Roger Waters – Strategic Culture Foundation

Roger Waters compone un inno senza tempo alla resistenza e alla perseveranza

A A — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 23:34:33 +0000

Roger Waters ha una nuova canzone. Si intitola Sumud. Una ballata, ma non una ballata qualsiasi: un inno senza tempo alla resistenza

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Roger Waters ha una nuova canzone. Si intitola Sumud. Una ballata, ma non una ballata qualsiasi: un inno senza tempo alla resistenza. D’ora in poi, queste note e il loro grido di battaglia dovrebbero idealmente attraversare lo spettro globale dal Mali a Giava, forgiando una già nascente Alleanza Globale di Resistenza.

Con delicatezza, quasi sussurrando, creando un’atmosfera alla Leonard Cohen, Roger inizia introducendo “Sumud” in arabo: “perseveranza incrollabile”. Come nella Resistenza non violenta di tutti i giorni, a tutti i livelli, contro l’occupazione, lo sfruttamento e la colonizzazione brutale e forzata della Palestina. Ma la posta in gioco è ancora più grande, più grande della vita stessa, quando evoca come “le voci si uniscono in armonia” fino al coro positivo e catartico. La resistenza contro l’ingiustizia, concettualmente, dovrebbe implicare il profondo impegno di tutti noi.

Roger evoca i martiri da Rachel Corrie a Marielle Franco – “oh mie sorelle / aiutatemi ad aprire i loro occhi” – colmando il divario “attraverso la grande divisione” fino a raggiungere uno stato di consapevolezza in cui “la ragione raggiunge la maturità”.

Il tema persistente e ipnotico di ‘Sumud’ è la lotta per raggiungere quello stadio di coscienza collettiva “quando le voci si uniscono in armonia”.

Mentre «seguiamo la nostra bussola morale», le voci inevitabilmente arriveranno a un punto in cui «saranno spalla a spalla». E «dal fiume al mare», «la gente comune che semplicemente difende la propria posizione» è e sarà in grado di lasciare il segno.

Le lunghe nuvole scure che si abbattono ripetutamente non intimidiscono l’intuizione di Roger. Egli sceglie di chiudere “Sumud” nel modo più auspicio, evocando parallelismi con il buddismo: “Insieme, queste persone comuni / invertiranno la rotta della nave”.

Come invertire la rotta della nave

L’idea che un collettivo di persone comuni sia in grado di invertire la rotta dell’attuale nave di (pericolosi) folli non potrebbe essere più in contrasto con la demenza totalmente orchestrata dall’oligarchia del totalitarismo liberale e del tecno-feudalesimo, completamente fuori controllo e deciso a normalizzare persino il genocidio e la fame forzata. Questo paradigma è destinato a intimidire, molestare, demoralizzare e distruggere proprio queste “persone comuni”.

Roger, con una semplice ballata, dimostra che ribaltare il gioco può essere possibile. Questa intuizione arriva con l’età, l’esperienza e la padronanza del proprio mestiere. Roger, dopotutto, fin dagli anni ’60 è una delle incarnazioni principali dell’intuizione di Shelley secondo cui i poeti sono “i legislatori sconosciuti dell’umanità”.

Molti di noi hanno trascorso la giovinezza affascinati dall’inesauribile esplorazione e dalla gioia sperimentale contenute in “Relics”, ‘Ummagumma’ o “Meddle”, anche prima della spedizione spaziale sul lato oscuro della luna.

Su più livelli, “Sumud” può essere inteso come un’eco contemporanea di – cosa se no – l’epica esperienza trascendentale “Echoes”, il cui testo è fondamentale quanto il viaggio musicale: “Stranieri che passano per strada / Per caso, due sguardi separati si incontrano / E io sono te e quello che vedo sono io / E ti prendo per mano / E ti conduco attraverso la terra / E mi aiuti a capire il meglio che posso?”

La Londra della fine degli anni ’60 incontra la Resistenza Globale della metà degli anni ’20: è tutta una questione di interconnessione umana. E una volta che ciò accade, non c’è nulla di più nobile che tendere verso uno scopo più alto.

È lo stesso spirito già presente in “Us and Them”: “Con, senza / e chi lo negherà / è questo il senso della lotta”.

La lotta che definisce il nostro tempo è come invertire la rotta di un culto della morte, che agisce nell’impunità, in grado di scatenare un potenziale omicida equivalente a 12 bombe atomiche su Hiroshima su una popolazione incessantemente sottoposta ad assassinii seriali, carestie e stermini calcolati, in diretta su tutti gli smartphone del mondo, e tutto questo con la benedizione dell’Occidente collettivo.

È possibile guidare la lotta solo brandendo – e cantando – una ballata? Forse no. Ma è un inizio potente. Resistete. Perseverate. Come gli Houthi nello Yemen – acclamati come eroi etici, con un chiaro scopo morale, dalla Maggioranza Globale. Il messaggio edificante di Roger è che un giorno quella nave marcia affonderà.

‘I am Spartacus.’ Former Pink Floyd legend Roger Waters risks prosecution, and a potential 14 year jail term

A A — Sat, 12 Jul 2025 16:42:42 +0000

“Stand up and be counted” writes Waters on social media in post supporting newly proscribed terrorist group

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Roger Waters has voiced his support for Palestine Action, risking prosecution, and a potential 14-year jail term, by doing so, as the organisation is now proscribed as a terrorist group in the UK under the Terrorism Act 2000.

As of Saturday, July 5, membership of Palestine Action, or expressing public support for the group, is a criminal offence in Britain. On July 5, police in London arrested 29 people in Parliament Square for holding placards stating, “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”.

In the video posted on his social media channels on July 5, former Pink Floyd legend Waters says, “For the record, I support Palestine Action”, calling the pressure group “a great organisation”, and sharing his belief that the “non-violent” group are “absolutely not terrorists in any way.”

Speaking from his studio, Waters then flips the camera on his phone to display a piece of cardboard on which he has written the words, ‘ROGER WATERS SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION’ beneath which he added “Parliament has been corrupted by agents of a genocidal foreign power! STAND UP AND BE COUNTED. IT’S NOW!!!”

The cardboard is dated “5th July 2025.”

Original article: loudersound.com

WATCH: Roger Waters, Cat Stevens Play for Gaza

A A — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 18:48:51 +0000

Waters, Stevens and rapper Lowkey perform live on Friday for Gaza. Watch it here live on Friday, 1:30pm EDT.

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Music legends Roger Waters and Cat Stevens, plus rapper Lowkey plus special guests perform live on Friday to in a one-off concert in aid of peace, freedom and justice for Palestine. Streaming live exclusively on Double Down News YouTube 18:30 BST, 1:30 pm EDT, on Friday, June 21.

ADL Pushed BMG to Drop Roger Waters by Threatening to Weaponize Company’s Nazi Past

A A — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 19:17:59 +0000

The Grayzone has obtained a private letter authored by ADL director Jonathan Greenblatt threatening to weaponize the Nazi past of the BMG music company unless executives terminated a major deal with Roger Waters. BMG has publicly denied Israel lobby influence on its decision to nix Waters’ contract.

