - Gen Z, the Death of Liberal Shame, and Why Actual Leftism is the Only Option Left 41:53 - Leftist Coalition-Building This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Brief editorial note: we talked for about 30 minutes after the end of this episode that were meant to be recorded but did not record, or rather is just me talking to myself so it is complete nonsense that I think I will send out to the paid subscribers so if you would like to deepen a pair of social relationship with me and pretend that you are the other side of that conversation, feel free to hop over to my paid subscription and I'll be releasing that within the next week. In any case thank you so much for listening, I hope you enjoy, and I have a few more interviews and discussions coming out imminently so please do subscribe if you don't already and if you would like to consider becoming a paid subscriber you mainly become just notably cooler. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willztalks.substack.com/subscribe

    42 min
  4. Dear "Harm Reduction" Liberals - A Leftist's Response

    FEB 28

    Dear "Harm Reduction" Liberals - A Leftist's Response

    The video/audio is better, more thought out and cognizable, I am extremely dyslexic so read at your own expense :) - Listen or Watch as a podcast on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5u4DM5WN78whovrOOU_9pQqJqYGUazgt - OR even better add RSS Feed directly to on Pocket Cast - https://pca.st/9c39a6q7 This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. The one-sided war between Blue MAGA and anyone on the left has once again reached a fever pitch this week, with Hasan daring to say that he does not pledge his vote 2 years in advance to one of the worst candidates the Democrats could ever conceive of, Gavin Newsom. And, lacking the cynical misuse of identity politics Blue MAGA was extremely happy to use to defend Vice President Harris’ record, they have become slightly more honest in the actual arguments they make, so I would like to address those directly before the full mobilization of the multi-billion dollar propaganda machine that is the Democratic Party happens. This is a attempt, but very much still draft, to very quickly set out the leftist approach to liberalism, then set out the argument liberals present and work backwards from that to the leftist theory of change. The goal is not to build on leftist literature on why liberalism is incorrect, I take that as a given. My goal is to at least give a primer for tactical engagement with liberalism, my first round attempt at dealing with their arguments in a more cohesive way, and generally an outlet to release our collective frustration with them. I hope you find it useful, I have moved from wanting to arm you with the arguments to deal with your fascist uncle at thanksgiving, to aiming to arm you with arguments to deal with your Blue MAGA cousin. Oh how fun it is for all of us to grow up. 0 - What is the Liberal Positionality from a leftist analysis First to set out very quickly what the leftist position on liberalism is, many more and better books are written on this.Functionally, liberals act as a pressure valve for working-class sentiment to co-opt revolutionary energy and protect class interests for the cost of class collaboration. Every genuine revolutionary in American history understood this, with the two coming to mind being MLK and Malcom X, both of which had words ranging from disappointment to scorn for the white liberal. You don’t need to take my word for this analysis, please just take theirs. 1 - What is the Ask? - My Attempt as The Liberal Position The argument as it is articulated to me is often not that Democrats are perfect or even good, the primary and near singular premise is that the policies democrats enact are better writ large and specifically to minority communities than those of the Republicans. This itself can be questioned,considering the blindness of both of them to the harms they both enact upon minority communities internationally, but this is not where the core fundamental disagreement happens, as most leftists, and what I believe to be proper leftist analysis, will conclude that the Democrats do in fact provide better outcomes from a purely immediate policy perspective to those communities. In fact, I think that is often part of the model of electoral “good cop, bad cop” models that leftists promulgate. So where is the disagreement? It is presented as a disagreement about the theory of change. I must be honest and say that I am extremely cynical that that is actually where it is, I do not believe that liberals want the same outcome as leftists even though they both claim to believe in Social and economic progress for those harmed by capitalism. I do not believe that they actually recognize the extreme harm that the Democrats are doing and are engaging tactically in a way to undermine it. I do not believe them that they care as much about International minorities as they do National minorities. Regardless running through the argument as they present it is probably the most productive, and it effectively goes as such: the primary means of changing things in America is educating the masses to vote better (For Democrats). If Democrats have more power in Congress, they will be able to enact policy that makes them more popular, and if progressives become a larger portion of the democratic voter base then the Democratic party will be responsive to its voter base and become more Progressive. The primary form of this Democratic feedback within the party is through primaries, not through defections to non voting or third parties in general elections. Not voting or voting for third party from their view in fact weakens the power of leftists in the party, because it discludes them from the base the democrats are responsive to. So the ask following from this comes with a series of Demands: 1 - vote for blue no matter who, as that is the entry into your opinion mattering. 