{ "article": { "title" : "Why is Art so Important?", "author" : "Christina Moreland", "category" : "visual", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/why-is-art-important", "date" : "2025-02-04 14:33:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/moreland-issue4-1.jpg", "excerpt" : "", "content" : "" } , "relatedposts": [ { "title" : "On Bedouin Burger, Beirut, & Beyond: Lynn Adib x Collis Browne", "author" : "Lynn Adib, Collis Browne", "category" : "interviews", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/lynn-adib-bedouin-burger", "date" : "2025-11-21 09:10:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/SK-Lynn-25-Film-9.jpg", "excerpt" : "", "content" : "COLLIS BROWNE:Thank you for this conversation. It feels fitting to be doing it in Beirut. Both of us have a long-standing connection to Beirut, even though neither of us lives in Beirut. I know that you’re originally from Syria. When did you come to Beirut? What’s the connection?LYNN ADIB:I grew up in Syria until 2009, then I moved to Paris, where I lived for nine years. When the war in Syria stopped in 2018, I decided to leave France and go back to Syria. I went to Damascus and soon realized that it was going to be difficult for me to do the project I wanted to do in Damascus. Then I met Zeid Hamdan [the other half of duo Bedouin Burger], who was living in Beirut. I decided to go to Beirut because there was a lot happening there. I also have a lot of friends in Beirut. It’s crazy… it felt like destiny. It’s like Zeid and I needed to meet each other at that time in our lives. The project was created so organically… it was me and him just hanging out all the time. I was singing the tunes in the studio; he was working on them. Even the name of the band was a joke between me and him. It was a blessed period of our lives, even though Beirut was going through such a hard time. It was maybe the worst year in Lebanon since the war. It was 2019, a few months before Covid. Covid allowed us to be very creative. We had so much time, because time stopped… We had nothing to do but take refuge in the studio and work. This is one of the rare things I really miss about CCovid… our relationship to time.The name of the band came from the feeling of being like Bedouins, meaning that I really don’t feel I have a place I can call home, and every place is kind of my home. “Home” is where I meet beautiful people who nourish my soul. And I have found so beautiful people here in Beirut. The idea of home is related to this project… the notion of home has to change for us to survive.COLLIS:I love the idea of home as movable, or as a place tied to the people more than the land. I think it’s an idea that, especially in the region here, everyone kind of has to adopt. I think it’s a survival mode also… There is a long and complicated relationship between Syria and Lebanon, because historically these two countries share a very similar kind of culture. It was the same land. The border was drawn by the French. But in modern history, there are times when Syria has occupied Lebanon… But I’m interested in the Syrian perspective. Tell me more about this.LYNN:I don’t know where to start, because it’s such a broad conversation, but I’m just going to say what I felt when I came to Beirut as a Syrian. I did feel that speaking Arabic all the time was not a very good thing in a lot of settings. I was feeling that I had to use my French or English to fit into the society somehow. In Syria, it’s completely the opposite. When you speak French or English, people think you are just pretending to be on a higher social level, and they don’t really like that. So Arabic proficiency is something that is very respected in Syria. I am proud of the fact that I speak Arabic well, and it is something that I’ve missed here in Beirut. I’m privileged as a Syrian here because of my French education. I see other Syrians struggle… they take the jobs that Lebanese people don’t want to take. It is very hard for me to accept.Even yesterday… we went to a restaurant and all the servers were Syrian. I knew that from their accent. I’m very disappointed by what happened after the regime fell. I’m also very optimistic about Syria, about Lebanon, about the region, even though we know that the danger is nearby… but I still feel that this area is so blessed. I feel that I touch life when I’m in Beirut and in Damascus… that I can see what life looks like. I’m optimistic, also, because there are so many young people now in Damascus and Syria, and they’re trying to move things forward. We take as an example what happened in Lebanon, where Lebanon is culturally… there are so many things that are not working well here, and there is so much chaos, but in so many ways it’s very inspiring. I