Episode Transcript
Antifascist Dad, Episode 59: Debating Zionist DARVO with Kelsey Lyseng
Matthew Remski: Hello everyone, my name is Matthew Remski and this is episode 59 of Antifascist Dad podcast, Debating Zionist DARVO with Kelsey Lyseng.
Kelsey Lyseng: Realistically, I wasn't actually disrupting, but even if I was, that is like literally the point of democracy. Democracy is not to shut down conversation. Democracy is to allow freedom of expression as long as it does not impede on people's rights.
Matthew Remski: You can find me on Bluesky and Instagram under my name and I'm on YouTube and TikTok as antifascistdad. The Patreon for this show is antifascistdadpodcast, where subscribers get early access to a second weekly episode. And if you are listening to this episode on the week of November 9th, on the day that it drops, you know all of this because you are one of those subscribers and I am very grateful to you for supporting this work.
And if you're listening to this on the open feed after its release, after that small paywall period that helps to support the show, then welcome as well. I would direct you to the show notes where you will find all of the references to the items that I speak about with Kelsey today, but also to a link for my book which is called Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times.
On October 14, former journalist Jesse Brown moderated a town hall at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and the title was Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, Anti-Jew Hate in Contemporary Canada. And by the title alone, you might know how this thing was rigged. Now, I've spent a fair amount of time here and elsewhere reviewing Brown's villain arc post October 7th. There's a robust discussion of the details in episode 328 of my other gig Conspirituality, if you want to check that out. But the basics that after the Hamas attack, Brown began posting heavily about antisemitism on Twitter, and he reoriented his media platform, Canadaland, around the subject of antisemitism in Canada.
He began asserting that anti-Zionism and pro-Palestinian protest are a principal source of danger to Canadian Jews, and he cast himself as the truth teller who was the target of numerous pressure campaigns. He, his positions have produced conflict inside his own newsroom, including criticism from his union, departures, disputes over his editorial control of coverage of Gaza, and more recently, he's linked his perceptions of rising antisemitism to Muslim immigration to Canada and the education provided in Muslim-majority countries.
The latest professional news from Brown is that he's stepping down from full admin over Canadaland to concentrate on this issue, this project, and it would seem that this town hall was kind of a soft launch for that.
It was held in the Maple Leaf Room of the Lister Centre, with Felice Lifshitz, Professor Emeritus of Women and Gender Studies, giving the introduction. Alexander Marcus, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies, was the moderator.
And Brown said that the university's Office of Access, Community and Belonging invited him and partly funded the event, with Canadaland covering the rest. But university media relations denied that the office had organized it.
And then before the event, there was a lot of controversy. Stickers labeling Brown a racist Zionist were posted around the campus. And then at the event, he faced some tough questions.
Now, through video clips of these exchanges, I first heard about Kelsey Lyseng. Here's one of those clips. The audio is poor, but I think you can make it out.
Jesse Brown: I don't know many countries that have spotless records of their creation. I'm not trying to shrug off things. I believe in truth and reconciliation processes. I believe in inherited trauma. I think we have to deal with the past.
But it does strike me and many people that the same people who wish to delegitimize Israel at a foundational level based on the history that never had a right to exist and therefore should not today feel the same way about Canada.
Feel the same. Feel
Kelsey Lyseng: the exact same way about Canada.
Jesse Brown: Right. But the focus and the energy is on dismantling Israel.
Kelsey Lyseng: Well, Israel has killed 22,000 children in three years.
Jesse Brown: And what has America wrought in Iraq?
Kelsey Lyseng: But why are we doing. What about ism?
Jesse Brown: Well, because. What about. What. What about.
Kelsey Lyseng: I don't care about that right now. We're talking about Israel right now.
Jesse Brown: But what the. Why?
Kelsey Lyseng: Because this whole thing is about Judaism and Israel. And you brought up Zionism.
Jesse Brown: No, it's about us. And I think it's a legitimate question for Jewish people to have to say the scale of the casualties, the deaths, if you want to say the murder, if you want to say the genocide.