2 - your effort and rhetoric should be used to demonstrate to moderates, the core people who should be swayed to strengthen democrats in elections, that the difference between “our side” and the “other side” is large (ie trump bad in a unique and totally not Harris way) and thus 3 - not a single moment should be used to recognize the crimes of the Democrats even if we can all agree they exist, because that decreases the perceived difference between the 2 sides, thus demobilizing moderates and risking them moving to the other side for fringe disagreements. That is my genuine attempt, and I think a quite gracious one, to summarize the liberal position on voting. And the disagreement is not so much that that is a tactical way to engage in electoral politics, but that the terms of the debate are wrong, in a fundamental way. 2 - Where is the Disagreement? Let’s try and set out some basic premises of this argument that can be tweaked. Firstly I think it presumes that America is a democracy, but it is not, it is a hegemonic oligarchic Empire. Those in Iraq, Palestine and Libya do not get to vote in American elections despite being effectively ruled by the american empire. Both parties are almost entirely funded by billionaire donors to whom they are statistically almost singularly responsive. The system legally and structurally rejects millions of people’s right to vote by Merit of criminalizing them, labeling them as “non-citizens” (a label that ought to be worn with pride, as it relates to a criminal genocidal Empire) or pushing such mass media into their brains that their opinions are not representative of their own in any meaningful moral sense. Secondly, it divorces the material from the ideological. We cannot divorce how people act within an electoral structure from the material interests that influence that electoral structure. That is to say, this strategy completely ignores the billions of dollars that go into a influencing people’s votes, the material interests of one policy over another, and the economy that fuels it all. These types of arguments only recognize billionaires being effected by policies (if we tax the wealthy they will just leave and that will hurt us) and refuse to recognize how billionaires affect policy ( billionaires are threatening to leave if we force them to pay their fair share, that is undemocratic) Third, as a consequence of the second one it focuses merely on the tools presented to it by this hegemonic Empire: civil legal periodic elections, with occasional perfectly legal and non-disruptive protests. All else is criminalized, or otherwise dismissed by the cop that has been forced into their brains. Americans writ large are not only not educated on the large diversity of alternative power structures (starting with casual and disorganized systems social systems, to highly organized and militant groups of resistance, from strikes to community defense to what the Empire might call terroris) but they are militant against learning them, by merit of terms such as terrorism, criminal and thug which have been used to slur any that engage in them. Of course as a consequence of the mass media. Fourth, let’s take them out their word that they are a bulwark, even though it is my opinion we would in fact be more effective against fascists if liberals simply cease to exist in the political sphere, but even if we accept that they are an imperfect defence, we must consider what a tactical Alliance costs us to get that nominal benefit. and I think too many leftists spend too long arguing that that benefit is either literally nothing or de minimus, in a way that opens us up rightly so to critique that we are not the beneficiaries of it, the oft repeated but rarely substantiated “ at least the Democrats protect minorities” and however cynical I am of that observation it’s not really my place to say that if that is the experience of people in those communities then it is irrelevant, but I can say though is that the Tactical Alliance costs more protection for those groups and I want to lay out a few ways that that cost is paid. * 1.994 Billion Dollars - The amount spend on the Kamala campaign, for literally no benefit. Like literally zero she implemented zero policies because she was not elected, there is absolutely no way to tell me that there was a material benefit to the spending of a single one of those dollars. one could argue that they bought a chance at winning, but every single internal poll from the Democratic party that has ever been released to the public demonstrated that they had no chance of winning, and they knew it the whole time. They burned 2 billion dollars on fire, which just noting could have gone to 2 million Serbian Zastava ZPAPM70 for the communities they claim to protect (roughly 5% of the black population in america). Now, I will admit this is ignoring the fact that that money of course could not be spent on such effective revolutionary things becau