By Max BLUMENTHAL

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When the Berlin-based BMG music company terminated its business relationship with Roger Waters, the Pink Floyd co-founder claimed the decision was spurred by a concerted Israel lobby-directed campaign to financially retaliate against his outspoken support for Palestine. The Grayzone has obtained a threatening private letter sent by Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt to BMG executives which confirms the musician’s accusation.

“Given the fact that your parent company, Bertelsmann Group, has made laudable and necessary efforts to repair its Nazi past,” the ADL director warned in his June 16, 2023 letter, “it would be deeply unfortunate to have those efforts continue to be tarnished by such hurtful and injurious conduct.”

In an interview with The Grayzone, Waters described the ADL’s menacing missive as the culmination of a months-long intimidation campaign which began well before the October 7 attacks in Israel. The ADL’s push resulted not only in the termination of the company’s deal to release the new 50th anniversary recording of “The Dark Side of the Moon,” he said, but in the departure of BMG’s CEO as well.

“As far as attacks on me by the ADL and and all the rest of the lobby are concerned, the jury has been out for a long time, but it’s not out anymore,” Waters commented to The Grayzone. “The contention that I’m an antisemite because I’ve stood up against the attempted genocide of the indigenous people of Palestine is dead in the water. The people of the world have seen through the wall of hatred and tissue of lies.”

The Dark Side of the Moon Redux, full album out October 6th.

Now available for pre-order on double LP, CD, digital and with exclusive bundles in the official store: https://t.co/hsbGyaGlCe

First track ‘Money’ is available to stream now. pic.twitter.com/C1SxIt7cr5

— Roger Waters (@rogerwaters) July 21, 2023

ADL threat refutes BMG’s denial of Israel lobby influence

To this point, BMG has officially denied any outside influence on its decision to terminate its deal with Waters, while mainstream media has generally downplayed the Israel lobby’s influence on the move.

Reporting on BMG’s move this January, the corporate entertainment trade publication Variety painted Waters as paranoid for alleging Israel lobby role in sabotaging his contract, accusing him of spouting “conspiracies against him publicizing his beliefs.”

Meanwhile, a company source denied any outside pressure influenced BMG’s decision, insisting to Variety that “BMG does not agree with Waters’ version of events.” The source added that the firm’s CEO, Thomas Coesfeld, “certainly would have made the decision on his own.”

Citing sources inside BMG, Variety further claimed that Coesfeld “nixed” a deal to release a newly recorded version of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” immediately “after taking up his new post on July 1, 2023.”

Yet Variety was apparently unaware of the threatening letter which ADL director Jonathan Greenblatt fired off on June 19, 2023 to Hartwig Masuch, then the CEO of BMG, and Thomas Rabe, the chairman of the board of BMG’s parent company, Bertelsmann.

Greenblatt opened his missive with a litany of dubious allegations of antisemitism towards Waters, almost all based on his public advocacy for Palestinian liberation. The ADL director then laid his demands on the table: “we believe it would be prudent for BMG Music to reconsider your ongoing business relationship with Mr. Waters and representing his catalog of music.”

Greenblatt concluded with a veiled, mafia don-like threat invoking the most sensitive – and potentially damaging – aspect of the publishing company’s history: “Given the fact that your parent company, Bertelsmann Group, has made laudable and necessary efforts to repair from its Nazi past, it would be deeply unfortunate to have those efforts continue to be tarnished by such hurtful and injurious conduct.”

Greenblatt did not respond to an email from The Grayzone requesting comment on his lobbying campaign.

ADL targets Bertelsmann’s Nazi past, recent relationship to Kanye West

During World War Two, Heinrich Mohn leveraged close relationships with Nazi officials to transform his Bertelsmann printing press from a small producer of religious tracts into a national publishing powerhouse. Though not a member of the Nazi Party himself, Mohn donated handsome sums to the SS corps of Hitler’s military machine.

Thomas Coesfeld, the current CEO of BMG, is the great-grandson of Heinrich Mohn and grandson of Reinhard Mohn, who ran Bertlesmann from the post-war era until his death in 2009.

Rabe, for his part, is no stranger to ADL pressure campaigns. In his role as supervisory chairman of Adidas, Rabe faced charges that he had moved too slowly to contain the damage when the company’s star endorser, Kanye “Ye” West, launched a series of tirades against what he called “the Jewish underground media mafia.”

On October 20, 2022, the ADL’s Greenblatt called out Rabe and Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted in a public letter. “We are surprised and concerned that Adidas – a brand that supports inclusion and diversity – continues not only to support the Ye product line, but to release new products even as he continues to espouse hateful antisemitic ideas to his 31 million Twitter followers,” Greenblatt complained.

Adidas dropped Ye within five days of Greenblatt’s statement. The following month, Rorsted was ousted as CEO.

As Waters geared up to Germany for his European tour, the ADL’s Greenblatt sensed another opportunity to extract major concessions from Bertelsmann.

As BMG prepares to sign, Israel lobbyists strike

On January 25, 2023, BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch travelled to Gstaad, Switzerland to personally attend the 50th anniversary recording of “The Dark Side Of The Moon,” which would be called “DSOTM REDUX.” “Hartwig loved the album,” Waters told The Grayzone. “And he told me, ‘Yes we at BMG definitely want to put this record out and do a deal with you.’”

With Waters set to mix the album the following month, his management team informed Masuch that “DSOTM REDUX” would premier at London’s famed Roundhouse music venue that June.

But trouble struck on February 3, when German media reported that Frankfurt, Germany, city magistrates ordered a local venue to cancel Waters’ show on the grounds that he was “one of the most widely known antisemites in the world.” The accusation was not based on any public statements by Waters, but on the German state’s semi-official policy of supporting Israel as a form of Holocaust reparations, which has led Berlin to conflate any and all statements of Palestine solidarity with antisemitism.

Waters immediately initiated legal proceedings to fight the Frankfurt cancelation.

Meanwhile, pro-Israel elements homed in on a part of Waters’ performance drawn from Pink Floyd’s famous rock opera, “The Wall,” in which Waters appears as the protagonist “Pink Floyd” in the grip of hallucinatory madness, dressed in a Nazi-like uniform and barking delirious orders at the audience. While anyone familiar with “The Wall” would recognize the shtick as mockery of an authoritarian demagogue – a clearly anti-fascist theatrical statement – Israel lobbyists cynically twisted the imagery to demonize Waters in the eyes of suggestible German authorities.

Israel lobby organizations similarly attempted to distort a visual presentation that appeared during Waters’ show which paid tribute to women killed by repressive political entities. Because Waters featured Shireen Abu-Akleh, the Palestinian journalist killed by Israeli occupation forces in Jenin in 2022, alongside numerous female martyrs including Anne Frank, the Dutch Jewish girl murdered by Nazi occupation authorities, Israel lobbyists accused him of “denigrating” Frank’s death. (Waters’ presentation also memorialized Sophie Scholl, the young German woman beheaded in 1943 by the Nazi regime for organizing resistance against Hitler’s rule).

By late April, Waters had secured his legal right to perform in Frankfurt. However, the Israel lobby was just beginning to turn the screws on BMG.

