😱IS A.G. COOK A ZIONIST NEPO BABY???😱
read to find out!
It’s a non-zero possibility. Just today, I opened the website Twitter dot com and saw this post.
Now, before we get our witchforks out, let's remember that being Israeli does not mean you are a Zionist. After all, I live in the United States, the entity that is enabling the current genocide in Gaza/West Bank. Am I a Zionist? No. Do I, living in the US, contribute to the Zionist war machine thru my consumption? Yes. Would someone living in Israel also contribute to that same war machine thru their consumption? Certainly. Is it reasonable to expect people to up and leave their place of birth just because their existence within that country is entangled in the military industrial complex? No, of course not. That said, if anyone in Europe wants to help me emigrate, please message me with money for a plane ticket and a place I can stay.
Let's be clear: A.G. Cook's real life mother, Yael Reisner, does not live in Israel.1 So, at the very least, she is not actively participating in the illegal settlements. To be clear, there is a contingent of Israeli society that is anti-Zionist, and there is an even larger contingent that is anti-Netanyahu. Being anti-Netanyahu is not the same thing as being anti-Zionist, but I'm willing to have solidarity with Israeli citizens on that front. Netanyahu's fascist far-right government is essentially holding the country hostage, and if we take a cursory glance at Yael's Instagram, we can see she is also disappointed with the government’s handling of the conflict.
Admittedly, there is not as much Pro-Palestinian sentiment on her feed as the average Twitter leftist might want there to be. There is a picture of the World Central Kitchen van that the IDF obliterated with drones despite the van being clearly marked and the WCK sharing their location with the IDF. In the caption she expresses a clear disdain for the tragedy, which is a green flag. At the very least, she is a liberal Zionist. She might support the settler-colonial project of Israel. She might support the idea of a “Jewish State.” But she definitely takes issue with the indiscriminate murder of Palestinians. For someone literally born in Israel a mere 5 years after 1948, that’s honestly more awareness than I would expect.2
Those of you familiar with the internal politics of Israel know that the country is not exactly a unified front. Netanyahu's popularity is abysmal, and he is especially unpopular amongst the family members of the remaining October 7th hostages. 3 Starting in January of last year, there were riots over Bibi essentially trying to dissolve the Supreme Court. In many ways, the October 7th attacks were very convenient for him, as all national tragedies are for fascist leaders. They ended the protests and gave Netanyahu the chance to appear “brave” and courageous. A growing sentiment is that Bibi is continuing the war in Gaza to postpone his imprisonment.4 Several members of his cabinet have walked out, and he refuses to do any sit-down, 1-on-1 interviews in Hebrew with ANY Israeli media (even right leaning ones.) He is perfectly happy to let Jake Tapper suck him dry on American TV tho. Make of that what you will.
All of this is to say, it benefits Netanyahu and his cronies to present Israel and everyone in it as unified on the issue of Gaza and the idea of a “Jewish State” in general. It benefits him for people to believe that all Jews and all Israelis support his actions, support the genocide of Palestinians, and support the apartheid regime. This could not be further from the truth, and to act as tho it is true only benefits the far right. Sure, most Israelis probably don't support the complete dissolution of Israel and giving all the land back to Palestine, but most Americans don't support giving the land back to Indigenous peoples either. Even if you were born on stolen land, it still feels like your home. How are you supposed to give that up? Nobody should have to give up their home. That's why I support the Palestinians and their right to exist in the region. They shouldn't have to leave their homes. Similarly, if Jews want to flee rampant anti-semitism in Europe and make a new home for themselves in the middle east, they can do that too. If that’s all Zionism was, there would be no issue. Unfortunately, the Nation of Israel wasn't a natural migration, but a colonial project designed by the British government. It wasn't like a bunch of European Jews just showed up and were like “hey can we crash here?” It was more like the British government stole the land from the Palestinians and designated it for the Jews because Britain didn't want the Jews in Europe anymore.5 In this sense, the state of Israel is the product of anti-semitism, and in many ways, it was designed by anti-semites. It is violence reproducing itself. It is, like the USSR, a tragedy.
