#bombing real ancient countries

[pricklypear1997]

Imagine claiming to be a persecuted minority while also supporting a super power of a nation that literally bombs civilians of other countries they simply don’t like, and creates conflicts on foreign soil… oh, also you come from a country (Israel) that was created by said super power (USA). Last but not least, you’re government is literally killing the children of people who’ve lived there long before your grandparents moved there in the 1930s.

[cipheramnesia]

I guess the thing about Godzilla is that it represents a massive national trauma which eviscerated nature and the human soul, but the USA versions fall somewhere on the spectrum between "vaguely about 9/11 or recent natural disaster" and "giant monster smashy smash." I think that stems from trying to conceptualize Godzilla as representing a particular and isolated instance of disaster and translate that into something of a similar nature in the USA.

But the real deep down soul death and national trauma in the USA isn't anything recent, you can't point out something uniquely bad like an atomic bomb. Really the kaiju for the USA needs to be symbolic of how this whole place is an infinite recursive system of devouring its population, starting from colonization and going right up through to the present day. The crucial difference is that if a kaiju was to represent the deep, unhealed, and still bleeding scar at the heart of the nation, it has to by definition be some ancient dead thing which rises on the anguish of everyone consumed in the name of this country and burns it into the ground. There's not an easy way to make a USAmerican kaiju because the only way to do so accurately means the kaiju has to be the protagonist, and ultimately has to show how much the people in the USA are unified when the hyperwealthy and our government are destroyed.

Who is gonna make that?

[mitigatedchaos]

The Guidestones

(~650 words, 3 minutes)

In symbolic news that you probably didn't hear about, the Georgia Guidestones were destroyed in 2022.

The stones were first subject to a bombing, which did some damage, and then the local government tore down the monument citing safety concerns.

The guidestones were erected in 1980 with what could be described as progressive messaging:

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.

Unite humanity with a living new language.

Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.

Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

Balance personal rights with social duties.

Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.

Be not a cancer on the Earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.

Opponents long argued that the guidestones were 'Satanic' (#1 & #2) or advocating for a 'New World Order' (#1, #3, #6).

According to Wikipedia, local stakeholders have expressed doubt that the guidestones would ever be rebuilt.

I find a number of things interesting about this.

First, while they were written in multiple languages, the inscriptions are quite vague. These seem to be "feel good" statements of a particular ideology in a particular era, rather than information that would help a new government mechanically implement successful policy. It feels like an insufficient amount of thought was put into this monument.

You would be better off inscribing the hard-won U.S. Bill of Rights, part of the mechanisms used to ensure human rights in the most powerful country at the time the stones were inscribed.

The Long Now Foundation's Rosetta Disk project is likely to fare much better - apparently they are planning to put one on the Moon.

Second, the monument only made it for 42 years, less than one human lifespan.

There are two ways to view this.

The monument was built in 1980, 11 years before the fall of the Soviet Union, and 35 years after World War 2. The threat of nuclear war no doubt seemed very real. "Keep the population low enough that you aren't all desperately slaughtering each other for survival, and use courts instead of war," probably seemed like a reasonable message to leave for the survivors in the event of a nuclear war within the following several decades.

However, the monument also looked a lot like Stonehenge, which is estimated to be about 3,600 years old. 42 years is a very short time if you wanted to create the next Stonehenge.

The world's oldest bond dates to the year 1624, but bonds aren't automatically preserved. They require an entire supporting civilization.

One of the reasons that the Georgia Guidestones were so controversial is that they are commands for potential future civilizations. The point of putting them on giant carved rocks is to give the impression, in the fog after the fall of civilization, that these commands are either divine in origin or come from some other powerful authority.

As the Georgia Guidestones were already political, a better choice might have been to inscribe a fairly accurate historical record of humanity up to that point in time, including ancient history, the history of the United States, and the history of tribes that had lived in the area.

This would then be an ongoing generational project where another stone is added every 10 years or so. (Figuring out how to describe a decade in under 500 words might be a challenge - but a worthwhile one.)

This version would endeavor tell the truth about the past in order to allow the people of the future to make the decisions on what to do for themselves. It would likely be considered a beloved national treasure, and an artifact of great interest to future historians.

[coern]

HI heres yuor reminder to write your paragraph on botw

okay pls bear with me I cannot summarize well and had to call klesek (my sister) to help me (and wikipedia thank God for wikipedia plot synopsis) under a read more because shit there's a lot of plot I did not realize

Pre Game plot so basically 10,000 years ago calamity ganon (clammy ganon in the rest of the post because I cant write calamity on a keyboard for some reason) appeared and tried to murder everyone n destroy stuff (its sort of a mindless beast spider-looking thing) so four champions (each from 5 of the 7 races in the game), the princess of hyrule (hyrule is the fictional country this takes place in) (btw the princess is zelda), and her 'appointed knight' (appointed knight would be link)(also, link counts as a champion iirc) have to go and take it down, weakening it with a robot army (robots are called guardians they look pretty cool), four humongous fuckass robots (divine beasts), fancy sword (master sword wielded by 'appointed knight' its a whole thing), then seal it away with the princess's Light Power (hydrogen bomb) cut to 10k years later, almost present, the same thing happens BUT the princess's mother dies when she's young, cant teach her how to use her light hydrogen bomb, and that combined with the ancient technology (divine beasts & guardian robot army) being old, not knowing enough about what happened the first time because that was Ten Thousand Fucking Years Ago, causes them to pretty much fail- clammy ganon attacks by surprise on the princess's 17th birthday, all the champions Die in their divine beasts, which are taken over (along with the guardians) to be on clammy ganon's side, which kill everyone, specifically her appointed knight, and make the population of hyrule all but like fifty npcs. happy birthday! the princess does however take her appointed knight to the 'shrine of resurrection' hoping that later when he isn't dead anymore (mysterious ancient technology baybeee) he can stop clammy ganon for real this time. "later" is 100 years into the future. happy birthday part 2!! okay now for what happens in the actual game SO in the actual game of breath of the wild you play as link (of course) after the 100 years, when he wakes up (without his memories because he just died and slept for a century) (happy birthday!!!) and has to go and enlist present champions (descendants/friends/apprentices of the ones from 100 years ago), take back the divine beasts (each has a 'blight' (parts of clammy ganon) in them that you have to fight to get it back), get the cool sword (master sword), get your memories back (with Pictures), then go and beat clammy ganon's ass for a third time with more help now :) ILLL PUT THE REST IN A REBLOG BECUSE TUMBLR KEEPS EATING MY POST CAUSE ITS TOO FUCKING LONG

[plaguethewaters]

filled with isat au thoughts. so many

the crux of tommys friend quest still being about feelings of inadequancy in his religion but - even though hes aroace too bc like cmon - he feels like he cant be strong enough. hes not the perfect selfless hero everyone wants, he struggles finding quests he can actually finish he doesnt Know if hes ever going to be the hero Wilbur, and everyone with him, suggests for him to be. But hes been nothing but an annoying child forever and he needs to change right? To Change? Thats the whole point of the thing! But leaving out his stupid bits and jokes and trying to put on a serious saviour persona makes him feel like hes loosing more and more of himself the more time passes by.

techno still struggles with identity. Hes never been able to feel accepted in his home country - the Antartic Empire isnt strict with most thing, the idea of absolute freedom is clear in everyones mind, but "one's freedom ends where another's start", and many saw technos illness (/expression possession/ancient divinity speaking through him, he still isnt sure) as dangerous. as an infriction of their own freedom to feel safe. But Lmanburg... people speak of lmanburg, and phil speaks of it highest of them all. His sons country, his sons faith. Techno isnt one to fall for pretty words, but he cant deny they sound... appealing. The acceptance, the unconditional love, the community.He hopes his research might bring him closer to understanding it all. To not feel foreign in every land.