“He’s been gotten at by Jonathan Greenblatt at the ADL”

On May 3, BMG’s Masuch flew to Paris for the first of two Waters shows at The Accord Arena. The following day, he met Waters to deliver some troubling news: Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Rabe had not yet approved the $5 million advance for “DSOTM REDUX.”

“When I asked [Masuch] why they were delaying, he told me Rabe had been gotten at by Jonathan Greenblatt at the ADL,” Waters recounted to The Grayzone. “So Rabe wasn’t just doing this out of nowhere; they were threatening him by holding the whole imbroglio with Adidas and Kanye over his head. They were basically telling him, ‘You fucked up with Kanye at Adidas, but you can make it better by nixing Roger’s record deal.’”

On May 17, Masuch abruptly vacated his position at BMG and was replaced by Coesfeld. According to the publicly disclosed terms of Masuch’s contract, he was scheduled to pass the baton to Coesfeld seven months later, on January 1, 2024. According to a carefully worded BMG press release, “due to his personal plans for the future, Hartwig Masuch had requested an earlier departure.”

Waters praised Masuch as “a stand-up guy” who had made a valiant attempt to resist the inertia of Israel lobby pressure.

The date of Masuch’s departure coincided with Water’s arrival in Berlin for a series of concerts. Israeli and pro-Israel media outlets met his appearance with a flood of clearly coordinated smears. The Israeli Foreign Ministry chimed in a week later, declaring on Twitter, “Good morning to everyone except Roger Waters.”

Good morning to every one but Roger Waters who spent the evening in Berlin (Yes Berlin) desecrating the memory of Anne Frank and the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. pic.twitter.com/4tcrV6f8mt

— Israel ישראל (@Israel) May 24, 2023

On June 16, the ADL escalated its sabotage operation with Greenblatt’s letter to Masuch and Rabe. The letter confirmed that Greenblatt was seeking to blackmail Bertelsmann with threats to resurface the company’s Nazi past.

Later that day, Waters learned that Masuch spoke on the phone to Greenblatt, and that Greenblatt proposed that the Pink Floyd co-founder join him for lunch in New York City. To Waters, the ADL chief’s proposal suggested a shakedown scheme was in the works – the kind of tactic the ADL has employed in the past to extract hefty donations from wealthy celebrities caught in the organization’s crosshairs.

“Even now,” Waters reflected ruefully, “I’m shaking my head in disbelief that this Israel lobbyist was licking his lips at nixing my contracts with BMG while he entertained the prospect of personally shaking me down over lunch. You couldn’t make this shit up.”

Original article: The Grayzone

New Slander Campaign Against Roger Waters Amid Growing Mass Global Opposition to Gaza Genocide

A A — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 14:49:01 +0000

By Kevin REED

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The slander campaign against rock musician and political activist Roger Waters has intensified. Variety reported Tuesday that German media giant BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group) had severed ties with the internationally acclaimed artist and co-founder of the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd.

In a piece of yellow journalism based on unnamed “sources,” the Variety article by Jem Aswad and K.J. Yossman was headlined, “BMG Splits With Roger Waters Over Pink Floyd Co-Founder’s Comments on Israel (EXCLUSIVE).”

However, the text of the Variety piece merely asserts that BMG is “preparing to separate entirely from the veteran musician.” Meanwhile, there has been no statement from BMG itself about cutting ties with Waters or its view of his public statements on the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Neither did Variety obtain a statement from the musician on the subject.

In 2016, Waters signed a music publishing agreement with BMG—a division of Sony and the largest music publisher in the world—and there had been a plan by the company to release his new rerecording of Pink Floyd’s seminal 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon. In the end, as Waters has explained, due to a conflict over BMG’s promotion of the 50th anniversary of the original recording, the company backed out of the deal and the project was issued through the UK record company Cooking Vinyl.

The purpose of the Variety article is to ramp up the slander campaign against Waters, falsely and maliciously painting him as an antisemite. In pursuit of their goal, Aswad and Yossman string together purported “inflammatory comments [by Waters] about Israel, Ukraine and the United States” that have caused controversy, with the claim that these uncited comments “arguably veered from anti-Zionism into antisemitism,” and the fact that BMG’s parent company Bertelsmann issued a statement on October 9 expressing solidarity with Israel.

Aswad and Yossman then admit that news of the separation of Waters from BMG came from the artist himself during an hour-long interview with Glenn Greenwald last November. During the interview, Waters explained that BMG “fired me” after the company succumbed to pressure from the Israeli lobby in Germany.

Again referencing “a source,” the Variety writers observe that “BMG does not agree with Waters’ version of events.”

The Variety headline was then picked up by numerous news outlets that have previously attacked Waters, such as Rolling Stone and the Guardian. Each repeated the claim that BMG had separated from the artist over his political statements about Israel and Ukraine.

The article in Rolling Stone, which notes that BMG declined to comment on the subject, remarks that Waters’ stance as a supporter of Palestine and a critic of Israel over the years has “led to claims that he is antisemitic.” The monthly publication, which is owned by the Penske Media Corporation and has a declining readership among music fans, then adds, “Waters has always denied these accusations.” However, the editors do not bother to explain who is claiming he is an antisemite, investigate why they are saying it or ask Waters to respond to the accusation.

In the case of the Guardian, journalist Adrian Horton claims that BMG dropped Waters due to his “divisive rhetoric” and repeats the vile slander of the Frankfurt city council last year that Waters is “one of the most widely known antisemites in the world.”

The Frankfurt local government actually lost a lawsuit filed by Waters against it for smearing him, and its attempt to cancel his concert in the city was blocked. The Guardian also quotes accusations made by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) in a contemptible film made last year, an hour-long dishonest assault on Waters.

In his most recent social media post on Friday, Waters responded to the 15-2 vote by the United Nations’ International Court of Justice that day that Israel must “take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide,” as well as immediately allow for humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip.

Waters commented that the vote was “really, really going in the right direction, but ‘Cease Fire Now!’ OK, everywhere. On every street corner, in every meeting of every politician, ‘Cease Fire Now!’ today, this morning.”

In a post on January 2, Waters wrote, “Israel is committing Genocide. Its leaders, and any Western leaders who support it, should be prosecuted under the Genocide Convention. No ifs! No ands! No buts! GENOCIDE IS WRONG. Love R.”

The popular response on social media to the latest campaign against Waters has been overwhelmingly in support of his stance in support of the Palestinians and against the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The growing international mass opposition to the ethnic cleansing campaign by the Israel Defense Forces and the Netanyahu regime, backed by the Biden administration, has provoked hysteria on the part of the pro-Zionist corporate media. This lies behind the renewed attacks on Waters and other artists who have spoken out against the war crimes.

As World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North pointed out in an October 2023 lecture on the struggle against Zionism and imperialism, “Throughout his recent world tour, the legendary musician Roger Waters has been under relentless attack and accused of antisemitism because he has had the courage to defend the Palestinian people. And everyone who knows the work of Roger Waters knows very well that he is one of the most significant artists at the forefront of the fight for human rights, and that his opposition to the policies of the Israeli regime has absolutely nothing to do with antisemitism.”

wsws.org

Le Rouge et le Noir: NATO’s Red-Brown, Nazi-Commie Canards

A A — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 17:15:57 +0000

Syrians, Russians, Palestinians are all part of NATO’s unholy brown-red other because they will not take NATO’s very rough with its silky smooth talk.

