Social Media as a Site of Resistance: Reclaiming Our Digital Power

 

In a world where protest is met with surveillance, social media has become both a battleground and a lifeline. For many, it is the only space left to document injustice, organize communities, and tell stories that mainstream media refuses to carry. Yet the very platforms that claim to “connect the world”  the Metas and TikToks of our time are far from neutral. They are infrastructures of control, built to measure and monetize our attention.

What began as digital connection has become a marketplace of distraction. Every notification, every scroll, every algorithmic “suggestion” is designed to keep us inside the feed — feeding it in return. The business model is simple: capture attention, convert emotion, and sell both to the highest bidder. Our presence has become a product.

Behind the feed, invisible power moves quietly. The same financial giants who fund weapons manufacturers, surveillance tech, and fossil fuel corporations BlackRock, Vanguard, and their peers also own vast shares of the platforms shaping our digital lives. The pipelines of profit run from our timelines to global systems of extraction and exploitation.

When we post, teach, or protest online, we’re forced into contradiction. We use the tools of the very structures we resist. We depend on platforms that surveil, censor, and profit from our pain — even as we try to build something better. Digital resistance, then, is not only about what we say online. It’s about how we exist online. It is the act of reclaiming the terrain of our attention.  (more...)

Social Media as a Site of Resistance: Reclaiming Our Digital Power

Rabbi SLAMS Netanyahu: "Zionism Is Idol Worship and HERESY"

 

Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro explains how that Judaism is not a nationality and why Zionism is idol worshipping heresy.

• Are Zionism and Judaism connected? The chosen people narrative
• Zionism is idol worship and heresy
• How Judaism was turned into a nationality
• Zionists and antisemites love each other

Former engineering professor went on leave to serve in IDF after October 7, 2023

 

Visiting professor Shahar Kvatinsky continued teaching until July 2025

In 2023, Shahar Kvatinsky, a former visiting professor in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, left the University of Toronto to serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Kvatinsky, the Dean of the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, continued teaching at U of T until August 2025.

Kvatinsky began his appointment as visiting professor in July 2023, but appears to have left the university to serve in the IDF sometime after October 7, 2023.

In a Facebook post from November 2023, Kvatinsky is seen wearing military gear in front of building ruins. The post’s caption reads, “We have been fighting for six weeks. […] Six weeks away from family, with my new-old family in Golani.” 

The Golani Brigade is one of the IDF’s five infantry brigades.

According to his CV, Kvatsinky served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the IDF from 1999–2004. However, the CV, which was updated in July 2025 — the same month Kvatinsky left U of T — says that he “is currently in the reserve forces.” The caption of the Facebook post continues, “I’ve been traveling around the world for exactly 43 years, almost 25 years as a soldier, both regular and reserve.”

In November 2024, Kvatinsky shared a photo of himself and other military personnel meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The caption indicated that he’d met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant two months prior. 

After serving in the IDF, Kvatinsky returned to the university in fall 2024 to teach ECE552: Computer Architecture. He shared a photo of himself outside the People’s Circle for Palestine in May 2024, wearing a t-shirt embossed with the symbol of the Golani Brigade. 

It is unclear whether U of T formally allowed Kvatinsky to take a leave of absence to go to Israel. A spokesperson for the university wrote to The Varsity that they were unable to disclose this information “due to privacy constraints imposed by law.”  (more...)

Former engineering professor went on leave to serve in IDF after October 7, 2023

Germany, the Cold War, and the Rise of American Pentecostal Influence

 

John and Charles discuss the lesser-known political and social forces that surrounded the rise of a major postwar revival movement. Drawing from documented speeches, historical relationships, and first-hand connections, they explore how global instability, refugee resettlement, and Cold War messaging intersected with religious leadership.

The conversation examines how language about “the battle of the mind” migrated from national security rhetoric into revival preaching, and why understanding these historical pressures matters for evaluating movements that still shape religious culture today.

PBCC Charity, Rapid Relief Team, attacks Cheryl and Get A Life

 

The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church’s charitable arm, the Rapid Relief Team (RRT), has launched a legal SLAPP action against Cheryl and the Get A Life podcast. Filed in California, the lawsuit accuses Cheryl of copyright infringement over RRT’s “Cookie Bird” cartoon mascot. The claim is false and dishonest — and it serves a far more serious purpose than protecting a cringeworthy cartoon kookaburra.