Niki, for all that anyone might think, is Not a child. Shes small, and shes not strong, and she can barely Craft anything - all this time and no one has figured out her type yet, no matter how hard they try - but goddammit, she isnt a useless little baby. She has a voice, she has her strenght, she Has the abikity to protect those she loved, even if she failed before. Jacks frozen face stares at her, even from hundred of miles away, back in their little house. She looks at tommy and she cant really understand why Hes been chosen and not her, what really makes them so different, what makes her so much crabbing worse that shes not even allowed to hold her own against the simplest sadness. Nad then she tries, and Ranboo loses an eye. A whole eye, just because in her stupid crabbing arrogance she thought she could be more than her place, more than the job she was assigned. She needs to protect them better. She just needs to get stronger.

Tubbo, all things considered, doesnt think hes doing badly. Theres a bit of resentment in his heart - like jesus, when hed joined the Hunters he really thought they were there to Do something about the evil in the world. But they didnt, and tommy really evidently needed help, and he doesnt hang around cowards anymore, so he left. Whatever. Hes fought so hard in his life to be taken seriously (little, cute baby tubbo, a shirt too big for his frame and a smile always too wide for his face. Do you like bees, tubbo? Do you want to go find bees? they talk to him with sickeningly sweet voices and dumbed out words) (he ignores every bee he sees, lately), hes Changed, hes bulked up, hes leaned heavy onto the crazy strongman archetype until nobody could ever look at him and see a "cute little guy". He wants them to be scared, he wants to cackle so loud mothers hurry their children away, he wants to know tidbits of the darkest parts of the world, to talk about bombs and dissections and whatever Will keep people the most away from his true feelings. Tommy doesnt seem disgusted when he tugs him along on his quest (in fact, he seems to enjoy your humor as well, and hes very quick to become your friend).

With ranboo its. Different. Not that hes put off by you or anything - none of them are, surprisingly, you get along real nicely as a group - in fact, they lean into it. Theyre super quick to pull up one of their favorite horror stories while you eat yoir dinners, for you to enjoy and for niki and tommy to be grossed out by and for techno to barely react at, and they love your particular dark, ceass humor even id they dont participate themselves. They just have this. Super annoying thing about them, that makes tubbo want to Change again. Want to bring back that vulnerability, that cuteness, the bees and the flowers and the weaknesses that have hurt him before. Tubbo wouldve loved to be a farmer, once. A little cabin in the countryside, selling honey to the nearest House. But it doesnt matter. Hes never going to say anything about it anyway - talking about these things feels. so weird.

[dragoneyes618]

"A study by professors Jay P. Greene, Albert Cheng, and Ian Kingsbury, found that the more education a person has, the more anti-Semitic he is likely to be.

Though earlier studies had suggested a correlation between low education levels and anti-Semitism, Greene et al suspected that those with higher education were too sophisticated to give “wrong” answers when asked straight up how they felt about Jews or whether they agreed with blatantly anti-Semitic stereotypes. So instead, the researchers used a test based on double standards by asking about comparable cases involving a Jewish example and a non-Jewish example. And they found that “more highly educated people were more likely to apply principles more harshly to Jewish examples.”

In the test, no subject was asked both about the Jewish case and the non-Jewish case to prevent them from discerning the nature of the test. When asked, for instance, whether “attachment to a foreign country creates a conflict of interest,” respondents with four-year degrees were 7 percent more likely, and those with advanced degrees 13 percent more likely, to express concern when the country was Israel than when it was Mexico. Those with advanced degrees were 12 percent more likely to support the military in prohibiting Jewish yarmulkes than in prohibiting Sikh turbans. While a majority of respondents supported a ban on public gatherings during Covid, those with advanced degrees were 11 percent more likely to do so with respect to Orthodox funerals than BLM protests.

The authors conclude their Tablet article (“Are Educated People More Anti-Semitic?” March 30, 2021), by quoting Harvard professor emerita Ruth Wisse, who argues that anti-Semitism flourishes when “it forms part of a political movement and serves a political purpose.” And such political causes are increasingly those favored by the well-educated in the US.

Horn herself provides a fascinating real-life example of differential treatment involving Jews. She wrote a piece on anti-Semitism for the New York Times. During the editorial process, she was relentlessly fact-checked on her assertion that violation of Jewish women had been widespread in the 1918–1921 Russian civil war and in the 1941 Farhud pogrom in Baghdad. Yet that same paper rushed to print a highly inflammatory (an ancient Tunisian synagogue was burned down in response) and false Hamas claim that Israel had bombed a Gaza hospital and inflicted 500 casualties, with no apparent fact-checking.

Often times the differential attention focused on Jews reflects an obsession with us. Since 1948, the number of casualties in the Arab-Israeli conflict ranks somewhere around 50th in world conflicts. Yet it has sucked up almost all the attention. Over half a million people were killed in the Syrian civil war, including some with poison gas, and millions displaced from their homes. Black Darfurian tribesman have been slaughtered by Sudanese Arabs in even greater numbers. Can anyone remember one mass demonstration protesting those slaughters? Or against Russia’s deliberate targeting of hospitals, apartment buildings, and other civilian sites in Ukraine? Or against Chinese concentration camps for two million imprisoned Uighurs? Compare that silence to dozens of anti-Israel demonstrations every day in cities and on campuses around the world.

Israel is constantly accused of genocide against Palestinians, even though under Israeli rule, Palestinians life expectancies increased 50 percent and infant mortality declined by three-quarters. Yet it is Hamas whose charter explicitly calls for the extermination of Jews around the globe — i.e., genocide. This is inversion of the worst sort. The accusation of genocide against Israel is a form of erasure of the Holocaust; alleged Jewish guilt an expiation of gentile sins of many greater times magnitude.

- https://mishpacha.com/anti-semitism-for-smarties/

[theculturedmarxist]

Israel’s military strategy follows precisely the parameters its war planners proclaimed: total war. This would not be mowing the grass. This was a fight all the way to the end of the line. To eradicate Hamas, yes. But far beyond that.

US leaders have telegraphed their acceptance of this approach by floating the notion of “what comes after Hamas is defeated.”  In other words, after Hamas is totally dismantled and destroyed as a viable entity.  They may be thinking of how the west and its regional allies attacked and largely eliminated ISIS as a viable force.

But as this article points out–the proper insurgency analogy for Hamas is not ISIS, but the Vietcong.  A people’s army rooted in every home and village.  With disciplined political and military cadres operating covertly and overtly everywhere and anywhere.  Even when the Vietcong faced the most severe US-Vietnamese attacks, they never wavered.  It was their country after all. They could never be defeated in any real sense.  And events proved them right. They outlasted the invaders: a Vietcong version of summud.

Gaza, of course, is a much smaller area than Vietnam. So targeting Hamas would be an easier feat.  But among 2-million people, you cannot eradicate a movement the people embrace.  You would have to eliminate all the people to do that.  Which brings me to my next point.

It is very likely, I believe, Israel intends to expel all Gazans.  This isn’t just a war to destroy tunnels, or to eliminate Hamas fighters.  It wasn’t even exclusively a war to eliminate Hamas.  It was a war to make Gaza entirely unlivable.  It is total war in an urban setting.

By total war, I mean one that destroys everything. Everything and everyone.  Leaving the living to bury the dead…or die trying.  The goal is to make Gaza so uninhabitable, that the world will find this version of the Final Solution perhaps unpalatable, but in the end unavoidable.

I can’t think of any modern version of total war comparable to this one.  In every similar attack on a major city, the attacker did not intend to render the place permanently unlivable for survivors.  Even in the case of the atomic bomb attacks in Japan, the US formed an Occupation government which entirely rebuilt the country, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while also creating a new democratic political system. After murdering 500,000 during the infamous Dresden bombing, the city was rebuilt. Only the ruins of the bombed cathedral remained, as a testament to the cruelty and suffering of the War.

There are ancient versions of this, all revolving on conquerors sowing the earth of the vanquished state with salt, so it would be unable to produce anything that could sustain life. In fact, this ancient version of a scorched earth-total war strategy, may originate in the ancient Middle East.

