• How institutions across the United States have cracked down on pro-Palestinian sentiment
• What the MSNBC president had to say regarding Mehdi Hassan’s removal and what it says about the weaponization of the thoughts of the American population
From a Hollywood agent being forced to resign after a post on social media where she compared Israel’s actions to genocide to the editor of the magazine Artforum being fired after publishing an open letter calling for “an end to the killing and harming of all civilians,” Wall Street executives like hedge fund manager Bill Ackman demanded to know which university students were behind a pro-Palestinian letter signed by 30 Harvard students so that they could avoid hiring them. The axing of one of the most well-known MSNBC journalists, who has had multiple viral occurrences on social media, this US institutional crackdown, whose decisions are propagated by the well-paid and often unknown elites of the company, has paved the way for a virus of fear existing amongst those with lesser and smaller authority. including the most outspoken and open-minded of the generations, which are none other than the student- and university-aged generation.
How the US has a long history of blocking access to freedom of thought amongst its population
From the talks and media cover-up of blowing up the al Jazeera headquarters in Doha during the height of the Iraq war to the media cover-up of Operation Northwoods (a plan by the US to carry out bombings of its own citizens to make an excuse to invade Cuba), to the recent blind eye to the 51 journalists killed in Gaza The US has shown time and time again that it is not only the enemy of freedom of speech when it contradicts its interests but also a scourge when it comes to vital, hard-hit information reaching the minds of its people. After the ferocious uproar and exposure that took place during the presidential election in 2016, when former president Donald Trump was lambasted on multiple fronts for the polarised debates on guns after numerous mass shootings, most Americans have acknowledged that the media they trust and turn to is indeed far from impartial. However, as this recent ground invasion of Gaza has proven, not even the most experienced of news viewers are immune to the propagation of lies and exaggerations that the media has been bashing them with.
The controversial response the MSNBC president gave after firing Mehdi Hasan
According to the publication The Hill, MSNBC president Rashida Jones sent a note to staff saying the reshuffle aims to ‘better position’ the network as it heads into the 2024 US elections. What must be noted is that Mehdi Hasan was one of the rare pro-Palestinian TV anchors, not just on MSNBC but in the whole American media establishment, who has held Israel to account. Last month on his programme ‘the Mehdi Hasan Show’, he spoke to an Israeli government advisor and questioned him on the lies Israel was propagating. He at one point spoke about the fact that an Arabic calendar in a hospital was presented as a list of Hamas operatives. After a continuous grilling and back and forth between Mehdi and the Israeli advisor, the advisor admitted that Israel may have committed’mistakes’ in putting out such information. Many believe it was this interview that sealed the Mehdi Hasan Show’s fate. If what the president of MSNBC has said is true and the networks main aim is to do with the US presidential election, then seeing that MSNBC is a left-leaning news outlet and generally pro-democrat; seeing as the Democratic Party are stark supporters of Israel and have not condemned them one bit since October 7th and that most American viewers are pro-Israel, it may very well be that in order to keep the networks base viewers loyal and to help in protecting President Biden’s reputation, they felt they had no choice but to axe the show.
So, is the United States the leader of the free world?
If pro-Palestinian TV anchors are subdued in the media and social media posts from people with a commanding position lead to them having to resign or being fired and university students being threatened to be barred from their future prospects, then all in all, the United States cannot unequivocally call itself the leader of the free world nor has any right to call for freedom in other parts of the world.
US secret plan to bomb Al Jazeera, covered up by mainstream US media: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/nov/27/broadcasting.politicsandiraq
I’m Operation Northwoods, also covered by most mainstream US media: https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662&page=1#:~:text=Code%20named%20Operation%20Northwoods%2C%20the,violent%20terrorism%20in%20U.S.%20cities