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Roger Waters, his friends tell me, is a nice bloke. A keen cricketer and nuclear disarmament advocate in his teens, he gave them up for music and a rock and roll band, Pink Floyd in his case.

Waters never got to meet his father, who had been a conscientious objector at the start of the War, but went on to enlist in the Royal Fusiliers, with whom he fought and died along with 55,000 other Allied soldiers against Hitler’s crack 3^rd FJR “Green Devils” paratroopers at the Battle of Anzio. These days, Waters, who recently celebrated his 80^th birthday, still tours and still supports British political internee Julian Assange, whom he recently visited.

Waters, like former British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, is a soft-spoken urbane gentleman, who has the air of a retiring Oxbridge don about him. Though he is not the sort who would have made it into Hitler’s Green Devils had he been born in Germany a little earlier, that is not the impression one gets by perusing the mass media’s serial libels against him.

Waters is one of a large number of NATO heretics who are branded as far right and/or part of the red-brown alliance, some supposed confederation of Maoist and/or fascistic screwballs who oppose not only NATO’s wars and NATO’s Big Pharma but most of NATO’s other profiteering scams as well. I have been so named, if not shamed, as part of that fictional alliance on the odd occasion NATO’s scribes deemed in necessary to pigeon hole me, just as they pigeon hole Waters and Corbyn, who was first lampooned for wearing a pullover his mother knitted him and buying his underwear at the local market.

Before getting on to whether Waters, Putin, Corbyn and all other NATO heretics and unbelievers are in some dastardly alliance or not, we must first acknowledge that the court of public opinion, thanks largely to the legacy media and Big Tech, have already found them guilty, just as they have found Russell Brand guilty of dissent. Off with their heads as Alice in Wonderland, the BBC and ISIS say.

Although we have previously discussed the 77^th Brigade’s stitch up of Russell Brand, that is only one tiny part of a much bigger concerted effort by NATO’s media. The BBC and RTÉ, its Irish equivalent, resemble nothing more than propaganda screeds for the Ukrainian junta, with almost every single Russian missile attack being prominently reported as if it is another Hiroshima, Nagasaki or My Lai. The bias is so overwhelming that poor fools like me or Corbyn or Waters are left to wonder how come such crass reporting is so effective.

But effective it is. In my recent article on the 77th, I cited the catechism of cliches reformed alcoholic Suzanne Harrington regurgitated in a provincial Irish newspaper to attack Russell Brand. But NATO’s media repeat those cliches ad nauseam to libel and denounce Waters and countless other fringe players. And, because they work and are effective, they are redeployed again and again.

When I discuss Russell Brand with friends, they agree he is being hard done by but qualify that by saying he is associated with “the far right”, which is news to me. I have had intelligent, successful friends visit Syria with me and then praise the propaganda films of the White Helmets murder gang to me, forcing me to watch their transparently deceitful tripe again and wonder why my friends cannot see what I can see.

The answer to this conundrum lies in heuristical reasoning, in factoring our answers around what NATO’s stimuli fool us into thinking we already know. If the BBC and allied NATO outlets repeatedly say something is true, then the chances are that it is true, irrespective of the fact that the BBC harboured paedophiles like Gary Glitter for decades, or that that its crocodile expert rapes children and dogs. Because flasher Huw Edwards cried crocodile tears over the late Queen’s passing, we are supposed to accept the BBC’s smug child sex enablers as the voice of reason and authority.

But it is not just the BBC. Look at Yvonne Murray from RTÉ, Ireland’s BBC equivalent, here traducing Irishman Chay Bowes, because he is now working for Russia Today. Although Murray hails from the same north Dublin village as me, she has wandered far away from the land of the shamrock and heather in search of a living which meant that “she previously reported for RTÉ News on Chinese affairs from Taipei, Taiwan and previously worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Channel 4 News and The Economist… She reported on-the-ground from Hong Kong, on the mass detention of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, on cross-strait tensions from Taiwan and from Wuhan, on the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The Wikipedia entry goes on to say that “on 31 March 2021, it was revealed that Murray and her family were forced to leave China amid concerns for the safety of her husband, John Sudworth who is China Correspondent for BBC News.” After being being booted out of China After Sudworth confessed to being an MI6 spy, Sudworth and Murray landed in New York, where they continue to spin stories to suit the 77th’s agenda and disregard others they label as fake news, Putin propaganda and so on.

Nice NATO work if you and your spouse can both get it and no doubt Murray and Sudworth are effective spinmeisters. The same, sadly, cannot be said for quack pot Sgt Sarah Cirillo, the transexual Yank who is the on again off again spokesperson for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who was recently pranked by Vovan and Lexus, where Sgt Sarah made the most outrageous racist slurs against Russians that probably would have warranted a punch in the face from the Green Devils, or anyone else rooted in the real world.

NATO gets away with all that racist guff because, as Fox News and the New York Times report on this academic study, most people pay only token attention to the news, history, economics and current affairs. As do, as the latest worshipping of the Waffen SS by Canada’s Parliament and military top brass show, our political and military leaders. They are either too stupid or too compromised to condemn or even distance themselves from the Waffen SS.

In the case of the U.S. Democrats, any divergence by any of their pretend radicals will mean that their funding will be cut and they will not be re-elected to enjoy the considerable fruits of being an elected Capitol Hill mouthpiece. Speak truth to power and you are part of this red-brown alliance of Hitler’s Brownshirts and the Red Army who fought them from the gates of Moscow to the bunker of Berlin. And no, it makes no sense to me either but it is not supposed to.

Because it is such a stupid, one dimensional concept, I had to add some French into this piece’s heading. Le Rouge et Le Noir, The Red and The Black, is Stendhal’s great classic Bildungsroman of the psychological and moral growth of Julien Sorel, the protagonist, between the Scylla and Charybdis of the red (army) and black (clergy) in nineteenth century France, or the Scarlet and the Black, which tells the tale of an Irish priest hiding Allied prisoners and Jews in the Vatican from the Nazis.

But such common sense complexities are superfluous to NATO’s two legs bad, four legs good needs, which consist of having uninformed groups like these yell cliches at each other to stop any voice of opposition congealing around Jeremy Corbyn or any of the other scholars or gentlemen of this world.

When the great Irish poet Paddy Kavanagh was up on a doomed libel case, he made the not inconsequential point that he was unskilled in explaining himself to the fools who comprised the jury. Building on that point, here and here are informed comments on this Swedish study on the take up of Covid vaccinations. Leaving the quasi racist IQ blarney to one side, the study and comments argue that most people took the vaccine because they figured it was the right thing to do, given it is what the law wanted and what the experts propounded. That said, there were two distinct groups who did not take the vaccine, one of which was the so-called knuckle dragging “conspiracy theorists” (sic) and the others being those who figured the data did not compute for such an experimental drug and all the more so, as it was being relentlessly injected into defenceless children.