This may Israel’s Total War 2.0: a military strategy “updated” for the modern age.  Preferably, it would be studied in military academies more for its horror than for the innovation of tactics or long-term success in achieving political goals.

The first stage of this process is the one we are in now–genocide by degrees. Eliminate neighborhoods, infrastructure, institutions. Render hospitals, schools, businesses either destroyed or inoperable.  The latest is they’re even bombing water tanks and solar panels.  Because I presume they’re major weapons of war.

People will then die not only from the bombs, but from their untended wounds, starvation, disease, etc.  Despite the savagery of Israeli tactics in this stage, eventually the world slowly becomes acclimatized to it.  What was once horrifying and downright uncivilized, is now the new normal.

That leads to what may be the next stage: Israel declaring, Gaza is now unlivable. It’s a sad tragic fact of war. We had to do it. They gave us no choice, etc. But guess what, the Israelis could say. Let’s start over. Let’s reconceive what Gaza is.

They might have a hybrid approach to how the post-war landscape will look: perhaps Israeli Jewish settlements, interlaced with Gazans carefully screened by the security apparatus, who are permitted to remain.  Or perhaps it would be Palestine-rein (though that might be a bridge too far for a finicky global audience).

Gaza: Nakba 2.0

Israel has already published two separate plans, one produced by a whack job analyst, Amir Weitmann, arguing it would only cost $5-8-billion to resettle Gaza Palestinians in existing or newly built housing stock on the outskirts of Cairo.

In the video below, he tries to tear an RT reporter a new asshole. Pulling an Israeli Rambo, he threatens to personally destroy Russia. Or something.

A mentally deranged genocidal Nazi threatens Russia… 🤷🏽‍♀️#GenocideinGaza #ShutElbitDown STOP THE #GENOCIDE NOW! pic.twitter.com/GrMWMmbc4A — 🗣️📢 𝕗𝕣𝕖𝕖 𓂆 𝕡𝕒𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖 (@ronnie_barkan) October 20, 2023

The other proposal came from the intelligence ministry.  It was similar in some respects to the other plan.  But it did not offer the newly expelled refugees anything other than tents in the Sinai. As far as this proposal was concerned, Israel dumped them there. It was now someone else’s problem.

Which wasn’t much different than what Israel did after the 1948 War.  It expelled a million indigenous Palestinians and foisted them on neighboring Arab countries: your problem, Israel said.  These countries now have 5-million Palestinian “problems.”

Media reporting on these two documents noted they weren’t produced by the country’s highest level security think tanks and that the intelligence ministry is really an insignificant backwater as far as government ministries go.

But a different strategy may be involved.  These plans may be part of a broader plan.  After they are leaked, the government gives them time to be absorbed by Israelis and the world.  Then the genocide continues. The body count continues to rise.  Savagery even escalates. Pressure builds up.  Then Israel says: hey, we have a plan to end all this. No more killing. No more terrorism. No more Palestinian Gaza.  Are you interested, world?  It is quite possible that so many nations and world leaders will be so outraged by this Israel will pack it in and return to killing business as usual.

But…if Israel preps enough allies, if it gets Biden and Blinken on board. If they lobby the European allies, then Israel may be able to pursue a diabolical plan to its “logical” criminal conclusion. At least that’s what Israel hopes.

Gaza as colony. Israel, US, and European and Arab allies as colonial powers

The US and Israel have cooked up a real stew. They propose that after Hamas is eliminated (a dubious proposition to begin with–but more on that later), an occupation force consisting of American troops would administer Gaza:

The US and Israel are exploring options for the future of the Gaza Strip, including the possibility of a multinational force that may involve American troop…

Plan B involves an Arab multilateral force that would administer Gaza. It has even designated who that could be–none other than the next-up in the Abraham Accords sweepstakes, Saudi Arabia.  Yes, those Saudis did such a bang-up job in Yemen, where they not only murdered 80,000 Yemenis, they also slaughtered hundreds of Ethiopian refugees fleeing from Yemen. We want these humanitarians to work their magic in Gaza.

Secretary of State Blinken summed up the (stupid) thinking behind the plan:

“We can’t have a reversion to the status quo with Hamas running Gaza,” Blinken, who will travel to Israel on Friday, told the Senate Appropriations Committee. “We also can’t have — and the Israelis start with this proposition themselves — Israel running or controlling Gaza.” “Between those shoals are a variety of possible permutations that we’re looking at very closely now, as are other countries,” he said.

So you can’t have Hamas running the show. And Israel wants nothing to do with the job itself because, guess what? It tried it and didn’t work well for them: one of the reasons Sharon so unceremoniously withdrew in 2005. A decision which led–you guessed it–to Hamas’ takeover of Gaza. Israel, of course, wants to foist the unwelcome job on someone, anyone else.  Smart move for them. But not for the sucker left holding the bag.

But look at the language of Blinken’s statement. Who’s missing from consideration?  Gazans themselves. They are an after thought.  Or a non-thought.

The only thing colonial powers understand is who will run things. Not who lives there or what they want. But who’s on top. The problem with that approach is it ends up as all colonizing schemes do–the natives reject the guy running things because they want to run them for themselves.  This is precisely the disaster the US is heading for under any of these schemes.

For once in his professional life as a pro-Israel US diplomat, Aaron David Miller is right when he warns:

“The idea of bringing Arab states in to do counter insurgency in Gaza in the wake of the death and destruction that the Israelis have visited is going to be extremely problematic because it would involve Arabs killing Palestinians,” said Aaron David Miller…

You bet.  Not only that. It will involve Gazans killing Israel’s Arab stooge occupiers. That’s a message that would resonate with any Gazan.

Oh and here’s another Biden humdinger:

…One option would grant temporary oversight to Gaza to countries from the region, backed by troops from the US, UK, Germany and France. Ideally, it would also include representation from Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates,

Consider all the vague meaningless unquantifiable terms in this passage: “temporary,” “oversight,” “representation.”  These words mean nothing: tissue paper floating on the breeze. What European country in their right mind would want to station troops in a Gaza tinder keg?

It was bad enough for them when they joined multinational forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.  At least there was some international consensus behind the US invasion (as wrong as it was).  There is no such consensus how to deal with Gaza.  They would be walking into a building already on fire.

Which Arab nations would be foolish enough to join this shit show? Of course, those buddy-movie heroes, MBS and MBZ.  They’ll go anywhere, do anything: Starve Yemen? Check. Murder Shiite clerics? Check. Fund ISIS? Check. Fund anti-Iran terror? Check. Dissolve dissident journalists in vats of acid? Check.

Israel’s friends at the Washington Institute came up with their own plan. It has as much merit as my last Amazon packing slip:

[It] called for a Palestinian-run interim administration, with the UN Relief and Works Agency continuing to provide food, heath and education. “Public safety and law enforcement could be directed by a consortium of the five Arab states who have reached peace agreements with Israel—Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco,” Washington Institute scholars wrote in an Oct. 17 note. “Only those Arab states would have Israel’s confidence, which is essential for this effort to succeed.”

So in other words, some Palestinian stooges, presumably the PA since they’re perfect casting for such characters, and UNWRA, will respectively, feed Gazans and administer traffic tickets (if there any cars left); while Abraham Accord stooges do all the heavy-lifting on behalf of Israel. I couldn’t have come with anything better myself (and I didn’t!).

As if reading my mind, Blinken offered fond hopes for PA’s future stooge role. Just not quite yet:

…What would make the most sense would be for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza..

If those aren’t a few choice euphemisms concealing his admission that the PA is a bunch of corrupt aged incompetent grifters.

Media reporting on the various plans say Democratic senators were receptive. I wonder: do they have eyes in their head? Do they read the news? Do they remember when we imposed our own version of “democracy” on captive nations in Afghanistan and Iraq?  How well did that end?  If any of these harebrained schemes sees the light of day they should all have their heads examined.

