There is no mercy in this land.

We have one political party that makes no bones about its support for plutocratic rule and another that pretends to support democracy while surreptitiously aiding the wealthy and powerful at every opportunity.

Indeed, the Democrats have been cynically using Russia-gate so that they don’t have to talk about policies that give real material benefits to average Americans, while openly sabotaging progressive candidates in the run up to the 2018 mid-terms.

When it comes to foreign policies: both parties unconditionally support Israel, even as it murders Palestinians who have the temerity to protest the theft of their land and savage imprisonment in an open air prison that is Gaza.

First, Democratic minority leader, Chuck Schumer endorsed Trump’s embassy move in Israel, from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem. Now, the second ranking Democrat in the House, Steny Hoyer, defends Israel’ s right to gun down protestors in Gaza, and by extension the Trump administration, which supports Israel, slavishly.

Some Resistance. More like McResistance.

When it come to the power relationship between Israel and the US there are two schools of thought. The first posits that US foreign policy is absolutely dictated by the Israeli Lobby, where the tail wags the dog, so to speak. With the Trump administration there is some truth to this theory. Billionaire Sheldon Adelson donated $25 million to Trump’s campaign and provided an additional $5 million for Trump’s inauguration. Adelson is pro-Israel super hawk who advocated dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran. He was the guest of honor at the opening of the US’s new embassy in Jerusalem, getting what he paid for.

The other theory, promulgated by Noam Chomsky, say that this is nonsense, and that US foreign policy wields Israel as its attack dog in the Middle-East to maintain control over the vast oil and natural gas reserves. “In 1967, Israel destroyed the source of secular Arab nationalism — Nasser’s Egypt — which was considered a major threat and enemy by the West…Nasserite secular nationalism was considered a serious threat, because it was recognized that it might seek to take control of the immense resources of the region and use them for regional interest, rather than allow them to be centrally controlled and exploited by the United States and its allies.”

I’m partial to a third view, where it isn’t nations and governments that control an empire, but instead a group of trans-national plutocrats who use the US, Israeli, British, etc., government’s to loot, plunder and control the rest of us.

And, the corporate media is totally cool with this state of affairs. Corporate journalists have abandoned all pretense of objectivity and make it their purpose to afflict the weak and comfort the powerful. This is what happens when the corporate media is more concerned with maximizing revenues than they are in seeking truth.

This corporate media complicity is on display in their coverage over the protests in Gaza. For example, can you imagine the shrill outrage that would follow if Syrian President Assad were using snipers to gun down unarmed protestors? In this manner, the corporate media has created a class of worthy and unworthy victims, depending on their propaganda value and utility.

This dynamic is nowhere more pronounced than when it come to the great lie about Israel, its neighbors and the notion of democracy. Israel, it’s argued, is superior because it’s a democracy while the other countries that makes up the Middle-East are corrupt dictatorships that abuse their citizens. The dirty little secret is that these countries are corrupt and dictatorial precisely because the US and Israel prefer them that way in order to control their resources.

Recently, Israel declared that Gaza was not covered by the laws of war. Now they can target medical personnel and the non-embedded press, all better to wage a terror war against the Palestinian protestors.

The corporate media yawned. Covering unworthy victims is bad for business. It’s better to focus on the Kardashians.

There is no mercy in this land.