#Democracy and Colonialism

[firstdrafthistorian]

2024 Antipodes

Hypocrisy: Orwell’s “Doulespeak, or Raymond Devos’s “Antipodes”1 have made 2024 truly the year of the grotesque which may give renewed youth to Ionescu’s Theater of the Absurd. Yes, every word has its ‘Anti.’ Continue reading 2024 Antipodes

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

Some scenes from Boston’s powerful Not Another Bomb protest yesterday. There were at least 500 people present from 20 different organizations. We heard from faith leaders, healthcare workers, community organizers, and two brave young boys from Gaza who were evacuated for treatment by HEAL Palestine.

Call your representatives and demand an end to funding Israel’s genocide.

Especially lean on your senators to introduce a Joint Resolution of Disapproval against the billions about to be given to Israel - copy-paste this into your browser to contact your senator:

senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm

[agentfascinateur]

Palestinian educators have previously told Middle East Eye that Israeli authorities were aiming to eliminate its curriculum in favour of the Israeli version, in an attempt to erode Palestinian identity and "distort" history. 

Academic content Israel has sought to censor, they said, includes the logo of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian flag, lessons that discuss the Palestinian struggle against occupation, the right of return and prisoners, settlements, the immigration of settlers to Palestine, military checkpoints, the intifada, displaced villages, and considering Zionism a racist political movement.

[naivety]

So long as the political and economic system remains intact, voter enfranchisement, though perhaps resisted by overt white supremacists, is still welcomed so long as nothing about the overall political arrangement fundamentally changes. The facade of political equality can occur under violent occupation, but liberation cannot be found in the occupier’s ballot box. In the context of settler colonialism voting is the “civic duty” of maintaining our own oppression. It is intrinsically bound to a strategy of extinguishing our cultural identities and autonomy.

[...]

Since we cannot expect those selected to rule in this system to make decisions that benefit our lands and peoples, we have to do it ourselves. Direct action, or the unmediated expression of individual or collective desire, has always been the most effective means by which we change the conditions of our communities. What do we get out of voting that we cannot directly provide for ourselves and our people? What ways can we organize and make decisions that are in harmony with our diverse lifeways? What ways can the immense amount of material resources and energy focused on persuading people to vote be redirected into services and support that we actually need? What ways can we direct our energy, individually and collectively, into efforts that have immediate impact in our lives and the lives of those around us? This is not only a moral but a practical position and so we embrace our contradictions. We’re not rallying for a perfect prescription for “decolonization” or a multitude of Indigenous Nationalisms, but for a great undoing of the settler colonial project that comprises the United States of America so that we may restore healthy and just relations with Mother Earth and all her beings. Our tendency is towards autonomous anti-colonial struggles that intervene and attack the critical infrastructure that the U.S. and its institutions rest on. Interestingly enough, these are the areas of our homelands under greatest threat by resource colonialism. This is where the system is most prone to rupture, it’s the fragility of colonial power. Our enemies are only as powerful as the infrastructure that sustains them. The brutal result of forced assimilation is that we know our enemies better than they know themselves. What strategies and actions can we devise to make it impossible for this system to govern on stolen land? We aren’t advocating for a state-based solution, redwashed European politic, or some other colonial fantasy of “utopia.” In our rejection of the abstraction of settler colonialism, we don’t aim to seize colonial state power but to abolish it. We seek nothing but total liberation.

Voting Is Not Harm Reduction - An Indigenous Perspective

[thashining]

It seems Trump is uniting the entire world—against the United States.

[anti-zionist-jew]

Biden deserves to lose, we don’t deserve Trump, we also can’t send a message that doing a genocide is okay and something that isn’t punished. What world do we have if Trump wins? What world do we have if a genocide is rewarded by a re-election? I don’t know. I don’t know.

There’s no simple, obvious right answer here. Thats the whole problem. You can’t wave this all away with “but Trump is worse.” You can’t tell me rewarding a genocide with a re-election isn’t terrible for humanity. You also can’t tell me Biden won’t bring this brutality home

We need a real plan for January 2025, that isn’t just “vote dem. No shut up and vote dem” — we have to engage with the fact Biden and his administration are losing themselves more voters every day.

Local community safety councils, people’s assemblies, etc— ASAP

[thoughtportal]

The 'Coup' in Niger

[technikki]

the word terrorist has lost pretty much all meaning to me because 90% of the time a white person says that word its used as a shorthand for 'nonwhite people resisting oppression'

[inariedwards]

[copied from One Democratic State Initiative]

When asked what would happen to Israelis after the liberation of Palestine, one might be tempted to answer they simply don't care—that it's their problem, not ours. And indeed, the moral priority revolves around the needs of the oppressed, not of those enjoying colonial privileges. Yet, the Palestinian liberation movement has historically had an answer to that question—and we should not fail to emphasize that answer today.

Even since before the Nakba, Palestinians proposed the establishment of a single Palestinian state for all of its citizens, with no discrimination on the basis of religion. After the Nakba, the Palestinian National Charter and the charters of all main factions explicitly adopted this democratic vision. Today, leaders of Hamas and other resistance factions repeat that same stance. Why is this important?

