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workersolidarity · 1 month

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[ 📹 A child, killed in an Israeli airstrike, is found in the arms of his dead father by Palestinian civil defense personnel under the rubble of their residential home in the Gaza Strip on Saturday after a long night of IOF warplanes bombing their way across the entirety of the enclave.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏠💥🚑 🚨

ZIONIST BOMBING CAMPAIGN KILLS DOZENS ON DAY 176 OF "ISRAEL'S" WAR OF GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP

On the 176th day of "Israel's" ongoing war of genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 7 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of at least 71 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while another 112 others have been wounded over the previous 24-hours.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) reported on Saturday that a total of 26 personnel have been killed since the beginning of the Zionist aggression on Gaza, including 15 team members who were killed while performing their duties.

PRCS crews also reported transporting the bodies of two martyrs, killed as a result of occupation artillery shelling of a civilian structure in the Al-Maghazi Camp, in the central Gaza Strip.

Israeli occupation forces continued with their offensive near Al-Shifa Medical Complex, located in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, besieging the hospital for at least 10 consecutive days, while horrific attacks on civilians, patients and medical personnel in the hospital are being reported, including field executions of civilians, illegal detentions, torture, and forced displacement of local residents and civilians sheltering in the complex.

Elsewhere, Zionist occupation forces bombed a residential home belonging to the Abdo family on Al-Wahda Street, in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of 10 family members.

In yet another horrific atrocity, Zionist soldiers assassinated a police officer in Gaza City as he drove his wife and children in his civilian vehicle, killing all seven family members.

IOF warplanes also bombarded The Shuja'iyya Club, a local sports club in the Al-Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, resulting in the martyrdom of several citizens, including members of the popular committees in charge of organizing the distribution of humanitarian aid.

The Zionist occupation army also targeted starving Palestinians waiting for food aid on Salah al-Din Street, in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, east of Gaza City, wounding a number of civilians.

Occupation bombing, shelling and gunfire also continues to target civilians across the northern Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation forces also completed the destruction of the city of Prisoners, north of the Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, leveling 21 out of 24 buildings in the area.

Simultaneously, Zionist warplanes bombed several civilian homes near the Prisoner Towers, west of the Al-Nuseirat Camp, martyring five civilians.

Occupation fighter jets also bombarded the town of Al-Mughraqa, along with the Al-Nuseirat Camp, Al-Maghazi and in the vicinity of the Wadi Gaza Bridge in the central Gaza Strip.

The IOF also targeted the headquarters of the municipalities of Al-Bureij and Al-Zawayda in the central Governate of the Gaza Strip, which can no longer provide basic services as a result.

In yet another horrific crime, IOF warplanes bombed a civilian residence belonging to the Musa family in the Al-Maghazi Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, killing several family members and wounding a number of others, while the explosion from the blast also wrought massive destruction on nearby houses.

In the south of Gaza, local paramedic and civil defense crews say they transported the bodies of 13 Palestinians who were slaughtered in mass killings after the occupation bombing of the town of Al-Qarara, north of Khan Yunis.

Violent raids continued when Zionist aircraft bombed central Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, martyring two Palestinian civilians and wounding a number of others, while occupation warplanes also wrought massive destruction after bombing several multi-storied residential buildings in the Austrian neighborhood west of Khan Yunis.

The Zionist occupation army, including tanks, armored vehicles, and warplanes, have been hammering, with violent airstrikes and heavy artillery shelling, targeting various areas of Khan Yunis, with special attention paid to the eastern and western neighborhoods of the city, and also in the vicinity of Nasser Medical Complex.

Several firebelts were also launched by IOF fighter jets targeting the Khuza'a neighborhood, east of Khan Yunis, along with the Sufa and Abasan areas, northeast of the city.

It is also being reported that the number of dead as a result of the IOF bombing of the Abu Muammar family home in Rafah City, in southern Gaza, on Thursday morning has risen to 14.

The infinitely rising death toll resulting from "Israel's" war of genocide in the Gaza Strip has now exceeded 32'705 Palestinians killed, with more than 25'000 of the victims being women and children according to the United States Pentagon, while an additional 75'190 civilians have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression beginning on October 7th, 2023.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

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jewishvitya · 5 months

Note

Hi, I stumbled upon your political posts (and then Yuri, you might get me to watch it now) and I find your perspective fascinating. Maybe it's because I grew up with rather a lot of exposure to Palestinians and various peace movements, but your experience is alien to me, and I am really thankful to be able to read it.

I would like to ask, what do you define as Zionism? As the last month taught me that no two people define this term the same. For me it is the ability for the Jewish people to control our own life in a land that we are bound to, and that has no contradiction with the Palestinian doing the same on this land, that they are bound to it as well. No pressure to answer, just pure curiosity.

And if I may offer some hope for our future? On the fourth day of the war, someone who helps in one of the donation centres for the displaced Israelis ask in the group chat if there is a way to pass the extra clothing and equipment to the people of Gaza. In the past two month I got invites for over a dozes or meeting between Israelis and Palestinians, meetings were both sides shared their sorrows and hopes. When an acquaintance was raising money to help a Bedouin family whose house was hit by a rocket, he has to tell people to stop donating. People in my surrounding have been talking about the day after, building plans so they could help build a better place for both people. A long-fought battle in the courts was won, and a group of settlers were ordered to evacuate Palestinian land. Activists have been going to assist in the olive harvests in the West Bank, despite it all.

There is hope for us here.

Hi! Thank you! If you do watch YOI I hope you enjoy it lol.

I know my experience is not very common. Even other Israelis get shocked by the depth of the hatred and the indoctrination sometimes. I try to emphasize that it comes from the most extremist community we have, because I have no idea what the schooling looks like in other areas.

And sure, I'll try to explain, and maybe also why I choose to label myself as anti-zionist.

I don't know that I can give you a dictionary definition, because I define zionism mainly by what it did in practice - the colonizing of Palestine. And when I say colonizing, I'm not making claims about indigeniety or lack of it. I'm defining it through our tactics and our actions. Especially because early in the movement they openly used colonialist frameworks.

Some of the softer definitions of zionism, things like our right to self determination, our right to seek safety - these aren't things I'm against. And I understand that within zionism there were other proposed ideas that weren't necessarily meant to end up with an ethnostate, resulting in ethnic cleansing. So I know zionism is more complicated than what we see in Israel. But what we see now is the reality people are living as the outcome.

If we came here and said "we've been longing to go back here for such a long time, we suffered so much abuse, we want to live alongside you in our shared homeland, can we find a way to ensure our safety and yours" - this would have been a different conversation. Still complicated, because mass immigration is complicated, but different.

In reality, we destroyed communities to manufacture an ethnic majority. Tore a whole society apart and shattered it, spread it all over the world. We killed and expelled and traumatized. I called it the cycle of abuse on the scale of nations - taking horrors we suffered and inflicting them on others. So given the practical results of the zionist movement, I can't treat those softer definitions as the "true" definitions that people should go by.

I keep thinking about Jewish refugees being given the homes of Palestinians with meals still on the table. Because of course we have a right to food and shelter, but not at their expense. And I know you agree with me on this.

When I say I oppose zionism, that's generally because I'm talking about the reality, the impact the movement had on human lives, not an idealized version we might imagine or a philosophy someone wrote about that never came to be.

For me, if I want to talk about our safety in our ancestral homeland and detach it from the horrors committed by Israel, zionism isn't the right framework. And after all the destruction we caused the land to conquer and colonize it, if I want to talk about our connection to it, I think zionism shouldn't be the word I'm using.

There's also an aspect of, by insisting on defining zionism through a nicer idea rather than harm done to real people, I see it as taking away a language that oppressed people are using to talk about their oppression.

I hope that makes sense.

I really want us to find a different way to work towards safety, without it being at the expense of another group of people.

And thank you for that last paragraph. I definitely have hope. It's hard, seeing videos of our soldiers being so gleeful about the destruction. I lost a friend of over ten years because of the callous and cruel things he said over the past couple of months, and I can't bring myself to repeat them. But I know that better things are possible, and I'm glad we're building towards them. I'm terrified that our government won't let us move in that direction, but we're going to push there anyway.

#riki babbles

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jackoshadows · 6 months

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Jak, you can protest settler collonialism without spreading unconfirmed news that equal modern-day blood libel. For one, it turns out that the rocket that hit the hospital in Gaza most likely belonged to Hamas, though hopefully it will be properly investigated. Honestly, it makes me nauseous how people are blindly repeating whatever propaganda they wish to believe and the media are even worse, posting unconfirmed news.

You do realize that by equating calling out the war crimes of the right wing Israeli govt. and the IDF to all Jewish people you are the one being antisemitic? You are making light of the real antisemitism Jewish people face on a daily basis by defending the IDF.

This is the IDF you are talking about. A military occupation force. They lack in basic ethics. They deliberately took aim and shot dead Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and blamed it on Hamas until six months later admitting that no, my bad, it was them that did it. No consequences. They attacked her funeral procession because that was Hamas. They are bombing Gaza right now because all Palestinians are Hamas. You are expecting me to just nod my head to what the IDF and their Western pals say?

Joe Biden stood in front of cameras telling lies about beheaded babies, whipping up hatred against the Palestinians to justify the bombing of Gaza and I am supposed to believe this racist supporter of apartheid and settler colonialism? The same guy who signed on and supported the illegal war of Iraq - in which half a million Iraqis died - based on lies about weapons of mass destruction?

By the way, the IDF is giving civilians ten minutes of warning before their houses are bombed. Why bomb their houses? One family of nineteen was entirely wiped out. Why? Ten minutes. What do you take with you in ten minutes? What about the disabled and the elderly? Where is the humanity? Oh, I forgot, the Israeli government has described Palestinians as animals. But even animals are treated more humanely.

The Doctors from MSF have reported that they have been given just two hours by the IDF to evacuate. They have the choice to stay and be bombed or leave and let the critically ill die.

But this is not new for those of us who were there for the 2014 Gaza massacre. Do you know how many hospitals and residential buildings and schools - where people where sheltering - the IDF bombed in the 2014 Gaza war? The children playing on the beach getting bombed?

UN spokesman cries on camera over Gaza school attack

It was an unexpected moment of anguish, never intended to be seen by anyone other than his close colleagues. But a video of a United Nations official sobbing, with his head in his hands, over the plight of children in Gaza has become one of the many memorable images of the war. Chris Gunness, spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, was being interviewed by al-Jazeera Arabic on Wednesday about the shelling of one of the organisation's schools in Gaza, in which at least 15 people died and scores were injured. The school was crammed with families who had fled their homes after warnings from the Israeli military to leave or be bombed. The interview was one of dozens Gunness gave on the incident.

This is from the 2014 Gazan war because the Israeli govt. love to periodically 'Mow the Lawn' as they call it and massacre countless Palestinians imprisoned in an open air prison for population control.

Between 2,125[21] and 2,310[18] Gazans were killed during the conflict while between 10,626[18] and 10,895[51] were wounded (including 3,374 children, of whom over 1,000 were left permanently disabled).[52] Gazan civilian casualty estimates range between 70 percent by the Gaza Health Ministry,[14][19][51] 65 percent by the United Nations' (UN) Protection Cluster by OCHA (based in part on Gaza Health Ministry reports),[20] and 36 percent by Israeli officials.[53][21] The UN estimated that more than 7,000 homes for 10,000 families were razed, together with an additional 89,000 homes damaged, of which roughly 10,000 were severely affected by the bombing

And after all these dead Palestinians, when Israeli strategists disgustingly said that is not enough and more 'Mowing the lawn' is required

Just like mowing your front lawn, this is constant, hard work. If you fail to do so, weeds grow wild and snakes begin to slither around in the brush. So too, reducing enemy capabilities and ambitions in Gaza require Israeli military readiness and government willingness to use force intermittently, while maintaining a healthy and resilient Israeli home front despite repeated military offensives. The question is whether Israel used enough force in Operation Protective Edge in 2014 and inflicted enough pain on the enemy to purchase a sizable-enough chunk of time as respite before the next round of “grass-mowing,” which is today. The question is whether this time the cabinet will authorize enough force to hammer and deter Hamas for an even longer period going forward. A draw with Hamas is strategically unsatisfactory.

Like literally bombing a civilian population imprisoned on a strip of land with no rights, no schools, no water, no food, no electricity. Children being arrested in the middle of the night and put into solitary confinement - torture per UN conventions - for throwing stones.

Defenceless: The Impact of Israeli Military Detention on Palestinian Children

Houses being bulldozed. Houses taken away to be given to settlers. Called as animals and savage. Humiliated on a daily basis with searches and guards to even go to work, can't vote, can't live freely.

You read all this and are angry that I am not jumping in to defend the IDF?!

Have some empathy for the innocent civilians who will today again be blown to bits and the world will continue to pretend not to see this because they are not white.

I am here for the people who are under occupation, not for the state doing the oppression, large scale massacre and engaging in colonialism with the help of their 'enlightened' white brethren in the West. Don't bring religion into this. There is the oppressed and the oppressor.

Also note to ALL my followers - If my posts make you nauseous feel free to unfollow me, block me, block the tag or do whatever is necessary for your mental health.

At the end of the day, prioritize your mental health and if all this is depressing and affecting your mental health do unfollow or block me. I don't mind at all.

I myself find the ongoing ethnic cleansing as the world cheers it on depressing and yet I reblog posts because the Palestinian people have asked that as many get the word out about crimes against humanity. If it's depressing for me sitting comfortably in my room blogging a few posts before going to work, I can't even imagine the horrors facing those in the Gaza strip right now. It's the least that I can do.

Hope this helps. Please no more asks on this. Thanks.

#ask

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theaestheticofsound · 1 year

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i remember

circa 2006, first grade.

I remember hearing about the Bermuda Triangle and planes getting lost all over the world. I remember being terrified of quicksand. I vaguely remember thinking "Why aren't my parents afraid of this?" but my parents' constant reassurance quenched my fear to merely distant worry, even as we flew to Bermuda right the year after.

circa 2009, fourth grade.

I remember hearung about the chicken industry. I remember the documentary we had to watch, and to see chicken held in tiny cages. Born in captivity, living in darkness, their only worth seen as egg machines. I remember hearing about mass chick culling. I remember laying in my high bed, thinking about these poor animals, unable to stop crying. Eventually my mum heard me, and she might've cried a little with me, but she reassured me that most chickens were not held that way anymore, and my tears dried up.

Looking back I also remember only seeing egg cartons labeled "cage system housing" because those were cheaper than free-range eggs.

circa 2012, sixth grade.

I remember having to prepare a presentation on global warming and emissions. I remember knowing my parents were not the biggest fans of "climate change". I remember looking up pictures and seeing a picture that showed volcanoes made up 90% of gas emissions, and humans only about 6%. I remember complaining about confusing sources to my parents, and them exclaiming "You finally understand it!"

I remember holding that very presentation, unenthusiastically and deeply unconvinced of what I said, loudly exclaiming to my peers during the break that I also found controversial sources about global warming.

2015, ninth grade.

I remember the war in Syria, and the waves if refugees coming to Europe. I remember the horrible, horrible pictures of basic camps set up in Turkey, far below any humanitarian standard we usually have. I remember Angela Merkel's "We can do this." ("Wir schaffen das.")

I remember talking to friends in school and discussing this in Social Studies, almost unevoquial consent of opinion that this is right and that we, in fact, can do this.

I remember my family scoffing at the "We can do this"; protesting and cursing about the refugees who "only come here to profit off of Germany's economy" behind closed doors. I remember the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) getting popular, echoing my parents' views and fears of the incoming wave of immigrants. I barely remember ever speaking up against this, but rather rolling eyes at my parents and sighing when they went off on a tirade. I do however remember them saying to me "You're always so terribly tolerant."

I remember keeping my opinion to myself, because I would not get any backup.

2017, eleventh grade.

I remember sitting on my parents' grey couch when a news reporter spoke about the official decision of the German parliament to legalise same-sex marriage. I was generally not keeping up with daily news as it has proven to be a constant source of conflict between me and my parents, since we usually were on opposite sides when it came to humanitarian problems of our society. So hearing this news out of the blue came as a big, but happy surprise for me.