love that.COLLIS:We’re based in New York, so we were seeing the Syrian regime fall from afar… I guess at that point, you went back and visited family…LYNN:Yeah, I put on a concert there that was incredibly powerful for me, because I’d never sung in Syria. I mean, not after I left the choir, because I grew up singing in a choir… but under my name… this was the first official concert for me in Syria. It was a tiny concert, but it was incredibly powerful for me. We allowed ourselves to be happy for a while. I understand why people were also alarmed, especially people who were living there. I have so many friends who never wanted to leave Syria during the revolution, who are all thinking about leaving now. It seems that there is a plan for Syria to be fragmented… and it’s happening within the Syrian society, unfortunately, by the creation of chaos and uncertainty and instability…COLLIS:It’s absolutely fueled by the external forces. It’s the colonial divide and conquer. That’s the story of Lebanon. Can music be a force to affect all of this?LYNN:It’s a question I always ask myself: does art really change things? I think it can when it really reflects the artist’s vision, purely and without any filter. Ziad Rahbani [Lebanese composer and son of legendary singer Fairuz], who passed just recently in July 2025, is one of the rare artists in the world who was so true to what he said that he suffered personally from it. He was alone. And this can change things. It can change something within people’s souls. But it’s very rare that we encounter this kind of art. It’s very rare. Authenticity; that’s what I’m getting at. We are in an era of over-consumption in general, including over-consumption of art and music. This is because of social media… We want to hear new things all the time. We want the artist to produce new material all the time. The artist doesn’t have time to be true to themselves and think about what’s going on and do something true to who they are, which actually can move things forward.We are consuming so much information all the time that we don’t have time to just stand still. This is what I feel is missing. Dictators and presidents and wars come and go, but culture and songs remain if they are authentic. They remain in our memory more than anything else, more than war.I do believe that at the end, it’s life that wins over death and darkness… and music is part of life, true music, beautiful music, authentic music is part of life, and it always wins. I don’t think it stops war right away. It doesn’t save a child in Gaza. But this is what’s crazy about life; our relationship to death is so fragile that sometimes, even if we die, it’s not that we really die. There’s something that remains and will change things later on.COLLIS:Are you creating new things as Bedouin Burger, that reflect the times?LYNN:In this album, Zeid and I were reflecting on the moment we met during the revolution here in Lebanon. All the songs were either songs that we love singing because they are traditional songs, or compositions of mine that I proposed to Zeid, or compositions we created together. “Nomad” was a song that was co-written by me and Zeid when we were both in France. It reflects on the feeling of living in exile. We kind of stopped time by doing this project. Thankfully, I have Zeid in my life who understands that I need to breathe, to do something different than Bedouin Burger, to go back a to something that’s personal. I’m really blessed that Zeid understands." } , { "title" : "Engineering for Genocide at MIT", "author" : "MIT Coalition for Palestine", "category" : "essays", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/engineering-for-genocide-at-mit", "date" : "2025-11-19 14:00:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Cover.jpg", "excerpt" : "Two years into the genocide in Gaza, universities across the United States are still exposing their role as collaborators in state violence. Among the most complicit is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As documented in the 83 page report MIT Science for Genocide, MIT aids and abets genocide in Gaza through its engagements with the Israeli military and its arms suppliers. At least $3.7 million have flowed into MIT through these channels, and MIT corporate partners include the Israeli state-owned weapons giant Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).", "content" : "Two years into the genocide in Gaza, universities across the United States are still exposing their role as collaborators in state violence. Among the most complicit is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As documented in the 83 page report MIT Science for Genocide, MIT aids and abets genocide in Gaza through its engagements with