Alan Drever, the Maple Creek PBCC elder accused of sexually abusing and trafficking Cheryl, is also an RRT volunteer. He appears publicly outside Maple Creek Town Hall representing the church and claiming to act in the name of Christian “care and compassion.” After Cheryl obtained a recorded confession from Alan, she wrote directly to PBCC leader Bruce Hales, asking the church to take responsibility for the abuse she suffered inside the cult. No response came from the “Man of God.” What came instead was a lawsuit.

The action targets Cheryl personally, but it also targets the Get A Life podcast and by extension, every former PBCC member who has spoken publicly through that platform.

In this episode, Cheryl and Richard walk through the full timeline, backed by documentation. This includes the recording of Alan Drever’s confession, disturbing historical links involving Dean Hales and Lloyd (Merrick) Grimshaw, and guest contributions from cult expert Anke Richter and ex-PBCC member Steve Simmons, who offer their own unfiltered assessments of what is unfolding. This episode lays out how a corrupt  charity responds when a survivor asks for accountability and how the legal system is abused to silence a whistleblower.

The Olive Leaf Network

Palestinian committee seeks global help to protect Christians, churches amid settler attacks

 

A Palestinian church committee has warned that assaults by illegal Israeli settlers threaten the long-standing Christian community in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, calling on churches globally to take immediate and visible steps to safeguard Palestinian civilians, including Christians.

In a letter to churches around the world, the Palestinian Presidential Higher Committee for Church Affairs said attacks by Israeli settlers have surged in various neighborhoods of the West Bank. 

It noted that the attacks have targeted towns and villages like Birzeit, Taybeh, and Ein Arik in the Ramallah and al-Bireh governorates, as well as al-Makhrour and Ash Ghurab areas in Bethlehem governorate.

According to the committee, the types of attacks include arrests, physical assaults, land confiscations, and the growth of settlement outposts. 

It characterized the assaults as part of a deliberate policy designed to change both the demographic and geographic makeup of the region, with the goal of forcibly displacing the local population.  (more...)

Palestinian committee seeks global help to protect Christians, churches amid settler attacks

Mike Huckabee is interfering with the work and witness of churches in the Holy Land with a goal of silencing Palestinian Christians

 

A recent statement by Church Patriarchs in Jerusalem rejecting Zionism was historic, and the response it provoked from U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee shows the steps Christian Zionists are taking to silence Palestinian Christians.

Last week, the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem, the leaders of the historic churches in the Holy Land, issued a momentous statement clearly expressing their rejection of Christian Zionism. The statement was remarkable not only for its clarity but also for the moment of its release and the response it provoked from U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a vocal Christian Zionist. The episode highlights an emerging threat to the work and witness of the Palestinian church, as well as steps Christian Zionists are taking to erase our political voice. 

 The Patriarchs’ statement read, in part:

The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in the Holy Land affirm before the faithful and before the world that the flock of Christ in this land is entrusted to the Apostolic Churches, which have borne their sacred ministry across centuries with steadfast devotion. Recent activities undertaken by local individuals who advance damaging ideologies, such as Christian Zionism, mislead the public, sow confusion, and harm the unity of our flock. These undertakings have found favor among certain political actors in Israel and beyond who seek to push a political agenda which may harm the Christian presence in the Holy Land and the wider Middle East.

What does this mean? 

The statement is a response to disturbing developments taking place in Palestine that threaten the integrity, unity, and historical authority of the Christian Churches in the Holy Land. What specifically stirred the Patriarchs appears to be a growing pattern: the promotion of self-appointed local individuals or groups, welcomed at official political levels, who claim to represent Christians in Israel or the Holy Land while advancing Christian Zionist theology. Such initiatives have happened in the past and have gone unnoticed. But recently, such meetings have involved senior U.S. and Israeli officials, including Ambassador Huckabee, and increasingly pose a direct threat to the historic authority of the Heads of Churches and the integrity of the Christian faith. They undermine the centuries-old ecclesial structures (known as the Status Quo) that have maintained the unity of Christian communities in Palestine throughout a history of empire, colonialism, and occupation.  (more...)

Mike Huckabee is interfering with the work and witness of churches in the Holy Land with a goal of silencing Palestinian Christians