I remember my parents getting annoyed with that decision, and me for once picking a fight; arguing with them, telling them it wouldn't make a difference to their lives at all, but it would a huge difference to others and that Germany should be ashamed to be so late to the game. I remember my parents significantly quieting down after that, rather grumbling to themselves than arguing with me.

I remember my heart breaking as I realised my suspicions were proven true, and that my parents would not be happy with me coming out.

I remember sheltering in my room, keeping my opinions close to my chest for an indefinite future.

2018, final grade of school / first year of university.

I remember the beginning of Skolstrejk för klimatet and when the name Greta Thunberg started appearing in the news. I remember being awed with her bravery and resilience to start such a thing all by herself. I remember the regular Fridays for Future and scoffing at pupils who would ditch school to go to the strikes but then also wouldn't turn up during holidays.

I remember meeting my friends from university, who had much more radical and decisive opinions about Climate Change. I remember finally freeing myself from the last doubts of the veracity of Climate Change, despite my parents' constant quotation of news articles that proved the whole thing to be blown out of proportions. I remember starting to pick fights with my parents again, trying to shoot holes in opinions they've had since before my existence, and failing.

I also remember them keeping their opinions more to themselves around me, as they too weren't keen on having constant debates about politics.

September 2019, second year of uni.

I remember Greta Thunberg's iconic UN Climate Action Summit speech - How dare you. I remember breaking into tears, as all of my fears and anger were finally put into words and brought up to some of the most influential people on Earth.

I remember the relentless taunts of grownups on the internet, mocking Greta's words, twisting and mocking everything she said, not taking any of this seriously.

2020-2021, second-third year of uni.

I remember Covid starting, and the first lockdown happening. I remember feeling celebratory at the thought of having an additional free month before the new semester starts. I remember triple the stress of a normal semester once it did start. I remember a long gruesome summer as I prepared for a state exam. I remember high tensions when my oarents were around, and my hope of moving out once the exam was finally over.

I remember uni starting up again in October, and feeling empty and unmotivated during dark mornings in front of my laptop. I remember starting a job and looking for flats. I remember a warm Christmas and signing a contract for my new flat a couple weeks later. I remember getting bullied at work, but unable to quit as I needed the money to move out. I remember a cold, extremely snowy winter that followed two months later. I remember heaps of snow as high as cars piling up everywhere, blocking cars in, in a desperate attempt to keep the sidewalks walkable.

I remember taking fitfy-five minutes for a twenty minute walk through knee deep snow to my end-of-term exams when all the other transportation options failed.

I remember my parents gloating "Look who's talking now about Global Warming."

2022.

I remember talking to friends about the possibility of having children. I remember half of them saying they wouldn't want to set kids into a world that is doomed to fail.

2023.

I bought The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg on a whim. As I'm slowly progressing through the book, I'm recognising the impact of my parents' opinions and my inability and unwillingness to deal with pressing matters for the first time.

I'm also fully realising for the first time how utterly fucked we are in terms of the future and how little it seems we can change about this as individuals.

I'm humbled and so very grateful that a girl three years younger than me has had the realisation way before me, and that she stuck to her guns and fought for all of us, despite any hardships and mocking and hatred you can do easily find on the internet. She's truly an icon of our time, and i hope that with our current climate movement we can prevent the worst of outcomes and live a long and happy life on our little blue planet, the only home that we have.

So now, instead of remembering I try to live in the present to change the future.

But i will not forget.

I will remember.

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worldofsufis · 3 years

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐈𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞

The painful events that are occurring in Palestine right now will eventually come to an end just as previous iterations of these events have also come to an end. But as we pay attention to the details of the issues taking place, we must not forget the root cause, because it was the cause for all the problems of the past and it will remain so into the future.

The root of everything that is happening in Palestine now is that radical groups professing the ideology of Zionism aggressed upon a land in which Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Samaritans were living in peace. They perpetrated massacres and evicted much of those populations, after which they announced the creation of a new state in 1948, the leaders of which were from those groups. The world community recognised this new state at the time, and in 1967 it expanded its territorial occupation to encroach further into Palestinian land. Today, the world community is a mere spectator to this occupation despite officially recognising it as illegitimate. The fact that we are now in the third millennium and there still exists a state in the world that is incessant in committing the crime of occupation without a care for the Declaration of Human Rights and UN Conventions, and without receiving a real reaction from the UN and the so-called civilised world that may deter the occupier from its occupation, is evidence enough of the spectator status of the world community.

The occupiers are persecuting the people of Palestine and hampering their capacity to have a livelihood. Over 80% of the people of East Jerusalem live in a state of poverty and destitution that has been imposed on them. They are denied the basic rights of freedom to worship and living a dignified life. Their homes and farms are usurped from them. Their general rights are denied to them. Those Palestinians who hold the occupier’s nationality are treated with discrimination. The Gaza Strip is sealed off. Gaza is the most densely populated place on earth with a population density of approximately 5000 people per square kilometre. It has been under a blockade for 15 years and has a 60% unemployment rate. Settlements have and continue to be built in the West Bank for the benefit of usurpers with no connection to the land and who have been imported in from around the world on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. Women and children are killed and houses are razed to the ground. Extremist rabbis justify the killing of Palestinian women and children yet there is no criminalisation of their terrorist rhetoric. Palestinian refugees are denied the possibility of ever returning.

The occupier has been complicit in desecrating the sacred symbols of two billion Muslims. In 1969, Al-Aqsa was burnt. Affronts to its sanctity continue until today and are too numerous to list.

All of this occurs under the sight and support of the self-proclaimed “civilised” world and “advanced” countries; the same countries who peddle the slogan of “human” rights and use it to look down upon us every so often by delivering lectures to our countries about respecting “human” rights!

There are many other issues that result from the simple fact of the occupation’s existence:

• The impulsive and aggressive actions of the heads of the occupying state towards the Palestinians, as and when their political life requires it;

• the bias of many of the world’s most powerful states towards the occupation and the submissiveness of others to powerful lobbies that are supportive of the occupation;

• the exploitation by some of these states of the events that occur as a result of the occupation for their own power play;

• the attempts by some of the states in the Arab region to use the resistance as a tool for their own political and expansionist ambitions;

• the deviation of some of the Palestinian factions from a correct path of resistance and them dragging internal political conflicts, regional struggles, and international politics into the issue and thereby clouding the real essence of the Palestinian cause.

All of these issues are merely outcomes of the fact of occupation and the acceptability of its continued existence. Without occupation, these issues would not exist.

We may also add that the existence of disorganised Palestinian factions, some classified as “terrorist”, are merely a symptom among the many symptoms of the occupation. In the event of there being a real, independent, capable, and stable state, non-state actors could have no recourse to leadership. The experience of countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan (among others) testify to this, for in the face of many destabilising attempts of organisations and movements, aided by monetary, media, and even weapons’ support, as well as the attempts of regional and global states to apply pressure to them politically, economically, and under the pretext of human rights, these states have managed to maintain their stability.

If we continue to deal only with the outcomes of the occupation while neglecting the root and essence of the issue then we simply return back to the same problems that repeat themselves. In the end, it is Palestinian lives that pay the price.

Some people and groups exploit the plight of the Palestinian people and use it to support their own agenda of bringing down governments in the Arab region through inciting and provoking the masses against the state in the name of supporting Al-Aqsa. This not only betrays the Palestinian cause but deals a fatal blow to the dwindling attachment and empathy our people feel towards the issue, weakens the capacity that regional states have in standing in solidarity with Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, and confounds the role these states play in dealing with the greater crises that have been occurring in recent years. At the end of this all, it is the Palestinian who will pay the price with his blood, shelter, and ability.

In closing: Allah’s promise is true, whether much time passes or little. A day will come in which Al-Aqsa and the blessed land of Palestine will be liberated. The question, however, is how each one of us fulfils our present duty: first, by maintaining steadfastness on obedience to Allah, repenting from sin, standing at His door, increasing in our realisation of certainty, and then by taking the means. These include:

• Developing our countries, healing their fractures, lifting them from being in a state of want and helplessness, and fulfilling the communal obligation of making them self-sufficient in terms of their farming, industry, education, economics, defence, and innovation. We all must work towards these ends from the place that Allah has placed us in.

• Strengthening our children’s connection to their identity, language, faith, nationality, and culture, and acquainting them with the issue of Al-Aqsa and planting the seeds of love, connection, and support for its cause in their hearts.

• Working earnestly to disseminate the truth about the root cause of the Palestinian issue, in all languages and all media platforms, and to document this truth as much as we can, for this is something that is within the realm of our capacity and it is the duty of our time.

• Donating financially to help our brothers and sisters in Palestine for those who are able to do so, making sure they use non-partisan and reputable charities and organisations such as the UNWRA.

• Travelling to Al-Aqsa and increasing the awareness of people to do so. Such visitations should be “guided” - that is, visitors should arrange their tours with Palestinian groups and companies, enter Palestine through Jordan, use Palestinian owned transport, stay in Palestinian owned hotels, eat in Palestinian owned restaurants, and shop in Palestinian owned shops. If masses did this regularly, a year would not pass except the grounds of Al-Aqsa would be bustling with visitors from all over the world just as the two holy sanctuaries of Makka and Madina are. The occupier will have little room to intrude on Al-Aqsa and all factions of the occupation will see for themselves that aggression against the sanctity of Al-Aqsa is an affront to two billion Muslims and not just the Palestinians.

And before all of this and after it: we plead to Allah in prayer, having certainty in our hearts that prayer has an effect, and knowing that prayer is what we depend on to change our state of affairs.

“Those whose faith only increased when people said, ‘Fear your enemy: they have amassed a great army against you,’ and who replied, ‘Allah is enough for us: He is the best protector (HasbunAllah wa ni’ma-l Wakil).” (Al-Imran: 173)

Allah is enough for us: He is the best protector.

Allah is enough for us: He is the best protector,

May Allah protect Masjid Al-Aqsa, extend support to the guardians who are stationed on its blessed grounds, relieve the Palestinian people of their plight, and awaken the umma from being heedless of the duty it bears to give it assistance and aid, Ya Hayyu Ya Qayyum.

— Habib Ali Al-Jifri

#savesheikhjarrah

#Gaza_Under_Attack

#PalestineUnderAttack

#humanity

#AlAqsa

#SaveGaza

#savepalestine

#FreePalestine

#Alquds

#الاقصى

#GazaUnderAttack

#Palestine

#Gaza

#PalestinianLivesMatter

#palestinian #palestine #gaza #gazaunderattack #gaza under attack #freegaza #freepalestine #free gaza #al aqsa #المسجد الأقصى

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weyassinebentalb · 3 years

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Gaza Conflict Stokes 'Identity Crisis' for Young American Jews

Dan Kleinman does not know quite how to feel.

As a child in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, he was taught to revere Israel as the protector of Jews everywhere, the “Jewish superman who would come out of the sky to save us” when things got bad, he said.

It was a refuge in his mind when white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanted “Jews will not replace us,” or kids in college grabbed his shirt, mimicking a “South Park” episode to steal his “Jew gold.”

But his feelings have grown muddier as he has gotten older, especially now as he watches violence unfold in Israel and Gaza. His moral compass tells him to help the Palestinians, but he cannot shake an ingrained paranoia every time he hears someone make anti-Israel statements.

“It is an identity crisis,” Kleinman, 33, said. “Very small in comparison to what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, but it is still something very strange and weird.”

As the violence escalates in the Middle East, turmoil of a different kind is growing across the Atlantic. Many young American Jews are confronting the region’s long-standing strife in a very different context, with very different pressures, from their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

The Israel of their lifetime has been powerful, no longer appearing to some to be under constant existential threat. The violence comes after a year when mass protests across the United States have changed how many Americans see issues of racial and social justice. The pro-Palestinian position has become more common, with prominent progressive members of Congress offering impassioned speeches in defense of the Palestinians on the House floor. At the same time, reports of anti-Semitism are rising across the country.

Divides between some American Jews and Israel’s right-wing government have been growing for more than a decade, but under the Trump administration those fractures that many hoped would heal became a crevasse. Politics in Israel have also remained fraught, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long-tenured government forged allegiances with Washington. For young people who came of age during the Trump years, political polarization over the issue only deepened.

Many Jews in America remain unreservedly supportive of Israel and its government. Still, the events of recent weeks have left some families struggling to navigate both the crisis abroad and the wide-ranging response from American Jews at home. What is at stake is not just geopolitical, but deeply personal. Fractures are intensifying along lines of age, observance and partisan affiliation.

In suburban Livingston, New Jersey, Meara Ashtivker, 38, has been afraid for her father-in-law in Israel, who has a disability and is not able to rush to the stairwell to shelter when he hears the air-raid sirens. She is also scared as she sees people in her progressive circles suddenly seem anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, she said.

Ashtivker, whose husband is Israeli, said she loved and supported Israel, even when she did not always agree with the government and its actions.

“It’s really hard being an American Jew right now,” she said. “It is exhausting and scary.”

Some young, liberal Jewish activists have found common cause with Black Lives Matter, which explicitly advocates for Palestinian liberation, concerning others who see that allegiance as anti-Semitic.

The recent turmoil is the first major outbreak of violence in Israel and Gaza for which Aviva Davis, who graduated this spring from Brandeis University, has been “socially conscious.”

“I’m on a search for the truth, but what’s the truth when everyone has a different way of looking at things?” Davis said.

Alyssa Rubin, 26, who volunteers in Boston with IfNotNow, a network of Jewish activists who want to end Jewish American support for Israeli occupation, has found protesting for the Palestinian cause to be its own form of religious observance.

She said she and her 89-year-old grandfather ultimately both want the same thing, Jewish safety. But “he is really entrenched in this narrative that the only way we can be safe is by having a country,” she said, while her generation has seen that “the inequality has become more exacerbated.”

In the protest movements last summer, “a whole new wave of people were really primed to see the connection and understand racism more explicitly,” she said, “understanding the ways racism plays out here, and then looking at Israel/Palestine and realizing it is the exact same system.”

But that comparison is exactly what worries many other American Jews, who say the history of white American slaveholders is not the correct frame for viewing the Israeli government or the global Jewish experience of oppression.

At Temple Concord, a Reform synagogue in Syracuse, New York, teenager after teenager started calling Rabbi Daniel Fellman last week, wondering how to process seeing Black Lives Matter activists they marched with last summer attack Israel as “an apartheid state.”

“The reaction today is different because of what has occurred with the past year, year and a half, here,” Fellman said. “As a Jewish community, we are looking at it through slightly different eyes.”

Nearby at Sha’arei Torah Orthodox Congregation of Syracuse, teenagers were reflecting on their visits to Israel and on their family in the region.

“They see it as Hamas being a terrorist organization that is shooting missiles onto civilian areas,” Rabbi Evan Shore said. “They can’t understand why the world seems to be supporting terrorism over Israel.”

In Colorado, a high school senior at Denver Jewish Day School said he was frustrated at the lack of nuance in the public conversation. When his social media apps filled with pro-Palestinian memes last week, slogans like “From the river to the sea” and “Zionism is a call for an apartheid state,” he deactivated his accounts.

“The conversation is so unproductive, and so aggressive, that it really stresses you out,” Jonas Rosenthal, 18, said. “I don’t think that using that message is helpful for convincing the Israelis to stop bombing Gaza.”

Compared with their elders, younger American Jews are overrepresented on the ends of the religious affiliation spectrum: a higher share are secular, and a higher share are Orthodox.

Ari Hart, 39, an Orthodox rabbi in Skokie, Illinois, has accepted the fact that his Zionism makes him unwelcome in some activist spaces where he would otherwise be comfortable. College students in his congregation are awakening to that same tension, he said. “You go to a college campus and want to get involved in anti-racism or social justice work, but if you support the state of Israel, you’re the problem,” he said.

Hart sees increasing skepticism in liberal Jewish circles over Israel’s right to exist. “This is a generation who are very moved and inspired by social justice causes and want to be on the right side of justice,” Hart said. “But they’re falling into overly simplistic narratives, and narratives driven by true enemies of the Jewish people.”