Why is this the primary focus when Sudan is happening, when there are example after. I care about
Kelsey Lyseng: Sudan too, but we're talking about Zionism right now.
Jesse Brown: What I'm saying is that it is a legitimate question for Jews who are feeling the ancillary impacts of this. Because people are striking out at Diaspora Jews because of their hatred of Israel.
We are taking it on the chin for this country that we have no power over.
Kelsey Lyseng: I think it's because Israel says they're doing it in the name of Judaism.
Jesse Brown: That comes up so often. And can I ask you a bit about that? Because I've never quite understood that.
As if.
As if
Kelsey Lyseng: we're literally trying in the Canadian policy to equate antisemitism with anti-Zionism. So, yeah, that's exactly what Israel's trying to do is say that it's one.
Jesse Brown: How did Israel get that into Canadian policy?
Kelsey Lyseng: Through JFed.
Matthew Remski: So that's a preview of Brown's rhetorical techniques and also Kelsey's responses. And, you know, these techniques from Brown follow the well-worn pattern of changing the subject, never trying to answer a hostile question, reframing, always offering limited concessions, and then taking all political criticism as ad hominem, and always, always playing the victim in a maneuver that Jennifer Freyd has called DARVO, or deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. It's a response pattern in which a person accused of wrongdoing or accused of injustice denies it, attacks the accuser, and then claims victimhood.
Brown has a lot of practice with this by now. And I was struck by Kelsey's directness and calm, even though, as you'll hear in our conversation, she says she felt ill through the entire event.
And so I wanted to learn more about how and why she showed up just as a regular citizen, you know, a working nurse with a number of comrades to make this town hall into an actual town hall.
Here's our conversation.
Kelsey Lyseng, welcome to Antifascist Dad.
Kelsey Lyseng: Thank you for having me.
Matthew Remski: Okay, so first question is, what made you want to go to the University of Alberta to challenge Jesse Brown at this genocide apologism event? Like, had you been following his slide from journalism into hasbara for a while?
Kelsey Lyseng: No, honestly, I did not know about him until it came up in the community that I'm in and everyone was talking about this guy's coming. I'm like, who is this guy? Which he would hate to hear because he
Matthew Remski: would hate to hear. Yeah,
Kelsey Lyseng: he thinks he's a big hotshot. But I was like, who is this guy? And then when I looked him up, I'm like, oh, he's just like a talking mouthpiece for hasbara, but in the liberal Zionist way.
And I'm getting really sick of that. And so I was like, yeah, I definitely want to hear, like, genuinely. I'm just intrigued in, like, how their mental gymnastics works. And him specifically, I've seen him go after, like, Samira and other journalists and just some of the stuff he said is abhorrent. And I'm like, do you really stand by some of these things you're saying? You know,
Matthew Remski: I think that he does stand by them. But standing means taking a bunch of kind of contradictory positions and changing the topic. And there's a bunch of techniques that will.
Will get to, but you go specifically to confront and disrupt. And you know, the liberal argument is these folks booked the room, they planned the event. They have a point of view. We have freedom of expression. It's really poor form. It's kind of undemocratic to disrupt their program.
So, you know, how do you answer to that, Kelsey?
Kelsey Lyseng: Well, I don't know. Maybe you do believe that, but it's funny hearing it from you because I feel like you don't believe that, but you
Matthew Remski: don't very well. No, I specifically said the liberal point of view is right. Okay,
Kelsey Lyseng: well, I actually. I mean, you could say it was a disruption, to be honest. What they asked for, what Alex, I think his name is, and Felice, like the two profs at U of A, they actually, they're like, welcoming us to come. They were like, please come, we want to talk, we want to talk. So, like, realistically, I wasn't actually disrupting, but even if I was, that is like literally the point of democracy. Democracy is not to shut down conversation. Democracy is to allow freedom of expression as long as it does not impede on people's rights.
So I guess that's what I'd say to that. And like, honestly, it's just a lot of Canada loves being, like, polite. And, like, polite isn't actually kind. Polite isn't actually just. I think we need to sometimes have uncomfortable convos.