But hey, it’s their own party. Let them make the rules. But remember the Pottery Barn rule, which Tom Friedman so infamously and erroneously attributed to Colin Powell: you break it, you buy it.  The beauty of the these plans, especially for Israel, is that after they break it, they don’t buy it or fix it. They pawn it off on the Saudis and they “fix” it, as only the Saudis do (cf. Yemen). If Biden thinks that a joint military occupation by European or Arab allies will absolve him of responsibility for the inevitable disaster, he should think again. It won’t.  Republicans will see to that.  And for once in their lives, they would be right.

Hamas will last

Whatever happens to Hamas during this war, no matter how decisively it has been defeated (which is by no means certain), it will not disappear. It will not be eliminated. You can kill 100,000 Gazans and you will not eradicate it. Like the Vietcong, it is so part of the people the two cannot be separated.

No matter how much propaganda Israel tries to peddle. For example: Whispered in Gaza, a dog and pony show “hosted” by pro-Israel front-man, Dennis Ross, with his Foundation for the Defense of Democracies sidekick, Jonathan Schanzer.  I tell you: there’s nothing that validates Israeli genocide more than offering Israelis and the west the delusion that they’re actually helping Gazans.  One question? How did they obtain these purported statements from Gazans?  Under what guise or pretense?  Because even if these statements are genuine (not necessarily established), I guarantee that interviewees were deceived as to the purpose for which their statements would eventually be used.  This is plain and simple information warfare. Ross has moved on from US diplomat to propaganda warrior.

That doesn’t mean all Gazans love Hamas. Not all Vietnamese loved the Vietcong.  Not all colonial Americans loved the patriots.  But Hamas fights. It resists.  There is no other force in Palestinian society that fights for its rights against occupiers and oppressors. So until something better comes along, Gazans say this will have to do.

In whatever bright new future the colonial powers have in mind for Gaza, Hamas will not just fade into the mist never to be seen again.  It will be there. It will assert itself and its presence. It will resist whoever calls himself a colonial Lord Jim. Doesn’t matter whether its a GI Joe, Saudi commander, or a Jedi knight.  They’re all foreign occupiers. All unwelcome. It will be the undying mission of Hamas to rid Gaza of them.  And eventually, if it takes a decade or five, it will.  My money is riding on it.  Colonial powers don’t have a very good, or long track record.

Something better could come along if these powers deciding Gaza’s fate recognized a Gazan voice, and compelled Israel to recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, including free, full and fair elections.  Never happen. I know. But I wanted to put out the real and only solution that works. Not the one that these colonial douchebags are sticking together with rubber bands and wood glue.

Gaza: the Biggest Loser

The Biggest Loser–and they always are–are the Gazans.  At least one can say that in the Saudi scenario, they aren’t expelled and turned into refugees twice in 75 years. But they would now be under the boot heel of a hated, corrupt, despotic monarchy.  If Hamas resonated with Palestinians before–it will even more in this scenario.

The Saudis failed to quell the Yemeni Houthis. In Gaza the conditions would be even less favorable.  Despite their Israel-induced deprivation, Gazans are worldly, technologically-adept, politically engaged, etc.  They are not tribal kinsman from the mountains.  Gazans have as much in common with Saudis as Gigi Hadid has with Tokyo Rose. The Saudis will be as unwelcome occupiers as Israelis.

[nadekosnake]

neglected manuscript - Do you have a favorite novel?

from this ancient ask meme

LMAO NO!!! PICKING THE ONE I WAS AFRAID OF 💀 I could make it easy and lie but y’know what? We’re gonna be honest about this 🫡 Gonna be LONG bc I have 1) not talked with about this in any capacity with another human being before and 2) a pretty complicated relationship with this book 🤕

Content warning for CSA 👇

This is difficult partly bc I do love a lot of books but partly bc I don’t like to reveal my actual favorite book… I genuinely worry people will perceive me in a very negative way LMAO. My favorite of all time is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 😶 It’s the book I’ve reread the most in my life so far and it is genuinely one of the best written books I have read 🤧 I think generally people are like 😰🤢 when you drop a bomb like that what’s typically supposed to be a light-hearted convo so I usually will say something else! Typically my safe answer is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (which genuinely was my favorite book at some point in time, we are not going to dive into this right now).

(A disclaimer as I talked about Lolita fashion before, I am aware that the fashion gets its name from the novel but that’s where the relation ends. I like Lolita fashion because I’m a loser that likes subculture fashion and not because it has the same name or any other connection to the book. That happens to be coincidental. I am staunchly against fetishization of the fashion ok thanks! 🙂‍↕️ back to the program!)

Brief summary for those who need it: Humbert (the narrator) is a scholar and a secret pedophile, who one day meets the Haze family for a home stay. He obsesses over the daughter, a 12 year-old girl named Dolores Haze, who he personally calls Lolita. Humbert marries Ms. Haze to be around the real object of his obsession. Through unfortunate events, he ends up Dolores’s sole caretaker. She lives with Humbert’s constant sexual abuse that spans a cross-country roadtrip, but eventually she runs away with the help of another pedophile. Unfortunately it is not a happy ending. Despite Dolores’s escape from both pedophiles, she dies before she can rebuild a normal life with her future family.

The first time I tried to read it, I was too young (around Dolores’s own age 🫥). It was recommended to me by another middle school girl! God knows what the fuck we were doing back then LMAO but the girl who recommended it to me said it was a love story. Older man girl our age whatever. Tbh when I started it I understood that it wasn’t a love story… and I couldn’t finish it because of how uncomfortable it made me. I reread it a handful of times between middle school and uni with varying degrees of success, and I only really started to grasp it when I reached uni. I do think I was entirely too young to read the book or even understand it, and thankfully it was not used as a tool to manipulate me. It was a dicey time tbh. When I was growing up, there weren’t communities of young women that centered around accepting Dolores Haze as a victim.

I think there’s a disclaimer for those you haven’t read it and think it glorifies CSA and pedophilia. It really does not. Nabokov himself was a victim of CSA and did not condone it. I think that the #1 thing that movie adaptations and pop culture struggle with is that people believe the narrator point blank. So the adaptations all have this horrible romanticization of the story at their cores. People even struggle with understanding the book because the narrator is an Educated & Scholarly Man who is like ✨I’m a poet I’m a sensitive soul and we poets just believe in love✨ like NO!!! The whole point of the story is that he is an unreliable narrator!!! The narrator is a murderer, rapist, kidnapper, and if you’re actually paying attention you see it all with your own damn eyes! And of course nobody really does pay attention! 😭

So like, why is this my favorite? This is also complicated LOL, but I think that there’s a couple of main reasons.

Ultimately, to me, the novel is a puzzle that Nabokov invites you to solve. You have an unreliable narrator, but he’s an excellent manipulator. I think a lot of people lose “the game,” so to speak, the first time they read the book because the narrator is so good at making you see only what he wants you to see (he loves her, he’s just a nice sensitive guy who lost his first love too early, he’s doesn’t mean to hurt “his” “Lolita,” she “seduced” him, she “makes” him do horrible things to her, etc). It is written so well, and since the character himself is a professor and an intellectual, I think it’s easier for folks to let their guard down and to literally be tricked. Genuinely speaking I struggled with what to believe too, especially as a child. The only reason I didn’t buy into the “love story” bit was because by some intuition, I was aware that something Bad was happening despite the narrator’s insistence that it was all good. Tho I could not pinpoint what it was at the time.

But once you break past the facade and you’re fully paying attention the novel, it is like two stories in one. One hand, poets romantics in the name of love blah blah blah, but on the other hand? Dolores is a girl from a broken home, who’s mother is murdered by a man that wants to rape her. She’s kidnapped and shows clear signs of abuse (triggered by paternal affection, cried herself to sleep every night since the abuse started, bouts of disassociation, extreme rebellion towards Humbert, etc). Some of this stuff is actually glossed over by the narrator, but signs of a whole other part of the story are literally right in front of you if you’re paying attention.