Overall, younger American Jews are less attached to Israel than older generations: About half of Jewish adults under 30 describe themselves as emotionally connected to Israel, compared with about two-thirds of Jews over age 64, according to a major survey published last week by the Pew Research Center.

And though the U.S. Jewish population is 92% white, with all other races combined accounting for 8%, among Jews ages 18 to 29 that rises to 15%.

In Los Angeles, Rachel Sumekh, 29, a first-generation Iranian American Jew, sees complicated layers in the story of her own Persian family. Her mother escaped Iran on the back of a camel, traveling by night until she got to Pakistan, where she was taken in as a refugee. She then found asylum in Israel. She believes Israel has a right to self-determination, but she also found it “horrifying” to hear an Israeli ambassador suggest other Arab countries should take in Palestinians.

“That is what happened to my people and created this intergenerational trauma of losing our homeland because of hatred,” she said.

The entire situation feels too volatile and dangerous for many people to even want to discuss, especially publicly.

Violence against Jews is increasingly close to home. Last year the third-highest number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States were recorded since the Anti-Defamation League began cataloging them in 1979, according to a report released by the civil rights group last month. The ADL recorded more than 1,200 incidents of anti-Semitic harassment in 2020, a 10% increase from the previous year. In Los Angeles, the police are investigating a sprawling attack on sidewalk diners at a sushi restaurant Tuesday as an anti-Semitic hate crime.

Outside Cleveland, Jennifer Kaplan, 39, who grew up in a modern Orthodox family and who considers herself a centrist Democrat and a Zionist, remembered studying abroad at Hebrew University in 2002, and being in the cafeteria minutes before it was bombed. Now she wondered how the Trump era had affected her inclination to see the humanity in others, and she wished her young children were a bit older so she could talk with them about what is happening.

“I want them to understand that this is a really complicated situation, and they should question things,” she said. “I want them to understand that this isn’t just a, I don’t know, I guess, utopia of Jewish religion.”

Esther Katz, the performing arts director at the Jewish Community Center in Omaha, Nebraska, has spent significant time in Israel. She also attended Black Lives Matter protests in Omaha last summer and has signs supporting the movement in the windows of her home.

She has watched with a sense of betrayal as some of her allies in that movement have posted online about their apparently unequivocal support for the Palestinians, and compared Israel to Nazi Germany. “I’ve had some really tough conversations,” said Katz, a Conservative Jew. “They’re not seeing the facts, they’re just reading the propaganda.”

Her three children, who range in age from 7 to 13, are now wary of a country that is for Katz one of the most important places in the world. “They’re like, ‘I don’t understand why anyone would want to live in Israel, or even visit,’” she said. “That breaks my heart.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

source https://www.techno-90.com/2021/05/gaza-conflict-stokes-identity-crisis.html

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newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Monday, August 2, 2021

Frustration as Biden, Congress allow eviction ban to expire (AP) Anger and frustration mounted in Congress as a nationwide eviction moratorium expired at midnight Saturday—one Democratic lawmaker even camping outside the Capitol in protest as millions of Americans faced being forced from their homes. Lawmakers said they were blindsided by President Joe Biden’s inaction as the deadline neared. More than 3.6 million Americans are at risk of eviction, some in a matter of days. The moratorium was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as part of the COVID-19 crisis when jobs shifted and many workers lost income. The eviction ban was intended to prevent further virus spread by people put out on the streets and into shelters. Congress approved nearly $47 billion in federal housing aid to the states during the pandemic, but it has been slow to make it into the hands of renters and landlords owed payments.

Breakneck pace of crises keeps National Guard away from home (AP) In the searing 108-degree heat, far from his Louisiana health care business, Army Col. Scott Desormeaux and his soldiers are on a dusty base near Syria’s northern border, helping Syrian rebel forces battle Islamic State militants. It’s tough duty for the soldiers. But their deployment to the Middle East last November is just a small part of the blistering pace of missions that members of the Louisiana National Guard and America’s other citizen-soldiers have faced in the past 18 months. Beyond overseas deployments, Guard members have been called in to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters and protests against racial injustice. For many, it’s meant months away from their civilian jobs and scarce times with families. While Guard leaders say troops are upbeat, they worry about exhaustion setting in and wonder how much longer U.S. businesses can do without their long-absent workers. “This past year was an extraordinary one for the National Guard,” said Gen. Dan Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau. Does he worry about exhaustion setting in? “That’s something I’ve been very concerned with right from the start.”

Western Wildfires May Take Weeks To Months To Contain (NPR) Pockets of the American West continued to burn over the weekend, as another nine large fires were reported on Saturday in California, Idaho, Montana and Oregon. The 87 fires still active in 13 states have consumed more than 1.7 million acres. Just shy of 3 million acres have been scorched since the start of 2021, with months left in what experts predict will be a devastating fire season. In southern Oregon, the Bootleg Fire has become the largest active blaze in the country. The 413,000-acre inferno was contained at 56%, as of Saturday night. A fire line has been constructed around the entire perimeter, ranging from 100 to 150-feet wide between the burn and unburned areas.

Bacon may disappear in California as pig rules take effect (AP) Thanks to a reworked menu and long hours, Jeannie Kim managed to keep her San Francisco restaurant alive during the coronavirus pandemic. That makes it all the more frustrating that she fears her breakfast-focused diner could be ruined within months by new rules that could make one of her top menu items—bacon—hard to get in California. “Our number one seller is bacon, eggs and hash browns,” said Kim, who for 15 years has run SAMS American Eatery on the city’s busy Market Street. “It could be devastating for us.” At the beginning of next year, California will begin enforcing an animal welfare proposition approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018 that requires more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves. National veal and egg producers are optimistic they can meet the new standards, but only 4% of hog operations now comply with the new rules. Unless the courts intervene or the state temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, California will lose almost all of its pork supply, much of which comes from Iowa. Animal welfare organizations for years have been pushing for more humane treatment of farm animals but the California rules could be a rare case of consumers clearly paying a price for their beliefs.

Why are so many migrants coming to one of Europe’s smallest countries? Blame Belarus, officials say. (Washington Post) Europe’s newest migration crisis is unfolding in one of its most unlikely places. Lithuania, a Baltic nation roughly the size of West Virginia with fewer than 3 million residents, hasn’t been known as a destination for undocumented immigrants: Each year, the country sees roughly 70 people unlawfully cross its border with Belarus. In July, the number skyrocketed to more than 2,600, consisting mostly of immigrants from Iraq and sub-Saharan Africa. Officials expect the numbers to grow in the coming weeks. This new flow of people did not begin organically, Lithuanian and European Union officials say. Instead, they say, it is the result of an audacious plan by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to weaponize migration in response to E.U. sanctions. In June, Lukashenko threatened to allow human traffickers and drug smugglers to stream into Europe. E.U. officials say they have evidence that his government is also encouraging immigrants to travel there: coordinating with a Belarusian travel agency to offer tourist visas, setting up flights and then transporting people from Minsk to the Lithuanian border. Lithuania, which has virtually no experience with large numbers of immigrants, has scrambled to construct a barbed wire fence along the border.

Thousands protest against COVID-19 health pass in France (Reuters) Thousands of people protested in Paris and other French cities on Saturday against a mandatory coronavirus health pass for entry to a wide array of public venues, introduced by the government as it battles a fourth wave of infections. It was the third weekend in a row that people opposed to President Emmanuel Macron’s new COVID-19 measures have taken to the streets, an unusual show of determination at a time of year when many people are focused on taking their summer break. The number of demonstrators has grown steadily since the start of the protests, echoing the “yellow vest” movement, that started in late 2018 against fuel taxes and the cost of living. An interior ministry official said 204,090 had demonstrated across France, including 14,250 in Paris alone. This is about 40,000 more than last week.

Turkey evacuates panicked tourists by boat from wildfires (AP) Panicked tourists in Turkey hurried to the seashore to wait for rescue boats Saturday after being told to evacuate some hotels in the Aegean Sea resort of Bodrum due to the dangers posed by nearby wildfires, Turkish media reported. Coast guard units led the operation and authorities asked private boats and yachts to assist in evacuation efforts from the sea as new wildfires erupted. A video showed plumes of smoke and fire enveloping a hill close to the seashore. The death toll from wildfires raging in Turkey’s Mediterranean towns rose to six Saturday after two forest workers were killed, the country’s health minister said. Fires across Turkey since Wednesday have burned down forests and some settlements, encroaching on villages and tourist destinations and forcing people to evacuate. In one video of the Bodrum fire filmed from the sea, a man helping with the evacuations was stunned at the speed of the fire, saying “this is unbelievable, just unbelievable. How did this fire come (here) this fast in 5 minutes?”

Afghans flee (NYT) A mass exodus is unfolding across Afghanistan as the Taliban press on with a military campaign and the U.S. withdraws. At least 30,000 Afghans are leaving each week and many more have been displaced. The Taliban have captured more than half the country’s 400-odd districts, according to some assessments, sparking fears of a harsh return to extremist rule or a civil war. The sudden flight is an early sign of a looming refugee crisis, aid agencies warn.

As the Taliban closes in, Afghan forces scramble to defend prisons holding thousands of militants (Washington Post) Huddled in brightly lit yards late one recent night, hundreds of inmates taunted a team of about a dozen special forces who were rounding the walls along the top of Kunduz prison. The appearance of elite soldiers was an anomaly, a sign to the prisoners that something was happening. “What’s going on?” they shouted. “Is tonight going to be our last night in here? Taliban fighters planned to storm the compound that evening, according to information gathered by local intelligence officers. Government forces hoped the show of force would spur prisoners—some in possession of smuggled cellphones used to communicate with the Taliban—to wave off the attack. Without enough fighters to hold the city’s front lines and reinforce the prison, the special forces’ move was a gamble. But it appeared to work: The night passed without incident. As Taliban militants close in on Afghanistan’s provincial capitals, they are inching closer to central prisons that house around 5,000 of their fellow fighters, leaving the government scrambling to secure the detention facilities. If just a fraction of the detainees were to escape, Afghan security officials warn, it would hand the militants a significant advantage on the battlefield, where they are already making steady gains.

Burkina Faso sees more child soldiers as jihadi attacks rise (AP) Awoken by gunshots in the middle of the night, Fatima Amadou was shocked by what she saw among the attackers: children. Guns slung over their small frames, the children chanted “Allahu akbar,” as they surrounded her home in Solhan town in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region. Some were so young they couldn’t even pronounce the words, Arabic for “God is great,” said the 43-year-old mother. “When I saw the kids, what came to my mind was that (the adults) trained these kids to be assassins, and they came to kill my children,” Amadou told The Associated Press by phone from Sebba town, where she now lives. She and her family are among the lucky ones who survived the June attack, in which about 160 people were killed—the deadliest such assault since the once-peaceful West African nation was overrun by fighters linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State about five years ago. As that violence increases, so too does the recruitment of child soldiers. The number of children recruited by armed groups in Burkina Faso rose at least five-fold so far this year, according to information seen by the AP in an unpublished report by international aid and conflict experts.

Behind the Rise of U.S. Solar Power, a Mountain of Chinese Coal (WSJ) Solar panel installations are surging in the U.S. and Europe as Western countries seek to cut their reliance on fossil fuels. But the West faces a conundrum as it installs panels on small rooftops and in sprawling desert arrays: Most of them are produced with energy from carbon-dioxide-belching, coal-burning plants in China. Concerns are mounting in the U.S. and Europe that the solar industry’s reliance on Chinese coal will create a big increase in emissions in the coming years as manufacturers rapidly scale up production of solar panels to meet demand. That would make the solar industry one of the world’s most prolific polluters, analysts say.

Americans Spend Nearly 60 Billion Hours a Year on Google (PC Magazine) Collectively, Americans spent 57.3 billion hours on Google per year. Its video equivalent, YouTube, comes in second with 29.6 billion hours, followed by Facebook with 9.7 billion hours.

#headlines #news

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booksrocci · 3 years

Text

Smith

Donald Rocci

Chapter 1

They came in the night and were only visible by the small light of their ignited torches, sparking fear within the city that fueled the fires of the unknown destruction that was to come. Their dark and ubiquitous military slithered out of the mountainous hills, ghostly specters within the moonlight hungry for living flesh. They marched in perfect formation to their orders as each creature held off whatever eagerness it felt for the charge, waiting until the first glimpse of any weakness in our defenses revealed itself so they could begin with their grisly duty. They had made no demands upon us thus far so the only thing left was plunder, they wanted our riches, our woman, and our lives, there is no other meaning for their arrival.

I had seen many such armies that would try to steal the wealth of the kingdom that lay behind me, but the wall always held. Impenetrable it was said, and for good reason for many have tried, but their remnants still laid in the fields on which this force stood with their denial in their minds and their souls wandering lost in the abyss. But the wall still faced this test of time, as strong as it had for centuries, tall and unmolested in the dry cold air, leaving us as a city that could not be taken easily by any army who dared to attempt the feat.

This army was somewhat different in its overall design and skill. Even in the pale light the figures looked less than human and almost animalistic. Their leather armor, tattered and sewed together, hung off their muscular bodies that seemed stooped, almost hunched, as they walked from post to post. Dark black skin withheld any features in the night and they were massively sized, even larger than the German hordes that was ever present upon the Rhine frontier. The way their faces looked in the torchlight that showed them as they spoke made it seem as that they were snorting rather than using words to communicate. I wasn't sure who they were or where they had come from, but it didn't matter, I knew they were going to whatever afterlife their belief had determined to exist.

I scanned the defenders of the realm looking for my sons and found their armor shining like stars brighter in the sky than all the others. I let a small smile slip from my stern face but quickly stifled its existence from the earth. As a smithy I was one of the best in the empire, I knew they would not have to fret and wonder about their armor giving away in the heat of any battle. It would last longer than anyone else's within the province and would most certainly would not fail here. My pride welled in my chest as dreams swept through my head of rewards and praise from the peers in my craft. These grandiose thoughts took me away to far off places of glory and riches, the battle before me was but a distant memory. I snapped myself back to the present and the reality at hand, I must remain in the moment, only fools dream of future greatness to bitter ends in the present.

Three sons I had, all heads of their own divisions armed to the teeth with my designs. I had raised them to be leaders not to be lead and they did me proud whenever I saw them and their men marching in formation. Top of their arts in battle logic, archery, and swordcraft. My three were the best this city produced in years or at least they we're never last. As my thoughts drifted toward my third boy and his independent nature I let off another small smile, he was frustrating to say the least.

Could be that I lost one or maybe two today, that is the wages of battle and war. But they would go down heroes who defended their kingdom and others would tell tales of their deeds in the small fires of the night. My pride swelled yet again as more visions of glory sprung forth in the fields of the summers mind. Followed by a solemn sadness, for I knew my wife would be devastated. Their was no way to heal the wound of a child lost, time can only take away so much, but some pain lingers through the scars of love.

But what options did we have, the coming of this army has been foretold for weeks. Evacuees had been coming as their cities, towns, and villages were taken, and stories of savagery and slaughter traveled with them. The kingdom would open its doors, help who it could, feeding and housing most of them, the others we did what we must do in these times but disease is just as terrible as any army. I thought upon the family we had sheltered, telling their tale of horror that befell them while shivering with traumatic memories that even the warm fire could not release. Creatures that I had only heard of in myths were described with frightening details, but I left those notions to simple folk who have never seen other cultures or people of different lands making up stories to explain that which was misunderstood. As I sat and listened to their terrible tales my skin brushed up with bumps and fear filled my treacherous heart. Looking at my wife I saw the despair and trepidation appear in the darkness of her eyes, I had to be strong and still the terrors in the night that would consume dreams. As the refugees left heading towards the east and the great sea hoping for something better. I told my wife and daughters that we will not flee to a safer place. "Our kingdom needs us." I would say as she cried and begged for us to leave, but I held firm, we would not be marked as cowards to be ridiculed.

Some in the kingdom chose to go find them and do small attacks, hoping to at least slow them down and make them think twice. I wanted to wait, I had made swords and armor by the dozens and my men were hard at work all the way to the last day till they arrived. The summer was ending and the cool autumn air rolled in from the east as the massive army slithered in from the western plains.