the Israeli military and its arms suppliers. At least $3.7 million have flowed into MIT through these channels, and MIT corporate partners include the Israeli state-owned weapons giant Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).The MIT community and global public have challenged MIT on its complicity, notching victories over the Institute’s ties to Israeli arms makers and forcing MIT professors to cancel Israeli military grants. These efforts build on our history and broad popular support. But our work is not finished.We call on people of conscience everywhere to challenge MIT over its unethical research. Click here to send an email to MIT officials or grab the copy from here.IMOD AND GENOCIDAL APPLICATIONSThe Israeli government enters the MIT research funding structure through the Institute’s historic war nexus. From 2017 to 2021, 60% of MIT revenue came from the federal government, and 17.4% came from the now re-named Department of War. The department provides Israel with billions of US tax dollars in the form of yearly Foreign Military Financing grants. The Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD) then uses these funds to sponsor laboratory research at MIT of interest to its affiliates and their military objectives. MIT has accepted some $3.7 million through this channel since 2015. According to MIT audit files, the connection extends back to 2008 at least, and MIT approves the contracts on an ongoing basis. In a July 2025 report to the UN Human Rights Council, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese named MIT a “sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project” through its IDF-funded research.What kind of research does the Israeli military sponsor? **One example is Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s Computer Science and AI laboratory. She led a recent project “Coreset Compression Algorithms,” which received $425,000 in direct sponsorship from the Israeli government since 2021, according to MIT’s annual reports tracking the flow of external funds into MIT. Rus’ research program develops AI algorithms for applications like “city-scale observation systems” and “surveillance and vigilance”. **The goal is to teach drones to track and pursue targets with increased autonomy.Another example is Christopher Voigt’s lab in the MIT department of Biological Engineering. Voigt programs “sentinel bacteria” to respond to human DNA sequences. The Israeli Ministry of Defense funds his lab and provides soil samples for testing. In another of Voigt’s papers, sentinel bacteria are “used to detect diverse signals in the environment,” including landmine detection. Between two grants labeled “Field-Capable Bacterial Biosensors” and “Effects of Oxidizing Environments on Carbon-Based Materials”, Voigt has taken over $850,000 in IMOD-sponsored contracts. This technology (if it ever works) is poised to enable the Israeli military to clear land for settlements or invade ‘hostile territory’.MIT’S PARTNERSHIPS WITH MERCHANTS OF DEATHFirms that sell and transport weapons to Israel also recruit from MIT and enter institutional collaborations with the university – Lockheed Martin, Maersk, Boeing, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, and L3Harris. One firm, Liquid AI, co-founded by an MIT professor sponsored by the Israeli military, attempts to build autonomous fighter jets. Together, these firms recruit MIT researchers into genocidal activity and bias scientific research agendas toward belligerent instead of life-affirming applications.MIT also goes beyond ordinary corporate relations to pursue institutional commitments with the Israeli arms industry itself. An egregious example is Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), a corporation owned wholly by the Israeli government. IAI makes weapons used in the Gaza genocide. **According to the CEO, their Heron drone has played “a pivotal role” in the war on Gaza. The state-owned company also makes the Harop suicide drone, used to bomb refugee tents, as well as autonomous armored bulldozers. In the past two years, **IAI missile systems have bombed Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran.After October 2023, MIT began a new institutional engagement with IAI through its CSAIL Alliances and Quantum Science and Engineering Consortium (QSEC). In June 2025, as the Israeli government starved Gaza, MIT welcomed IAI executives to campus in order to deepen institutional collaboration in quantum computing and artificial intelligence. Guests included IAI North America’s CTO, CEOs, and an Israeli missile factory director. These partnerships give IAI access to MIT scientists, influence on research projects, and a recruitment pipeline.ENDING TIES TO ELBIT SYSTEMS**Our movement