    33 min
  5. He Grew Up In a West Bank Settlement - What Deconstructing Zionism Actually Looks Like (And Why Americans Should Care)

    FEB 14

    He Grew Up In a West Bank Settlement - What Deconstructing Zionism Actually Looks Like (And Why Americans Should Care)

    Listen or Watch as a podcast on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5u4DM5WN78whovrOOU_9pQqJqYGUazgt - OR even better add RSS Feed directly to on Pocket Cast - https://pca.st/9c39a6q7 This week I am back with an interview with Daniel Klein (who you can find on substack or insta), who grew up in a West Bank settlement, and we talk through what that looked like and what deconstructing that looks like, as well as the complex ideological systems that maintain it. We talk through the similarities and differences in how nationalism and religion get incredibly interwoven, and the role of mass media in keeping people in a consistent state of panic to justify fascist ends. We have a really interesting discussion about the relationship between Christian Zionists, Jewish Zionists, and the greater colonial superstructure, as well as the material impact of Israel as a laboratory for the American and Western empires. How technologies that we are seeing used in America right now by ICE , from biometrics to tracking, were tested on Palestinians first. If you are an American interested in undermining the same fascist ideologies that uphold Zionism, this is a really interesting listen or watch! Timeline - 0:00 - Intro, Why American Antizionists Should Care 4:13 - His Experience Growing up in a settlement 7:00 - Religious Nationalism In Israel and America 11:35 - The Role of Mass Media in Israel 15:15 - Daniel's path out of Religious Zionism and Why Americans Need to Deconstruct 19:24 - Israels Role as A Laboratory for Colonialism 24:04 - Is Israel actually diverse? - The Erasure of Diaspora Identities in Israel and US 28:30 - A Lot of Original Zionists Were Atheists - The Relationship between them and Relgious Zionism 31:07 - The Relationship between Christian Zionists and Jewish Zionists 34:06 - Deconstructing religion from the outside 36:46 - Where to find Daniel - https://substack.com/@dzyk This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. I'm so thankful to every subscriber who helps make this possible! If you'd like to consider joining, it helps me prioritize work like this that I hope provides value to y'all. Otherwise, please feel free to share, repurpose, or reuse any of my work, the main goal is to get these ideas out there and discussed. I love these types of discussions and I'm so grateful that I'm able to do this type of work. And remember, no matter what, you will always be able to reach me on my own website (still under development) willztalks.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willztalks.substack.com/subscribe

    38 min
  6. Narrative Warfare - Engaging with Imperial Propaganda from Iran to ICE