We had poisoned the wells and harvested all the crops leaving burnt earth behind before we shut the gates. They would die, they always did, from starvation or thirst and would leave in a few months time. This kingdom was well schooled in sieges, as our history was filled with them. But they did not have me before to arm the soldiers, and I was the best in the land. As I watched from the battlements of the wall my pride grew renewed within me, almost every soldier was equipped with my armor or sword. They knew who made it and they trusted my equipment, it would not fail, I was simply the best.

I looked again at the western horizon and thought I saw something flying in the distance. Death was ever present in the air and maybe the ghosts of battles past grew restless with the thoughts of fresh blood to feast upon. It was the way of it I thought to myself. Such as it was from the beginning of time till the end of the earth. A sigh escaped my lips as I brought the chalice of wine to my tongue and turned the bitter liquid within my mouth. Swirling the cup in my hand I swallowed the grapes gift and let it take effect.

It was still in me to be nervous, days of battle were long past and I made a comfortable living as a smith which made my family one of the most richest and respected in the kingdom. Yet still the unease of it all filled me, as the horrific stories still clung to my memory like a bad dream. I cast the thoughts of fear and doubt aside with a laugh.

"No one will breach the gate." I murmured.

"What?" said the sentinel to my right as his armor plate reflected the torchlight beside him. I looked into his frightened blue eyes and saw the stories lying behind the watchful stare. He wore the same cloak of the guard that all the sentinels wore, brazen red with gold outlines cascaded down his back. A black crest held the family house he belonged to. That was the only difference in each mans outfit within the guard. Above that was the seal of the kingdom, bright blue as the sky with a golden eagle shining within. The armor was one of my finest, hemmed with steel and inlaid again with the seal of the kingdom etched into the metal.

"I said they will not breach the gate."

He nodded his approval and stared hard at the siege line searching them for trouble. They had not moved, no action was taking place even their cavalry lay dormant, every now and then a nervous whine from one of the horses below would echo of the wall but nothing else really pierced the silence. They just sat there and watched stone faced waiting, and that was when I realized what was so odd about the situation. No movement to place and wind the siege engines, no planning being done to breach the wall, no ladders being towed to climb. Nothing they just stayed there staring at the massive wall with neither fear or courage. Strange, how did they expect to succeed where so many others had failed. Surely this was not the armies that the refugees feared and storied with dark ends. Some other mass must have assembled or they were waiting for more forces to arrive, perhaps that was the reasons behind the hesitation.

I could feel the eagerness of the soldiers below me and caught a movement in the western sky again. What was there a storm coming in from that direction, unlikely but stranger things have happened. The sea hardly ever gave birth to rain at this time of year. Maybe a sudden storm or some random wind tempest driven by the spirits of the past. How fortunate that would be if this enemy would be blinded before the fighting began, attacked without us even having to draw a sword. I smiled warmly at the image of the besiegers flailing around in the storm only to be destroyed later by our seasoned troops. This would be over before it began.

A fresh thought of my wife filled my mind, I would be home soon, enjoying the fire and warmth of family as I told tales of the battle. Let the terrain take its victims again, there will be no fear here to be sowed and be reaped by soulless men. The fight would come and the victory would be sweet, won on the blades of righteous men of the realm. Of this fact I had no doubt.

A wind started rising from the north which made no sense at all. The storm was to the east and the sea air in the west was still. Loud thrums of drums started to sound within the besiegers camp, with sounds of metal upon metal filling the nights air. They started forming into companies which timed with the drum beats, they were organized, I would give them that. Ominous as all this was I still let out a chuckle of how foolish they were. Fools led to their destruction, let them come and meet their demise upon our walls.

The cheering from the opposite camp grew intense and filled the night with noise. Then it came like a gale of wind indiscriminate of its purpose. I could barely understand what happened or why I was on the ground when I saw the results of the calamity. Clumsily I stood and saw the charred and melted men that were strewn and entangled everywhere on the ground beneath the stone wall. My face burned from the hell fire that seemed to be feasting on the mortar besides me where the sentinel once stood. Trying to shake off my confusion I searched for what had happened. Only to be knocked down again from the force of the wall obliterating itself where the main gate was placed.

In shock and awe I caught a glimpse of a beast as it turned and flew with wings so massive it blotted out the moon towards the west. It's job was done and we were relatively defenseless, the wall and most of its defenders had fallen in what seemed like an eternity but in actuality was mere minutes. The last men fought valiantly but were being overrun by the now seemingly massive army that was pouring into the city. I had but one thought left that could penetrate the haze and move my body into action, my wife and daughters.

#literature #history #books & libraries #booksbooksbooks #writing #my writing

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for-your-therapeutic-smile · 4 years

Text

They Never Teach You How to Stop

Rarely do I lack the words to express myself. Perhaps this reflects my failure to maintain my journal consistently throughout 2020. Here goes an honest attempt to capture and document my mental state and the fatigue of Covid, the inertia of this shelter-in-place, the anxiety of this political crisis we face as a nation, the pressure of being a 1L in law school against the backdrop of civil unrest and Justice Ginsburg’s death, coming out - my dad told me he was disappointed -, the possible erosion of my relationship with someone I love, and this feeling of absolute dread and resentment for a system that continuously fails my and future generations (robbing us of a social contract that promised life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), among many other things I’m too tired to consider. When did we accept a $0 baseline as the American Dream? Oh, to be debt free - free from this punishment for having pursued an education. Stifling the educated to prevent them (myself included) from organizing and mobilizing the masses so we can supplant this system with a better one is the overall objective of the oppressive class (read: Pedagogy of the Oppressed); it’s the conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariat. The proletariat has swallowed the middle class, leaving only the ruling class. I am essentially on autopilot, forcing myself to go through the motions so I can survive another day. I know others join me in this mental gymnastics of unparalleled proportions, one social scientists and medical researchers will soon study and subsequently publish their findings in an attempt to explain the unexplainable. Despite a lack of air circulation, we are breathing history; the constitution, like our societal norms, must adapt accordingly. Judge Barrett: there is no place for originalism. While I seldom admit weakness or an inability to manage life’s curveballs, this series of unfortunate events seems almost too much to bear.

And yet somehow I continue to find the energy to submit assignments due at 11:59 p.m., write this post at 1:38 a.m., “sleep”, wake at 7 a.m. so I can read and prepare (last minute!) the assigned material leading into my torts or contracts class. I find the energy to text my boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend) so I can attempt to salvage the real and genuine connection we have, cook elaborate meals to find some solace, wrestle with whether or not to hit my yoga mat (I don’t), apply to a fellowship for the school year and summer internships, prepare my dual citizenship paperwork, manage a campaign for two progressive politicians, and listen to music in an attempt to stay sane . . . ~*Queues John Mayer’s “War of My Life” and “Stop This Train”*~ . . . I realize I have to be kinder to myself, give credit where credit is due. I hate feeling self-congratulatory though.

Mostly, I am too afraid of the repercussions if I stop moving at a mile/minute, that I can just work away the pain and be the superhuman who numbs himself from the low-grade depression and nervous breakdown. My body tells me to slow down, as evidenced by the grinding of my teeth, but I take on more responsibility because people rely on me. I must show up. I am a masochist in that way. This is what I signed up for and I’ll be damned if I don’t carry through on my promise to do the work. Pieces of my soul scattered about like Horcruxes, though they’re pure, not evil, so I hope nobody resolves to destroy them.

My mind rarely rests. It’s 3:08 a.m., one of the lonelier hours where night meets morning; it’s the hour for and of intense introspection. It makes you consider pulling an all-nighter, one you reserve for an “important” school or work deadline. We always put our personal lives on the back-burner. 3 a.m. sets the tone for a potentially awful day. But that doesn’t matter right now. I’m letting some of my favorite albums play in the background: Joni Mitchell’s Blue, Mac Miller’s Circles, Rhye’s Blood, Alicia Keys’ ALICIA, Coldplay’s Ghost Stories, Frank Ocean’s Blonde, Miley Cyrus’ Dead Petz in addition to other playlists, Tiny Desk performances, and tracks (I unearthed last week, like When It’s Over by Sugar Ray). I need to feel something. I need to feel anything. I need to feel everything. We experience such a broad spectrum of emotions throughout the day that we lose track of if we don’t pause to absorb them. Music reinforces empathy; it releases dopamine.

I spent the past two hours reading through old journals and posts, as scattered as they were, on a wide range of topics: poems I had written about falling in and out love, anecdotes about my world travels, and entries on personal, political, and professional epiphanies. The other night I found one of my favorites, a previous post from my time living in Indonesia, centering on the dualities of technology. It resonated with me more than the others. To summarize, I wrote about my tendency to equate the Internet with a sense of interconnectedness (shoutout to Tumblr for being my digital journal; to Twitter for being a place of comedy and revolution; to Instagram for curating my *aesthetic*; to Facebook where I track my family’s accomplishments and connect with travel buddies displaced around the globe all searching for a home). And yet I feel incredibly lonely and disconnected whenever I spend too much time using technology, so much so that I set screen time limitations on my phone recently to curtail this obsession with constant communication and information gathering. Trump and Biden admitted that it��s unlikely we’ll know the results of the election on November 3rd during their first presidential debate. Push notifications don’t allow us to learn of trauma within the comforts of our own homes. I’m already fearing where I will be when that news breaks.

This global pandemic and indefinite shutdown of the world (economy) undeniably exacerbates these feelings. This is some personal and collective turmoil. But I was complicit in the endless scrolling and swiping of faces and places long before Covid-19. Instead of choosing to interact with my direct environment (today’s research links this behavior to the same levels of depression one feels when they play slot machines), I am still an active on all these platforms, participating the least in the most tangible one: my physical life. I am tired of pretending. I am tired of being tired. I am tired of embodying fake energy to exist in systems that fail me. I am tired of the quagmire. Like Anaïs Nin, I must be a mermaid [because] I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living. This particular excerpt from that 2016 entry was difficult for me to read: “The fantasy of what could have been if a certain plan had unfolded will haunt you forever if you do not come to peace with the reality of the situation. I hope you come to terms with reality.” I am not at peace with my current reality. But is anyone?

It’s a bit surreal for my peers to have suddenly started caring about international relations theory. It’s transported me back to my 2012 IR lecture at Northeastern: are you a constructivist or a feminist? Realist or liberalist? Neo? Marxist? The one no one wants you to talk about. Absent upward mobility, this is class warfare. But I cannot be “a singular expression of myself . . . there are too many parts, too many spaces, too many manifestations, too many lines, too many curves, too many troubles, too many journeys, too many mountains, too many rivers” . . . It feels like America’s wake-up call. But I know people will retreat into the comforts of capitalism if Biden wins and, well, we all enter uncharted waters together if the Electoral College re-elects #45. For those who weren’t paying attention: the world is multipolar and we are not the hegemon. Norms matter. People tend to be self-interested and shortsighted. Look to the past in order to understand the future. History, as the old adage goes, repeats itself. Once a cheater, always a cheater. Taxation without representation. Indoctrination. Welcome to the language of political discourse. Students of IR and polisci have long awaited your participation. Too little too late? Plot twist: it’s a lifelong commitment. You must continue to engage irrespective of the election outcome or else we will regress just as quickly as we progress. Now dive into international human rights treaties (International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights; International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights), political refugees, FGM. No one said it wasn’t dismal. But it’s important. We need buy-in.

While I am grateful for the continuation of my education, for this extended time with family, for this opportunity to be a campaign manager for two local progressive candidates (driving to Boston to pick up revised yard signs as proof that the work never stops), it would be remiss of me, however, not to admit that I am lonely: I am buried in my books, in the depressing news both nationally and globally, and in precedent-setting Supreme Court cases (sometimes for the worst, e.g. against the preservation of our environment). In my nonexistent free time I work on political asylum cases, essentially creating an enforceability framework of international law, for people fleeing country conditions so unthinkable (the irony of that work when my country falls greater into authoritarianism and oligarchy is not lost on me). I am fulfilling my dream of becoming a human rights lawyer which stems back to middle school. I saw Things I Imagined (thank you Solange). I have held an original copy of the Declaration of Independence that we sent to the House of Lords in 1778 and the Human Rights Act of 1998 while visiting the U.K. Parliamentary Archives as an intern for a Member of Parliament. This success terrifies and exhausts me; it also oxygenizes and saves me. Every decision, every sacrifice, has led me to this point.

“It’s the choosing that’s important, isn’t it?,” Lois Lowry of The Giver rhetorically asks. This post is not intended to be woe is me! I am fortunate to be in this position, to have this vantage point at such an early age, and I understand the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. My life has purpose. I am committed to the work that transcends boundaries; it is larger than life itself. It provides a unique perspective. But it makes it difficult to coexist with people so preoccupied in the drama they create in their lives and the general shallowness of the world we live. It feels like there is no option to pump the brakes on any of this work, especially in light of our current climate, and that pressure oftentimes feels insurmountable. Time is of the essence. It feels, whether true or not, that hardly anyone relates to my experience, so if I don’t carve out this time to write about it, then I am neither recording nor processing it.

Tonight, in between preparing tomorrow’s coursework, I realize that I have an unprecedented number of questions about life, which startles me because typically I have the answers or at least have a goal in mind that launches me into the next phase of life or contextualizes the current one. These goals, often rooted in this capitalistic framework, in this falsity of “needing” to advance my career as a means of helping people, distract me from asking myself the existential questions, the reasons for why we live and what we fundamentally want our systems to look like; they have distracted me from real grassroots community organizing until now. They distract me from the fact that, like John Mayer, I don’t know which walls to smash; similarly, I don’t know which train to board. Right now feels like we are living through impossible and hopeless times and I don’t want to placate myself into thinking otherwise despite my relatively optimistic outlook on life. As we face catastrophic circumstances – the consequences of this election and climate change (famine, refugees, lack of resources) – I do not want to live in perpetual sadness. I am searching for clarity and direction so I can step into a better, fuller version of myself.

It’s now 3:33 a.m. Here is the list of questions that I have often asked myself in different stages of life, but recently, until now, I have not been willing to confront for fear that I might not be able to answers them. But I owe it to myself to pose them here so I can have the overdue conversation, the one I know leads me to better understanding myself:

Are you happy? Why or why not?

What do you want the future to hold? What groundwork are you going to do to ensure it happens?

What does your ideal day/week/month/year/decade look like? Why?

With whom do you want to spend your days? Why?

Who do you love and care about? Have you told people you care about that you love them? Does love and vulnerability scare you?

What do you expect of people – of yourself, of your partner, of your family, and of your friends? Should you have those expectations? Why or why not?

What do you feel and why?

What relaxes you? What scares you? What brings you joy?

What do you want to improve? Why?

What do you want to forgive yourself for and why?

Does the desire to reinvent yourself diminish your ability to be present?

Do you have a greater fear of failure or success? Why?

How do you escape the confines of this broken system? How do you break from the guilt of participation in it and having benefited from it?

How do we reconcile our daily lives with the fact that we’re living through an extinction event? This one comes from my friend (hi Jeanne) and a podcast she listened to recently.

How do you help people? How do you help yourself? Are you pouring from an empty cup?

How will you find joy in your everyday responsibilities, in the mission you have chosen for yourself? What, if any, will be the warning signs to walk away from this work, in part or in its entirety? Without being a martyr, do you believe in dying for the cause?

So here are some of the lessons I have learned during this quarantine/past year:

“I’ve Got Dreams to Remember,” so do not take your eyes off them. Chasing paper does not bring you happiness.

Be autonomous, particularly in your professional life.

Focus on values instead of accolades.

Do everything with intention and honest energy.

Listen to Tracy Chapman’s “Crossroads” & Talkin’ Bout a Revolution for an energy boost and reminder that other revolutionaries have shared and continue to share your fervent passion . . . “I’m trying to protect what I keep inside, all the reasons why I live my life” . . . When self-doubt nearly cripples you and you yearn a few minutes to run away when in reality you can’t escape your responsibilities, go for a drive and queue up “Fast Car” . . . “I got no plans, I ain’t going nowhere, so take your fast car and keep on driving.”