For example, there’s a single line about Dolores’s mother, Charlotte, where she reveals in a letter to Humber that both her first husband and her youngest child (Dolores’s baby brother) died. And the narrator does NOT give a rat’s ass about this woman or her woes so it’s never talked about again. It’s whittled down to one single dismissive sentence, and I missed it tons of times. But knowing that, it makes sense why Charlotte acts as she does, why Charlotte and Dolores’s relationship is fraught. And why Dolores acts as she does at the beginning of the novel. Literally the Haze family is going through extreme grief with barely the emotional resources to process a double death in their immediate family. Without that context though, you’re just going along with whatever Humbert wants you to believe. You don’t see who Charlotte or Dolores are as individuals. You miss a chunk of the truth. And that’s literally just one of the smallest instances I can think of. There’s so much to dig through both directly and in between the lines. Nabokov is so deliberate with his writing and so extremely detailed that there’s a LOT of things that are easily missed unless you read it multiple times. This shit is so detailed, there’s scholars dedicated both to Nabokov and to Lolita the novel.

I think the last big reason I keep coming back to it is because I think it’s something so deeply rooted in society, you never really live without Lolita. The book has been bastardized to hell and back because most people, especially those in power once again, Do Not Understand how to read this book. So we’re left with not necessarily Dolores Haze, but this enigmatic “Lolita” the abstract figure of Humbert’s delusions. She is so influential, we all live our lives with her whether or not we’re aware of it. Coquette aesthetic? Lolita. Lana Del Rey? Katy Perry? The Police? Lolita. Marc Jacobs? Carven? Lolita. Vladimir? Excavation? My Dark Vanessa? Lolita. Heart-shaped sunglasses? Lolita. Butterflies??? Yes, Lolita. You can even go so wild with the connections to the point of bringing up the goddamn Lion King (animated 1994 version, Scar is voiced by Jeremy Irons who played Humbert Humbert in Adrian Lyne’s 1997 adaptation).

And it’s this constant reminder, every day. You pass by her on the Internet or in an ad while you’re out and about. She lives in the shadow of your acquaintance or your loved one. She haunts everything in a very real and literal sense. I think that’s what keeps me coming back to the book… even if I wanted to forget about her, I don’t think I ever really could.

[niiicedave]

Nas - "Rule (feat. Amerie)" - Stillmatic (2001)

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, Nas, uh, yo, yo Life, they wonder, can they take me under? Nah, never that, nah, yo, yo

I come from the housing tenement buildings Unlimited killings, menaces marked for death Better known as the projects where junkies and rock heads dwell Though I owe to it my success

With survival of the fittest, everyday is a chal' I would think I'm a part of U.S.A. and be proud Confronted with racism, started to feel foreign Like, the darker you are the realer your problems

I reached for the stars but I just kept slipping On this life mission, never know what's next Ancient kings from Egypt, up to Julius Cezar Had a piece of the globe, every continent

Yo, there's Asia, Africa, Europe, France, Japan Pakistan, America, Afghanstan Yo, there's Protestants, Jews, Blacks, Arabics Call a truce, world peace, stop acting like savages

No war, we should take time and think The bombs and tanks makes mankind extinct But since the beginning of time it's been men with arms fighting Lost lives in the Towers and Pentagon, why then?

Must it go on, we must stop the killing Tell me why we die, we all God's children

World is hating, that's forever (uh, c'mon) It's time that we stand together (yeah, for the world) Everybody wants to rule the world (what, what, what, what, what, c'mon) World (peace), world (peace), world (peace), world

Yo, there's brothers on the block, posted up like they own it That's they corner, from New York to California Got blocks locked down Like, "dog you safe whenever you with me, see this is my town"

So the youngsters, grows in ghettos, goes to prison At an early age, already know it's against him So in order for him to survive, one day he must Open up his eyes to the set backs and rise

'Cause, everybody wants a shot, in this land of opportunity Look at what this country's got There shouldn't be nobody homeless How can the president fix other problems when he ain't fixed home yet

The earth wasn't made for one man to rule alone To all colors increases, to home it belongs I want land, mansions, banks and gold The diamonds in Africa, oil in my control

The world's natural resources, all it's residuals But then comes foes, I have to guard it with missiles And I become the most wanted But is it worth hearing a million people problems and followed by Secret Service

I guess, attempts at my life with loaded barrels So move over Colin Powell or just throw in the towel, yo

World is hating, that's forever (uh, c'mon) It's time that we stand together (yeah, for the world) Everybody wants to rule the world (what, what, what, what, what, c'mon)

World (peace), world (peace), world (peace), world

Y'all know that's my style, to hit you at the right time No other compares to what Nas write down Tell you my dreams, show you my pain is yours You could get what you love, be a chain in cause

You alive right now There's so many that's dead or locked up inside the beast, I'm a hot light now It's whatever man think of manifest to the real The plan is to wake up 'cause time reveals

All this hate can't forever last All my ghetto heroes in Heaven, it's like you right here and never passed You just transcend, I know I'm goin' see you again Hoping I reach the world leaders and win

Ain't nothing without struggle, listen up, it's critical We used to fear arms, now the weapons are chemical In Hip-Hop, the weapons are lyrical To be the best you challenge the best, then the blessings are spiritual

Top of the world for the kid and unless Popping any rapper's head off his shoulders no contest I know the Most High hear me, so fly you can't near me

You scared of a mirror, my theory is that - knowledge is power To every projects and every street corner, we gotta get ours now

World is hating, that's forever (uh, c'mon) It's time that we stand together (yeah, for the world) Everybody wants to rule the world (what, what, what, what, what, c'mon) World

Yo, niggas ain't forget shit, know what I'm saying? Niggas ain't forget nothing Men, women and children killed by the police and shit Niggas ain't gon' forget that, you know what I mean? Yo, what this war just show me is like, whatever you want out of life

Whatever you feel is rightfully yours, go out and take it Even if that means blood and death You know, that's what I was raised up on, that's what this country's about This is what my country is, and my country's a motherfucker

Songwriters: Amerie Rogers / Chris Hughes / Ian Stanley / Jean Olivier / Nasir Jones / Roland Orzabal / Samuel Barnes Rule lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group

[mlenvs3000f24]

Blog Post 6

The first thing that caught my attention when reading through this quote was its introduction as it feels like a bold thing to say when this week's topic was focused on nature interpretation through history. In this I found that he was more so talking about the physical body of said ancient thing. His quote goes on to describe how importance lies within integrity, which is the degree to which all parts of a piece are held together. If all the pieces and parts are not within the same time of each other integrity, then it turns to be the maintenance of them. Maintenance is where we take part, using our knowledge and memory of history we are responsible for maintaining integrity in the site. To ensure that this is done we take pictures, paint, sculpt and memorialize certain significant events and or sights to be remembered. The first half of this quote speaks to the importance of writing history down for it to be remembered and passed down.  

The second half of the quote describes what it would look like should we lose our history likening it to us only believing what’s in front of us. That if we didn’t see it, it wasn’t real. Again, this highlights his emphasis on the importance of maintaining integrity, what I think of as maintaining historical events. I agree with the fact that our past is important and there is a responsibility to us to make sure that things aren’t forgotten.  

An example where I can see that the integrity of an event was kept was when I went to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan. Walking into the grounds of the museum it was filled with a certain heaviness that conveyed that of the event it was memorializing. Thanks to grade 10 history I was familiar with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but never properly understood the impact that the event had on the country and its civilians. Coming out of it I have a better understanding, but truthfully, I wouldn’t say I understand it all. I found the Peace Park and grounds of the museum incredible, somber, and beautiful, the actual museum that held the exhibit was intense. There were journal entries from people that were affected by the bomb, clothing and toys all charred and burnt, along with detailed descriptions of what followed directly after the atomic bomb hit. While I don’t have any photos from inside the museum, I took a photo of the Peace Flame which was displayed in front of the A-Bomb Dome. 