Though I am in that latter hard sell group, the comments conclude that people like me, like Paddy Kavanagh or the prophets of old, are not that important, as we are not social influencers or trend setters, who will take an experimental shot for a free Pepsi or increased social media likes. NATO simply pigeon holed me and others into Hillary Clinton’s bunch of red-brown deplorables, allies to QAnon, Trump, Dugin and so on. Although I will return to Trump et al in a later article, QAnon is an internal American dynamic, born of its libertarianism, which is all but non-existent here, and because Dugin is simply a Russian who tried to contribute to an understanding of Russia’s role in the modern world, he is but of marginal interest to me as he lives half a world away.

But NATO has to tie all these diverse strands in together. NATO, in all its manifestations, is the good guy and all who oppose its diverse portfolio of killers are the bad guys. Syrians, Russians, Palestinians are all part of NATO’s unholy brown-red other because they will not take NATO’s very rough with its silky smooth talk.

NATO thus presents us with a false choice. We can accept them and their prophets, rough talking journalists like Sgt Sarah or silky smooth players like Yvonne Murray and her British beloved. We can believe NATO’s experts when they tell us Iraq, and now Iran, has weapons of mass destruction and we can believe Blackface Trudeau when he swears Putin smuggled a Waffen SS veteran into Canada’s Reichstag where he got a rapturous reception as some sort of devilish plan those who do not accept NATO’s innate moral superiority are so adept at.

That is the easier path to follow for those of us who have been battered into moral submission by NATO’s never ending swell of lies, half lies and half truths. That is the easier option to take for, after all, as they kept reminding us during the Covid lockdown, “that is the law”.

But there is another option and it is one SCF writer Finian Cunningham sings about here and here, when he tells us to switch off NATO’s news and let time and tide settle matters. Before we do the good things, we must give up doing the bad things which, in this case, means cocking a critical ear towards Sgt Sarah, Yvonne Murray and the rest of NATO’s little bullhorns.

Though time and tide will eventually settle matters, we too, sadly, must play our part in ways big or small. Eric Waters, Roger’s father, played his part in ways big and small before being laid to rest in “some corner of a foreign field that is forever England”. Mary, Eric’s widow, soldiered on, before dying in 2009 in her 96^th year, an indication perhaps that Roger will be with us for some years yet, still doing the right thing and still shaking off the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune NATO throws at him and all others born with a moral backbone. And, though I don’t know if Roger still keeps abreast of the cricket world, Mick Jagger certainly does. And, because Roger and Mick are now the elder statesmen of rock and roll, that is but one of many psychedelic alliances that should give NATO’s hitmen sleepless nights. Whether, as Jesus said, the meek like Roger Waters and Julian Assange inherit the earth or not, NATO’s libels about one dimensional red brown alliances has, like NATO itself, long passed its sell by date. And, as libelled martyrs in places as diverse as Syria, Donbas, Armenia and Belmarsh prison continue, like Roger Waters, to do their best, we have to hope, as Finian Cunningham sings, that time and tide will do the rest.

Roger Waters’ GLOBO Interview

A A — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 19:16:57 +0000

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Roger Waters turns 80 today. One of the authors of the soundtrack of the second half of the 20th century, the son of a teacher and grandson of a miner can quote without blinking a masterpiece for each finger of his hand: “Another Brick in the Wall”, “Comfortably Numb”, “ Eclipse”, “Brain Damage”, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, “Money”, “Run Like Hell”, “Hey You”, “Goodbye Blue Sky”, “Pigs”. There’s more, of course. It was supposed to be satisfied, but that’s not the case, he reveals in an exclusive interview with GLOBO.

In the first week of October, he releases his seventh solo album, “The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux” on the platforms. In it, he re-reads the Pink Floyd classic, which he founded in 1965 with Syd Barrett, Nick Mason and Richard Wright. “Redux” arrives exactly five decades after the original, when the band no longer had Barrett and had David Gilmour. “Unfortunately, the album remains current, with an air unbreathable by outdated supremacist ideas and predatory capitalism”, says Waters, on the eve of arriving in Brazil.

His “first farewell world tour” — and fifth in Brazil, after “In the Flesh” (2002), “The Dark Side Of The Moon” (2007), “The Wall Live” (2012 ), “Us + Them ” (2018), in addition to the opera “Ça-Ira”, in 2008 and 2013)— will pass through Brasília (10/24), Rio (10/28), Porto Alegre (11/1), Curitiba (11/4) , Belo Horizonte (11/8) and São Paulo (11/11, sold out, and 11/12). Scheduled for 2020, postponed by the pandemic, “This is Not a Drill” (something like “This is not a training”) began in July last year in the USA. The “rock & roll cinematic extravaganza” was shown in cinemas around the world and caused controversy with mayors in Germany trying to cancel performances.

The artist does not shy away from the topic in the exchange of emails with O GLOBO (“’The Wall’ does not glorify Nazism or promote anti-Semitism”), and comments on the request to the federal government of the Brazilian Israeli Confederation, as informed by Lauro Jardim’s column in June, to stop their concerts (“I regret that I fell for the ridiculous historical revisionism of the Israeli lobby”). Waters credits the allegations to his “defending of the Palestinian people” and sends a message of tolerance to fans.

More hopeful than pessimistic at 80, he recalls, track by track, “The Dark Side Of The Moon”, and thanks “the opportunity to share what I think with friends in Brazil and, who knows, with those who don’t agree with me on everything , but consider dialogue important”. Waters also talks in the interview about family, friendship, Lula, Bolsonaro, Marielle and David Gilmour (no, there is no reconciliation in sight).

Why re-record “The Dark Side Of The Moon” now?

Because the warlords, 50 years later, still haven’t understood the album’s message and children are still being murdered. I spoke to ( producer ) Gus Seyffert and ( director ) Sean Evans and they were like, “Hi, but re-recording DSOTM? Are you crazy or are you just stupid?” (laughter). I reacted with: “Ah, stop, go, let’s do it!” We did. I play bass on “Any Color You Like”, add a few lyrics and sing on all the tracks.

Did you like the result?

Yes, it turned out amazing! For those who hate me singing, I warn you that it was Gus who insisted (laughs). The production is practically all his, who argued that it was important, after all, that the guy who wrote the songs sang them. Last month I showed a very raw mix to my daughter India. She said: “Dad, it’s really cool! It’s the versions of the 29- year-old who wrote them, and those of the 80-year-old, the two now facing each other, with half a century of life in between, reflecting on what they’ve done”. What a smart girl! I wish I had that balcony (laughs).

Did you have fun with reactions, such as that, with your lower voice, it sounds like Leonard Cohen singing Pink Floyd?

Leonard Cohen, want higher praise? (laughs) And “Redux” is also a tribute to what Nick ( Mason ), Rick ( Wright ), David ( Gilmour ) and I did in 1973. “Great Gig in the Sky” and the chords of “Us and Them”, from Rick, are brilliant. There are David’s sensational guitar solos for “Money” and “Time”. And Nicky is, well, Nicky, right? A genius drummer, underrated and, most importantly, my best friend. Dude, I’m 80 years old. I have good friends, and when I say good, they are good. What a privilege! I finally found my soul mate, my wife Kamilah, who gives me the strength to keep fighting. And if sometimes it bothers me, so be it. I have no doubt that people are disappointed in me at times, but we are only human.

