We are pleased to send you several articles that summarize the key stories we reported and analyzed last week. These are written articles containing key excerpts of the reporting and analysis we did on last week's episodes of SYSTEM UPDATE.
—Glenn Greenwald
MONDAY, OCTOBER 30 - SYSTEM UPDATE 173
INTERVIEW: John Mearsheimer on Israel-Gaza, U.S. Support for Ukraine, & the Role of “America First” Foreign Policy
Professor and Author John Mearsheimer once again joins Glenn for an in-depth discussion on the Israel-Gaza war, U.S. foreign policy, Ukraine, and more.
Last June, we interviewed Professor John Mearsheimer, who is widely heralded as one of the most influential foreign policy scholars in his field. He is the Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of International Relations at the University of Chicago, and the co-author, along with Professor Stephen Walt, who we also just had on our show, of the 2006 book “The Israel Lobby,” which seeks to explain why steadfast support for Israel has been a bipartisan policy in Washington for decades.
That interview with Prof. Mearsheimer became one of our most watched programs, in part because he brings such a necessary counterbalance to the predominant narrative about US foreign policy— challenging the establishment consensus that we should fight one war after the next. It was focused on the war in Ukraine, our relationship with China, the threat of multipolarity, and whether it will replace U.S. hegemony. This time, we focused on the new war between Israel and Gaza, the U.S. support for that war, as well as some recent updates on the war in Ukraine and how these two wars interact.
Professor Mearsheimer offered an interesting perspective on how we ought to think about American foreign policy as we now are involved in two major wars, with risk of escalation in each, and the reasons why America seems instinctively—every time a new war is offered—to involve itself in it. This discussion was genuinely illuminating.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE.
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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31 - LOCALS Q&A
FULL AFTER SHOW: Glenn Responds to Viewer Critiques on Our Israel-Gaza Coverage
UNLOCKED: Supporters-Only After Show on Locals
On Tuesday, we unlocked one of our Supporters-Only Q&As from Locals, in which Glenn engages with real audience feedback/criticism to both connect with our viewers and constantly improve the journalism we produce.
On this episode, Glenn—and his canine co-hosts Kane and Sylvester—respond to audience critiques of our Israel-Gaza coverage.
These Supporters-Only After Shows stream LIVE every Tuesday and Thursday following our show on Rumble. Want to join us? Get exclusive access to these shows—and other perks—by becoming a Locals supporter here.
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1 - SYSTEM UPDATE 174
Interview With Roger Waters: Musical Genius, Political Activist, Accused Anti-Semite
A global rockstar and musical genius. A committed political activist and fierce critic of U.S. global policy. An accused antisemite. Roger Waters joins us for a wide-ranging, fascinating discussion on his life, career, and worldview.
The musician Roger Waters doesn't need much of an introduction. His band, Pink Floyd, is one of the most successful and influential in the history of rock. Albums like “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall” are among the best-selling and most well-known albums in the last six or seven decades. But Waters is often at least as well-known these days, if not more so, for the political stances he takes.
He has certainly become an extremely controversial figure, especially over the last couple of years, as he has been an outspoken voice against the U.S. and NATO war in Ukraine and a constant critic of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. He has become widely vilified in Western media circles and establishment institutions of media as being an extremist, as being an antisemite. Essentially, every term that could be cast on him, including pro-Russian and pro-Kremlin, has been applied to him as a means to discredit him.
He was recently in Brazil, including Rio de Janeiro, where he is performing as part of his global tour and we were able to sit down with him in our studio for a fascinating discussion about many different issues, both political and personal.
We first met when he came to Rio Janeiro in 2018 as part of his tour. I was able, along with my husband, David Miranda, to spend a fair amount of time with him during the week that he was in Rio and got to see a side of him that I think most people don't see, especially those who are subject to the sort of vilification campaign that he has. It shed light for me on how to think about, understand, and process the views of Roger Waters. And I wanted to sit down with him so that those of you who watch the show could hear the same sort of perspective, the same kind of reasoning, and where his views are coming from.
We spent some amount of time talking about things like the Israeli war in Gaza and the role of the U.S. and the West in supporting it, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and a little bit about the war in Syria, but a lot of it too was about his musical career. We discussed at length the reason why he has decided to enter these very choppy and controversial political waters, and what it is that compelled him. It has resulted in a lot of difficulties for him and career loss, including the loss of a contract with his media company, and criminal investigations in Germany that tried to claim that his performance of The Wall, which was always a satire of tyrannical despots. Germany claimed it was somehow a glorification of Nazism, only for that to spread, including into Brazil, where the Brazilian government warned him that if he came here and tried to perform The Wall with that uniform, he could run afoul of Brazilian law and would have federal police agents at his shows making sure that he complied. The Brazilian government eventually backed off on that.
Roger Waters has been a person who has been kind of a lightning rod on a variety of issues that we cover here in our show, including free debate, the weaponization of antisemitism, and what happens to you when you oppose American wars and Western foreign policy. And I really did not expect the interview to go the way that it did. He was very reflective, very contemplative, and, in a very honest way, oftentimes emotional. It was an interview that I enjoyed conducting.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE.
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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3 - SYSTEM UPDATE 175
Did the CIA Kill JFK? Leading Expert David Talbot on Allen Dulles, Kennedy’s Assassination, & the Rise of America’s Secret Government
David Talbot, founder of Salon and author of “The Devil’s Chessboard,” explains the rise of the CIA and U.S. security state, his view that they were involved in JFK’s assassination, and much more.
David Talbot is an investigative journalist, historian, and author of “The Devil’s Chessboard”, a book that I consider to be one of the most important ones for anyone interested in understanding more about the history of the U.S. deep state and how it operates. It is the definitive account of the history of the CIA and U.S. security state, from its creation by Harry Truman to the Leviathan that it is today.
Talbot also played a significant role in the establishment of the internet as a place for political journalism. He was the founder of the online magazine Salon, which along with Slate was one of the first online political magazines available in the early days of the Internet. With the success of Salon, David Talbot became a crucial figure in democratizing the field of journalism, allowing independent work to reach large audiences without needing The New York Times or NBC. It revolutionized the way in which political journalism could be done online and became Glenn’s journalism home from 2007 until 2012.
Our discussion largely centered on the content of this book, with David providing evidence for his view that Allen Dulles, the CIA director for nearly a decade who transformed his agency into a secret arm of U.S. government power at home and abroad, was involved in planning and executing the assassination of John F. Kennedy, as a retaliation for having made moves to limit the power and reach of the CIA. The discussion is as interesting and thought-provoking as it sounds.
READ THE FULL STORY MONDAY ON LOCALS.
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