    JAN 13

    Narrative Warfare - Engaging with Imperial Propaganda from Iran to ICE

    Listen or Watch as a podcast on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5u4DM5WN78whovrOOU_9pQqJqYGUazgt - OR even better add RSS Feed directly to on Pocket Cast - https://pca.st/9c39a6q7 THIS IS BASICALLY A TRANSCRIPT - for all content u should probly watch or listen to the videos, they r better :) This past week, we have been engaged in the strongest case of media narrative warfare we have seen in my life. I just want to, without making a determination on a given story or not, provide how I think about it and then run through examples of media warfare. Everything I’m saying here is addressed specifically to Americans consuming American media Most people, because of a truly horrible American education system, do not engage with content in a literate manner. They are not thinking about who is saying it, why they are saying it, who they are responding to, and, in the context of the media ecosystem, who is saying what. So I’m going to first give you an example. I’m going to walk through how I think about responding to the narrative warfare that goes on regarding Iran and regarding Venezuela. Then I’m going to try to demonstrate the superstructure by which I think about this, as a person who has to respond to these kinds of things all the time. Third, I want to explain how I want you to critique me for doing so. Because if we can all be speaking the same language, we can have much more productive conversations. After that, I’ll talk about some other narratives that are going on with ICE, what I think is helpful, what I think is not, how to think about them, and how to talk about them. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Case Study 1: Iran First and foremost, let’s start with Iran. This is an ongoing situation where we have to establish some base facts about what we are talking about. As a base fact, what I will take in any conversation is that there are protests going on, undoubtedly, and they are being met with some level of brutality. Many numbers are being thrown out, and it is unequivocal that some people have died. I will not reject that, and I unilaterally condemn all state violence that ends in death across the board. But I want to talk less about what the truth actually is regarding this, because frankly that has been published extensively by more expert people, and more about the truths that are being pushed by the media and how to engage with them. There are three separate narratives being pushed around this. One is that all the protests are CIA and Mossad. Another is that all the protests want regime change or a return to monarchy. Another is that all the protests are purely about women’s rights. None of those are fully true, and yet all of those are partially true. I’m not as interested in how true they are, because frankly we don’t have the data. We don’t know how many of these protests are CIA or Mossad influenced. We don’t yet know the full extent of the brutality. Most Westerners are getting their information through a massive propagandized lens. Before we even get to truth data, we need to start processing the narratives. So how do I engage with this? How do I think about it? How do I talk about it? Do I talk singularly about the openly, publicly, and consistently reported brutality of the IRGC? Do I come out in full-throated support of the IRGC because that is the only way to prevent American intervention, painting them as perfect? Or do I highlight American and Israeli influence in the protests? Or do I highlight the evils of the monarchy, American sanctions, and intervention that are being underreported? Those are the options. If you’ve watched my content, you know what I did. I chose the last one. Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it. How to Choose to Between the Narratives? Why won’t I spend all my time focusing on the most immediate humanitarian concern, the IRGC harming people right now? Well, what is my job? Is my job to report everything that’s happening? No. I’m not a journalist. I’m a political commentator trying to fill in the gaps of mainstream media. Do I think the brutality of the IRGC is underreported? No. I think the New York Times is reporting it, if not more than is actually happening, then at least exactly as much as is happening. Do I think the Washington Post, Reuters, and most American media are doing this in good faith? No. I think they are doing it in bad faith. Every second I contribute to talking about how horrible and evil the IRGC is, I’m not educating my audience. Most people have already heard that. I’m repeating propaganda and contributing to the bad-faith aims of American media, which are clearly oriented toward American intervention. You can levy genuine humanitarian critiques, but if it’s not done with an understanding of why and how American media is pushing this narrative, you will continue to contribute to its aims. Should I come out in full-throated support of the IRGC? No. Obviously not. Iran is not a communist state, but it is also not a peripheral state in the American empire. It is a state under constant pressure and war. I do not support all actions of the IRGC, and I’m not going to lie about that. Should I highlight American and Israeli influence in the protests? Maybe. It’s certainly in their interest. But that also risks undermining real moral concerns against the Iranian state, and we don’t yet have sufficient information. We won’t have it for decades, because that’s how CIA and Mossad documentation works. So what can we do with sufficient certainty while avoiding the risk of supporting American intervention while also not undermining genuine humanitarian concerns? What I do is anti-intervention propaganda. Even if you accept the mainstream narrative that the IRGC is brutal, don’t accept what the media is not saying. Don’t accept that the monarch is the natural next choice. Don’t accept the erasure of the Shah’s brutality, of American-backed regime change, of sanctions, and of intervention. That’s the point. You don’t need to undermine the truth value of the propaganda. You need to undermine its aim. There’s a reason they’re doing it. And whenever I’m in a conversation and I’m filling in that second part, I get yelled at for not repeating the first part. But if they are not repeating the second part, and I’m the only one saying the whole thing, I’m not contributing to balance. I’m contributing to imbalance. So that’s how I think about it. Fill in that second half. And it’s just not true the second half is, no, the Iranian regime is perfect. It’s just not true that, none of these protests are grassroots. But it is true that, number one, historically we know these movements have been infiltrated by Mossad and the CIA. Number two, it is true that the monarch is leveraging the shah, The current one who got an opinion piece written in the New York Times by him is trying to leverage these to push monarchism, which is not popular amongst the Iranian people. And number three, it is being pushed by the American regime to support regime change and installation of a worse regime. “Listen To Iranians“ - Which? When? Where? I also get the response, which is fair and should be taken seriously, that we should listen to Iranians. Yes, you should listen to Iranians. The issue, of course, with that, is that there are Iranians like Nina Farnea, who are engaged in incredible decolonial and anti-colonial analysis. Some support the Shah. Some support the IRGC. Some say this is all Mossad. It’s the same thing that was used in “Listen to Venezuelans”. Yes, you should listen to Iranians, but because of a massive blackout and because of a multi-billion dollar propaganda machine in the American Empire, all of those things, every single Iranian voice, is being filtered, valued, and contextualized by the imperial interests. And if we fail to leverage our narrative in response to that context, we’re not doing good. We’re enabling their co-optation of these voices. So yes, listen to those that are affected. So that’s my, so don’t not listen to Iranians. I’ve read extensively both direct, you know, communiques from Iran currently that have gotten out. Iranians that are in support of the IRGC, Iranians that are in support of the Shah. It is not an end-all be-all, just as ask Venezuelans isn’t, but is used in bad faith by the American Western Empire to legitimize it by highlighting people like Shah supporters. And so, this is I get to critique me. I don’t think I’m perfect in this. No narrator, no context should think that they’re perfect in weighing when do I leave out this part of the context. When do I include this part of the context? When do I highlight this and when do I not highlight this? ICE and The Murder of Renee Nicole Good - Now I want to talk about ICE. There have been many narratives after the killing of Renee Nicole Goode. There was fascist denial. There was liberal debunking. There were claims of escalation and claims of continuity. All of these contain truth. Some say, this is actually a part of increased violence and point to, it’s not just important that she’s killed, but it’s important that she’s white. That’s an escalation. And then there’s a response to that saying, well, actually this is a continuity of longstanding ICE violence. So some might say, yes, Trump’s ICE is absolutely horrendous. Look how bad, how much worse they’re getting, countered of course by “Well, actually they’re pretty consistent and they follow from a long tradition of ICE following the Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security Increasing it and then there’s another saying it this isn’t even just about ICE.” (Listen to the video, I’m not summarizing this part, point is theres a lot of narratives what mat

