What To Read

I do this every few years: respond to inquiries about what news, opinion, or analysis sources I consider worthy of my time. Of course the list keeps changing as tighter control of dissident opinions is effected, especially via social media distribution denials and outright censorship.

It’s time for a new list for a few reasons.

  • I’m going to participate in National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org) beginning November 1. It’s my third attempt to produce a first draft short novel in a month; in 2021, nanowrimo got me started on a fictional tale about kids growing up in poverty, and two long excerpts from Heaven Spelled Backwards will be published soon by the Bollard. So, I won’t be posting as often to my blog in November and when I do it will probably be to re-post some popular and/or relevant past content.
  • Corporate media are doing an unprecedentedly bad job covering the massive outpouring of support for Palestine as Israel moves into phase two of its plan to either kill or relocate every person in Gaza and the West Bank.
  • Alternative media sources I once trusted — e.g. Democracy Now!, The Intercept) have changed their tune, probably because of a desire to please their funding sources.

My list will privilege text sources over video only because I, personally, like to read and dislike watching videos to get information. But I’ll include some good video sources at the end of my list as I know many of my readers feel differently.

What to read

The Cradle

Mondoweiss

Consortium News

Pearls & Irritations

System Update (Glenn Greenwald’s streaming video show also publishes a transcript which I often read)

Reality Theories (Eva K. Bartlett)

Black Agenda Report

Workers World

Peace & Planet News

Counterpunch

Belfast, Maine for Gaza October 29, 2023 — photo credit: Robin Farrin

Caitlin Johnstone

Organizing Notes (Bruce Gagnon)

Popular Resistance 

Electronic Intifada

Scheerpost

RT

Danny Haiphong’s substack

Kit Klarenberg’s substack

Al Jazeera

CGTN

World Socialist Website

telesurEnglish

Geopolitical Economy Report (video format but comes with a transcript)

Racket News (Matt Taibbi)

Scott Ritter Extra

MintPress News

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (F.A.I.R.)

Ellsworth, Maine for Gaza  October 28, 2023

What to watch

Empire Files with Abby Martin

Sabby Sabs

Revolutionary Blackout Network

Middle Nation (Shahid Bolsen)

The Grayzone

Useful Idiots (actually a podcast)

This is not an exhaustive list. Did I skip one of your favorites? Consider adding it in the comments.

Why We Stand With Gaza

All photos (by Robin Farrin) are actually from October 19 in Brunswick as no one took photos yesterday. But these are our signs and banners.

Why do we stand up for Gaza? Because we hate funding genocide with U.S. “aid” to Israel (really credit to buy more U.S.-made weapons). We don’t accept Israel bombing a concentration camp where Palestinians are trapped, unable to escape.  

But why do we stand out in public? Wouldn’t occupying the nearest congressional office be more to the point? (As if any of my state’s congressional delegation, whether Democrat, Republican, or Independent aren’t beholden to the Israel lobby.) 

Yesterday I pulled together a hasty demo for Gaza at 5pm in Brunswick, Maine. (The demo I had planned to attend Saturday in Lewiston was cancelled because of the mass shooting event there earlier in the week.) 

Thus I found myself standing with my husband and three of our friends with signs and banners supporting Gaza and demanding an end to the accelerating genocide.

Motorists passing by often honked, waved, or flashed us the peace sign.

Toward the end of our hour we were approached by a handsome college student who said, “My name is Hussein and I am Gazan. I want to thank you for being here.” He went on to say he was in town for family weekend at nearby Bowdoin College and that his host family had seen us while driving by and had called him.

Asked about his family in Gaza he said, “I haven’t heard from them in three days. I don’t know whether they are dead or injured or alive.”

Another student, this one from Bowdoin, soon came by and began calling friends to try and draw some students out. They told one of us they were encouraged to see some old folks standing for Gaza.  Other passersby stopped to chat and soon our group was up to eight.

Hussein made his way down the line introducing himself and thanking everyone personally. He apologized for needing to go and we saw him a few minutes later waving from the backseat of a car with out-of-state license plates. 

If we only reached a few people yesterday with our messages, I’m grateful that Hussein was one of them.

We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and especially with Gaza as it endured its second night of darkness, no internet, and horrific bombing. The videos of the injured and terrified screaming in the darkness may be found on social media but I’ll never be able to sleep again if I spend too much time witnessing.

World wars always kick off with a genocide, don’t they? To name just a few, Armenians slaughtered by the Ottoman Empire just prior to WWI; Chinese in Nanking slaughtered and tortured by the Japanese Imperial Army. Now the massacre of 7,000+ Gazans plus a second Nakba complete with pogroms underway in the occupied West Bank does not bode well.