Matthew Remski: Did you coordinate with other folks? Because, you know, you did have comrades in the moment, but I'm wondering if you. If you met them in the moment.
Kelsey Lyseng: I mean, I meet comrades all the time, but. No, yeah, I'm not gonna sit here and say it was all like, serendipitous. Yeah, we knew going in.
Matthew Remski: You're a nurse. As I understand it, one of Brown's other interlocutors there is also a healthcare worker.
And I don't know, maybe this is coincidence, but I'm wondering, is your profession some kind of organizing network?
Like, do you know healthcare workers on the ground in Palestine? I know that healthcare workers have been very prominent in pro-Palestinian protests, but I'm just wondering if that's a thing.
Kelsey Lyseng: I wouldn't say that. It's like a. I forget the word you used, but it's not like
Matthew Remski: a network.
Kelsey Lyseng: There's a lot of resistance within the healthcare world to speaking out against this. And I don't think it's necessarily that healthcare workers don't care, it's that the suppression techniques are very established and very scary for a lot of people.
But no, it's not.
Yeah, I do know, like, healthcare workers that went to Gaza. No, I don't know personally any healthcare workers in Gaza.
Matthew Remski: So I'm watching you and I got in touch with you because you and some other folks released some video clips of this event. And I found it fascinating because, you know, it's very rare that somebody like Jesse Brown is actually in the position where he has to listen to somebody actually ask questions, he has to respond to them.
Nobody was taking the mic out of your hands. He didn't have control of the mic.
And I'm watching you go head to head and it's just obvious that you've done this before and I'm wondering where that comes from. Like, did you grow up around pro-Israel talking points?
Did you have some sort of mentorship? Like, how did you catch on to this type of discourse and the type of intervention that you wanted to bring to it?
Kelsey Lyseng: That's a good question.
I did not grow up knowing anything about religion, to be honest.
So not Judaism. Not that Zionism is religion, but I did not know about Zionism. I did not know. I just started looking stuff up like seven years ago, eight years ago.
So, yeah, I mean, I picked up on some things and talking to mentors, definitely within Edmonton and just Palestinian community in general helps me. Like, I'm constantly just trying to understand this stuff. But I think what you're asking is, how can I pick up on the manipulation? So. Well,
Matthew Remski: yeah,
Kelsey Lyseng: I, I just know these techniques, like, through personal life, I think if you see certain patterns of deception play out over and over, the pattern recognition starts kicking in and people do it in different ways. Right. Like, I mean, Canada tried to say, like, oh, we were friends with the Indigenous people. Like, we had Thanksgiving. It was a positive thing. Israel's line is that they're doing it to create a safe space for Jews and that justifies genocide. Narcissists will say whatever, they asked for it or something. Like, it's all just different ways to spin the narrative. And I guess I just, I smell the bullshit sometimes.
Matthew Remski: Well, let's look at the specific techniques that you faced in this particular encounter and that are quite common in, I think, discussions of Zionism and anti-Zionism. So I'll name a number of things that he does based on my analysis of the audio of the event, and maybe you can comment on each of them. And some of these are paraphrases or summations of the statements, the positions that he took. Okay, so the first sort of category regards the term genocide. And Jesse's tactics are, this is a quote, journalists don't offer verdicts before due process.
Right. Like, so in other words, he's saying there's no real consensus on genocide and objectivity demands neutrality.
So have you heard that before?
And like, what goes through your mind when you hear that?
Kelsey Lyseng: I don't know if I've heard it like that before, unless he said it and I missed it. He says a lot of things. That's kind of his thing is to say a lot of things and confuse people. But I guess the concept in and of itself is just feels like a distraction technique, like we're talking about something horrific. And they would really like to distance themselves from the word genocide because they know that has an emotional impact on people that hear it, just like they're trying to distance themselves from the word Zionism now. So that's all I see there is just trying to make things cloudy so people can't just call things what they are.