With that said, take every opportunity to travel (you can take the work with you if absolutely necessary). Go to Italy. Buy the concert ticket and lose yourself in the moment. Remember that solo excursions are equally as important as collective ones. But, from personal experience, you prefer the company. Find the balance.

Detach from the numbers people keep trying to assign to measure your personhood.

Closely examine the people in your inner circle and ask them for help when you need it.

“And life is just too short to keep playing the game . . . because if you really want somebody [or something], you’ll figure it out later, or else you will just spend the rest of the night with a BlackBerry on your chest hoping it goes *vibration, vibration*” (John Mayer’s Edge of Desire) . . . so love fiercely and unapologetically.

Be specific.

Go to therapy even when life is good.

#reflection #covid #quarantine #late nights #music #revolution #diary #politics #john mayer #alicia keys #tracy chapman #love #dear diary #travel #writing #personal #mental health

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workersolidarity · 27 days

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[ 📹 "What did this child do to be sniped by the occupation's soldiers?" A Palestinian civilian carries the body of a child who was killed as a result of Zionist sniper fire targeting civilians in the Gaza Strip.

📈 The death toll in the Zionist genocide of Palestinians has now reached 32'975, with another 75'577 injured in "Israel's" Special Genocide Operation in Gaza.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

"ISRAEL'S" MASS SLAUGHTER OF PALESTINIANS CONTINUES ON THE 180TH DAY OF SPECIAL GENOCIDE OPERATION IN THE GAZA STRIP

On the 180th day of "Israel's" ongoing Special Genocide Operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of five new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 59 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 83 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, large numbers of victims remain trapped under the rubble of their homes and shelters, while others are scattered in the roads, unable to be reached by ambulance and civil defense crews who are blocked from reaching sites by occupation soldiers and continued shelling in surrounding neighborhoods.

After "Israel" inflicted massive damage on the Al-Shifa Medical Complex over the previous two weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO), in a post on the social media platform X, said that the destruction of the largest hospital in Gaza has "ripped the heart out of the health system" of the Palestinian enclave.

The World Health Organization also pointed to the 10 of 36 hospitals which remain partially functional, emphasizing that Palestinian civilians will pay the price of being left without vital healthcare services.

"We repeat: health must not be militarized or attacked. Ceasefire!" the WHO added.

In another tragedy caused by the Israeli occupation army, in furtherance of Netanyahu's starvation agenda in Gaza, the World Central Kitchen (WCK) suspended its operations in the Gaza Strip yesterday as a direct result of "Israel's" attack on a convoy of armored aid vehicles, killing 7 foreign aid workers, including nationals from Britain, Australia, Poland, occupied Palestine and a dual-citizen of the U.S. and Canada.

The international aid organization also rerouted a shipment of humanitarian aid destined for Gaza, back to Cypress, preventing thousands of starving Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from receiving meals they otherwise would hand received.

The latest criminal Zionist attack on WCK brings the total number of international aid workers murdered in "Israel's" Special Genocide Operation in Gaza to 195, with the majority of victims belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA).

Meanwhile, in continued criminal atrocities, at least six civilians were killed, including one child and two women, following occupation fighter jets bombing an apartment complex in the western areas of the Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday.

According to sources on the ground, Israeli aircraft raided a residential apartment building known as the al-Etihad Tower, which housed the al-Moqayad family, west of the Nuseirat Camp, resulting in the deaths of six civilians, including one child and two women.

At the same time, in endless violations of International humanitarian law, another bombing by IOF criminals targeted a civilian home in the Al-Nuseirat Camp killing five Palestinians, including three children.

Similarly, Zionist warplanes bombed several areas of Gaza City, including the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, while occupation forces also opened gunfire towards residential buildings belonging to Palestinian civilians in the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood of Gaza City.

Also in the north of Gaza, IOF artillery fire repeatedly, if intermittently, bombed both the outskirts of Gaza City, as well as the city of Jabalia, luckily however, no casualties were reported as a result of the shelling.

"Huge explosions" were also recorded coming from Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, after intense Israeli bombing and shelling of the city, with a focus on the bombardment in the vicinity of the Nasser Medical Complex and the surrounding area.

Occupation air forces were also recorded bombarding several residential buildings east of the city of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, while Zionist artillery detatchments shelled the Al-Amal neighborhood, along with the surrounding areas of the Khan Yunis governate.

Similarly, in the south of Gaza, Zionist soldiers, Merkava tanks and other armored vehicles have been stationed near the Al-Awda Schools, east of Khan Yunis, as occupation artillery forces continuously shell the area.

In yet more atrocities, IOF warplanes bombed multiple residential homes in Khan Yunis belonging to local families, resulting in the martyrdom of at least five civilians and wounding no less than 10 others.

The Israeli occupation committed further war crimes when it bombed civilian structures in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least three Palestinians and wounding a number of others.

Another Zionist air raid targeting a residential home in central Gaza resulted in the martyredom of three civilians belonging to the Al-Farra family, while civil defense crews managed to recover the bodies of three more civilians found on the beaches of Khan Yunis after being shelled by occupation gunboats.

Further war crimes were committed when the Israeli occupation naval forces stationed on gunboats fired machine guns and several missiles towards the residential homes and civilian tents of displaced Palestinian families in the Al-Mawasi area, killing three, while simultaneously, Zionist warplanes bombarded the Al-Balad and Al-Fokhari neighborhoods in the Khan Yunis governate.

Occupation aircraft also bombed the Abu Al-Ajen neighborhood of Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, martyring two civilians who were transported to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, while intense shelling also focused on the the north of Al-Nuseirat, along with parts of Al-Zahra'a and the village of Al-Mughraqa.

At the same time, IOF fighter jets bombarded multiple neighborhoods of Gaza City, in the north of the Gaza Strip, including the bombing of the Sheikh Ajlin, Al-Zaytoun and Tal Al-Hawa neighborhoods, resulting in several casualties.

Local residents also mourned the deaths of 16 Palestinians, including 10 belonging to the Zarub family, martyred as a result of IOF bombing raids targeting residential buildings in the western and eastern sections of Rafah city, in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday.

As a result of "Israel's ongoing Special Genocide Operation in the Gaza Strip, the infinitely rising death toll among Palestinian civilians now exceeds 32'975 martyred, over 25'000 of which being women and children according to the United States Pentagon, while an additional 75'577 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression beginning on October 7th, 2023.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

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doomonfilm · 3 years

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Memories : Top 15 Films of 2020

If 2020 taught movie fans anything, it was that we shouldn’t take things for granted. On the dollars and cents side of things, movie theaters were already facing an uphill battle to stay sustainable, but the “shelter-in-place” practice of March and beyond decimated box office returns, with many theaters yet to reopen (if they will open at all). In terms of famous names and faces, the list of those who passed away featured numerous icons : Kobe Bryant, Kirk Douglas, Max von Sydow, Honor Blackman, Carl Reiner, Ennio Morricone, John Saxon, Wilford Brimley, Chadwick Boseman, Sean Connery, Tiny Lister Jr., Adolfo ‘Shabba Doo’ Quinones and many more transitioned to the great beyond. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Shudder and a number of other streaming services saw themselves step into the forefront of the entertainment provider realm, with Warner Brothers and a handful of other studios making announcements that they will be following suit for at least 2021, if not for good.

With all of this uncertainty and chaos, however, the year 2020 was a surprisingly strong one, in my opinion, when it came to cinematic output... so much so, in fact, that aside from a number of Honorable Mentions, my list of top films was expanded to 15 in order to accommodate all of my choices. For anyone who has checked out my lists from previous years, you will know that I did not see every film released this year, but I did make my best effort to cover as wide a range of films as possible. Enjoy the list, and be sure to support film in whatever medium you are able to moving forward so that it can thrive.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The 40-Year-Old Version (dir. Radha Blank) A nice little personal film that spoke to my hip-hop sensibility, as well as that ever-present awareness of the inevitability of age, and how it can skew our perspective in regards to our achievements.

Ava (dir. Tate Taylor) This isn’t the action film that’s going to reinvent the wheel, but if you look at action films like wheels, this is a quality wheel. Outside of Common, I couldn’t really find much to shoot down... this will definitely be one I consider the next time I have company and we’re looking for something fun to check out.

Bill & Ted Face The Music (dir. Dean Parisot) I honestly would have been satisfied with just two films in this franchise, but surprisingly, a third entry was created that didn’t ruin my overall enjoyment of the previous two films. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter jumped in without missing a beat, a healthy dose of familiar faces popped back up, and the new cast additions weren’t too jarring... it’s nice to know that a pair of my favorite childhood films are officially now part of a trilogy.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (dir. Jason Woliner) This was possibly the most surprising release of 2020... outside of a couple of news blips that Sacha Baron Cohen made during production, not a lot about this film was leaked prior to its release. For such a dated character and a seemingly outdated style of humor, Borat once again exposed the simplest parts of society in an incredibly insightful (albeit cringey as all get-out) manner.

Guns Akimbo (dir. Jason Lei Howden) One of the most fun films of 2020. Somewhere, the creative minds behind Nerve are wishing that they’d made this film instead.

Henrietta and Her Dismal Display of Affection (dir. Jeffrey Garcia) Jeffrey Garcia is the homie, and I’ve had the pleasure of being in a number of his short films, so when he announced his intentions to write and shoot a feature film in 2020, I was completely on-board. Miraculously, he was able to film the movie while the world was being ravaged by COVID-19, and though I cannot publicly announce details yet, this film has definitely already met (and likely succeeded) his expectations.

The Midnight Sky (dir. George Clooney) With each film that George Clooney directs, I realize more and more than he is an old soul trapped in a body idolized by the new school of film. That being said, it’s nice to know that there are directors out there willing to embrace patient, silent and contemplative moments while simultaneously withholding from force-feeding viewers exposition.

Tenet (dir. Christopher Nolan) This was possibly the most anticipated release of the year, considering it was the king of the IMAX release crowd in its pre-release promotion. After a small delay due to COVID-19, it was one of the first films released in hopes of testing the movie-going waters during what was sure to be a diminished period of time, which probably hurt its numbers. Too many, the film was confusing, and the nit-picking was fierce from the criticism contingency, but in all honesty, this was pretty impressive Nolan fare... certainly a good second movie in a Nolan double feature.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (dir. Aaron Sorkin) I cannot tell a lie... I was hugely impressed with how Sorkin managed to reel his personality and voice back in order to let this well-known, controversial moment in time present itself. Sorkin has a tendency to be the star of his films, be it when he is in the writer or director role, but for this film, he managed to focus the best parts of his skillset into a highly respectful, educational and inspiring tale that fit the tumultuous summer we endured.

VHYes (dir. Jack Henry Robbins) I remember seeing this trailer as 2019 was coming to a close, and it was a film high on my list of desired viewing. Then 2020 reared its ugly, stupid head and many releases disappeared into obscurity or found themselves delayed. Luckily, this one slipped through the cracks and found a home in the streaming world, which in all honesty, suited its presentation very well. One of the most delightfully weird films of the year, hands down.

Vivarium (dir. Lorcan Finnegan) Of all the films cut from my Top 15 list, this was the toughest cut to make. I went into the film totally blind (with Jesse Eisenberg and my respect for his acting chops being the sole selling point), but this film really hit a lot of my buttons... it’s trippy as can be, there is a character that is freakishly unique and wholly unnerving, and the production design leaves a lasting impression. Don’t let the Honorable Mention designation fool you... this one is a winner.

Wonder Woman 1984 (dir. Patty Jenkins) The Christmas gift that the masses collectively decided that they did not want. Much like Ava, there is one glaring aspect of this film that I could have done without, but otherwise, I found this to be an enjoyable film. Gal Gadot was made for this role, while Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal stepped up to the plate and impressed. If you’re looking to be blown away, the Wonder Woman franchise isn’t the smartest place to go, but if you’re looking for entertainment, there’s plenty of it here.

THE TOP 15 FILMS OF 2020

15. Mignonnes (dir. Maïmouna Doucouré) This one started off the year with plenty of controversy. What was an award-winning tale about womanhood and the difficulties surrounding coming of age in an ever-changing and evolving world quickly devolved into a campaign to ban the film (and Netflix). Many people overlooked the film as a cautionary tale about what access to the Internet and the sexually-charged nature in which women are portrayed can do to developing girls, instead choosing to accuse the film of being fodder for malicious types seeking to exploit the sexualizing of young women. More than anything, in my opinion, Mignonnes served as an example of our outrage-fueled culture and the way it tends to skew our perspective and/or our ability to take art at face value.

14. His House (dir. Remi Weekes) As I’ve mentioned many times over the past week or so on this blog, horror films were one of the few genres that found a benefit from the film industry’s transition to streaming services for primary access to film. While a number of traditional horror films received notice, His House took the opportunity to not only make a pure horror film, but one that spoke on racism and the conditions that asylum-seekers and refugees face. The film is well-acted, the production value is high quality, and it’s paced beautifully... while not the highest film on this list, it is certainly one I will encourage others to see as time goes by.

13. All Day and a Night (dir. Joe Robert Cole) When human nature reared its ugly head during COVID-19 in the form of numerous race-related killings, multitudes of businesses quickly adopted the Black Lives Matter mantra, with film distributors and streaming services taking advantage of the moment to produce and release content relevant to cultural and social awareness. Netflix was no different, and of the many films they released in the wake of the harrowing events, All Day and a Night is the one that feels the most sincere and honest in its approach and presentation. The streets of Oakland are presented with a vast array of characters, each with complex backgrounds and states of mind, all of which helps the viewer understand the pressure many minorities live with and process on a daily basis.

12. She Dies Tomorrow (dir. Amy Seimetz) Execution is king, even when applied to the simplest of premises, and She Dies Tomorrow is a shining example of this. In a very John Cassavetes move, director Amy Seimetz took her payment from her appearance in Pet Sematary and used it to fund a personal project that more than likely would have been ignored by studio heads. The result is a hypnotic, entrancing and haunting film where stillness and anticipation play antagonist, while we as viewers feel the need to transpose ourselves into the protagonists we are presented due to their stilted but emotional performances. Hopefully this one finds some notoriety in the cult classic realm as the years pass.

11. The Vast of Night (dir. Andrew Patterson) For a debut film, The Vast of Night handles itself with a surprising amount of confidence in its vision. The immersion is nearly instant as we are first placed in the premise of a TV show, and then a 1950′s town, but once the actors and camera get going, it’s up to us as viewers to strap in for the ride. The story is deeply intriguing, the performances are strong enough to carry a very dialogue heavy movie, and the final act is chilling in its reveals. I will be surprised if this one finds its way to a Best Original Screenplay nomination due to it being a debut film from a relatively unknown writer/director, but if it manages to get the nomination it will certainly be a well-deserved one.

10. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (dir. Cathy Yan) The movie that broke the list. If someone would have told me in 2019 that a film directly connected to Suicide Squad would be anywhere on a Top Films list I curated, I would have laughed dead in their face, and yet, here we are. It’s like every good idea that was poorly executed in Suicide Squad found new life in Birds of Prey, which makes the film not only an entertaining watch, but a satisfying one. Not only is Margot Robbie perfect in this film (as well as given a break on the exploitative costuming), but Mary Elizabeth Winstead arguably takes a stab at stealing the show with her performance. Don’t let the DCEU association fool you... Birds of Prey is the real deal.

9. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (dir. Eliza Hittman) Probably the most contemplative film on the entire list, and impressive in its nature for sure. To my knowledge, the cast is made up of mostly unknowns (unless I’m sleeping on actors and actresses, which has been known to happen), and as a result, a tough slice of life to swallow is presented in an extremely grounded nature. Sidney Flanigan gives a powerful performance, hopefully the first of many.

8. Possessor [Uncut] (dir. Brandon Cronenberg) Easily the most “what the f-ck” film on this list, and certainly one worthy of the Cronenberg name. Andrea Riseborough has been on my radar since Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and Mandy, and seeing her in a lead role confirms her talent. I’m a sucker for science-fiction films that don’t rely on digital effects and elaborate set pieces, and Possessor rings both of those bells with a vengeance. I watched the uncut version, which has a couple of extremely brutal sequences that will unnerve even the most hardened viewer, but these sequences only serve to drive home the lost nature of Tasya, our protagonist. This one isn’t for everyone, but for those who can stomach a bit off graphicness and process a narrative that doesn’t spoon-feed you answers, this one is a must see.