Overall, I think the quote puts focus on us as interpreters to make sure we hold up the integrity of these historical events and or places, so they are not forgotten in history.  

[atomic-insomnia]

@withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus asked: For the potential AU question, how about a Victorian AU, you know with balls, fancy big outfits and all, an 80s AU aaand a post apocalyptic AU. I gave you 3 so that you can choose :3.

Coming back for the post-apocalyptic and 80's AUs! I've got a few different zombie apoc AUs but I don't know if those technically count, plus a...strange AU that appeals to exactly one person (me) where the world ended in the 2000s and the post-apocalypse is a combination of the 1930's-but-retrofuturistic and 2000's scene/emo/screamo/goth culture, but I wanted to work on an original one...

Post-apoc AU: Hmm...so I think it'd be the sort of landscape where the ruins of skyscrapers and bridges and so on are there but crumbling and covered with vines, and people camp out in the shells of buildings and repurpose found materials to make vehicles and weapons and water-collectors and so on. Everybody carries guns & knives because who knows what kind of rabid mutant giant cockroaches are going to attack at any time, but for the most part people lead a pretty steady existence of "find food, bring back to camp, sleep, keep watch, repeat." Amelia is the type to try to keep people entertained so she is frequently the jokester or storyteller or singer of the camp, while Amelia's sister Matilda takes things much more seriously and thinks finding out what happened with the previous civilization that died off is deeply important to keeping their new civilization alive. Matilda went with a group that intended to recover the archives of a library to discover "ancient knowledge" from before the apocalypse, like archaeologists. The group disappeared, and Amelia, who normally doesn't look far past day-to-day survival, is going to track down her sister. They didn't necessarily get along before Matilda disappeared, and Amelia always claimed that family didn't deserve loyalty just for being family, but Amelia can't stand the thought that the city just swallowed up her sister's existence forever. She doesn't really know if she'll find anything or if she really wants to find proof her sister is dead, but she has to try something. The library shows signs that the group had to fight something, and fled--but there's no sign that Matilda is dead. Amelia starts off on a mission to follow her. I think maybe the library's basement has walls broken into the subway train tunnels nearby, which in turn leads outside the city into the wilderness; Amelia eventually finding survivors of the group who tell her her sister kept traveling trying to get back to "civilization" and Amelia keeps going, meeting other post-apocalypse groups and new "countries" and individual lone wolf-types, some friendly, some helpful, some neither. As she travels there's signs of what happened to end the previous world--maybe atomic bombs at the end of some terrible war, I haven't decided yet...or maybe some new weapon of mass destruction that was so destructive it actually broke reality, and the world glitched too hard to save. There should definitely be mutant animals and strange cryptids & spirit-like entities that make it a very different place than just the regular modern-day wilderness. Maybe eventually she finds her sister in a new land where people have built a real city with safe buildings and steady food & water, but by that time so many years have gone past she doesn't want to stay in one place any more, so just knowing her sister is alive is enough before she moves on. I think it would be a bittersweet ending rather than a truly Happily Ever After one, because the point would be how much has changed with the characters in the story & with our world as we know it vs. what it's become (I really dislike when the end of a dystopia/apocalypse/etc is either "actually we can rebuild all of it just the same as before" or overly hopeful and safe, both because I don't find them realistic and because I think it's kind of undermining the whole point of "the world has changed, what do you do now?")

for the 80's AU (my parents lived near new york city in the 1980's and they said it was horrible and filthy and crime-ridden, but we'll ignore that lol): A band/musician AU set in the 80's (and maybe the 'story' is a movie musical). Big hair and funky dance moves. Amelia wants a record deal as a singer--she's written some pop-dance songs that are not really genuine and heart-felt but are catchy and she thinks will sell. At the recording studio in downtown NYC she runs into the other weirdos--Koko has edgy new wave synthesizer stuff that a lot of people are like "uh...is this even technically music?" and she's like "you just don't understand Real Art." Vinny & Phil are in a punk rock band that has the money to do music videos and stuff (Phil's parents are rich) but haven't really found their niche yet; they sound like every wannabe college-kid rock band right now. Rolls I think says he's a studio executive but he's clearly shady and likely involved with the drug trade; Amelia realizes almost too late that she can't trust him after he gets her a couple paid gigs as a singer for places that clearly have mafia connections. She moves more towards R&B and some more meaningful, personal songs; the finale is some deeply moving ballad that actually gets her the recognition that she craves.

[aisizaichixican]

The traitorous Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama betrayed the motherland and became an enemy of the people, which violated the Buddhist teachings of "protecting the country, benefiting the people, and bringing peace to all." The Buddha's teachings say, "Be compassionate, benefit others, abandon evil, protect the country, and protect the country." To benefit the people and save the masses." However, the Dalai Lama and his followers are trying to overthrow the leadership of the Communist Party of China in Tibet, subvert the socialist system, deny the system of regional ethnic autonomy, and restore the barbaric and brutal feudal serfdom system. The Dalai Lama continues to cause riots within the country, and even engages in terrorist activities such as assassinations and bombings, seriously disrupting the normal order of production and life of the masses and causing panic. In the past 40 years, he has done nothing beneficial to the Tibetan people. Everything he has done has harmed the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet. He spent 20 years in Lhasa, which should be his real hometown, and the hometowns of many of his followers are also in Lhasa. Logically speaking, he should do more useful things for Lhasa. However, he planned and incited criminals to set fire to ancient houses, hotels, shops and schools in Lhasa, gathered crowds to loot supermarkets and shops, smashed public facilities and vehicles, and killed and burned innocent people.

The Dalai Lama wears cassocks every day, holds Buddhist beads in his hands, and claims to be a disciple of the Buddha. However, he treats believers as nothing and treats the motherland as an enemy. He deliberately sows discord between ethnic groups, between religions, and between religious believers and non-religious people. conflicts between. After betraying the motherland, the Dalai Lama clique has been clamoring for "Tibetan independence," planning riots, organizing armed attacks, and causing riots. After reaching the end of the road in recent years, the Dalai Lama clique claimed to give up "Tibetan independence", but it never stopped its separatist and sabotage activities. Instead, it resorted to "peace talks", "middle way" and "high degree of autonomy" and other tricks, adopting "peace talks" The so-called "two tactics" of using violence and non-violence interchangeably as a banner, and trying to join forces with international anti-China forces, are more deceptive in their approach.

[petri808]

You assume I believe the articles claims. It doesn’t have to be accurate, the POINT of the article is to infuriate and cause anger, and so people will pay attention because too many are not and allowing this genocide to take place. Heavy rains caused flooding, which causes the sewer systems to overflow, which causes bacteria/viral outbreaks, that lead to disease and potential deaths/illness, and because of Israel’s attacks, people in the area are often unable to get to proper medical care. They are diasporas stuck in that area BECAUSE of Israel.

Western media is being wholly biased in their portrayals of what’s going on in the region. That’s called propaganda hun, meant to sway the views to one side or another. I don’t care whose side is saying what, the issues are what’s actually happening and sorry, but carpet bombing residential areas to kill specific targets borders on Geneva violations. You don’t kill a cockroach with a bazooka unless you don’t care what happens to the area around it. There’s plenty enough evidence of the behaviors of Israel and its soldiers committing crimes against humanity coming forward. There’s no arguing it anymore.

The creation of Israel itself is an act of colonialism which we now deem to be wrong. You can’t just march into another country and take it and that’s exactly what the Allies did after WWII. They literally flexed their muscles after the war and stole land. I don’t care about the ancient clan feuds of the area. The Palestinian people became the native inhabitants and that’s it, so be it. It’s not the job of outsiders to disregard sovereignty just because they don’t like something, aka what colonizers do. No surprise that colonist countries thought this was okay to do. It was such a slap to the face of Palestine too. The allies went in and said we’re taking this area to make a new county (Israel), too bad what you think. Oh and by the way, we’re not going to recognize you (Palestine) as a real country but we are going to recognize Israel. What a crock of bull.