1. Because we need to have a clear political vision The state in a liberated Palestine will need to handle the affairs of the people living there, including citizenship, education, freedom of religion and land restitution. Not caring about these questions essentially means not caring about having a Palestinian state and about what it would do. Historically, successful decolonization movements have always had a vision of what liberation meant, including for previous settlers.

2. Because we need to decolonize As a colonial project, Zionism politicizes identities and views humans as either Jewish or non-Jewish, granting Israeli citizenship, rights and privileges to the former at the expense of the latter. A project that cares only about Palestinians and disregards Israelis seems more of a reflection of Zionism than the antithesis to it. The antithesis to Zionism is a project that does not deal with individuals on the basis of their identity.

3. Because we need to maintain our moral superiority over Zionism Millions throughout the world side with Palestine, not because we are militarily or economically mightier than our occupiers, but because our cause is morally just. There is no reason to hide that a free Palestine will tolerate neither colonialism nor discrimination on the basis of religion.

4. Because we deserve to know what tomorrow's Palestine will look like Our land has been occupied and our people ethnically cleansed for over 75 years. And we've also had our share of compromises in the name of "liberation" and "solutions". We have the collective right to determine the future we envision for our country, and to voice that vision.

5. Because we need to debunk the hasbara Zionism has hasbara'd millions of Israelis into believing that Jews are safe nowhere and that Palestinians in particular are bloodthirsty terrorists that are eager to shed Jewish blood. Confronting this lie is part of our liberation struggle. A vision for a democratic, non-chauvinistic Palestine that welcomes non-Palestinians willing to integrate its society is a valuable tool.

6. Because we need Israelis to take sides with our liberation struggle Zionism deals with Jews as a single, homogeneous, monolithic group. We fight Zionism by refusing to adopt its approach—including by refusing to adopt a blanket "we don't care" approach. Clarifying our vision to today's enemies will give them something Zionism claimed they never had: a choice. And some will make the right one.

For all these reasons, the Palestinian liberation movement has historically provided clear answers regarding the fate of Israelis after liberation—without losing sight of the priority, which is the right of the natives to self-determination in their land. Today, the One Democratic State Initiative is working on establishing this discourse more solidly. We call on Palestinians and on Israeli allies to join this fight to reclaim the narrative, and on allies worldwide to support us in these efforts.

Share this content on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

[cavalierzee]

Israel Was Never A Democracy and Never Will Be

Israel is no democracy & never has been one since its foundation over 75 yrs ago.

It used massacres of entire villages & other assorted terrorism to drive 3/4 of a million indigenous Palestinians from their homes.

It then passed laws to forbid any return home by those refugees.

Philip Giraldi

[usauthoritarianism]

OK So Context

I kind of progressively lost my mind in college. What with the learning about the specifics of what is going on and how it relates to what has happened in the past. -and subsequently took the time to develop a series of presentations about why the US sucks.

Specifically, the interventions in Latin American, just the astoundingly predatory nature of American Capitalism domestically and The Police, like, as a concept.

Fast forward to the Summer of 2022 and I realized that working with an editor and publishing a book is hard and expensive but its measured in thousands not tens of thousands so I committed to doing that at some point in my life with this project, and began working on adapting the presentations with more research and more connections between these different expressions of White Supremacy.

I let the research balloon. There's just so much.

Anyway, the whole social media campaign thing was to distract me from pinning all that down. -and last month one of the members of my subreddit, u/acebush1, self immolated in the time it took to get around to responding to his most recent comment. That made this all very real. The US' support for Israel and it's foundation as a settler colonial state are critically relevant.

Right, so,. Last month someone asked me how to buy the book and that was the thing I had said to myself would mark the transition back to a writing and research focus rather than just research and learning social media.

Site is up. Its an email submission form with a set your own price stripe link.

[agentfascinateur]

Palestinian children want to learn, like everyone else.

According to the head of the village council, Yaqoub Owais, the illegal Zionist settlers employ threats, intimidation, coercion and violence against Palestinian pedestrians, including students, as they pass through the main road leading to the school. The Israeli police and army, Owaid said, encourage such aggression and give full protection to violent settlers who have attacked the school of 400 students several times. The settlers often throw stones at the school property and smash its doors and windows. Owais said none of the attackers have ever been arrested by the Israeli police.

[gay-impressionist]

The French minister of the interior just forbid any demonstration in favor of Palestine 🙃

[nickysfacts]

Protesting is and will always be a important part of American identity, as we were born from it and continue to use it as a rallying cry for change to this very day!🪧

🇺🇸☕️🇺🇸

[sotomato06]

important

following the 2024 election results, it's even more important than ever to donate to help families in Gaza, Ukraine and all of the other warzones the United States is involved in. Trump has stated he wants to pull funding from Ukraine and send more to Israel and the IDF in hopes of "ending" both conflicts. This will cause 10 of thousands more to die. If you have the ability, find a family and donate. Do whatever you can to get these innocent people to safety, even if it's just sharing somebody else's post or story. We need to continue to give these people hope and protect the thousands of children put in danger by corrupt regimes. Don't let the decisions of one country affect your beliefs in what is right.

Free Palestine, Fuck Netanyahu, Fuck Putin, Fuck Trump

[hellyeahheroes]

Elden Ring is About Necropolitics 💀 by That Dang Dad