I mean, yeah, it's. I don't know why. Who are we waiting for to call it a genocide? If every human rights organization has already called it that and the UN has already called it that, like, who are we waiting for? I guess.
Matthew Remski: Yeah, I mean, he would say that. Well, the official court processes at the UN haven't actually been concluded or at the ICC or so on.
I mean, the thing that strikes me about his insistence upon preserving neutrality when he says that there isn't yet really a verdict is that he doesn't do that with other verdicts that he's willing to make, which are like, one of them is anti-Zionism is a hate movement. Like, this is something that he'll bring to Twitter three or four times a week. It's obvious that everybody at a pro-Palestinian rally is an antisemite, that's just done and dusted. That's a verdict.
So there's no reason for neutrality there.
Kelsey Lyseng: He did say that to us as well. He said, well, he's looking at me and he's like, so why don't you care about what Jews are going through? And I'm like, I just said that. I did. I think neo-Nazism, Nazism that's been let out of the woodwork is awful. And he tried to
Matthew Remski: say,
Kelsey Lyseng: well, that's not really what I'm worried about. So he's trying to say that the real worry is like anti-Zionism. That is the most scary thing to him.
Matthew Remski: Oh, so there was a moment where he's asking you to respect the feelings evoked by the fact that there have been incidents of antisemitic violence or harassment over the last several years. Some people say that those incidents are rising and you are saying, yes, I am concerned about that.
But then he switches to what's the point? That anti-Zionism must be the source of that. That actually there's this subtler thing underneath antisemitic attacks that's actually worse. Is that what he's trying to say?
Kelsey Lyseng: Yeah, I think he's trying to say kind of what we both said, that the anti-Zionist movement or whatever, basically just people that don't like genocide and colonization, has some antisemitic, I don't know, underpinning or that's the real risk to Jews. And I mean, you can believe that, but you're right. It's like he has decided that is the truth, but he doesn't apply that same kind. Like he's assumed we can't just all agree on the genocide. He wants to wait for that one, but he already decided on the other one.
Matthew Remski: Okay, so next technique is that there's a way of using milder categories instead of the contested one. And I'll just point out that if you use the word genocide, not only does it carry emotional weight and historical weight, but it also carries the mandate or the necessity to act. Right? Like if you are saying, yes, this country is committing genocide, then you are morally obligated to intervene. Right.
So this way of using milder categories. I've got a quote from him where he says, well, within the, I don't know what the phrasing is before this, but he's talking about Israel's response, quote, might have been a war crime or certainly looks like an atrocity. And then, quote, you can safely assume that I hate to see the loss of life in an industrialized way. So there are these phrases that are used to sort of acknowledge the, what is it, the bad optics or the, or the immorality perhaps, or the collateral damage of war without using the term genocide itself.
Kelsey Lyseng: So you think he's trying to just give Israel more time, keep people from making those moral imperative statements and keep people in this kind of gray zone of, yeah, it's bad, but we don't really know what to do about it kind of thing.
Matthew Remski: Yeah, I think that's the net effect. He focuses on intention, right?
So he says, quote, if it were to come out, that the genocidal intention was there and the plans were there and that, you know, this was not a matter of offhand comments by radicalized ministers. What he does also is that there's this minimization of like, you know, flat out statements made by people like Netanyahu and Smotrich and Yoav Gallant and others
Kelsey Lyseng: because they can't run from the truth anymore. Right. So they have to acknowledge the truth in a way that's like, yeah, that happened, but like, was it on purpose? Was it an accident? Can we really say what's going on here?
Matthew Remski: Right?
Kelsey Lyseng: I mean, when all of your ministers are saying, like, we have so many quotes of all these ministers and we know the plan from the beginning and we know it was colonization from the beginning, we know this. Like, there are articles where it's like, Israel is colonizing Palestine. That is like a known fact. So it's, it's really funny that they're still trying to obfuscate that reality. But it does work. I get that it works, but when you look at the facts, it falls apart really quickly.
