The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.
― Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist philosopher, accomplished writer and outspoken critic of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, was arrested in 1926 and imprisoned until his death in 1937. He was best known for his theory of cultural hegemony, which describes how the government and the ruling capitalist class abuse cultural institutions to maintain power in capitalist-oriented societies such as the USA.
Gramsci wrote about the time of monsters in his Prison Notebooks during imprisonment in the early 1930s, alluding to the times he lived under Italian fascism. Little did he realize how that period would manifest years later, so blatantly and tragically in the manner we are experiencing and witnessing in the last year alone.
It would perhaps be helpful to define cultural hegemony before we proceed. ThoughtCo describes it as follows.
Cultural hegemony refers to domination or rule maintained through ideological or cultural means. It is usually achieved through social institutions, which allow those in power to strongly influence the values, norms, ideas, expectations, worldview, and behavior of the rest of society.
Cultural hegemony functions by framing the worldview of the ruling class, and the social and economic structures that embody it, as just, legitimate, and designed for the benefit of all, even though these structures may only benefit the ruling class. This kind of power is distinct from rule by force, as in a military dictatorship, because it allows the ruling class to exercise authority using the “peaceful” means of ideology and culture.
The USA provides the most evident and prominent example of cultural hegemony today. It follows an arguably corrupt domestic political system that offers the illusion of democracy. At the same time, through its imperialist foreign policy, which leverages its economic strength and military dominance, the USA seeks to interfere with, dominate, and control countries in other parts of the world. By now, many people should be familiar with American intervention in the domestic affairs of different countries, nearly all of which end in disaster.
US foreign policy invariably negatively influences the target countries’ prospects, culture, and outlook. Western mainstream media, in collusion with the US government, has been caught time and again shaping public opinion in favour of the administration and ruling class. Unfortunately, many people still continue to buy into the propaganda, pointing to its insane effectiveness.
There is hardly a region in the world that has been left unscathed by the greed and immorality of American hegemony – from those rich in oil and gas to those rich in bird shit. Yet, Hollywood, which functions as a quasi-propaganda arm of the US Administration, continues trying to convince the world that they are the “good guys.”
Just over a year ago, I was loathe to believe that the political class of any one country could be so devoid of morality as that of the USA. I frequently dismissed the allegations of imperialism as conspiracy. Heck, I was a staunch supporter of capitalism.
Fortunately, I have had a rude awakening, an epiphany of sorts, since the tragic events of October 7th last year, which resulted in the deaths of at least 1,139 Israelis1 and 251 others taken as hostages.
In response, the ethnostate of Israel, which is the USA’s vassal in the Middle East, has been carrying out a campaign of crude yet calculated vengeance, resulting in the mass slaughter of Palestinians, mostly women and children. As a matter of fact, it was reported in August that at least 2 100 infants under the age of two were killed by Israeli forces, while the total Palestinian death toll far exceeds the 42,000 being reported.
While we are constantly being gaslighted by the US propaganda machine to believe that Israel is wagging the dog in defiance, there is little doubt in educated quarters that America is at the centre of it all, as they have been during far too many of the humanitarian horrors since WW2.
America’s involvement in Israel is not limited to supplying the bombs and government spokespersons wringing their hands in mock horror after each war crime (which is numerous and well-documented) committed by Israel. America is more intimately involved than they let on or dare to admit.
Nothing in history has exposed the depravity of American imperialism and their hypocrisy as its “ironclad” support for Israel. Nothing! And since the veil was lifted, America has entrenched its position as the supreme bully in the world, in word and deed.
While I thought the actions of the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, were horrendous at the time, nothing could prepare me for the events that followed. Worse, I watched and listened in shock as the Western world diplomatically, economically, and militarily justified, encouraged, and supported the unjust, cruel, and lopsided Israeli military response.
The avalanche of bombs unleashed on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on October 7th last year was fashioned as Israel’s sovereign right to self-defence. Blatantly manufactured atrocities such as beheaded babies were fed into the hysteria mill by Israel and spread by Western media to solicit broad support for a disproportionate retaliation.