has made some progress against companies at MIT. **Elbit Systems, for instance, is one of Israel’s largest weapons manufacturers, supplying an estimated 85% of Israel’s drone arsenal. It is also a central provider of white phosphorus, cluster munitions, and flechette projectiles to Israel. We know Elbit Hermes 450 drones were used in the 2024 World Central Kitchen massacre in Gaza. Elbit also abets oppressive regimes globally, selling weapons to assist the Azerbaijani occupation of Nagorno Karabakh, as well as the Indian occupation of Kashmir and Bastar.Despite its direct, material support for human rights abuses, Elbit was a member of the MIT Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) from 2017 until late 2024. Through this program, Elbit monitored MIT research developments, advised on research sponsorship and technology licensing opportunities, and linked with MIT-connected startups. In 2021, Elbit Systems and Elbit’s medical subsidiary KMC announced a new “innovation center” in Cambridge that hoped to recruit MIT and Harvard graduates into the company.Through an organized pressure campaign, this did not come to fruition. **In August 2024, following protests from Boston-area community activists in BDS Boston, Elbit Systems vacated its Cambridge office. Then BDS Boston and MIT activists turned attention to MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program. In spring 2025, MIT and BDSB announced that the ILP program had ended its engagement with Elbit Systems after global pressure. **We need a similar campaign to succeed in ending MIT’s ties with IAI.DIVESTMENT IS TRIED AND TESTEDThe wins against Elbit highlight that although divestment is sometimes framed as a political taboo, it has a long history at MIT. The school’s Fluid Mechanics Laboratory shifted to civilian research and funding in 1966 under pressure from the anti-war movement. In May 1970, MIT activists pushed the Institute to acknowledge atrocities committed by US forces in Vietnam and divest its Draper Laboratory, which worked on guidance systems for the Poseidon missile. MIT also ended a Taiwan Program in 1976 following concerns over ballistic missile proliferation. In the 1980s American student movements, including the original MIT Coalition Against Apartheid, led divestment campaigns against South African apartheid.The MIT Coalition for Palestine builds on this legacy as well as a recent history of divestment. In 2007, MIT declared the Darfur Genocide “abhorrent” and pledged to divest its endowment. The MIT Energy Initiative cut ties with Saudi Aramco in 2021 following the state murder of a Saudi journalist. In 2022, MIT ended its Skoltech collaborations in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. Following mass protests in solidarity with Palestine, Lockheed Martin left a program managed by MISTI-Israel and chose to not renew it. An MIT professor recently cancelled an Israeli military grant after student pressure.When invoking our past, MIT activists draw on a wellspring of moral tradition. As MIT students in 1937 wrote in a petition against the Institute sending a delegate to the Nazi festival in Göttingen, MIT’s participation would “condone the acts and practices of the forces now controlling Germany”. Similarly, MIT’s contracts with the Israeli military condone the acts and practices of Israeli forces. Academic freedom does not protect such ties. As the anti-war student leader Ira Rubenzahl told our student newspaper in 1969 during the Vietnam War: “One doesn’t have the right to build gas chambers to kill people.”CONCEALMENT AND CALL TO ACTIONIn defiance of the mandate handed to them by the public, MIT officials conceal and misdirect over the institution’s complicity. In summer 2025, MIT revoked access to tools for the MIT community to understand its research funding sources, such as the annual Brown Books, which track the flow of external funds into MIT. It also barred us from using the university’s Kuali Coeus grant-tracking website, which MIT researchers use to better understand our external grants. They have further engaged in a campaign of persecution against student activists, as detailed by a May 2025 letter of UN rapporteurs to the MIT President.**MIT’s actions are antithetical to the Institute’s supposed motto “Mind and Hand” for the “betterment of humankind.” **Instead, MIT’s minds and hands are engineering for genocide — a damning moral stain on the Institute. Majorities of MIT students demand that the Institute cut ties with the Israeli military, as confirmed by three separate campus votes in 2024 and 2025 as well as our Scientists Against Genocide encampment in spring 2024.We call on people of conscience to challenge MIT to end its unethical science.