Matthew Remski: The next, I think, main focal point that comes up and that I want to look at is this premise of who is safe and what does safety mean and who is safe. During even a discussion like this at the University of Alberta, when you're sitting in a room and there's a microphone being passed around.
So at one point, I don't know whether it's you or it's one of your comrades, but somebody asks Jesse whether history will judge him for the contradictory views that he has. And it's a, you know, it's a confrontational question, but his answer is, I don't feel safe.
I'm not safe right now.
You know, he insists later, again, I'm unsafe when this is when he's asked if he's just uncomfortable. And so I'm wondering about how you mentioned at the beginning, like in a democracy and at the invitation of these two professors at U of A, I come to this space and the assumption is we're going to have a difficult conversation about a difficult issue.
And suddenly there's this question of who is safe and who is unsafe. And so what goes on for you when that gets brought up?
Kelsey Lyseng: Partially, I think it's a real response. Not that I'm saying it's a just answer to what we're discussing, but I genuinely think there is some.
They've been, a lot of Zionists have been taught that X equals threat.
And so I think they genuinely get a fight or flight or freeze response when some topics come up.
Yeah, it's just, it's hard to have a conversation with people when they immediately, like, once they say, I'm unsafe. Now all of a sudden we're not actually having the real convo, because now you are seeing everything with this lens of you're coming after me, you are unsafe. I am unsafe because of you.
And now there's no more logic. I don't know. That's kind of what I see there. Like, what do you see?
Matthew Remski: The deflection aspect of it. And now suddenly the conversation is no longer about, are we discussing the politics of how we should orient ourselves towards a genocidal state or towards this geopolitical event.
If you're not at the point of calling it a genocide yet, instead of having a discussion about what the actual content is, the discussion has to be about how comfortable do I feel when we're talking about it. My question for you is, you know that you are walking into a hostile environment when you get there, but did you make it about your feelings?
Kelsey Lyseng: That's a very good question. I didn't.
However, I guess I walked into their space. I guess I'm used to having these conversations where I do come from a slight or a major point of privilege. So I'm used to maybe giving a bit of grace to some of that. But that's why I would never expect people of color to be having these conversations with a lot of these people. Because if I was like an Arab who has family in Gaza, and I'm saying, can we talk about this reality? And he responds with, I feel unsafe right now.
That's absurd. I mean, it's absurd to me, but at least I'm coming. Like, it's not my family. So I can just sit for a second and be like, I get that you're having some weird fight or flight response that's not rooted in reality, but.
Matthew Remski: So you can roll with it.
Kelsey Lyseng: I can roll with it. I mean, I don't ethically want to. Like, I wanted
Matthew Remski: to
Kelsey Lyseng: throw up every second I was in there, but because I know what this would show the public, I'm like, I'm going to sit here and just swallow it while listening to the bullshit of it.
Matthew Remski: Yeah, this is what I'm getting at. I don't know if you've come across the work of Dr. Lara Sheehi, who.
She wrote a book called Psychic Militancy. She's Lebanese American, pro-Palestinian psychoanalyst who basically describes environments like this. She opens one of her books, which is called From the Clinic to the Streets, with this scene in.
She is speaking about the necessity to take, to bring anticolonialist politics into the practice of psychoanalysis. And a guy dressed up in a pajama suit that's just made of Star of David flags comes into the room and starts yelling at her and blocks the door and is yelling at her, talking about how he feels unsafe.
She said that it was this revelatory moment for her because she recognized that everybody in the room wanted to take care of that guy's feelings when she was the person presenting the argument who was being yelled at.
Kelsey Lyseng: Yeah, I guess it's often like a DARVO technique, too, right? You bring up an initial issue, and often when people don't want to take accountability or let that sit, they'll immediately turn it around and say, well, what about me? What about my feelings? And it's like, we can talk about those. But I brought up this one first. So why all of a sudden are we talking about that?
Matthew Remski: There was a number of moments where I felt you were really good at picking up on the diversion. And I wonder what kind of reflex you have for that, because there's a number of places where you would say repeatedly, why have you changed the subject? Or why are we talking about this now? Or there was kind of like a rhythm at a certain point that you got into with that. I don't know if you remember that.
