Reconciling Ozzy’s Legacy

Ozzy Osbourne was never meant to be a saint. He bit the head off a bat and dove, survived decades of drug abuse, tried to kill his wife (while under the influence of drugs), and still made his way into a global icon. Like many public figures though — especially from his generation — he carried contradictions. And lately, one of those contradictions has come under fire: his support for Zionism.

As someone who grew up worshipping Sabbath and Ozzy, I’ve been struggling to reconcile my love for his legacy with my politics. I’m anti-Zionist. I believe in the liberation of Palestine and the end of apartheid. And Ozzy’s apparent support for Israel during a time of intense suffering in Gaza felt like a gut punch.

But then came his farewell show: Back to the Beginning. A titanic goodbye organize by none other than Tom Morello: guitar god, anti-Zionist activist, and arguably one of the most politically consistent artists of our time. Morello curated the whole event, helped raise nearly $200 million for Parkinson’s and children’s hospitals, and sat side-by-side with Ozzy to send him off.

So what the hell do I do with that?

Do I cancel Ozzy? Do I cancel Morello for working with him? Do I cancel myself for loving them both?

No. I sit with the contradictions. Because real politics aren’t clean. They’re messy, emotional, and riddled with human inconsistency.

Ozzy supported Black Lives Matter. He stood up for the LGBTQ+. He raised a staggering amount of money for causes that matter. He was also, like many aging boomers, wildly out of his depth when it came to the geopolitics of Israel and Palestine. That doesn’t excuse it, but it does contextualize it, especially considering his declining health and the heavy medications he was on during his final years.

Morello’s participation doesn’t “excuse” Ozzy either, but it does suggest that celebrating someone’s musical legacy doesn’t always mean endorsing their politics. That nuance is lost in today’s discourse, which often demands total purity or total exile. But art, like people, is rarely so simple.

I can love “Mr. Crowley” and still rage against apartheid. I can blast “War Pigs” and say Ozzy got it wrong. And I can respect the farewell show while also wishing that one of the final statements of a metal god hadn’t included a blind spot so many in the West still carry.

Again, rest in power, Ozzy. And may the rest of us keep pushing — louder, harder, and more unapologetically — for a world where all people live free from occupation and oppression.

Free Palestine.

On Palestine, Israel, and the Rotten Core of Empire

I’m not going to dance around it: I stand with Palestine. Not out of trendiness, not because it’s the “left” thing to do, but because I believe in justice, liberation, and the end of colonial domination wherever it shows up, however it dresses itself. And in this case, it’s wearing the face of a U.S.-backed apartheid state.

Let’s get this out of the way: critiquing the Israeli government is not antisemitism. That’s a deflection tactic used to shut down valid criticism of a violent, militarized system of occupation. If you’re more outraged by someone saying “Free Palestine” than by the bombing of schools, hospitals, and entire apartment blocks, you might want to take a long, hard look at your moral compass—and maybe replace the batteries.

This isn’t a “both sides” issue. That framing is a cop-out. One side is occupying. One side is being occupied. One side has nuclear weapons, tanks, and billions in U.S. funding. The other side has rocks, desperation, and a memory of their homeland before the bulldozers came.This isn’t ancient history. This is now. This is 2025. This is settler-colonialism on full display.

And if you think this has nothing to do with you—if you’re watching from your couch in the U.S. thinking this is just another faraway tragedy—think again. Your tax dollars are funding this. Your government sends weapons, signs off on the bloodshed, and spins the PR machine to paint genocide as “self-defense.”

We’ve been trained to accept empire as normal. Palestine reminds us what happens when people refuse to roll over for it. That’s why they’re demonized. That’s why their resistance is painted as terrorism while the bombs dropped on their homes are called “precision strikes.” Orwell would be exhausted.

Do I condemn violence? I condemn occupation. I condemn systems that force people into cages and then act surprised when they fight back. I condemn pretending that peace can be brokered while one side is holding all the cards and the other is buried under rubble.

The solution isn’t another round of U.N. scolding or a new “peace plan” written by war profiteers. The solution is decolonization. Land back. End the siege. Dismantle apartheid. Let Palestinians live, breathe, return.

Until then, no justice, no peace.

And if that makes you uncomfortable, good. It should.

The Real Terrorists Have Offices

Let’s get one thing straight: the United States isn’t a benevolent empire. It never has been. It didn’t “spread democracy” to Iraq, Afghanistan, or Vietnam. It didn’t “liberate” anyone when it installed dictators across Latin America or propped up apartheid in South Africa. What it did do–and still does–is colonize, exploit, and annihilate in the name of profit.

This isn’t ancient history. It’s currently happening. It’s the drone strikes that don’t make the news. It’s the “aid” packages that comes with strings attached and private contractors waiting in the wings. It’s military bases dotting the globe like pimples of power on every continent but Antarctica.

I’m anti-imperialist because I don’t believe any nation has the moral authority to dominate another. Especially not through force, especially not under the smokescreen of “freedom.” American imperialism wears many disguises: NGOs, trade agreements, coups, color revolutions, Hollywood, but underneath, it’s always the same face: power backed by violence.

I’m anti-colonial because the world is still bleeding from wounds inflicted by white supremacy and extraction-based economies. Colonization didn’t end with flags being lowered. It evolved into debt traps, resource plunder, and forced dependency. Look at how the Global South is treated when it tries to resist. Look at how indigenous people in the so-called “developed world” are still pushed off their land for pipelines and lithium mines.

And I’m absolutely anti-military industrial complex because we spend trillions every year not on health, not on housing, not on education, but on weapons, surveillance, and endless wars. The Pentagon is the world’s biggest polluter. Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, these are the real welfare queens, sucking on our tax dollars to build machines that blow up brown children in countries most Americans can’t find on a globe or a map.

And we’re told to be proud of this.

We’re told this is “defense.” That’s Orwellian doublespeak. You don’t “defend freedom” with cluster bombs and occupation. You defend it by dismantling the systems that profit from bloodshed.

To be anti-imperialist today is to be a threat to bipartisan consensus. Democrats and Republicans alike bow to the altar of militarism. They clap in unison for war budgets, while telling us there’s no money for universal healthcare. The only thing they agree on is that endless war is good business.

But some of us aren’t buying it anymore.

We’re organizing. We’re protesting. We’re resisting not just war, but the machinery that makes war possible. That means opposing U.S. hegemony, standing in solidarity with liberation movements worldwide, and rejecting the normalization of violence as policy.

The empire has no clothes. And it’s time more of us said so … loudly