7. Da 5 Bloods (dir. Spike Lee) Spike Lee has always been a huge influence on me as both an aspiring filmmaker and a fan of the medium, but I’d be lying if I told you that his last decade was a memorable one. Outside of BlacKkKlansman, Lee has found himself falling short of his vision more often than not, but Da 5 Bloods is a tonal and stylistic bullseye. Fans of Lee will dig it, fans of Vietnam films will dig it, and anyone who had an inkling of respect or admiration for Chadwick Boseman will be moved. If Lee continues to make films as good as this one, he may find an entirely new generation of fans as a result.

6. Soul (dir. Pete Docter) As mentioned at the top of this list, people love to try and sink films due to their own personal agendas, and Soul found itself in the crosshairs prior to its late 2020 release. Many people were upset that a minority character would not only spend most of the movie as a blue blob, but would also seemingly serve as a tool for another character’s “salvation”. That being said, once Soul dropped, anybody with common sense dropped those stances and realized that Pixar had not only made a stunningly beautiful film, but one that likely spoke to adults more than children. Plain and simple, Soul is a bonafide instant classic.

5. Kajillionaire (dir. Miranda July) If Evan Rachel Wood doesn’t win an Oscar for her performance in Kajillionaire (or at least garner a nomination), Hollywood needs to collectively have their head checked. Every year worth its salt has a weird, quirky but loveable film, and Miranda July more than succeeded in making one for 2020. The humor, both physical and dialogue-based, is on point, and the bittersweet nature of the story is gut-wrenching as the film progresses. This one was probably the biggest surprise for 2020 in terms of prior awareness versus post-watch admiration.

4. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (dir. George C. Wolfe) The final film of Chadwick Boseman’s short but prolific career is one that allowed him to exist in the wake of his reality, making his performance powerful and (seemingly) cathartic. He is surrounded by supreme talent on all sides, as there are no weak performances in this film, and despite it essentially being a play shot for film, it feels far from limited, contained or constrained. Not only does it speak on larger issues of the commodification of Black pain and talent, but it may serve as a vehicle for a posthumous Oscar for Boseman.

3. The Devil All The Time (dir. Antonio Campos) This was the first Netflix original that made me really and truly respect them as a film distributor. The list of talent for The Devil All The Time is truly impressive, and Tom Holland knocked his lead role out of the park. Robert Pattinson is great as always, and the way that the story winds back into itself keeps you locked in and connected until the credits roll. For something that came out so many months ago, it’s respectable that it was able to hold such a high position on a list that was as fluid as any I’ve ever put together.

2. Mank (dir. David Fincher) For a time, this was the hands down film of the year on my list. Gary Oldman has basically become a “can do no wrong” actor, and his performance was amplified by David Fincher’s ability to emulate the look, sound and feel of a bygone Hollywood era. On top of this, the built in intrigue that comes with handling anything remotely connected to Orson Welles is present, making Mank almost feel like a companion piece to the prolific film that is Citizen Kane. If The Devil All The Time was a victory for Netflix, then Mank was the win that put them into a true spot as contenders in the future of film distribution.

1. I'm Thinking of Ending Things (dir. Charlie Kaufman) Where does one even begin with Charlie Kaufman? Time and again, he proves to be one of the most truly unique voices to gain fame. For I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Kaufman seemingly returns to his foundation of odd, offbeat love stories, only to take us on a journey of truly mind-bending and psyche-warping proportions. Of all the movies on this list, this is the one that almost demands repeat viewings, as one must have an idea of the entire journey before they can understand the individual aspects laid out. If dialogue isn’t your thing, then this one may not hold you, but that would be a shame, as this beautiful mystery stands head and shoulders above the rest of 2020′s stellar output.

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chocobroness · 4 years

Text

DrawingS?

Ladies.

Gentlemen

And of course, all lovable manners of bio-organic configurations.

That’s right. I have managed to draw not one=

Not three-

But SIX drawings of OC characters for a certain AU of a child run city.

Yes yes. To those who DID message me about them.

I have decided to share them.

(Btw I love you guys for sending said messages.)

Okay, ART.

((Always nice to have a summary of said OCs. ))

—

Ava Varius

Age: 10

Birthday: March 7

Loves: Relaxing, watching clouds, music, taking care of those younger than her.

Hates: loudness, bullies, unfairness, people trying to start a fight with her, forcefully woken up when she’s sleeping.

(Present and Future Job): Head caretaker of the younger children.

Summary: oldest daughter and heir to a minor noble family. She has always had a hand in taking care of her younger siblings. A calm attitude is a must when the situation becomes serious. Which she definitely has.

Ava was rescued along with a group of 5 & 6 year olds by Noctis’ group 7 months after the adults vanished. Before that, she had been the slave/punching bag for a gang of 12 year olds in exchange for them not hurting the younger kids they forced into the gang.

She watched Noctis be very involved with caring for his group, making sure everyone was comfortable and safe. How he handled the younger kids especially cemented her place in his group.

When she’s not caring for the younger children. She somewhere napping or watching the clouds. Noctis trusts her ideas to always have the younger children’s safety forever in mind.

—

Amata Eshmun

Age: 11

Birthday: May 21

Loves: Sheep, Learning about medicine, berries, and exercise.

Hates: discrimination, centipedes & mosquitoes, when someone disturbs her medical research.

(Future Job): Head Doctor and Medical Researcher

Summary: Daughter of a Surgeon mother and a herbalist father, Amata is from a middle class family with dreams of following her parents footsteps in the medical field. Being surrounded by her family’s medical books her whole life, she has a firm grasp on first aid, and is considered a well practiced herbalist by her father.

She met Noctis one year after the adults vanished. Offering medical aid to any kid that needed it. She became immediately well known for her herbal medicine and her kind nature.

She joined up with Noctis after realizing that sooner rather than later, she would be hunted down by the more vicious gangs for her skills if she remained by herself. Hoping Noct’s group can help her perfect her skills, She has henceforth claimed the medical wing of the Citadel and the nearby hospital as her own.

She pours over her father’s personal journals during her spare time and always worries that the time when her current skill isn’t enough to save someone will come sooner than she expects.

—

Valentina Drusus

Age: 7

Birthday: April 19

Loves: throwing things that blow up, making things that blow up, catching bugs, riding her golf cart (or any vehicle), baking.

Hates: being mocked for her height, people calling her stupid, being called weak.

(Future Job): Demolitions Expert.

Summary: Born the youngest daughter of a low class family, she fell in love with making things go boom after watching her older brother blow up the microwave when she was 4. Her temper is shorter than her or the fuses of her bombs. She has constantly been made fun of for her height, interests and tomboy-ish attitude.

She joined up with Noct’s group two years after the adults vanished when she was being threatened to join a gang that wanted to use her skills in bomb making to force smaller gangs of kids to join them. She then proceeded to use the same desired skills to destroy their base and managing to ride off in a car that still had its key in the engine. In exchange for her protection, (and to forget that she nearly ran them over.) she agreed to teach others how to safely make bombs to protect the Citadel.

She and Gladiolus are normally seen arguing with each other over silly things.

—

Gaius Cecil

Age: 12

Birthday: October 24

Loves: Reading, restoring antiques with his mom, history, the scarf his father gave him, throwing darts, large bodies of water.

Hates: being forced to speak more than he needs to, loud music, olives, too much heat.

(Future Job): head researcher of history, old war tactics and fighting styles.

Summary: Arrived as an infant to the Crown City as a refugee from Galahd, Gaius has always observed the world quietly. He was at home sick the day of the mass vanishing, not realizing something was wrong until his mother and father failed to return that same night. Quiet, he prefers to be ignored. Only enjoying the spotlight when someone brings up topics about antiques and history.

Arrived alongside his neighbor Amata when she mentioned her decision to join Noct’s group.

Is normally seen discussing ancient war tactics and weaponry with Ignis.

—

Silas Castro

Age: 8

Birthday: January 9

Loves: video games, calligraphy, learning how to maintain bikes and cars, sports and motorbikes.

Hates: forced to dress in very feminine clothes. Cleaning the dishes. Being inactive for long periods of time.

(Future Job): head mechanic and test driver.

—

Summary: Her mother was a stuntwoman and a motorcyclist, while her father was a mechanic. They introduced Silas to the beauty of motorbikes and car engines.

A typical tomboy, she says what’s on her mind and has a keen eye for any form of motor powered bikes.

Silas led the first group of children to the citadel, demanding shelter and protection during the first weeks without adults.

She claimed the garage and the cars for herself. Though she does like fixing up the golf carts Valentina brings her and taking them for a spin. Promising that she can make a large vehicle for kids to drive someday soon.

Silas gained Noct’s trust after managing to obtain a fire truck and drive it to a burning house which had a few children trapped inside.

Ignis and Amata need to force her and Valentina to that stay away from the more dangerous engines. Ignis stating that they doesn’t have the hands-on experience to handle them and Amata telling them to wait until she can reattach limbs so they be reckless.

—

Kaiser Roux

Age: 10

Birthday: September 18

Loves: Reading, his vegetable gardens, learning how to cook, and changing his voice to sound like others.

Hates: unnecessary violence, wasting food, crawfish.

(Future Job): Head cook and gardener.

Summary: His mother passed away when he was a baby and with a busy strict father, he became self-sufficient very quickly. Becoming incredibly fond of gardening at a young age, which led to him swiftly learn to use the vegetables he grew for meals, He took to the mass vanishing very easily. Making food for the children living on his street and making them laugh with his voice impressions.

He took them into his house, feeding and clothing them for two and a half years when he met Prompto, who offered a place into Noct’s group.

He has gladly taken charge of the kitchens while leading a large group of helpers and happily tends to the herbal gardens and vegetables fields with Amata.

—-

That’s all of the kids from the photo!

Any questions, just send more asks!

(DAMN this was long.)

#final fantasy xv #ocs #ffxv oc #my art #drawings #sketch #Crystal Made City AU

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chiseler · 4 years

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A Palestinian Guide to Surviving a Quarantine: On Faith, Humor and ‘Dutch Candy’

Call it a ‘quarantine’, a ‘shelter-in-place’, a ‘lockdown’ or a ‘curfew’, we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily.

Personally, the first 23 years of my life were lived in virtual ‘lockdown’. My father’s ‘quarantine’ was experienced much earlier, as did his father’s ‘shelter-in-place’ before him. They both died and were buried in Gaza’s cemeteries without ever experiencing true freedom outside of their refugee camp in Gaza.

Currently in Gaza, the quarantine has a different name. We call it ‘siege’, also known as ‘blockade’.

In fact, all of Palestine has been in a state of ‘lockdown’ since the late 1940s when Israel became a state and the Palestinian homeland was erased by Zionist colonialists with the support of their Western benefactors.

That lockdown intensified in 1967 when Israel, now a powerful state with a large army and strong allies, occupied the remaining parts of Palestine - East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Under this lockdown, the Palestinian freedom of movement was curtailed

to the extent that Palestinians required permits from the Israeli military to leave the Occupied Territories or to return home, to move about from one town to the other, and, at times, to cross a single Israeli military checkpoint or a fortified wall.

In Palestine, we don’t call our imprisonment a lockdown, but a ‘military occupation’ and ‘apartheid’.

As for ‘shelter-in-place’, in Palestine, we have a different name for it. We call it a ‘military curfew’.

Since I was a child, I learned to listen intently to orders barked out by Israeli military officers as they swept through our refugee camp in Gaza declaring or easing military curfews. This ritual often happened late at night.

“People of Nuseirat, per orders of the Israeli military you are now under curfew. Anyone who violates orders will be shot immediately,” the terrifying words, always communicated through a loudspeaker in broken Arabic, were a staple during the First Palestinian Uprising (Intifada) of 1987.

The period between 1987 to 1993 was a virtual ‘lockdown’. Thousands of people, mostly children, were killed for failing to respect the rules of their collective imprisonment.

In Gaza, even when a full military curfew was not in place, we rarely left our small and crowded neighborhoods, let alone our refugee camps. We were all haunted by the fear that we may not be able to make it home by 8p.m., the time designated by the Israeli military for all of us to return home.

Every day, ten or fifteen minutes after the nightly curfew set in, we would hear the crackling and hissing of bullets as they whistled through the air from various distances. Automatically, we would conclude that some poor soul - a worker, a teacher, or a rowdy teenager - missed his chance by a few minutes, and paid a price for it.

Now that nearly half of the population of planet Earth are experiencing some form of ‘curfew’ or another, I would like to share a few suggestions on how to survive the prolonged confinement, the Palestinian way.

Think Ahead

Since we knew that a complete lockdown, or a military curfew, was always pending, we tried to anticipate the intensity and duration of it and prepare accordingly.

For example, when the Israeli army killed one or more refugees, we knew in advance that mass protests would follow, thus more killings. In these situations, a curfew was imminent.

Number one priority was to ensure that all family members congregated at home or stayed within close proximity so that they could rush in as fast as possible when the caravan of Israeli military jeeps and tanks came thundering, opening fire at anyone or anything within sight.

Lesson number one: Always think ahead and prepare for a longer lockdown than the initial one declared by your city or state.

Stay Calm

My father had a bad temper, although a very kind heart. When curfews were about to start, he would enter into a near-panic state. A chain smoker with obsessive, although rational fear that one of his five boys would eventually be killed, he would walk around the house in a useless rush, not knowing what to do next.

Typically, my mother would come in, rational and calculating. She would storm the kitchen to assess what basic supplies were missing, starting with the flour, sugar and olive oil.

Knowing that the first crackdown by the Israelis would be on water supplies and electricity, she would fill several plastic containers of water, designating some for tea, coffee and cooking, and others for dishes and washing clothes.

Per her orders, we would rush to the nearby stores to make small but necessary purchases - batteries for the flashlight and the transistor radio, cigarettes for my dad, and a few VHS videotapes which we would watch over and again, whether the curfew lasted for a few days or a few weeks.

Lesson number two: Take control of the situation - do not panic - and assign specific responsibilities to every family member. This strengthens the family unit and sets the stage for collective solidarity desperately required under these circumstances.

Preserve Your Water

I cannot emphasize this enough. Even if you think that a water crisis is not impending, do not take chances.

It is easy to feel invincible and fully prepared on the first day of quarantine - or military curfew. Many times, we lived to regret that false sense of readiness, as we drank too much tea or squandered our dishwashing water supplies too quickly.

In this case, you have a serious problem, especially during the summer months when you cannot count on rainwater to make up for the deficit.

Years after the end of the Intifada, my father revealed to us that many a time, him and mom used the rainwater they collected in buckets throughout the house, including the leaked roofs for our drinking supplies, even when there was no electricity or gas to boil the water beforehand.

In retrospect, this explains the many bouts of diarrhea we experienced, despite his assurances that they had painstakingly removed all bird droppings from the salvaged water.

Lesson number three: Cautiously use your water supplies during a quarantine, and never, under any circumstance, drink rainwater or, at least, keep diarrhea pills handy.

Ration Your Food

The same logic that applies to water applies to food. It goes without saying that any acquired food would have to cover the basics first. For example, flour, which we used to make bread, comes before bananas, and sugar, which we consumed abundantly with tea, comes before Dutch candy.

I made that mistake more than once, not because of my love for the imported Dutch candy which we purchased from Abu Sa’dad’s store, located in the center of the camp. The truth is, my brothers and I played a strange form of candy poker which kept us entertained for many hours. I dreaded running out of my precious supplies before the curfew was over, thus subjugating myself to potential humiliation of having to auction everything else I owned - including my small radio - to stay in the game.

My poor mother was devastated numerous times by the horrible choices we made when we rushed to buy ‘essentials’.

Lesson number four: Agree in advance on what classifies as ‘essential food’, and consume your food in a rational way. Also, if you are lucky enough to locate Dutch candy in whatever version of the Abu Sa’dad’s store, in your town, do not gamble it all in one day.

