Writer, photographer. Essays on food, media and politics at my website, Eating an Island. Montreal/Cairo.
Montréal, Québec
Joined January 2024
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My writing on Palestine, a 🧵
I’ve been writing on this since the fall – in fact, it’s been hard to focus on anything else.
“What We Talk about When We Talk about Food Security” – on Gaza, poverty and neoliberal "moves to innocence".
eatinganisland.com/p/what-we… – at St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
I'm just glad I don't live in a dictatorship but a free democracy where every few years I can vote for a different banker or lawyer or landlord that represents the vast network of powerful corporate interests that controls every aspect of my life from cradle to grave
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
my survival fund still hasn’t reached the goal and november is around the corner. i need $600 to be able to cover the rest of rent bills food and meds. can 60 ppl send 10? more? i need support until i find something stable. please help however you can paypal.me/DahliaAttoui
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
This still stands out to me as one of the most evil things Israel has done. Just the grossest, most unapologetic perfidy. They're proud, in fact, of how slimy they are
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
Let’s not forget to help Alaa and her family as well. She is also verified by Lifeline4Gaza, Radio Watermelon, and One Palestine. Please help her and her family! 🙏
lifeline4gaza.com/share/2965…
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
Help me break this shadow ban, my relatives. I feel sometimes, I am talking for nothing. I am old and can't waste time if no one cares. Even when I care. 💕🪶
I like the argument here, generally speaking the left and liberal-left (including the broad constellation of independent journalists and influencers) spend much of their time responding and critiquing right-wing or Zionist bullshit for example, rather than pushing the discourse
🎥 “We want to go the Farage route, not the Lib Dem route.”
Ashok Kumar of Greens for Palestine spoke to Novara Media about strategy behind the Green Party’s “Zionism is racism” motion, which took a year to organize and was designed to expose Labour’s politics. He said PM Andy Burnham’s response revealed him as little different from Keir Starmer.
Inspired by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed and its “strategy of conflict,” the idea is to set the terms of debate, provoke a backlash, and heighten contradictions to force opponents to reveal positions.
Rather than chase more MPs by moderating its politics, Kumar says the Greens should use confrontation to shift the debate leftward and become an anti-establishment force.
“We want to drag [the paradigm] to the left kicking and screaming.”
@comrade_kumar_ | @novaramedia
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
everyone is conflating tearing regular ass people down with “speaking truth to power”
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
Israeli election debate
Candidate 1: "I have killed SO MANY Arabs"
Candidate 2: "Liar, he is lying! He has not killed NEARLY enough Arabs. He even spares the children!"
Candidate 1: "FALSE! I've killed countless Arab children and I WILL KILL EVEN MORE if you vote for me"
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
The White Empire is in retreat, burning its bridges across West Asia. They've tried to cover their tracks by taking South America, but that's only 2 points in RISK and Asia is 7. To little and they lose the great game (which only they are playing) 1/9
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
pretty amazing that, in the middle of standing up to and humiliating the world's greatest military empire, Iran took the time to pay a bunch of Canadian teenagers to shoot at some empty buildings, for some reason cbc.ca/news/investigates/ira…
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
Can someone explain like I'm 5 why it would be strategic for Iran to light up a couple of Bagels etc. franchises or whatever
Today CBC published an article with the headline: “Why a spate of gun-for-hire shootings in Toronto were likely paid for by Iran.”
I was intrigued, as there has been almost 0 evidence offered for this claim thus far.
Unfortunately this article doesn’t offer any either, adding nothing new. CBC says they spent weeks on the investigation, so these are pretty pitiful results, at least in terms of finding evidence of who paid for the shootings.
I’m not sure why they feel comfortable with such a declarative headline given the lack of evidence (other than journalistic standards going out the window when the subject is an Official Enemy country).
Also, CBC and other journalists continue platforming police claims that they need backdoor access to messaging apps to solve these shootings, with no push back or critique about how these powers can be abused, including against journalists.
cbc.ca/news/investigates/ira…
From a distance, I was happy to see Brad Bradford lose, largely because of his name, though I will say there has to be a better election strategy than "Vote for this candidate because that candidate is worse". Liberals are doing this all the time.
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
So now Canada has promised more military cooperation, intelligence sharing and joint training with the United States of Israel and UAE.
Doncha feel safer now, turnips?
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
Please donate. It's urgent
chuffed.org/project/169320-h…
Up until this moment, I haven't received anything. I don't understand the cruelty of hearts. I will not forgive those who ignore me. 😓🖐
Jon Randell Smith retweeted
When Canada added the offence of "advocating or promoting genocide" to the Criminal Code in 1970, it intentionally excluded three of the five acts of genocide listed in the Genocide Convention:
🇨🇦 Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
🇨🇦 Imposing measures intended to prevent births; and
🇨🇦 Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
It wasn't until 2000, just a few years after the last residential school closed, that the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act brought the full international definition of genocide into Canadian law.