\Send an email here to MIT officials or grab the copy from here." } , { "title" : "Skims, Shapewear, and the Shape of Power: When a Brand Expands Into Occupied Territory", "author" : "Louis Pisano", "category" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/skims-shapewear-and-the-shape-of-power", "date" : "2025-11-17 07:13:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Cover_EIP_Skims_Israel.jpg", "excerpt" : "On the evening of November 11, Kris Jenner celebrated her 70th birthday inside the fortified sprawl of Jeff Bezos’s $175 million Beverly Hills compound, hidden behind hedges so tall they violate city regulations, a rule he bypasses with a monthly $1,000 fine that functions more like a subscription fee than a penalty. The theme was James Bond, black tie and martini glasses, a winking acknowledgment of Amazon’s new ownership of the 007 franchise. Guests surrendered their phones upon arrival, a formality as unremarkable as valet check-in. Whatever managed to slip beyond the gates came in stray fragments: a long-lens photograph of Oprah Winfrey stepping out of a black SUV, Mariah Carey caught mid-laugh on the curb, Kylie Jenner offering a middle finger through the window of a chauffeured car. The rest appeared hours later in the form of carefully curated photos released by an official photographer, images softened and perfected until they resembled an ad campaign more than documentation. Nothing inside was witnessed on anyone’s own terms.", "content" : "On the evening of November 11, Kris Jenner celebrated her 70th birthday inside the fortified sprawl of Jeff Bezos’s $175 million Beverly Hills compound, hidden behind hedges so tall they violate city regulations, a rule he bypasses with a monthly $1,000 fine that functions more like a subscription fee than a penalty. The theme was James Bond, black tie and martini glasses, a winking acknowledgment of Amazon’s new ownership of the 007 franchise. Guests surrendered their phones upon arrival, a formality as unremarkable as valet check-in. Whatever managed to slip beyond the gates came in stray fragments: a long-lens photograph of Oprah Winfrey stepping out of a black SUV, Mariah Carey caught mid-laugh on the curb, Kylie Jenner offering a middle finger through the window of a chauffeured car. The rest appeared hours later in the form of carefully curated photos released by an official photographer, images softened and perfected until they resembled an ad campaign more than documentation. Nothing inside was witnessed on anyone’s own terms.The guest list felt less like a party roster and more like an index of contemporary American power. Tyler Perry arrived early, Snoop Dogg later in the evening, Paris Hilton shimmering in a silver column that clung like liquid metal. Hailey Bieber drifted past in a slinky black dress, while Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex appeared in images that were quietly scrubbed from the family grid a day later. Nine billionaires circulated among the luminaries, their combined wealth brushing toward $600 billion. Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan joined Bill Gates at the poker table, while Bezos himself wandered through the party with Lauren Sánchez, doing the kind of effortless hosting that comes with having $245B in the bank.Jenner, dressed in red vintage Givenchy by Alexander McQueen, floated from conversation to conversation. She paused for a warm embrace with Perry, raised a glass with Hilton, and eventually made her way to the dance floor with Justin Bieber. At 70, she remains the family’s central command center, equal parts mother, manager, strategist, and brand steward. The celebration functioned as a kind of coronation, a reaffirmation that the Kardashian-Jenner empire is not stagnating but expanding, stretching itself into new sectors and new narratives with the same relentless ease that has defined its last decade.Just two weeks earlier, on a bright Monday in late October, a very different scene unfolded at the SKIMS flagship on the Sunset Strip. That morning, the boutique had been cleared to host Hagiborim, the Israeli nonprofit that supports children of fallen IDF soldiers and orphans of the October 7 attacks. Around a dozen girls wandered the store, laughing among themselves, perusing tank tops, and snapping selfies before assembling outside with those unmistakable beige SKIMS shopping bags. The images of the visit were sparse and easily missed unless one went searching; they appeared only on Hagiborim’s Instagram highlights. The event took place on October 28, less than a week before news began to circulate about SKIMS’s upcoming entry into the Israeli market.The launch itself unfolded with clinical precision. On November 10th in partnership with Irani Corp, SKIMS went live on