    19 min
  7. False Flags: Art, Activism and Anti-Zionism

    JAN 10

    False Flags: Art, Activism and Anti-Zionism

    Podcast link : https://willztalks.substack.com/podcast RSS Link : https://overcast.fm/p5406943-ZBSMYb Youtube Link : https://www.youtube.com/@Willztalks/videos This week I am joined in conversation with a photojournalist, activist and generally cool guy to talk about his upcoming work and current kickstarter (which just needs its final pushes!!) for a photo memoir art book collaboration between Daniel Efram (him) and Nicole Blackman. We talk about his work in NYC, interactions and insights from Zohran, and the role art has to play in the movement as well other insights and quips from the work that is to be done. If you are interested in this type of work, give it a listen, this is different than my other stuff (partially because I needed a break from a truly intense week), but hopefully you find something in it valuable! And its a nice break from just hearing my voice :) If you are interested more in his work: Please go Support his Kickstarter if you can - https://bit.ly/FalseFlagsKickstarter If you want to see more on his work - https://www.danielefram.com I’ll be back this week with more analysis and content, but I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you do too, if you don’t let me know if the comments and that will boost engagement :) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willztalks.substack.com/subscribe

    44 min

  8. 12/29/2025

    How the West Punishes African Countries for Decolonizing - And What to Do About it