The world has changed a lot since 1973 and I imagine so have you. What are your biggest wins and regrets?

I was lucky to have lived so long and, naturally, had many regrets. But what I most regret is, due to the greed of the richest, the gradual loss of our stocks in the symbolic scale of life.

What did you mean by saying that “today we breathe the same air as in 1973”?

That we continue to live under the suffocating cloud of hundreds of years of colonialism. The air is so polluted with outdated supremacist ideologies and predatory capitalism that it’s hard to breathe. “Breathe, breathe the air, don’t be afraid to care about others”, as in “Breathe”. More than ever, it is necessary to care, yes, to have empathy for our brothers and sisters, regardless of nationality, ethnicity or religion. We need to take a deep breath and actually start helping each other.

What are your best memories of “DSOTM”?

The best is waking up one morning in 1972 with the idea that certain things wrongly shape our lives. From calling the band to a meeting, in Nicky’s kitchen, and announcing the album’s concept. For them to enjoy.

Will we see anything from “Redux” at the shows in Brazil?

Some from the original “DSOTM”, but not from “Redux”. We will play hits and the new song “The Bar”, about expressing opinions without fear of censorship. About listening to those who disagree with us and looking for solutions.

In Germany, authorities tried to suspend the tour with the argument that “anti-Semitism” and “debauchery of the Nazi imaginary” were being seen on stage in “The Wall”…

(Sighs) I wrote, recorded and released “The Wall” in 1978/9. The film is from 1982. We celebrate the fall of the Wall in Berlin and the end of the Cold War in 1990, in a show for 400,000 people. In 2009 I received, with my hero Mikhail Gorbachev, the ( German ) Cinema for Peace award. The world tour from 2010 to 2013 held the record for the most profitable by a solo artist. In 2014, the film from the tour was presented at the Toronto Film Festival. Anyone minimally familiar with “The Wall” knows that, in the narrative, the rock star Pink suffers a psychotic episode and imagines himself degenerated, in the skin of a Nazi-style tyrant.

It’s a piece of fiction…

A satirical critique of tyrannical ideologies. Later, Pink recovers from the episode and, examining herself in an imaginary judgment, emerges as the red fluffy heart we love. At no point does “The Wall” glorify Nazism or promote anti-Semitism. I ask the cancel culture freaks: why, after 45 years, a contemplative and humanist piece like “The Wall”, and its author, suffer lying attacks, coordinated by the Israeli lobby? Of course I know the answer: my defense of the Palestinian people. Leaders of the Jewish community asked the Brazilian government to ban their concerts here… I regret that they have embarked on the ridiculous historical revisionism of the Israeli lobby. The German press published images of a black inflatable pig, with a Star of David painted on it, as if it were part of the Berlin and Frankfurt shows. Plumper! There is an inflatable pig, but white, without the Star of David, and on it is written “Steal from the poor and give to the rich”.

What is your message for Brazilian fans, including those of Jewish origin, about what they will see in “This is Not a Drill”?

They know that I am neither anti-Semitic nor pro-Nazi. In June I received a letter from director Peter Medak, who worked on “DSOTM”, and is deeply hurt by my cancellation by the Israeli lobby. He gave me permission to share it with GLOBO readers. ( In the letter, Medak, who was born in Hungary in 1937, is a Holocaust survivor and has directed films and series episodes, including “Hannibal”, writes that he is “irritated by the unfounded and unfair criticism” of Waters, the tour, his music and artistic trajectory. He remembers that “when you performed in Hungary, Roger, I wanted to visit my family home and understand how I managed to escape the Horror.” And that “we met 50 years ago and I know you are not, never was, nor will be, anti-Semitic. I am very proud to say that I am your friend” ).

Are you really going to sue for defamation the writer Polly Samson, David Gilmour’s wife, after she accused him of anti-Semitism and also of dubbing his voice in the shows?

No, I’m not taking legal action.

Is there any chance you and David could hit it off?

What do you think?

When you were in Brazil in 2018, you called Jair Bolsonaro a fascist, raised a #elenão on stage. How does it feel to return now with Lula in the presidency and Bolsonaro ineligible?

Bolsonaro is a fascist and I keep saying #elenão. I tried to visit Lula in prison in 2018, but I wasn’t allowed to. I feel that I am on the right side of history, and I believe that Lula is too. I love Brazil. When I’m there, I feel at home. I’m still in mourning for my friend Marielle Franco, but the seeds she planted sprout new buds every day. When I get there, I want to shout: “Viva o Brasil livre!”

At 80, are you more hopeful or pessimistic?

Without any hesitation: more hopeful. And the hope is that the flame lit by the Enlightenment resisted colonialism and corporate greed. That the tide is turning. I’m not naïve, I know the fight is not over, we’re in the middle of it and the battle is fierce. Bolsonaro, Trump and all fascists believe in something like the old divine right of kings, now translated into the privilege of the richest. I, and so many others, believe in democracy, human rights and the law for all, regardless of ethnicity, religion or bank balance. “This is Not a Drill” is, in the end, about love. I’m already there to fight for love, for Marielle, and against the “end of Luz”. See you soon.

rogerwaters.com

Why Is Musician Roger Waters Being Witch-Hunted in Germany?

A A — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 17:48:08 +0000

By Peter SCHWARZ

Rock musician Roger Waters ended his successful tour of Germany with a concert in Frankfurt on May 28. While tens of thousands of fans cheered him on, politicians and the media organized an unprecedented witch-hunt. All parties represented in the Bundestag (federal parliament), from the Left Party to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), and the majority of the media participated. No slander was too inappropriate, no lie too absurd to be hurled at the 79-year-old co-founder of the band Pink Floyd.

Waters, who has made a name for himself not only as a brilliant musician, but also as an unyielding fighter against injustice, oppression, war and fascism, was denounced as a “Jew-hater” and his concert as a “breach of civilization” (Frankfurt Mayor Mike Josef, Social Democratic Party, SPD). Until now, the Holocaust was described as a “breach of civilization” in Germany. Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon denounced Waters as “one of the greatest Jew-haters of our time.”

Waters repeatedly asserted that he was not an anti-Semite, but an opponent of every form of racism and oppression. However, the attacks against him became louder. A court ruling in his favour in Frankfurt, after the city and state government tried to ban his concert, did not deter his opponents.

The lies and distortions took on Kafkaesque traits. For example, public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk published a commentary by Sebastian Engelbrecht: “Deciphering an anti-Semitic worldview.” He exposes the call “Resist capitalism! Resist Fascism! Resist the war!,” which is displayed during Waters’ show, as “fascist demagogy.” His proof: “Waters offers the grossest simplifications as we know them from right-wing populists.” According to this incredible logic, you can also “decipher” white as black and black as white.

The Berlin police even officially started an investigation against Waters based on suspicion of incitement, which was greedily exploited by the media. Waters’ stage attire, according to police suspicions, violates the dignity of victims of National Socialism and glorifies Nazi rule.

The “suspicion” of the police refers to the leather coat Waters wears during the song “In the Flesh,” in which he represents a crazy fascist demagogue. Waters has been performing this song for 43 years. It’s from Pink Floyd’s rock opera The Wall. In the film The Wall, musician Bob Geldof—now Sir Bob Geldof—took the role. In these 43 years, no one had ever thought that the song, which is directed against all forms of fascism, injustice and bigotry, was glorifying the Nazis rather than denouncing them. Only the Berlin police and their political patrons managed to reach this conclusion.