In addition to watching the daily massacre of innocent women and children live-streamed on social media, we are subjected to daily denials, deflection, and gaslighting from Western officials. To add insult to injury, they are supported by mainstream media, with censorship and shadow-banning thrown in for good measure by social media companies trying desperately to contain the anti-Israel sentiment.
Mainstream media is still vainly attempting to control the narrative by insinuating that the “war” was started by Hamas on October 7th, 2023. However, anyone with access to the internet (or a decent library) can objectively plot the history of the conflict, which began many decades before with the onset of the Zionist settler movement. An objective person will also question the implied narrative that Hamas fell out of the olive trees one day and just decided to start terrorizing Israeli citizens for no apparent reason.
The carnage masquerading as self-defence is going on to this day but has mutated into something that the world has last seen during the Nazi holocaust. Meanwhile, Israel has not successfully explained why it needs to defend itself against babies.
Indeed, the level of impunity and base brutality with which the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) is carrying out the daily killings, maimings, and destruction of property is characteristic of psychopaths. It does not end there, though. IDF soldiers frequently film their vile acts and post them on social media for consumption by a society programmed to hate Palestinians.
Israel’s depravity is not limited to killing innocent men, women and infants but extends to assassinations (a long list extending back to the 50s is available here), planting explosives in electronic communication tools, and killing foreign aid workers and journalists as well. According to this report by TRT World, Israel has killed 378 aid workers, while the International Federation Of Journalists are reporting that at least 140 journalists and media workers were killed. Many of the aid workers and journalists killed were targeted, according to some investigations. Notable incidences of these targeted killings were the World Central Kitchen aid workers and Al Jazeera cameraman Fadi Al Wahidi.
On at least one occasion, refugees who were forced to flee from one so-called “safe zone” to another. were burned in their makeshift tents while these acts were celebrated by some Israeli civilians. Just last week, after yet another indiscriminate bombing, a nineteen-year-old boy was burned alive in a tent while receiving medical treatment. Delusional Israeli spokesman David Mencer described this latest war crime as fabricated or enacted to encourage sympathy for Palestinians.
A concerned and horrified world that stands in opposition to what is unfolding in Palestine (and now Lebanon), from medical professionals, scholars, academics and legal experts to humanitarian organizations and protestors on the street, are calling it a genocide. The International Court of Justice has made a preliminary ruling, issuing orders against Israel in January and May of this year.
But is this a genocide or something more?
Israel certainly doesn’t think so, and the Western powers supplying her with bombs and other military hardware defend Israel’s savagery with zeal. However, at least one person believes that the term genocide, which has long been held to be the highest level of crime that can be committed, may, in fact, be inadequate to describe what Israel is doing to Palestinians.
French activist and film producer Frank Barat recently interviewed Gabor Mate on his podcast channel. Frank, at one point, pondered whether the word genocide adequately describes the level of sadism and intent by Israel. He mused that maybe we should find another word that would be more fitting.
During the interview, Gabor Mate, a Jewish physician who specializes in trauma, made a very revealing comment about the brazenness and impunity with which Israel is conducting the genocide, or ethnic cleansing at the very minimum.
When people like this are empowered and encouraged and allowed and supported and perpetrating their horrors, they get more crazy. They get more cruel. They get more remoreseless, more relentless, uh, more ruthless.
That’s what happened to the Nazis. The Nazis did not start off with gas chambers, you know, but then they started killing their, their, mentally ill people in gas vans. Then they started shooting Jews in Eastern Europe and then they end up with the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
So it’s a, it’s a progression of madness and cruelty that’s almost inevitable on the part of the perpetrator, and especially when it’s encouraged by all the imperial powers.
I found this statement to be absolutely chilling because it describes perfectly where Israel and its Western allies are at the moment. It represents the time of monsters.
- Recent investigations have revealed that Israeli forces killed some of their own citizens while employing the Hannibal Directive. ↩︎
lenny unencumbered 