    Listen or Watch as a podcast on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5u4DM5WN78whovrOOU_9pQqJqYGUazgt - OR even better add RSS Feed directly to on Pocket Cast - https://pca.st/9c39a6q7 The Video has more info, but this time the writing is pretty full to! - As Always please follow if you dont already, I send out once a week generally. A lot of work goes into these, especially this one tbh, so if u would like please consider supporting me by becoming a paid subscriber - they get some lil perks (extra content occasionally etc) but mostly the best way to consistently support my work across platforms! This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. What is the first thing that happens when there is a decolonial revolution? - The West Sues. Right now western companies are suing newly properly independent nations for more than 1 billion dollars. Over a Quarter billion in burkina faso for context that is around 2% of Burkina Fasos whole GDP in just one case, just in damages. I have found a new enemy that I’ve thought about for a long time, and I want to walk you all through 1 - the basics of it, what is isds and why is it bad. 2 - current implementations to add context and guide future action. 3 - my thoughts on actions that can be taken and aims that I will be going towards. And 4 - I want y’all’s thoughts, work with me here if you know better tell me email me DM me, because this is not something that is covered in the western media and yet it moves billions of dollars. Anti-imperialism is at the center of many Western leftist politics (inshallah) but many of them do not understand the gears of the Empire they are claiming to fight - we must know the enemy better than they know themselves so that we can hit them exactly where it hurts, and this is my start, so please come along for the ride even if it gets a bit dull, I promise you you’ll learn something, and most importantly if we can actually pull this off cuz I think we can, we can be the gear instead of the oil in the Empires gears. How do they sue - What is ISDS This is often done for a process of investor State dispute resolution, which allows for a parallel judicial structure to the normal one, that has International consequences - the biggest of which obviously is the World Bank ICSID, International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. Other people have done really good writeups on the series of issues with this exactly how itworks, so I’ll link them and not poorly summarize them Basic terms - Damages - what you get if you win a case (“you broke the contract pay me or fulfill the contract”) Tribunal - Like a court, but special The World Bank and IMF - largely Western institutions that structure International capital, famously the IMF will explicitly require policy reforms in exchange for its loans to historically Global South countries. ISDS - investor State dispute settlement, the process by which private investors can claim against the foreign country for violating their property or contractual rights that are protected by a treaty. Treaty - an agreement between two or more countries, in this context most of them are saying that if that country violates the property rights of investors, the other country will enforce those rights against the violating country. What you need to know are few basic things - 1 - this is a corporation suing a sovereign country, and the enforcement mechanism is stealing that country’s resources that are outside of the country or trade barriers (tariffs, free trade exclusions, etc) being inflicted upon that country. 2 - it does not matter what the previous regime was, and significantly, even if a neo-colonial regime signed the treaty or agreement that is being litigated upon, the later governments are still Bound by that restriction and can be inflicted with the harms 3 - How this came about - most countries in order to enter the world economic system are required to join the World Bank, this was a long complex process that was largely driven through debt traps in the IMF. Importantly, an honest history of this would always conclude that the global South was coerced into joining these treaties. 4 - The consequences - because of this many countries have been forced to change public policy that infringes upon the private rights of Corporations, for example Environmental Protections that claim environmental reserves from Corporation, or even limit their ability to construct in certain ways. This effectively means that every country that is inflicting the damages, 5 - the hypocrisy - there is no parallel structure like this for human rights, there is no organization with this breadth that allows individual private citizens to claim against a country. effectively that places less than a position where if my property rights are violated by one of these countries that is beholden to ISDS, then I can actually get reparations by appropriating their property that is outside of the country but if they violate my human rights like my right to free speech or civil engagement etc, I may be able to litigate in a Regional Human