Factory 54’s Israeli website, with in-store boutiques planned for December and ten to fifteen standalone stores projected to open across Israel by 2026. The company’s official language remained on brand, warm and relentlessly forward-looking. It spoke of “inclusivity,” of “community presence,” of broadening the global market. Nowhere did it acknowledge the war in Gaza, though the border sits just over an hour away and the headlines that week were filled with rising casualty counts and allegations of cease-fire violations, an entirely different reality unfolding parallel to the brand’s expansion.Hours after the SKIMS launch, Kardashian’s Instagram shifted into overdrive. She posted a carousel of herself in a gray bikini, captioned with a single emoji racking up millions of likes. The images came just two days after news of her fourth unsuccessful attempt at the California Bar had broken, a reminder that in the Kardashian ecosystem, social media momentum often outweighs any setback.Beneath the SKIMS machine which just raised $225M in funding is a quieter network of capital. Joshua Kushner, Jared’s younger brother, the polished, soft-spoken investor whose firm helped seed Instagram, owns a 10 percent stake and a board seat in SKIMS, a detail that surfaces only in required filings and the occasional business-page profile. The Kushner family’s ties to Israel run far deeper than the brand’s marketing conveys: long-standing real-estate ventures in Tel Aviv, and a family foundation that has funneled at least $342,000 to Friends of the IDF and another $58,500 to West Bank settlement groups and yeshivas in places like Beit El and Efrat. Jared Kushner’s diplomatic work on the Abraham Accords carved geopolitical corridors that SKIMS now moves through. The brand may position itself as apolitical, but the infrastructure of its Israel expansion is built on deeply political ground.Fashion media, however, showed little interest in any of this. A wide sweep through the archives of Business of Fashion, WWD, and Vogue Business yields nothing, not a single headline, not even a line buried in a retail digest. The launch through Factory 54, the long-term plan for as many as fifteen stores, the philanthropic event with Hagiborim, all of it passed in silence in the sector that usually treats Kardashian business moves as reliable traffic drivers.Instead, their coverage was devoted wholly to Kris Jenner’s birthday. Harper’s Bazaar published three separate pieces. W Magazine dubbed it “the Kardashians’ own Met Gala.” Vogue broke down the night with a dutifully detailed recap that leaned heavily on Harry and Meghan’s brief presence, clearly recognizing their value as SEO gold.The Kardashians operate with a level of intentionality that has outpaced many political campaigns. They understand the choreography of public-facing narratives better than any other family in American media. The Hagiborim visit, girls only, modest branding, no Kim in sight, served as a small preemptive gesture, a way to soften potential critique before the Israel launch rolled out. While the party dominated the feed, the expansion passed unnoticed and the charity event remained strictly confined to the margins, a calculated sequence, not chaos, the kind of PR mastery we’ve come to expect from Kris Jenner.The same instinct shapes their political signaling. On Inauguration Day 2025, as Donald Trump took the oath of office for a second term, Kim posted a silent Instagram Story of Melania Trump stepping out in a navy ensemble and wide-brimmed hat. She offered no caption, no endorsement, no framing. The image disappeared within 24 hours, but not before sparking a brief firestorm. It is the same familiar pattern, presence without explanation, the kind of ambiguity that allows the public to fill in the blanks while the family remains insulated.Beyond their insulated world, the conflict continues. Inside the bubble, the champagne is crisp, the Hulu cameras are rolling and the narrative is intact. What remains for the public is the split-screen: Kris Jenner blowing out seventy candles beneath a ceiling of crystals, surrounded by some of the wealthiest people alive; and Kim Kardashian posing in a studded bikini, eyes locked on the lens, hinting at the next product drop. Between the two lies a series of transactions, commercial, political, and moral, that the audience is never invited to examine.As for Kris Jenner’s birthday, it will be remembered. The launch will fade. The girls who posed with their new SKIMS pajamas will grow older; the war will either end or shift into some new phase. And the Kardashian-Jenner machine will keep moving, calculating every image, every post, every angle, ensuring the story that matters most is always the one they control." } ] }