All this is to say that no, I don't think A.G. Cook is a Zionist. At least, I need more proof than his mom merely being Israeli. Of course, I can imagine that some of you who have made it this far might think I'm being too charitable. My girlfriend, for instance, might be thinking something along the lines of “Wow Theresa, its clear that you are bending over backwards to defend this stupid British boy and his stupid British music because you love him and can't stand to bear the reality that he is a Zionist Cuck.” And sweetie, you are right: I love this stupid British boy and his stupid British music. I feel deeply connected to his early work with PC Music, and to give that up would be a tremendous undertaking for me. If he were to be a Zionist Cuck, I would cry. That music from 2013 to 2015 is a quintessential part of my adult identity, my femininity, my ideas about electronic music, my decision to pursue music as a career, and so many other aspects of who I am today. And indeed, in another world where I am a nepo baby who can go to Europe, I might have met Mr. Alexander Guy Cook, and I might have shown him my tracks, and he might have said “wow Theresa, these tracks make me feel like a superstar” in his soft and tender British accent. Maybe then Danny L Harle would come out and say something like “wow theresa, these are HUGE tunes!” and he would stretch his arms out really wide (to indicate how huge the tunes are.) And then Hannah Diamond would come out and say “omigod its so good to see you” and then SOPHIE would show up and go *SCREECH* and we would all get in her car and drive to the studio and make tunes and talk about art and drink wine and eat cheese or whatever the fuck it is that rich kids do.
But alas, we do not live in that world. I am a crusty, mentally ill transwoman living paycheck to paycheck in the US of A, with little to my name and a partner to take care of. While I was much more well off as a child, the upper middle class wealth has evaporated as I've gotten older (for my parents as well.) On top of that, we don't even live in the world I thought the PC Music label would create. I thought the entire thing was performance art. A satire of Pop. I thought everything was a carefully curated ensemble of characters designed to ridicule and lambast all the tropes of the music industry that I despised. In a way, I think that was part of the goal at least at first. There is no way that Hey QT isn't meant to be some kind of joke. Everything about it is strange and uncanny, yet it bops so hard, and at the end you are presented with a fucking soda. What a perfect parody of pop music. This strange plastic mess designed to distract you from how uncomfortable the world is so that you'll keep buying soda. And boy, I did buy it. Not the soda (altho they did sell a very limited run of QTea) but the idea. I thought I knew what the label was trying to do. I thought it was genuinely revolutionary.
However, it eventually became clear that the conceptual art project was NOT a priority. It turned out that all of them just liked music/entertainment/fashion/etc, wanted careers in the industry, and had the talent/connections to get them. And who can blame them? But it saddens me that all of the PC Music crew just make “normal” stuff now. Hannah Diamond does photoshoots for magazines. Danny L Harle makes tunes for Eurovision.6 In its final days, PC Music was just a label with random artists that sounded nice. These days, they are just career artists who make art because that's what career artists do. I've spent so much time over the past 10 years trying to believe in a grand design, that it was all part of the master plan, but in the wake of the label's closure, it's clear that the vision I saw will never come to pass.7
Like all pop culture, PC Music has come and gone. It was ephemeral. I never got to be on the label, and I never got to meet anybody involved with it. These people don't owe me anything, do not know who I am, and might never even know I exist. But that's okay. I will always remember the way the music made me feel, and the inspiration I've taken from those early days will never leave me. In a way, perhaps this is a fitting conclusion - that a projection of my own subconscious onto a substance so fake, so plastic, and so artificial, can still inspire feelings so real and genuine despite being nothing more than a mere illusion. The appearance of perfection, of design, a dream of utopia, slowly disintegrating into the awful reality of life under capitalism. Perhaps that is, on a conceptual level, some kind of beautiful. Maybe that's what this was really about. But as far as politics go, I knew it was never a huge priority for them. SOPHIE literally played a show in Tel Aviv soooo yeah. I figured they never had real political convictions. But they never pretended to! They just wanted to make art. We were the ones who made meaning out of it. We made it gay. We had fun. Now, as we start to realize the limits of these artists and their visions, it's up to us to turn the experiences they gave us into something even more meaningful. Indeed, we must make our own kind of PC Music. Our own special songs. Even if nobody else will sing along. Or, if you would like to keep participating in capitalism, you can consume my music! It is super political and very hyperpop. I even make it on a PC! It's literally PC music! Check it out!
From this Google Books link: “Born in Tel Aviv, she has lived in London since 1990 and is the director of Yael Reisner Studio.”
There’s also shit like this which almost leads to believe that Netanyahu literally orchestrated Oct 7th
I guess if you wanna be technical they stole it from the turks and not the palestinians persay but like, idk dawg its all colonialism its all fucked. no one actually cares about the palestinian people. they have been subject to one regime after another. its fucking crazy.
And SOPHIE fucking died like holy fucking shit what the fuck