Rights Court, but I will almost certainly not be able to get reparations in the same form (ie no f*****g money) Case Studies - The Freed Sahel States The impotence for this article comes from AES https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_of_Sahel_States - as well as what the west is racistly calling the “Junta Belt” from Chad to very recently Guinea - where African movements of various stripes are kicking out the widely French colonizers and reclaiming their resources and sovereignty. this has been faced with almost every form of colonial backlash that you can imagine from wide scale propaganda campaigns to at times physical skirmishes with the French Colonial troops - but underreported has been the litigation that could move millions of African dollars out of Africa into the pockets of Western corporations, and that is what I want to talk about. there are lots of examples and I’ll probably make videos on all of them, so let’s quickly list them out - Guinea - * ARB/25/56 Nimba Investment LLC and others (France) Republic of Guinea https://icsid.worldbank.org/cases/case-database/case-detail?CaseNo=ARB/25/56 - Filed on Dec 22 Mali - * Société des Mines de Loulo S.A. (France) - - Filed on May 25 https://icsid.worldbank.org/cases/case-database/case-detail?CaseNo=ARB/25/2 Niger - * https://icsid.worldbank.org/cases/case-database/case-detail?CaseNo=ARB/25/9 - French Government, Orano Mining SAS filed in March 5, 2025 * ARB/25/1 GoviEx Niger Holdings Ltd. and GoviEx Uranium Inc. (British Canadian and Australian) Burkina Faso - * ARB/24/51 Sarama Resources Ltd (Canadian British and Australian) All of thees are resource based disputes, filed after the reclamation resources, all of which are being levied by Western or Western Allied countries. And Importantly, all the ones I have highlighted are pending - meaning they have yet to be decided and political pressure still matters for them. the goal and let me be clear here is to prevent money from leaving the pockets of Africans and going into the pockets of Western imperialists, if you disagree with that goal the rest of this article is not for you and I ain’t f*****g debating it. Whats to be Done - A Single Case study, Samara Resources I’m not going to go into all of them even though I’ve probably spent way too long thinking and researching all of these specific issues, I want to highlight specifically Sarama Resources Ltd, which is suing Burkina Faso for access to Mining rights especially to gold that were attained contractually prior to the Reclamation of National control. They are suing for $242 million in Damages along with the rights to mine for gold in that area ie completion of the contract. And I kind of want to walk through my thought process in targeting specific ones, especially so y’all can give your Insight. this company is pretty f*****g small - their market capitalization (what all of their stock is worth in total) is about 20 million dollars give or take a few million. they only have two other major projects - and the investor class knows htis - https://investingnews.com/stocks/asx-srr/sarama-resources/ * Sarama Resources offers a compelling investment opportunity driven by a US$242 million, plus interest, fully-funded arbitration claim and two belt-scale gold projects encompassing 1,000 sq km of the Cosmo-Newbery and Jutson Rocks Greenstone Belts in Western Australia’s highly prolific Laverton Gold District, which lies within the wider world-renowned Eastern Goldfields region. And so when targeting specific companies I think there are two modes of thought either you go with big companies that are easier to do consumer boycotts against (Inbev, Nestle etc) but you risk not being able to have a large enough effect for them to actually listen to you, but you can actually have the impact such that it is more profitable for them to drop the case then for them to continue. Or you go for smaller companies where you can have a larger proportional impact, but may be on effectively death ground where if they drop the case they just go bankrupt, and these might be harder to do consumer boycotts against ( though I have some ideas about how to get around that) That said, I think Sarama Resources is pretty f*****g strong because it is number one not worth very much and 2 - publicly traded. Following from that I went to look where their stocks were, because where the stocks are is where the pressure points are and I found a few things. * https://global.morningstar.com/en-ca/investments/stocks/0P00010JO4/ownership?exchange=XFRA&ticker=48S1 * Funds - * Multipartner Konwave Gold Equity B USD * Mackenzie Precious Metals A * NESTOR Gold Fonds B * IG Mackenzie Global Prec

    31 min
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About

Leftist, Law Student, Slay. I’m here bc meta is gonna hate me willztalks.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Willztalks
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    18
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Willztalks
  • Show Website
    Willztalks Podcast

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