Kelsey Lyseng: I do. Yeah, I thought, to be honest, that he would be better at, like, derailing that part of the convo, because I already named the diversion. I said, like, why are we doing whataboutism? So I assumed he would try a new one, like red herring or something. But then he just gave another whataboutism, and I'm like, again, why are we talking about Sudan? Like, I'd love to, but we were originally talking about Palestine. So I'm a little confused.
Matthew Remski: I find that one really fascinating. The accusation of hypocrisy that's buried in the question of you're asking me to take a stance or to come to a position about genocide in Gaza, but actually, I'm going to invalidate that by suggesting that you don't actually care about this other thing that we weren't talking about.
Kelsey Lyseng: And the implied accusation in that is that we're only talking about Palestine because we hate Jewish people.
Matthew Remski: And also that somehow it's fashionable, somehow it's a
Kelsey Lyseng: trend.
Matthew Remski: You know, Palestine is all the rage these days with the kids or something like that.
Kelsey Lyseng: Yeah, like Pallywood or whatever. And that's also the implied that we don't care about Black people.
Matthew Remski: Yes.
Kelsey Lyseng: I think that one is kind of in there, too. Like, they'll try anything that works. And with activism, what's gonna work to make us feel confused is attacking our empathy. So that's a great tactic that they use is like, so you don't care about Black people. And I've had conversations with people because we're like, we keep talking about Palestine, and we should also talk about Sudan. But a lot of us are like, it feels like, you know, unethical. It's because they keep throwing this comparison at us. So we're like, we must be bad people.
Matthew Remski: Yeah,
Kelsey Lyseng: but you're not a bad person. Just because you're finding one avenue to focus on, you cannot advocate for every cause known to mankind at the same time. It's literally impossible. Also, we're under capitalism.
How the hell could I possibly do that?
Matthew Remski: Yeah, I mean, the thing about what about Sudan is just on the face of it, if you're an American citizen, if you're a Canadian citizen, you don't. You are not paying taxes to a government that is directly funding the armaments in that particular genocide. And so, like, your actual capacity to exercise political power democratically is much reduced. I mean, for me, when I first was confronted with that question, I was like, oh, the reason that I don't. I'm not thinking as much about Sudan is simply because I don't know as much about it, and should I find out, then we can definitely talk about that as well. But part of not knowing is the fact that I have not encountered the receipts of, you know, how many munitions we have shipped to the Saudis to do what they're doing. So there's kind of like an information issue as well. So the next thing that tends to happen in the series of deflections is that the person will avoid the topic of Israel or try to come away from it, and then they'll target the topic of Muslim immigration. And, you know, Brown got into that topic that evening that you were there, but he'd already been very clear with this tactic on CNN back in June. And I've got a clip here that we can listen to to see how that shakes out.
CNN Host: But you touched on something that I think I would love for you to expand on this idea that, you know, you sort of feel it's particularly acute in Canada, especially talk to us about the dynamics at play that make Canada ripe for something like this.
Jesse Brown: Thank you for that question. I think it's surprising to a lot of people because Canada is associated with politeness and kindness. And these are the values that I think every Canadian values, you know, holds, holds very dear is that we are a pluralistic, multicultural society where people generally have lived harmoniously together. So it is surprising to see that Canada become one of the worst countries, countries in the world when it comes to this post-10/7 spike in anti-Jewish hate.
There are many factors I think that you can't ignore, the fact that we have tripled our Muslim population in just about 20 years.
By and large, Muslims have lived in Canada just as Jews, harmoniously and without incident up until this post-10/7 era. The fact of the matter is, and it's an uncomfortable topic for some, we are bringing in people from countries where hatred of Jews is taught in schools. And unlike other countries, there's very little done when people come to Canada to educate and naturalize them to say this is not how we do things.
Matthew Remski: That's his thesis statement.