Waters’ support for the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement is also not an expression of anti-Semitism. BDS is directed against the oppression of the Palestinians and is based on the methods of the South African anti-apartheid movement. In reality, Waters’ opponents are concerned with suppressing any criticism of the Israeli government, in which open racists and right-wing extremists, such as police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, set the tone.

Why is Waters so fiercely fought and attacked? Obviously, it’s not just about his person. Waters is savaged, but the real target is the widespread opposition to war, fascism and social inequality.

The opinion makers in the ministries, the party headquarters and the editorial offices have watched with horror as millions in France rebelled for weeks against President Macron’s pension dictate. They know that NATO’s military rearmament and escalation of the war in Ukraine, despite non-stop, 24-hour-a-day propaganda, are met with skepticism and rejection. And they fear that the resistance to the massive, inflation-related real wage cuts will escape the control of the trade unions. They fear a social uprising.

Therefore, an example should be made of Waters. The fact that the soon-to-be 80-year-old has retained the rebellious spirit of his youth and—unlike many others of his generation who have made careers and become rich—is not ready to howl with the wolves stirs their anger.

The slander of Waters is intended to intimidate anyone who dares to take a stand or express a different opinion—especially in the cultural and scientific establishment and in the media, the most important ideological pillars of capitalist rule. Therefore, it is to Waters’ credit that he refuses to give in.

Second, the campaign against Waters aims to trivialize the historical crimes of the Nazis and thus prepare for new crimes. The rearmament of Germany and its return to a militaristic great power policy require a reinterpretation of history and a revaluation of all values. Principles such as “Never again war, never again fascism,” which formed a kind of basic social consensus since the 1970s, can no longer be tolerated.

That is why concepts such as breach of civilization and anti-Semitism, which are linked to the worst historical crimes in Germany, are completely gutted. The AfD’s Nazis, who trivialize the Holocaust as “bird shit,” are therefore not anti-Semites, but their opponents are. The anti-fascist Waters is labelled an anti-Semite, while real anti-Semites and fascists are rehabilitated.

This is most evident in Ukraine, where the German government works closely with the Zelensky regime, erecting monuments to Nazi collaborators and mass murderers such as Stepan Bandera and naming numerous streets after them. Radical right-wing units such as the Azov battalion, adorned with SS symbols, are being armed and glorified as freedom fighters.

In Estonia, the German embassy is a co-organizer of a summer school run by the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, which aims to condemn as war criminals leaders of the Red Army that liberated Europe from Nazi terror.

The Socialist Equality Party has been fighting for many years against the rehabilitation and return of fascism. We recommend to our readers the book Why are they back? Historical falsification, political conspiracy, and the return of fascism in Germany by SGP Chairman Christoph Vandreier, who traces this development in detail. It was published in October 2018 by Mehring Verlag and provides an important basis for understanding today’s events.

It is significant that hardly anyone in the media and petty-bourgeois milieu is willing to defend Waters or even represent him objectively. The taz, the house paper of the Greens, denounces him as “Putin’s British night wolf.”

The Greens, emerging from the anti-fascist and pacifist milieu, have become the worst warmongers. They represent urban middle classes enriched by the stock and real estate boom and “free market” economic policies, while the standard of living of the broad masses has declined. They have inseparably linked their fate with the notoriously predatory aims of German imperialism.

The return of militarism, war and fascism can only be stopped by an international movement of the working class fighting for the overthrow of capitalism.

wsws.org

The Israel Lobby Is Trying to do a Jeremy Corbyn on Roger Waters

A A — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 11:38:08 +0000

By Asa WINSTANLEY

Last weekend, rock legend Roger Waters, journalist Katie Halper and yours truly were invited by our friend Danny Haiphong onto his popular YouTube livestream, The Left Lens.

The topic was my new book Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn (out now from OR Books).

But the livestream happened to coincide with a massive new wave of a long-running smear campaign against Waters by Israel and its global lobby.

You can watch the full live stream in the video below.

The founder of Pink Floyd, and the creative force behind the band’s biggest albums, Roger Waters is probably the world’s most famous supporter of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

Israel’s lies about Waters come as revenge for his high profile support to Palestinians and their global solidarity movement.

The attacks against Waters were a perfect example of what I report in detail my book – that Israel and its lobby systematically, and falsely, tries to smear Palestinians and their supporters as anti-Semites.

Just such an “anti-Semitism” campaign played a major role in the downfall of Jeremy Corbyn, the left-wing former leader of the British Labour Party.

5 STARS – THE TELEGRAPH
5 STARS – THE TIMES OF LONDON
4 STARS – THE GUARDIAN pic.twitter.com/4NOKZOvdtk

— Roger Waters ✊ (@rogerwaters) June 1, 2023

The attacks on Waters last week were instigated by Israeli officials, soon joined in lockstep by Israel lobbyists, as well as by servile lawmakers and politicians in Europe and North America.

Waters has been on a critically acclaimed tour of Europe and is currently playing to massive arenas across Britain.

Deliberately misleading and decontextualized photos from Waters’ shows were posted online by official Israeli social media accounts after the star’s shows in Germany, in an attempt to whip up social media hysteria against him.

A video display from the shows flashes up what The Times of London’s rock critic on Thursday called a “broad global catalog of victims of authoritarian violence.” Among the many names flashed up on the screen was Anne Frank, a child victim of the Nazi Holocaust, who was made famous by her posthumously published diary.

The child-murdering land thieving Zionist apartheid colonial regime should keep the name of Anne Frank out of its mouth. Exploiting her memory to justify its savagery against the people of Palestine is vile. https://t.co/BvaO1FQP7X

— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) May 25, 2023

Israel’s thuggish “diplomats” are hell-bent on weaponising anti-Semitism by lying about @rogerwaters and lying about Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh: multiple credible investigations have repeatedly proven that there was no “crossfire”. Israel deliberately murdered her https://t.co/zCWiJryEGZ

— Asa Winstanley (@AsaWinstanley) May 24, 2023

But the real reason for the rage of Israel and its lobby was Waters’ inclusion in that catalog of a Palestinian victim of Israel.

This was the renowned Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was deliberately shot dead by Israeli soldiers just over one year ago, as repeated investigations have shown.

But the same day that Israeli government social media accounts had begun to attack Waters in highly misleading terms, the Israel lobby then sprang into action.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews falsely claimed in a statement – providing no evidence — that Waters has a “history of vile comments” against the Jewish community.

The Board publically claims to represent the “mainstream” Jewish community, but internally admits to having “a close working relationship with the Embassy of Israel” as well as the Israeli military spokesperson.

The Israel lobbyists hinted that Waters’ then-upcoming British gigs should be banned, claiming that “his performances are not just concerts, but political rallies. We are very concerned that he will soon be appearing at venues around the country.”

Board of Deputies internal document: “we have a close working relationship with the Embassy of Israel” as well as the Israeli military spokesperson.

