3291 - Why Germany Backs Israel; Living In ‘Late Fascism’ w/ Hanno Hauenstein, Alberto Toscano

It's another EmMajority Report Thursday! Emma speaks with Hanno Hauenstein, independent journalist based in Berlin, to discuss his recent writing in Haaretz and The Intercept regarding the German media's suppression of pro-Palestinian voices. Then, she speaks with Alberto Toscano, professor of communications at Simon Fraser University, about his recent book Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism, and the Politics of Crisis. First, Emma runs through updates on tonight’s State of the Union, ongoing slaughter in Gaza, illegal US arms sales to Israel, growing regional tensions around Israel, Trump’s immunity trial, the averted government shutdown, Alabama GOP’s panicked IVF legislation, anti-migrant violence, Haiti-US relations, and Florida anti-labor legislation, also parsing through DeSantis’ commentary on Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign. Hanno Hauenstein then joins, diving right into the role of Germany as the third-largest arms seller to Israel, and an increasing ally to the Zionist state in the lead-up to October 7th. Next, Hauenstein walks Emma through the growing anti-Palestinian and antisemitic rhetoric coming out of the German government and media attempting to silence pro-Palestinian rhetoric and critique of Israel, as seen in the recent backlash to a joint Palestinian-Israeli documentary winning an award at a Berlin film festival. After briefly running through Germany’s historical support for the Zionist cause as a form of reparations for their actions in the Holocaust, despite shifting the cost of these reparations onto an unconsenting population of Palestinians, Hanno tackles the active repression and Islamophobia coming from the German state and media, and its impact on the German population. Professor Alberto Toscano then joins, walking through the abstract problem of defining fascism, and its core context as an ideology that arises from capitalist crisis to enlist mass participation in the politics of domination and exclusion. After briefly touching on the long history of anti-fascist thinkers identifying elements of fascism in liberal democratic contexts, Professor Toscano expands on fascism’s relationship to capitalism as its necessary material pretext, including the important distinction between fascism and totalitarianism writ large, and liberal democracy’s attempts to obscure fascism’s roots in the material issues stemming liberal democracy. Expanding on this, Toscano and Emma explore the conception of fascism as colonialism and imperialism turned inward, exploring the major influence of these projects on the classical fascist states of Italy and Germany, as well as the tight-knit relationship between American neo-imperialism and fascist rule, before they wrap up by assessing immigration and border control as the newest front for the fascist cause, and the central role liberal democrats have played in facilitating that project.

And in the Fun Half: Emma is joined by Brandon Sutton and Matt Binder as they tackle the attempted sale of Palestinian land to settlers in a New Jersey synagogue, the supposed plan by the Biden Administration to finally push aid through their own military outpost to the besieged people of Gaza, and talk with Dave from Jamaica about the devolution of the Right-wing’s hypocrisy around sexuality. RFK runs through the central role of sexual predators in his 2000s social network, plus, your calls and IMs!

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