And I'm wondering if you've heard that before and how you tend to respond to it.
Kelsey Lyseng: I read it. I haven't heard it before, but I read it when I did a little bit of research on him.
He's also made like absurd comparisons about the protests in general. Like really just trying to demonize a certain group of people.
It's kind of a crazy thing to say that you're painting anti-Jewish hate on a religion.
Is that not what he's advocating against us doing?
Matthew Remski: It is. I mean, I think that like what I've come across in this bit of evidence that he wants to present is that the immigration rate from, you know, Muslim countries has increased over X amount of time, but he's not going to give figures.
And then there's the implication.
Kelsey Lyseng: He never does.
Matthew Remski: Yeah, he never does. And then there's the implication that that has changed the nature of anti-genocide protests since October 7th.
And I'm not sure how that's true.
There's no real evidence provided for that. And so it's like, I'm not really sure how to tell this argument apart from Muslims are destroying Western civilization through the great replacement or something like that. Like it's not, it's all very vague. I think most of the time when he is actually arguing with anti-Zionists, he's not arguing with Muslims, he's arguing for the most part with, you know, non-Jews like myself and with anti-Zionist Jews.
Kelsey Lyseng: It feels like a lot of these convos hold inherent racism. But because of the fluffy nature of the way he talks and the indirect comparisons he makes, he can kind of skirt away from those accusations and say, well, no, no, I'm just asking questions.
Matthew Remski: I thought it was really cool that you were there to present some friction and some resistance to what's becoming a stronger cultural force with government backing.
We now have two government-related, but not legislative documents that are living on the canada.gov websites that flat out describe anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism.
We have the report on the CASE report on the experience of antisemitism by Jewish students in universities, which has all kinds of data problems with it that I covered in a previous episode with Daniel Silofsky. It feels like the vice is closing actually on people's capacity to stand and say, no, actually, I'm not going to let certain facts from the human record be erased. And so I'm just glad that you're able to do that. But you're just doing this as a citizen, right? Like, this isn't your job. Nobody's like, this is a political compulsion for you. Right?
Kelsey Lyseng: Yeah. People are like, how much do Hamas pay you? Nothing, unfortunately.
Matthew Remski: Right.
Kelsey Lyseng: I'm not getting paid for this.
Matthew Remski: Are you going to be able to keep it up?
Kelsey Lyseng: I don't know.
That's a different question for sure. But yeah, I mean, I guess you're kind of inherently asking, like, why? I mean, we have to, if we continue to let the IHRA be the definition, we have lost all sense of, like, we are in fascism. The people get to decide what we say, when we say it, who we say it to. Do we? Edmonton police know everything going on on social media, whether it's private or not. They're like recording our faces with Israeli AI tech. Like, if we let this continue, there will be significant Israeli influence over everything we do. And I don't know, have we seen what they've been doing for 78 years? Like, is that really what we want to be doing?
I hope to do more because people keep saying that it's helping and I want to do more because I can see that when you directly confront certain people, certain institutions, that's what's getting some real movement. Like, if that's what happens. Right. When you have a great mass of people that actually see what's going on and stand in solidarity together, these institutions can't stand behind their lies anymore.
So, yeah, I hope to keep doing this and hopefully find a way to sustain myself while I do it as ethically as possible.
Matthew Remski: Kelsey Lyseng, thank you so much for taking the time and thanks for doing what you do.
Kelsey Lyseng: Thank you for what you do. Thank you for having me.
Matthew Remski: So thank you again to Kelsey for the conversation.
I want to close this episode on a different note, an unexpected note, I want to talk about a controversy Kelsey was embroiled in for about eight days after we did this interview. It's not resolved yet, but I think it really underlines the precarious nature of independent political activism on social platforms. And it serves as an object lesson in how leftists of all tendencies really need to get our shit together and develop a stable theory of the enemy. That is, it's not your neighbor. If you are working class, if you are engaged in some kind of effort, however small or fragile, to resist or end capitalism or colonialism or genocide, you might have blind spots, you might make mistakes, you might not have read all of the right books, but you deserve solidarity and support.