Find Sources of Entertainment

If electricity is still available, then you still have the option of watching television. For us, Indian movies, especially those starring Amitabh Bachchan, were the number one option. Imagine my disappointment when our beloved movie star, who helped us through numerous military curfews in Gaza, was photographed grinning with right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the latter’s visit to India in 2018.

If electricity is cut off, be ready with alternative options: books, free wrestling, living-room soccer (with the ball preferably made from stuffed-up socks contributed by all family members), and, of course, candy poker.

Lesson number five: The key is to have more than one form of entertainment and to be prepared for every eventuality, including power outages as a form of collective punishment.

Find the Humor in Grim Situations

Don’t focus on the negatives; there is no point or wisdom in that. Emphasizing the grimness of a situation can only contribute to the feeling of defeat and powerlessness that are already generated by the lockdown. There will be plenty of time in which you can look back, reflect, and even bemoan your unfortunate circumstance.

But, during the curfew itself is when you actually need your sense of humor most. Take things lightly - laugh at your miserable situation, if you must. Forgive yourself for not being perfect, for panicking when you should have been composed, or for forcing your younger brother to gamble his underwear when he runs out of Dutch candy.

Difficult situations can offer the kind of scenarios that can be interpreted in two extreme ways: either extremely tragic or extremely funny; opt for the latter whenever you can, because as long as you laugh, as long as your spirit remains unbroken, your humanity remains intact.

Lesson number six: Be funny, don’t take life too seriously, share a laugh with others, and let humor inject hope in every hour and every day of your quarantine.

Hold Tighter to Your Faith

Whether you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or any other faith; whether you are an atheist, agnostic, or practice any form of spirituality, philosophy or belief system, find comfort in your faith and beliefs.

Since all mosques in our refugee camp were shut down, if not raided during a military curfew, the call for prayer, which we heard five times during each day, was permanently silenced.

To keep the call for prayer going, we would sneak to the roof of our houses, carefully scan the area for any Israeli soldiers, and collectively make the call for prayer whenever it was required. Volunteers included my English teacher, who was communist and claimed that he did not believe in God, myself, and Nabil, the neighbor boy with the massive head and the most unpleasant voice.

In curfews, we developed a different relationship with God: He became a personal and more intimate companion, as we often prayed in total darkness, whispered our verses so very cautiously as not to be heard by pesky soldiers. And, even those who hardly prayed before the curfew kept up with all five prayers during the lockdown.

Lesson number seven: Let your values guide you during your hours of loneliness. And if you volunteer to make a call for prayer (or recite your religious hymns) please be honest with yourself: if you have no sense of rhythm or if your voice has the pitch of an angry alley cat, for God’s sake, leave the job to someone else.

In Conclusion ..

I hope that under no circumstances you will ever hear these ominous words: “You are now under curfew. Anyone who violates orders will be shot immediately.” I also hope that this COVID-19 quarantine will make us kinder to each other and will make us emerge from our homes better people, ready to take on global challenges while united in our common faith, collective pain and a renewed sense of love for our environment.

And when it’s all over, think of Palestine, for her people have been ‘quarantined’ for 71 years and counting.

by Ramzy Baroud

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phroyd · 5 years

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From Esquire

Surely, the United States of America could not operate concentration camps. In the American consciousness, the term is synonymous with the Nazi death machines across the European continent that the Allies began the process of dismantling 75 years ago this month. But while the world-historical horrors of the Holocaust are unmatched, they are only the most extreme and inhuman manifestation of a concentration-camp system-which, according to Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, has a more global definition. There have been concentration camps in France, South Africa, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and-with Japanese internment-the United States. In fact, she contends we are operating such a system right now in response to a very real spike in arrivals at our southern border.

“We have what I would call a concentration camp system,” Pitzer says, “and the definition of that in my book is, mass detention of civilians without trial.”

Historians use a broader definition of concentration camps, as well.

"What's required is a little bit of demystification of it," says Waitman Wade Beorn, a Holocaust and genocide studies historian and a lecturer at the University of Virginia. "Things can be concentration camps without being Dachau or Auschwitz. Concentration camps in general have always been designed-at the most basic level-to separate one group of people from another group. Usually, because the majority group, or the creators of the camp, deem the people they're putting in it to be dangerous or undesirable in some way."

Not every concentration camp is a death camp-in fact, their primary purpose is rarely extermination, and never in the beginning. Often, much of the death and suffering is a result of insufficient resources, overcrowding, and deteriorating conditions. So far, 24 people have died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration, while six children have died in the care of other agencies since September. Systems like these have emerged across the world for well over 100 years, and they've been established by putative liberal democracies-as with Britain's camps in South Africa during the Boer War-as well as authoritarian states like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Camps set up with one aim can be repurposed by new regimes, often with devastating consequences.

History is banging down the door this week with the news the Trump administration will use Fort Sill, an Oklahoma military base that was used to detain Japanese-Americans during World War II, to house 1,400 unaccompanied migrant children captured at the border. Japanese internment certainly constituted a concentration-camp system, and the echoes of the past are growing louder. Of course, the Obama administration temporarily housed migrants at military bases, including Fort Sill, for four months in 2014, built many of the newer facilities to house migrants, and pioneered some of the tactics the Trump administration is now using to try to manage the situation at the border.

The government of the United States would never call the sprawling network of facilities now in use across many states "concentration camps," of course. They’re referred to as "federal migrant shelters" or "temporary shelters for unaccompanied minors" or "detainment facilities" or the like. (The initial processing facilities are run by Border Patrol, and the system is primarily administered to by the Department of Homeland Security. Many adults are transferred to ICE, which now detains more than 52,000 people across 200 facilities on any given day-a record high. Unaccompanied minors are transferred to Department of Health and Human Services custody.) But by Pitzer's measure, the system at the southern border first set up by the Bill Clinton administration, built on by Barack Obama's government, and brought into extreme and perilous new territory by Donald Trump and his allies does qualify. Two historians who specialize in the area largely agree.

Many of the people housed in these facilities are not "illegal" immigrants. If you present yourself at the border seeking asylum, you have a legal right to a hearing under domestic and international law. They are, in another formulation, refugees-civilian non-combatants who have not committed a crime, and who say they are fleeing violence and persecution. Yet these human beings, who mostly hail from Central America's Northern Triangle of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador-a region ravaged by gang violence and poverty and corruption and what increasingly appears to be some of the first forced migrations due to climate change-are being detained on what increasingly seems to be an indefinite basis.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration continually seeks new ways to stop people from applying for asylum, and to discourage others from attempting to. The current regime has sought to restrict the asylum criteria to exclude the exact issues, like gang or domestic violence, that these desperate people often cite for why they fled their homes. The administration has sought to introduce application fees and work-permit restraints. They have tried to prohibit migrants from seeking asylum "if they have resided in a country other than their own before coming to the U.S.," which would essentially eliminate anyone who traveled to the border through Mexico. Much of this has been struck down in federal court.

But most prominently, Trump's Department of Homeland Security has used "metering" at the border, where migrants are forced to wait for days or weeks on the Mexican side-often sleeping in makeshift shelters or fully exposed to the elements-until they are allowed across border checkpoints to make their asylum claims and be processed. That processing system is overwhelmed, and the Obama administration also used metering at various points, but it remains unclear whether the wait times need to be as long as they are. (DHS did not respond to a request for comment.) There are no guarantees on how long migrants will have to wait, and so they've increasingly turned to crossing illegally between checkpoints-which constitutes "illegal entry," a misdemeanor-in order to present themselves for asylum. This criminalizes them, and the Trump administration tried to make illegal entry a disqualifier for asylum claims. The overall effort appears to be to make it as difficult as possible to get a hearing to adjudicate those claims, raising the specter that people can be detained longer or indefinitely.

All this has been achieved through two mechanisms: militarization and dehumanization. In her book, Pitzer describes camps as “a deliberate choice to inject the framework of war into society itself." These kinds of detention camps are a military endeavor: they are defensible in wartime, when enemy combatants must be detained, often for long periods without trial. They were a hallmark of World War I Europe. But inserting them into civil society, and using them to house civilians, is a materially different proposition. You are revoking the human and civil rights of non-combatants without legal justification.

"In the origins of the camps, it's tied to the idea of martial law," says Jonathan Hyslop, author of "The Invention of the Concentration Camp: Cuba, Southern Africa and the Philippines, 1896–1907," and a professor of sociology and anthropology at Colgate University. "I mean, all four of the early instances-Americans in the Philippines, Spanish in Cuba, and British in South Africa, and Germans in Southwest Africa-they're all essentially overriding any sense of rights of the civilian population. And the idea is that you're able to suspend normal law because it's a war situation."

This pairs well with the rhetoric that Trump deploys to justify the system and his unconstitutional power grabs, like the phony "national emergency": he describes the influx of asylum-seekers and other migrants as an "invasion," language his allies are mirroring with increasing extremism. If you're defending yourself from an invasion, anything is defensible.

That goes hand-in-hand with the strategy of dehumanization. For decades, the right has referred to undocumented immigrants as "illegals," stripping them of any identity beyond an immigration status. Trump kicked off his formal political career by characterizing Hispanic immigrants as "rapists" and "drug-dealers" and "criminals," never once sharing, say, the story of a woman who came here with her son fleeing a gang's threats. It is always MS-13 and strong, scary young men. There's talk of "animals" and monsters, and suddenly anything is justifiable. In fact, it must be done. Trump's supporters have noticed. At a recent rally, someone in the crowd screamed out that people arriving at the border should be shot. In response, the president cracked a "joke."

"It's important here to look at the language that people are using," Hyslop says. "As soon as you get people comparing other groups to animals or insects, or using language about advancing hordes, and we're being overrun and flooded and this sort of thing, it's creating the sense of this enormous threat. And that makes it much easier to sell to people on the idea we've got to do something drastic to control this population which going to destroy us."

In a grotesque formulation of the chicken-and-the-egg conundrum, housing people in these camps furthers their dehumanization.

"There's this crystallization that happens," Pitzer says. "The longer they're there, the worse conditions get. That's just a universal of camps. They're overcrowded. We already know from reports that they don't have enough beds for the numbers that they have. As you see mental health crises and contagious diseases begin to set in, they'll work to manage the worst of it. [But] then there will be the ability to tag these people as diseased, even if we created [those conditions]. Then we, by creating the camps, try to turn that population into the false image that we [used] to put them in the camps to start with. Over time, the camps will turn those people into what Trump was already saying they are."

Make no mistake: the conditions are in decline. When I went down to see the detention facility in McAllen, Texas, last summer at the height of the "zero-tolerance" policy that led inevitably to family separation, Border Patrol agents were by all appearances doing the very best they could with limited resources. That includes the facilities themselves, which at that point were mostly built-by the Clinton administration in the '90s-to house single adult males who were crossing the border illegally to find work. By that point, Border Patrol was already forced to use them to hold families and other asylum-seekers, and agents told me the situation was untenable. They lacked requisite staff with the training to care for young children, and overcrowding was already an issue.

But according to a report from Trump's own government-specifically, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security-the situation has deteriorated significantly even since then. The facilities are overcrowded, underfunded, and perhaps at a perilous inflection point. It found adult detainees are "being held in 'standing-room-only conditions' for days or weeks at a border patrol facility in Texas," Reuters reports. But it gets worse.

Single adults were held in cells designed for one-fifth as many detainees as were housed there and were wearing soiled clothing for days or weeks with limited access to showers, the report said. Pictures published with the report show women packed tightly together in a holding cell.

“We also observed detainees standing on toilets in the cells to make room and gain breathing space, thus limiting access to toilets,” the watchdog wrote.

This was at Paso del Norte, a facility near El Paso, which has a stated capacity of 125 detainees. But when DHS inspectors visited, it was holding 900. For a period, Border Patrol tried housing migrants in cage under a nearby bridge. It was ultimately scrapped amid public outcry. When migrants and asylum-seekers are transferred to ICE, things can get worse. Queer and trans migrants face exceptionally harsh treatment, with reports of high levels of physical and sexual abuse, and the use of solitary confinement-considered torture by many psychologists-is widespread. As a reminder, by DHS's own assertion, these detainments are civil, not criminal, and are not meant to be punitive in the way of a prison. Many of these people have not even been accused of a crime.

Again: these are inhuman conditions, and crystalize the dehumanization. So, too, does the Trump administration's decision, reported by The Washington Post, to cancel classes, recreational programs, and even legal aid for the children held at facilities for unaccompanied minors. Why should these kids get to play soccer or learn English? Why should they get legal assistance? They're detainees.

The administration is citing "budget pressures" related to what is undoubtedly a dramatic spike in arrivals at the border last month: 144,000 people were detained in May. It remains unclear how much of this is tied to the Trump administration's border policies, like metering, which have severely slowed the process of declaring oneself for asylum and left people camped on the Mexican border for days or weeks after a thousand-mile trek through Mexico. Or Trump's recent all-out push to seize money for a border wall and declare "we're closed," which some speculate led to a surge of people trying to get over the line before that happened.

It's also in dispute how many of these people actually need to be detained. Vox's Dara Lind suggests releasing migrants from Guatemala or Honduras isn't straightforward as "many newly arrived asylum seekers aren’t familiar with the US, often speak neither English nor Spanish, and may not have appropriate clothing or funds for bus fare." But release with ankle bracelets has proven very effective as an alternative to detention: 99 percent of immigrants enrolled in one such program showed up for their court dates, though ICE claims it's less effective when someone is set to be deported. Those subjected to the bracelets say they are uncomfortable and demeaning, but it's better than stuffing a detention cell to five-times capacity. Unless, of course, that's exactly what you want to happen.

"At one point, [the administration] said that they were intentionally trying to split up families and make conditions unpleasant, so the people wouldn't come to the U.S.," Beorn, from UVA, says. "If you're doing that, then that's not a prison. That's not a holding area or a waiting area. That's a policy. I would argue, at least in the way that [the camps are] being used now, a significant portion of the mentality is [tied to] who the [detainees] are rather than what they did.

"If these were Canadians flooding across the border, would they be treated in the same manner as the people from Mexico and from Central and South America? If the answer is yes, theoretically, then I would consider these places to be perhaps better described as transit camps or prison camps. But I suspect that's not how they'd be treated, which then makes it much more about who the people are that you're detaining, rather than what they did. The Canadian would have crossed the border just as illegally as the Mexican, but my suspicion is, would be treated in a different way."

It was the revelation about school and soccer cuts that led Pitzer to fire off a tweet threadthis week outlining the similarities between the U.S. camp system and those of other countries. The first examples of a concentration camp, in the modern sense, come from Cuba in the 1890s and South Africa during the Second Boer War.

"What those camps had in common with what's going on today is they involved the wholesale detention of families, separate or together," Pitzer says. "There was very little in the way of targeted violence. Instead, people died from poor planning, overloaded facilities and unwillingness to reverse policy, even when it became apparent the policy wasn't working, inability to get medical care to detainees, poor food quality, contagious diseases, showing up in an environment where it became almost impossible to get control of them.

"The point is that you don't have to intend to kill everybody. When people hear the phrase 'Oh, there's concentration camps on the southern border,' they think, 'Oh, it's not Auschwitz.' Of course, it's not those things, each camp system is different. But you don't have to intend to kill everyone to have really bad outcomes. In Cuba, well over 100,000 civilians died in these camps in just a period of a couple years. In Southern Africa during the Boer War, fatalities went into the tens of thousands. And the overwhelming majority of them were children. Fatalities in the camps ended up being more than twice the combat fatalities from the war itself."

In-custody deaths have not reached their peak of a reported 32 people in 2004, but the current situation seems to be deteriorating. In just the last two weeks, three adults have died. And the Trump administration has not readily reported fatalities to the public. There could be more.

"There's usually this crisis period that a camp system either survives or doesn't survive in the first three or four years. If it goes past that length of time, they tend to continue for a really long time. And I think we have entered that crisis period. I don't yet know if we're out of it."

Camps often begin in wartime or a crisis point, and on a relatively small scale. There are then some in positions of power who want to escalate the program for political purposes, but who receive pushback from others in the regime. There's then a power struggle, and if the escalationists prevail over the other bureaucrats-as they appear to have here, with the supremacy of Stephen Miller over (the reliably pliant but less extreme) Kirstjen Nielsen-the camps will continue and grow. Almost by definition, the conditions will deteriorate, even despite the best intentions of those on the ground.