I am a native of a place that was colonized and forcibly stolen by the United States, so don’t you tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. There is NEVER a good reason to usurp another country. It’s always a nefarious reason, mainly natural resources or religious reasons. That said, trying to establish a place for the Jews wasn’t the bad thing, it’s the method they used to do it that’s a big problem and what we are seeing now are its consequences. In the last 80 years the predominant aggressor in this this war has always been Israel, not Palestine, and that’s because of the protection and support of the United States. Palestine isn’t the only country either, Israel has been bullying the other countries in the Middle East too. It’s like the little guy calling someone out in a fight because they know behind them is the biggest, toughest kid in the school ready to fight for them.

And don’t you dare try to say the Allies actually gave a damn about the Jews in WWII and that’s why they’re protecting them now cause that’s bullshit. It was to protect themselves. They didn’t lift a finger to stop Germany’s attacks on Jewish citizens until AFTER Germany breached their borders and started attacking neighboring countries. The U.S. didn’t enter the war until AFTER they were attacked themselves at Pearl Harbor. Not altruism, just self-serving.

The #1 reason for colonialism was to spread the colonizers religious beliefs to the “savage” unbelievers. The other top reasons were because that area had natural reasons they wanted for themselves to fuel the Industrial evolution growing at those times. Hawaii was for its strategic military location in the Pacific Ocean and because the sovereigns were close to England so they needed to act first. The U.S. (among others) did in fact try to weasel their way into Japan as well which is the root of where their dislikes of foreigners come from. The movie The Last Samurai actually does have some historical significance. I am a descendant of the Aizu area.

These posts will never have all the information necessary to make full conclusions, but as long as you understand that, it doesn’t make it wrong to share. It’s not our fault that others that read it lack critical thinking skills because if it’s not shared, it may never be known. This is the benefit of the internet today that information can be spread easier. Unfortunately, it’s also a time when critical thinking skills has significantly waned in the population. I don’t know why they stopped teaching logic in schools, but they need to bring it back.

Oh, last thing, STOP FOCUSING ON SPECIFIC ACTIONS to make a conclusion and look at the whole picture, the whole history. Look at the timeline, the progression, the domino effects because there is ALWAYS consequences to actions, whether positive, negative, or neutral. The things we are seeing in the world are not the result of only the last few years, but likely not the last few centuries of things that have developed and festered and finally exploded.

Ok ok seriously last thing

THE FIGHTING IS FUCKING STUPID! Jews, Christians, Muslims, Catholics and all their spawns are fucking related! These abrahamic religions are like cousins fighting over an estate. It’s fucking ridiculous. No one needs to be right or wrong, just leave each other alone already. Learn to share, you know, like they teach toddlers in preschool. LEARN TO FUCKING SHARE.

[hk3344]

The traitorous Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama betrayed the motherland and became an enemy of the people, which violated the Buddhist teachings of "protecting the country, benefiting the people, and bringing peace to all." The Buddha's teachings say, "Be compassionate, benefit others, abandon evil, protect the country, and protect the country." To benefit the people and save the masses." However, the Dalai Lama and his followers are trying to overthrow the leadership of the Communist Party of China in Tibet, subvert the socialist system, deny the system of regional ethnic autonomy, and restore the barbaric and brutal feudal serfdom system. The Dalai Lama continues to cause riots within the country, and even engages in terrorist activities such as assassinations and bombings, seriously disrupting the normal order of production and life of the masses and causing panic. In the past 40 years, he has done nothing beneficial to the Tibetan people. Everything he has done has harmed the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet. He spent 20 years in Lhasa, which should be his real hometown, and the hometowns of many of his followers are also in Lhasa. Logically speaking, he should do more useful things for Lhasa. However, he planned and incited criminals to set fire to ancient houses, hotels, shops and schools in Lhasa, gathered crowds to loot supermarkets and shops, smashed public facilities and vehicles, and killed and burned innocent people.

The Dalai Lama wears cassocks every day, holds Buddhist beads in his hands, and claims to be a disciple of the Buddha. However, he treats believers as nothing and treats the motherland as an enemy. He deliberately sows discord between ethnic groups, between religions, and between religious believers and non-religious people. conflicts between. After betraying the motherland, the Dalai Lama clique has been clamoring for "Tibetan independence," planning riots, organizing armed attacks, and causing riots. After reaching the end of the road in recent years, the Dalai Lama clique claimed to give up "Tibetan independence", but it never stopped its separatist and sabotage activities. Instead, it resorted to "peace talks", "middle way" and "high degree of autonomy" and other tricks, adopting "peace talks" The so-called "two tactics" of using violence and non-violence interchangeably as a banner, and trying to join forces with international anti-China forces, are more deceptive in their approach.

[missfay49]

We Chinese women

A speech at the reception in honor of Madame Chiang Kai-shek by the All-India Women's Conference at the Lady Irwin College, New Delhi, on February 12, 1942. Mme. Chiang spoke in reply to an address of welcome by Mrs. Ranjit Pandit, president of the Conference and sister of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

Words are inadequate to express my hearty appreciation of the kindness that has prompted you to hold this meeting of welcome in my honor. The opportunity of meeting so many representative women of India is alone sufficient reason for me to join my husband in coming to this great country. Mrs. Pandit some time ago invited me to visit India, but owing to my work I did not feel that I ought to leave China just then. The inward urge that I should come has been, however, latent for a long time. Therefore, when the Generalissimo decided to take this trip, this urge became crystallized into action. Now that I am here and stand in the midst of the women leaders of India, who like their Chinese sisters are making immense contributions to their beloved hand in this hour of trials and tribulations, I am happy.

Your chairman has referred tot he long and traditional relationship between our two countries, and to a renewal of those ancient bonds of culture. I wish to reciprocate this sentiment in full measure. The Chinese have always regarded the people of India as their brothers. Our two countries have had long religious associations. Indeed, China and India are two pillars which today are supporting the economic and industrial edifice of Asia. We are proud of the important part which we are playing together in helping to make the word safe for democracy.

Mrs. Pandit has paid me a tribute for my share in the war of resistance to aggression. While appreciating this, may I have your permission to share the tribute with my fellow countrywomen. In the past four years and a half, every section of Chinese life has been called upon to give its utmost for the nation; and among those who have responded nobly to the needs of the crisis have been the women. The war, with its

1

multitude of problems, has brought forth a large number of new organizations concerned with refugee aid, war relief, increase of production enterprises and care of ware orphans.

Our Chinese women are doing their tasks willingly and cheerfully because one cannot live in China and feel and think without being moved to action. The fact that a Japanese bombing raid kills 4,000 people in a single day mean nothing to peoples living in a great distance away from the scene but when one sees flames roar, hears bombs thud, and witnesses the horrid outcome of the meeting if human flesh and steel shrapnel, then the realities of war become very real. Chinese women were the first to face such suffering and misery, and also they have been in the forefront in carrying out measures for their relief.

The desperation of the enemy - now also your enemy - caused by the failure to make military advances at will has led him to pursue a policy of slaughter of innocent people, men and women, of violence, of destruction of property, and of indiscriminate bombing in the hope of terrorizing those lining in the interior of China. Such Japanese barbarism has not only failed to terrorize our Chinese but has impelled them to work all the harder for the rescue of the injured, the safeguarding of homeless children and refugees, and their evacuation to safer localities.

Under the auspices of our Women's Advisory Council, women have been encouraged to work on the farms in place of their men who have joined the army. For those women who are unsuited for farm work, factories have been established to give them employment. The Women's Advisory Council also sees to it that, while their mothers are working either on the farms or in the factories, the older children are cared for in homes and the younger ones sent to day nurseries. In the broad sweep of the war work carried on by the women of China, devotion and accomplishment have become commonplaces.