Now, let's say that you come across a leftist content creator and you have this suspicion that they don't have their full heart in it, or you think that they might have ulterior motives that they're not even aware of.
No one on earth is served by bullying them.
No one is served by punching sideways.
So I'll give a few details on this. Not to litigate each one as a journalist, but just to give the arc, which will be familiar to, I think, a lot of you.
Kelsey's been putting out anti-genocide propaganda on Instagram since June, beginning with comments she made at an Edmonton police board meeting about the police chief who had traveled to Israel for police training with the IDF, which is very ominous.
As a part-time nurse, Kelsey did what she could during that time, and she noticed that followers began to message her with offers of support at the end of a work cycle. And as she was trying to decide how best to use her time going forward, she posted a question to her Instagram page that basically asked, do you think it's ethical for me to accept donations to continue this reporting and this advocacy?
Well, this set off a global firestorm of stitches and reposts and accusations that she was grifting, when in fact she was specifically trying to address the ethics of sustainable activism. She was accused of centering herself, expecting compensation, as the survivors of Gaza are starving and now their tents are flooded and doing all of these things as a beneficiary of whiteness.
Now, I've seen enough of the materials at hand to say no, it's just not what was happening.
Now, obviously you have to check yourself when doing any of this stuff. If you are white and cisgendered like me, you have a responsibility to use your social power in a generative way. You have a responsibility to listen carefully to the people you say you want to help.
And we can help each other do that when we fall down.
But none of that happens through online campaigns against each other that burn up days and days in anxiety and tears.
It's chilling, demoralizing. It's terrible for younger people to watch. Who would want to get involved if this is what the older people are doing?
And it comes, I believe, out of shameful weaponization instincts where we turn our powerlessness against each other in the hope of some feeling of dominance.
So that's as much as I'll say about that. And, you know, to underline the point, I'll close out with some stern words from Carsie Blanton, friend of the pod, who spoke to this issue directly recently on Instagram.
Oh, and trigger warning on the language. This isn't exactly antifascist dad speech. It's more like antifascist wine auntie.
You know, after a couple of glasses of wine, this isn't a secret. She's holding it up. She's talking about that.
And you know what they say, in vino veritas.
Carsie Blanton: The fascists and the rich, they have all the money in the world and they're very well organized. What we have going for us are the numbers. We have most of the people alive. What we don't have is organization. In fact, we're less organized now than we probably ever have been. And the worst part is, is there are some disorganizing tendencies in the left, especially in the imperial core. So I want to call a few of those out. This is for other western leftists. Oh, power corrupts. I don't want power. Power corrupts. You know what corrupts? Nuclear winter corrupts. War corrupts. Climate collapse corrupts. I think it would corrupt a lot to be one of Peter Thiel's asteroid mining slaves. Too bad you were born in the part of history where we need to figure out how to take power and wield it. That's what happened. Okay, I'm sorry you weren't born in a cuter part of history. Oh yeah, I want to join an organization, but this one is too liberal and this one is too authoritarian. Oh, baby, are you five? Do you need me to cut the crust off your sandwiches for you? You have to get an organization because you are going to organize it better. You're a grown up. This is your world too, and I don't want to hear another word about it. And finally, this thing of leftist on the Internet talking shit on other leftists and like critiquing each other and each other's organizations and projects. I hope it's the CIA, because if we're doing it to ourselves, then they're probably just kicking back, enjoying the view over at the CIA. They got nothing to do. Now if you get the urge to critique another leftist in public, fucking don't. Just fucking keep it in your pants. Just like, call a friend, have a glass of wine, vent to them. You don't need to put that shit on the Internet. Get. Don't be a disorganizing force. That's the last thing we need. We can disorganize all the way till nuclear winter and climate collapse. It's only going to be a couple weeks. What we need to do is organize, motherfuckers.
Matthew Remski: Thank you, Carsie. And thank you, Kelsey. And thank you everybody for listening. Until next week, take care of each other.