No surprise then, to see them weaponising anti-Semitism by parroting official Israeli government smears against @rogerwaters. https://t.co/7NPwx96FDF pic.twitter.com/OeRHjrRtUG

— Asa Winstanley (@AsaWinstanley) May 25, 2023

Do you really want this Putin apologist and Jew baiter performing at your venue? Pretty shameful. @TheO2 @OVOHydro @UtilitaArenaBHM @AOArena https://t.co/msxrkY9vTl

— Adam Langleben 🇺🇦 (@adamlangleben) May 26, 2023

Secretary of pro-Israel group the Jewish Labour Movement, Adam Langleben smeared Waters as a “Putin apologist and Jew baiter,” copying in the Twitter accounts of some of his scheduled UK venues. (Waters is also a supporter of peace negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.)

Langleben’s deceptive tweet failed to gain much traction, and has only three retweets at the time of writing.

But the overall Israeli-instigated, false claims against Waters did seem to succeed in opening up a German police investigation into his show in Berlin which – as his shows have done for decades – included a theatrical depiction of a fascist demagogue.

As The Times put it, “Any passing Floyd-head knew it’s been an unmistakably anti-fascist set piece since 1980’s The Wall tour.”

pic.twitter.com/RdxCXZY0Gn

— Roger Waters ✊ (@rogerwaters) May 26, 2023

Waters put out a statement calling the Israeli-led campaign, “bad faith attacks from those who want to smear and silence me because they disagree with my political views.”

Labour lawmakers Alex Sobel (who is close to the pro-Israel group Jewish Labour Movement) and Christian Wakeford (an official supporter of Labour Friends of Israel) both called for Waters’ gigs to be banned.

Wakeford used almost identical language to the Board of Deputies, falsely claiming Waters has a “history of vile comments” against Jews.

The 3 UK venues should pull the shows. https://t.co/W9amuwAFpx

— Alex Sobel MP 🟣 (@alexsobel) May 25, 2023

As I pointed out to Waters in the Left Lens YouTube stream, it’s ironic that Sobel is participating in an Israeli led campaign to smear Waters as a fascist.

Sobel has been a loud and vocal proponent of sending even more British weapons to Ukraine, despite the fact that British weapons and training have been going directly and openly to Ukraine’s Nazi Azov Battalion.

Israel and its supporters are trying to remove Waters from public life in a similar fashion to how (as my new book explains in detail) they politically assassinated Jeremy Corbyn. As my colleague Ali Abunimah puts it, “These vicious liars can’t tolerate any major public figure taking a stand in support of the Palestinian people’s just liberation struggle from Israel’s colonial apartheid regime.”

But the difference is that unlike @jeremycorbyn (who I still have a soft spot for and who is a sincere and decent person), @rogerwaters fights back.

— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) May 26, 2023

Waters himself has also reportedly made the same comparison.

But Israel and its lobby faces serious obstacles in its campaign against Waters. The main one? Unlike the mild-mannered Corbyn, Waters fights back.

He successfully sued the city of Frankfurt, forcing them to let him play his show there. And instead of backing down after the manufactured “anti-Semitism” campaign last week, he openly ripped into Israel and its lobby.

“I will not be canceled!” The Times reported him saying, in its five-star review of his first British show this week.

He called Christian Wakeford a “wanker!” and said of the attacks that “it all comes from Tel Aviv.” Hyperbole, perhaps, but it also happens to be broadly correct, as the timeline above shows.

electronicintifada.net

‘Win for Artistic Freedom’ as Court Reverses Frankfurt Ban on Roger Waters Concert

A A — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 16:33:50 +0000

“Politicians don’t have the right to intimidate artists and their fans by banning performances,” the outspoken human rights activist and Pink Floyd co-founder has said.

By Brett WILKINS

A German court on Monday ruled that the city of Frankfurt cannot cancel an upcoming Roger Waters concert amid accusations of antisemitism stemming from the Pink Floyd co-founder’s outspoken criticism of Israeli apartheid and other crimes against Palestinians.

Deutsche Welle reports an administrative court in Frankfurt ruled that concert organizer Messe Frankfurt, the state of Hesse, and the city are obliged “to make it possible for Waters to stage the concert”—part of the 79-year-old English rocker’s “This Is Not a Drill!” tour—on May 29 as contractually agreed. The city and state had ordered Mess Frankfurt to cancel the show, calling Waters one of the “world’s most influential antisemites.”

“Politicians don’t have the right to intimidate artists and their fans by banning performances,” Waters said before the case. “I am fighting for all of our human rights, including the right to free speech.”

\u201cThe court\u2019s reversal is the latest in a series of failures by German authorities \u2013 egged on by Israel lobby groups \u2013 in their attempt to restrict or criminalize activism in support of Palestinian rights https://t.co/kEi0Jp8PCr\u201d

— Electronic Intifada (@Electronic Intifada) 1682372042

“I want to state for the record and once and for all that I am not and never have been antisemitic and nothing that anyone can say or publish will alter that,” Waters wrote last month. “My well-publicized views relate entirely to the policies and actions of the Israeli government and not with the peoples of Israel.”

While Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said he was “baffled” by the court’s ruling, Waters’ supporters hailed what human rights defender Steven Donziger called “a win for artistic freedom.”

\u201cA measure of justice \n\n#freepalestine https://t.co/meKusnJqcA\u201d

— Ramzy Baroud (@Ramzy Baroud) 1682440093

Palestinian rights activist Sarah Wilkinson said the decision represents “an epic fail for the Israel lobby.”

In suing to stop the Frankfurt concert, state and city officials cited the artist’s support for the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian human rights—many of whose prominent members are Jewish—as well as his display of a pig-shaped balloon marked with a Star of David during his shows and his comparisons of Israel with apartheid-era South Africa as justification for canceling the performance.

Senior South African officials have condemned Israeli apartheid, which is being acknowledged by a growing number of human rights groups around the world, including in Israel.

While the court found that it may be in “especially poor taste” to let Waters perform at the Frankfurt Festhalle—where 3,000 Jews were imprisoned before being shipped off to concentration camps during the Holocaust—the tribunal said the concert would “not be injurious to the human dignity of those people.”

\u201cVictory!\nYet another German court has ruled in favour of supporters of the BDS movement.\u00a0\n\nCiting artistic freedom, the Frankfurt Administrative Court reversed the decision of the city of Frankfurt & the state of Hesse to cancel Roger Waters\u2019 gig in May \n\nhttps://t.co/qrmhHJBP8n\u201d

— Artists for Palestine UK \ud83c\udf49 (@Artists for Palestine UK \ud83c\udf49) 1682354443

The court also said that although Waters’ concerts feature “symbolism manifestly based on that of the National Socialist regime,” the shows can be “viewed as a work of art” that “did not glorify or relativize the crimes of the Nazis or identify with Nazi racist ideology.”

There are strict laws in Germany prohibiting the display of Nazi imagery and memorabilia.In an opinion piece published last month by Common Dreams, Vijay Prashad and Katie Halper—who launched a petition in support of Waters signed by more than 36,000 people—wrote that “in a more civilized world,” Frankfurt “would be giving the well-known musician an award for his courage, not trying to silence him with state censorship for his criticism of Israeli apartheid.”

commondreams.org