"It's a negative trajectory in at least two ways," Beorn says. "One, I feel like these policies can snowball. We've already seen unintended consequences. If we follow the thread of the children, for example, the government wanted to make things more annoying, more painful. So they decided, We're going to separate the children from the families. But there was no infrastructure in place for that. You already have a scenario where even if you have the best intentions, the infrastructure doesn't exist to support it. That's a consequence of policy that hasn't been thought through. As you see the population begin to massively increase over time, you do start to see conditions diminishing.

"The second piece is that the longer you establish this sort of extralegal, extrajudicial, somewhat-invisible no-man's land, the more you allow potentially a culture of abuse to develop within that place. Because the people who tend to become more violent, more prejudiced, whatever, have more and more free rein for that to become sort of the accepted behavior. Then, that also becomes a new norm that can spread throughout the system. There is sort of an escalation of individual initiative in violence. As it becomes clear that that is acceptable, then you have a self-fulfilling prophecy or a positive feedback loop that just keeps radicalizing the treatment as the policy itself becomes radicalizing."

And for a variety of reasons, these facilities are incredibly hard to close. "Unless there's some really decisive turn away, we're going to be looking at having these camps for a long time," Pitzer says. It's particularly hard to engineer a decisive turn because these facilities are often remote, and hard to protest. They are not top-of-mind for most citizens, with plenty of other issues on the table. When Trump first instituted the Muslim Ban-now considered, in its third iteration, to be Definitely Not a Muslim Ban by the Supreme Court-there were mass demonstrations at U.S. airports because they were readily accessible by concerned citizens. These camps are not so easily reached, and that's a problem.

"The more authoritarian the regime is, and the more people allow governments to get away with doing this sort of thing politically, the worse the conditions are likely to get," Hyslop says. "So, a lot of it depends on how much pushback there is. But when you get a totally authoritarian regime like Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union, there's no control, or no countervailing force, the state can do what it likes, and certainly things will then tend to break down.

"It's more of a political question, really. Are people prepared to tolerate the deteriorating conditions? And if public opinion isn't effective in a liberal democratic situation, things can still get pretty bad."

Almost regardless, the camps will be difficult to dismantle by their very nature-that extrajudicial "no-man's land" Beorn mentioned. The prison at Guantanamo Bay is a perfect example. It began in the early 1990s as a refugee camp for people fleeing Haiti and Cuba. The conditions were bad and legally questionable, Pitzer found, and eventually the courts stepped in to grant detainees some rights. In the process, however, they granted the camps tacit legitimacy-they were allowed to continue with the approval of the judiciary.

Suddenly, they were enshrined in the law as a kind of gray area where detainees did not enjoy full human rights. That is actually why it was chosen by the Bush administration to house terror suspects: it was already rubber-stamped as a site for indefinite detention. By the time President Obama came into office with promises to close it, he found the task incredibly difficult, because it had been ingrained in the various institutions and branches of American constitutional government. He could not get rid of it. As courts continue to rule on the border camp system, the same issues are likely to take hold.

Another issue is that these camp systems, no matter where they are in the world, tend to fall victim to expanding criteria. The longer they stay open, the more reasons a government finds to put people in them. That's particularly true if a new regime takes control of an existing system, as the Trump administration did with ours. The mass detention of asylum-seekers-who, again, have legal rights-on this scale is an expansion of the criteria from "illegal" immigrants, who were the main class of detainee in the '90s and early 2000s. Asylum seekers, particularly unaccompanied minors, began arriving in huge numbers and were detained under the Obama administration. But there has been an escalation, both because of a deteriorating situation in the Northern Triangle and the Trump administration's attempts to deter any and all migration. There is reason to believe the criteria will continue to expand.

"We have border patrol agents that are sometimes arresting U.S. citizens," Pitzer says. "That's still very much a fringe activity. That doesn't seem to be a dedicated priority right now, but it's happening often enough. And they're held, sometimes, for three or four days. Even when there are clear reasons that people should be let go, that they have proof of their identity, you're seeing these detentions. You do start to worry about people who have legally immigrated and have finished paperwork, and maybe are naturalized. You worry about green-card holders."

In most cases, these camps are not closed by the executive or the judiciary or even the legislature. It usually requires external intervention. (See: D-Day) That obviously will not be an option when it comes to the most powerful country in the history of the world, a country which, while it would never call them that, and would be loathe to admit it, is now running a system at the southern border that is rapidly coming to resemble the concentration camps that have sprung up all over the world in the last century. Every system is different. They don't always end in death machines. But they never end well.

"Let's say there's 20 hurdles that we have to get over before we get to someplace really, really, really bad," Pitzer says. "I think we've knocked 10 of them down."

Phroyd

#immigration #concentration camps

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obiternihili · 5 years

Text

Something about property rights

I felt like I needed to rant yesterday and decided to adapt the discord messages into a tumblr post.

I spent most of a class this morning thinking about the Anglo interpretations and notions of property rights, trying to actually contrast it with workable alternative notions of property rights and feeling kind of hopeless about it and finding it hard to actually come up with anything that isn't literally communism.

And in retrospect it made the whole “philosophically questioning the whole notion of property rights” feel more, idk, respectable than it had before, when it just sounded like the USSR and China opposed its inclusion in the UDHR for technical reasons or pure self interest in covering their own atrocities.

The whole thing started with thinking about the Zapatist slogan “la tierra es de quién la trabaja”. “The land belongs to those who work it.” To me, the Zapatistas were pretty cool guys, who sided with the little guy and the indigenous peoples of México. But I thought immediately about how a colonial American might react to it, and I couldn’t escape the idea that they’d hear the slogan and go, “ah, yes, we should kill the savages and steward the land correctly”.

As much as the magna carta is held up as this great precursor to democratic rights in this country, its origins are far more dismal and petty. It wasn’t really a democratic impulse, it was more like a bunch of petty-kings coordinated to overwhelm a high king. But it doubtlessly had a strong effect on feudalism and came to be a part of English identity before that even really made sense from a modern perspective. In short it came off almost as a promise that “every man is a king of his own home” and that helped to make property itself sacrosanct.

So when capitalism changed the people’s relationship with the land, the serfs were “liberated” as the commons were siezed by their de jure owners. The collapse of the commons fundamentally changed people’s relationships with property, exacerbating the whole “every man is a king of his own house” issue, and making property the be-all-end-all of basic needs like shelter. To the degree that the Magna Carta made property sacrosanct, in a literal “this is a divinely appointed right” sort of sense, the collapse of the commons codified exactly what that meant, making that sacrosanctity intrinsic to thriving.

So because of tying these issues together so deeply, it made sense to steal the lands of people “not working it” according to how you might work it. So that it made sense to go to war because the yankees were stealing your chattel, and horror of horrors not even repurposing them! So that telling South Africa “hey, no, black people are people too” was unholy, violating their sacred authority to clean their own house. So it makes sense that Australia continues to break promises to its Aboriginal communities, if, say, their homes have a potentially profitable mine to work. So it makes sense that Canada breaks promises to its indigenous population, if there’s an oil pipeline they can lay. So that it made sense, paradoxically, for the US to strong arm México into changing articles of its constitution about indigenous land rights in order to pass NAFTA and be able to threaten to go United Fruit Company on the people for not being profitable to the corporations. And the EZLN, which formed directly because of the anxieties of these moves as the Maya genocide was still very fresh on everyone’s minds, are neo-Zapatistas; the land belongs to the one who works it! The Maya who always has, or the companies that want to (exploit it)?

I remember once as a teen confronting the attitudes this bears on a small chan.

Before the BLM stuff, actually regarding OWS and those "rich punks arguing for socialism with their iphones" and shit; I'd made an off hand comment about things not being worth more than lives at some point and someone replied "I'd totally kill someone if they stole my phone".

I made a comment in utter exasperation (this was on a board that was like /pol/ before that was really what it is now and there was no reason to believe they weren't serious), saying something like "Is, what, a month's pay really worth a human life to you?" ($800 really was more money than my mom was making at the time, let alone taking out rent and shit first, and I gave them benefit of the doubt that they weren't rich first world fucks who could afford to take a hit. At that point I’d learned that most people in India, even dirt poor people who couldn’t afford water, generally had smart phones in order to help with work and things; conscientious of this, the fact that I know and knew dirt poor almost homeless people in the US who needed phones for work, I was trying to allow for “if I lose this phone, I lose my job, my home, my health, and my life” which is a reality a lot of people live with, and at least somewhere to come at this issue with).

(But) the commentators, both the user I was arguing against and several people using trips, proceeded to mock me for apparently living in a 3rd world country for thinking a phone cost more than one paycheck.

To these people a phone wasn’t even worth a week’s pay, let alone two. And yet, to them, another person’s life, no matter how desperate they were, no matter how hungry or sick or anything they were, they were worth less than that.

This exchange was about the time I started nurturing (or giving in, depending on your perspective) the idea that "maybe some people aren't just, mistaken, or seeing something I don't, or have some complex network of beliefs making them bite a bullet, but like, actually goddamn legitimately evil in terms of their fundamental values". I gather absolutely that there’s a lot going on with this; that you could understand the guy to mean “I think thieves should be killed” as opposed to ““humans”“ or whatever. But, like, still.

Traumatizing is an overly dramatic word for what that conversation all those years did to me, but maybe it was. And it’s not like a phone’s *nothing*. But the way the users undercut me, and revealed not only how worthless the phone was to them, but how little human lives were worth to them in relation to the phone just kind of knocked the wind out of me

This made the rounds recently. This is the legacy of that property is sacrosanct bullshit.

And, like, fuck, this is the whole cultural underpinning of what’s been going on with the gun shit here. It’s why guns are so important to us. Why we feel it’s absolutely justified to shoot a kid in the back for lifting a $2 bottle of beer from a convenience store and leaving him to bleed to death without so much as calling the police. The entire fucked up thing we got going on w/r/t race here in the land of the free? It’s because of our relationship to property rights.

At the same time, you get climate change from people who feel it’s their right to do whatever to their property. Oil’s money. Dairy farms, meat, cash crops like almonds. You don’t like your water dirtied? But I’m only fracking over ma plotte!

What’s going on in Brazil? Some natives won the right to their lands against farmers who wanted to clear the forest, and mysteriously within a few weeks everything’s lit on fire. 𝅘𝅥 Dark torrents shake the airs, as black clouds blind [São Paulo] ♫

You even get the nimby zoning shit out of this. How dare you let colored people into my neighborhood! That’s stealing from my property values! A tall building? That’s stealing my sunlight!

In a more mixed sort of way, you got homeless shelters, oil wells, chemical plants, industrial parks, military bases, fracking, wind turbines, desalination plants, landfill sites, incinerators, power plants, quarries, prisons, pubs, adult entertainment clubs, concert venues, firearms dealers, mobile phone masts, electricity pylons, abortion clinics, children's homes, nursing homes, youth hostels, sports stadiums, shopping malls, retail parks, railways, roads, airports, seaports, nuclear waste repositories, storage for weapons of mass destruction, cannabis dispensaries, recreational cannabis shops and the accommodation of persons applying for asylum, refugees, and displaced persons - a list i just lifted from wikipedia’s articles on nimbies. Looking at that, there’s some clearly sympathetic issues too. I mean do you really want a train cutting through your farm, no matter how well you’re recompensated, no matter how much it will objectively improve the lives of the people in the cities, no matter much better it is for the environment to commute together?

But, like, what exactly are the alternatives?

We could look at other cultures. What did Belgian property notions look like? Leopold of the Congo? What do French notions look like? Forcing Algieria to pay back the “investment” France made by colonizing them? Well, the English and the French go back a long, long ways, maybe we could look at Germany?

The first genocide of the 20th century is often recognized to be that of the Herero, in Namibia’s, Germany’s biggest steal in the struggle to carve up Africa like the Black Dahlia.

I already mentioned Brasil.

What about China? Surely they aren’t western!

By some notions they were the first feudal nation in the world, and yet only left the system really in the 20th century. That’s a lot of cultural baggage that underlays the reality the Chinese live under today.

The early republican period saw the rise of warlords and other petty bastards effectively continuing the feudal reality in much the way sharecropping and jim crow continued chattel slavery in the US. The successor states aren’t pretty either; Taiwan, continuing republican ideals, cleared out much of its indigenous population for the Han in ways analogous to what European powers did to the natives of their countries; the PRC, which was born to challenge the ideals of the old republic for its own, took back “what was theirs” with Tibet.

The PRC, explicitly rejecting property rights as the west understands it, doesn’t even have a legal analog to eminent domain, and in effect can seize property on a whim without compensation, forcibly engaging in actions like people moving, which I feel it should be known when done to a community often results in genocide.

Something else illustrative of the conflicts of interest in the problem lies with the 3 Gorges Dam project. Ostensibly to control flooding to villages downstream, over a million residents of the Chongqing area were forcibly relocated, with rumors of people who resisted the project being explicitly drowned and because everything’s just hopelessly corrupt the money actually provided for recompensation never made it to the hands of farmers now stuck in a big city without the education for work.

Similar stories to Taiwan’s play out in other capitalist countries; similar stories to the PRC’s play out in countries that reject those notions.

Generally you just reinvent the same concepts drawing from the lord and serf mentalities of old. There’s shit like this going down in the Muslim world, in East Africa, South America, South Asia, whereever. It’s not just an Anglo thing, even though I’ve let myself believe it were, because of how I was taught about history, from my culture’s perspective.

Then you have to ask yourself, when there’s no net, when you have to provide for yourself first, do the commons necessarily make sense?

Is it even viable, economically or politically, to abolish private property and return to the commons like people have advanced? Would, to enjoy the benefits of something evidentally only stable under feudalism, we have to return to some kind of practice of feudalism? Is that even worth considering?

There are more people alive today than ever before. And that didn’t happen just by accident. We really, actually, seriously have made incredible improvements to agricultural yield and safety, ensuring that the only places on the planet that starve are those that are being starved, by monsters like the Saudis. But the scale we need, the scale we want, the scale we have - is much more than just what one farmer can provide for himself. And the fact that we do have other farmers do the mass farming with their bulk fertilizers, machinery, pesticides, and such, means that most of us don’t have to spend time every week tending to our gardens making sure we have enough staple foods to survive, so we can pursue our own hopes and hobbies and dreams and undertakings and services and so on.

All of it sort of leads to the question, Who deserves the land?

The worker whose blood sweat and tears are wrought into the soil? That could lead to the issue of killing my Yokuts friends' gatherer ancestors for stewarding their lands, husbanding their ecosystem and managing burns and wild populations, instead of raping the lands, burning everything to ash to farm foreign crops that aren’t even adapted to the water issues here. And it doesn't proclude the workers from choking us with smoke, if they feel they need to. The guy on the oil rig isn’t doing it because he endorses what the oil companies do or because he thinks it’s necessarily a good thing, he does it because it makes him bread. Why would worker’s self management solve that? Shareholders and workers alike would only care about taking home what they can.

The "owners” in the English sense? Taking subsidy after subsidy, fighting actively to drain our rivers, collapse the formerly self-renewing resources entirely, bringing us droughts, feeding even the lactose intolerant among us the lie that we need fatty heart clogging cheeses to be healthy? Illegally hiring, exploiting, and deporting the vulnerable? Big farms are just any other business, their owners are the same venture capitalist vultures preying on anything else in that world. South of me used to one of the biggest lakes in North America, virtually the entire south valley was lake Tulare. It’s a bunch of cities now.

So, the people who need it?

Maybe but who decides that? War for territory is a fundamental struggle built deep into us; war is even practiced by chimps. Military ration planning like we saw in the USSR and PRC cause Holodomors. United Fruit and their entire coalition caused the Silent Genocide. Abolishing private property entirely would, what, return us to the times when the lands were unclaimed? That would just lead to petty struggle after petty struggle, like a chimp disemboweling another.

And now, having written this a second time, I’ll end with what I wrote earlier

#effort post #property rights

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