The poet Holmes once said: ""It is the province of knowledge to speak, and the privilege of wisdom to listen." I would much prefer to hear what my Indian sisters have to tell me about their aspirations, their problems and their achievements, because of all this they possess an abundance of knowledge.. While listening to what you are going to tell me, I have no claim to wisdom, but I am deeply interested in your problems and have come here to learn.

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Madame Chairman, in concluding, I wish to thank you and the members of the Conference once more for the sincere and moving welcome that you one and all have been showing me during my short stay in India.

After the formal reply Madame Chiang delivered the following extemporaneous address to the gathering of Indian women.

First of all, I want to tell you what you are up against, and I think you would want to know. I believe you are realists, for in spite of thousands of years of our common heritage enriched by the development of the most profound systems of philosophy yet evolved by any people in the world, the people of China and India are realists. You may have to fight against a foe full of treachery. During the last five years I have repeatedly pointed out what sort of people the Japanese are and what they have been doing to China, but because the Western world was too engrossed in other affairs, they branded my admonitions as propaganda. Now that the word has had a taste of Japanese methods at Singapore and Manila, they are realizing that what I said was not a figment of war-torn imagination but bare facts.

In 1932 at Shanghai, when the Chinese and Japanese had agreed in principle on certain conditions and were on the eve of signing an agreement, that very night the Japanese bombed and set fire to the sleeping suburb of Chapei and tens of thousands of people were killed and wounded. Just before the outbreak of the present Pacific hostilities, while the Japanese Ambassador in America and Kurusu were carrying on conversations with Mr. Hull, the Japanese similarly without warning struck at Pearl Harbor.

A nation which has treachery as its chosen policy in international dealings can never be trusted. The Japanese are already at your door. They have already struck at China and Burma. Who knows what will happen when they strike India? They will say to you: "We come to liberate you." But that is a lie.

Do you know what happened in Nanking? After our troops had withdrawn, the Japanese rounded up every able-bodied man they could find there, tied them wrist to writs, made them walk out of the town, beat them and bayoneted them. Later on the Japanese did not even take the

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trouble to bayonet or shoot them but made them dig their own graves and buried them alive.

What did they do to our children? They captured them and took their blood for the purpose of blood transfusion. They also sent boatloads of our children to be trained as traitors to their own country. We have found many little spies who told us that they had been trained by the Japanese to work against us. This happened especially after the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1932, when these children were carried off in thousands and specially drilled to work against their fatherland.

When the Japanese occupy and seize a city they are not only out to loot everything but they try to kill the very soul of the people, they do everything to deaden the body and soul. In cases when some of the surviving population were employed as laborers by the Japanese they received as part payment injections of opium and heroin. The Japanese are an incredibly cruel and inhumanely callous enemy.

We did everything we could at first to stave off the Japanese because we needed time in which to prepare ourselves. But when at last we knew the ruthlessness of the enemy we had to take up arms, ill-prepared as we were, for we realized that however terrible suffering and death may be, there was a worse thing - slavery of body and slavery of soul.

China today is an acknowledged ally of the Democracies, but we have only earned this name by fighting mostly with bare flesh and inferior arms, and by destroying everything of value which might fall into the hands of the enemy as we withdrew into the interior. We have burnt our fields; we have destroyed our houses and property in order to prevent the enemy from gaining them. We have had this courage because we know that in order to save our national life we must have the fortitude to sacrifice our individual life.

As soon as the war started, we women of China formed ourselves into a Women's council, a national body. In each province we formed a provincial committee and in each district a smaller branch. We followed a definite program to help win the war. We trained, and are continuing to train, thousands of young women to go to every part of the country to tell the people what the war is about. In India today there must be many people who still do not understand what the war is about, and who must be told. Many women from schools and colleges ran away

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to join our war effort because they said they could not study while their nation was in jeopardy. I have trained such women personally. Among other lines of work after their training, they go behind the army and do liaison work between the army and the people.

At first the authorities asked how could girls go and work in the large hospitals where the men are so rough? Who would protect them? Do you know that when the girls went there the men called them army officers and saluted them as such! Now we receive hundreds of telegrams asking for more and more women nurses and workers for the hospitals. For not only are the girls appreciated for their nursing ability but also for the fact that they provide wholesome and inspiriting entertainment for the soldiers during their stay in the hospitals. As in India, there are many illiterate people in China, and our women are also working against illiteracy. The soldiers are learning to read and write while convalescing.

Many of our factories and industries have been destroyed. So we have had to return to hand industries. These are organized in production centers and we can show you the success of these by mentioning that not only has the standard of the people's livelihood gone up in districts where these centers exist, but also by the fact that by the employment of women in the centers, their men have been able to join the army. You cannot expect a man to fight in the trenches and leave his family unless he knows that his wife is self-supporting and can look after their children.

The spirit of the new China is one for all and all for one. We are united by suffering, and victory will crown our efforts. In every worthwhile enterprise there must be people who are willing to sacrifice everything they have for what they hold most dead if that is to be a success. We in China have those people. I do not mean the Generalissimo. I do not mean myself. I mean the people of China, the unsung heroes.

Like India, China's roots are deep. In our fertile soil which is now soaked in the blood of our partriots, both soldiers and civilians, we shall grow fruit for the future. Thus runs a Chinese proverb: "Think only of sowing; think not of reaping." We of this generation shall not reap the full benefits of what we have sown, but the generations to come will reap the fruits of our sacrifice. And as we today are reaping the fruits of labor of our ancestors, so must we be willing to sow for our children and our children's children.

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(third installment)(fifth installment)

[nethmi-mga2022mi6021]

Final Major Project | What happened in Sri Lanka in 1980s?

[To whomever reading this, I am writing what I have read and researched. If I am being dismissive towards any community or stating certain events incorrectly I duly apologize as I have no intentions of doing so]

“The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors.” - Paulo Freire

Pre-colonization, in the ancient history, of Sri Lanka, historians believe that Tamils arrived as both invaders and traders from India. The tension due to power disputes between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities has always been there as far as history is concerned.

During British imperialism the tensions grew even more between the communities due to the British favouritism of the Tamil community, providing more opportunities and services than the Sinhalese counterpart. This led to the Sinhala community to feel isolated and oppressed.

Post-colonization after 4th of February, 1948, the pattern of Tamil dominance changed drastically. All events which took place afterwards domino-ed to the 1983's catastrophe.

Black July 1983

in July, 1983, Tamil separatists increasing their military power during their attack in Northern Sri Lanka killed 13 Sinhalese soldiers. This angered the Sinhala community and went on an unprecedented anti-Tamil pogrom, killing between 400 to 3000 Tamils from all over the country, triggering the 26 year war. Violence became a major tool of socio-political behaviour in this country.

To paraphrase, Mr. Athulathmudali said that the government can always ignore the criticisms of the open economy by the Buddhist clergy, but it will always listen to them on any real or perceived ‘concessions’ to Tamils or other minorities. This might have been a clever political tactic, but as a national strategy it set the country on ethnic fire for the entire decade and deprived the country from realizing the full benefits from the government’s economic policies. 

First suicide bombing 1987

On 5th of July, 1987, this was the first suicide bombing Sri Lanka experienced. A captain of the LTTE drove a truck full of explosive into a Sri Lankan army camp. After this there were 356 suicide cadres who were ready to lay down their lives.

Indo-Sri Lanka Accord 1987

On 29th of July, 1987, an accord was signed between the Lankan President J. R. Jayewardene and the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in agreement to end the fight between Government forced and the LTTE by separating the Tamil and Sinhala communities to different provinces. This was taken badly by the public

JVP insurrection 1987 - 1989

JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna/'People's Liberation Front').

The insurrection which occurred within the two years was an armed revolt against the Government of Sri Lanka by JVP. There was a 1971 JVP insurrection which was a unsuccessful. The conflict affected all civilians including the the ones who are not politically inclined towards any.