#bushnell park

[n3cr0psych0tic]

[longliverockback]

John Fogerty Deja Vu All over Again 2004 Geffen ————————————————— Tracks: 01. Deja Vu (All over Again) 02. Sugar-Sugar (in My Life) 03. She’s Got Baggage 04. Radar 05. Honey Do 06. Nobody’s Here Anymore 07. I Will Walk with You 08. Rhubarb Pie 09. Wicked Old Witch 10. In the Garden —————————————————

Alex Acuña 

Kenny Aronoff

John O’Brian

Bob Britt 

Paul Bushnell

John Fogerty

Viktor Krauss

Dean Parks 

Aaron Plunkett 

David Santos

Benmont Tench

* Long Live Rock Archive

[lowkeyrobin]

HELLO!!

could you please write something abt roadtripping with charlie bushnell?

I LOVE YOUR WRITING💥💥💥

hey!! and yeah of course! ; and thank you so much, I appreciate it a lot 🫶🫶 ; thank you for requesting, hope you enjoy! ; I put this in a hc format bc I could not make this a oneshot lmfaoooo

CHARLIE BUSHNELL ; roadtripping

summary ; what it's like to roadtrip with charlie

warnings ; language, a joke at republicans

word count ; 370

masterlist

you usually switch around who's driving every couple hours to keep it fair

but he's usually the one who drives first

you're usually staring out the window, jamming to music, and taking pictures of cool/pretty views

you put on 365, good luck babe, popular dance pop songs when you have aux

he puts on more like singalong type songs, like zach brian, bo burnham, yk??

it's either that or like rap / hip hop

like my girl megan, yeat, ian, joey valance & brae, etc etc

you're vibing the whole way to your next location unless one of you / both of you are safely asleep

he goes off on tangents about nature and random shit he just magically knows

and you listen

then rant about music or books or whatever fandoms you're in or some crack ass fanfic you discovered at 3am

he's a calm driver

but if it's really dark or storming and he can't see in front of him, he's literally hunched over the wheel panicking

he often stops at gas stations every couple hours to get snacks and for bathroom breaks

he gets you a little stuffed animal and your fav snacks if you want them as well

he's got a ton of travel mags in his dashboard thing (the drawer thing I forget what it's called gang)

you flip through them a lot

"ooo woah that's so pretty"

"it is"

"wow, that's insane, holy shit"

"midwest core"

"bye it looks like republicans for miles"

you often play tag in parking lots when stretching your legs, the radio blasting cute songs (slow dancing in a parking lot by jordan davis, detour by maren morris, etc)

when you're asleep in the passengers seat, he'll often rest a hand on your thigh or over your hand on the console

sometimes he stops to drape a blanket over you if you haven't already

when he's asleep, you often hold his hand with the other on the wheel, or hum him to sleep absentmindedly cause you were focusing on the road and enjoying the music

you often take videos of each other doing funny shit, saying funny shit, etc

you've got albumsss of snaps in the car and pics of each other w dumb filters

[probablyasocialecologist]

In all, at least 100 people set themselves on fire in the US and Vietnam to protest the war. After a long history on multiple continents as a tool of protest against religious persecution—the precedent on which Quảng Đức was drawing—these self-immolations cemented a new association in American culture between the tactic and anti-war activism. In February 1991, during the first US war in Iraq, Gregory Levey doused himself in paint thinner and perished in a fireball in a park in Amherst, Massachusetts, leaving behind a small cardboard sign that read, simply, “peace.” Malachi Ritscher, an experimental musician in Chicago, set himself on fire on the side of the Kennedy expressway during the morning rush hour one Friday in November 2006, after posting a long statement on his website explaining that he felt there was no other way for him to escape complicity with the “barbaric war” the US was then waging. He had been arrested at two previous anti-war protests. Scholars often associate the rise of political self-immolation in the 1960s with the rise of television: a spectacular form of protest for the society of the spectacle. But of course there are less painful ways for protestors to attract eyeballs. The reality is that self-immolation registers the near-total impotence of protest—and even public opinion as such—in the face of a military apparatus completely insulated from external accountability. It the rawest testament to the absence of effective courses of action. When war consists primarily of unelected men in undisclosed locations pouring fire on the heads of people we will never know on the other side of the world, there is very little that ordinary people can do to arrest its progress. But we still have our bodies, and it is in the nature of fire to refuse containment. To ask whether self-immolation is good or bad, justifiable or non-justifiable, effective or ineffective is in large part to miss the point, which is that it is an option, whether anyone else likes it or not. It illuminates our powerlessness in negative space, but it also affirms the irreducible core of our freedom, that small flame of agency that no repression can extinguish. Since Aaron Bushnell’s death by self-immolation this week in protest of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, his detractors have warned about the risk of “contagion,” suggesting that his protest will encourage imitators (who, they imply, share his alleged mental instability). There may or may not be additional self-immolators before the slaughter comes to an end, just as Bushnell was preceded by a woman, yet to be identified publicly, who burned herself outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta in December. But the purpose of lighting yourself on fire is not to encourage other people to light themselves on fire. It is to scream to the world that you could find no alternative, and in that respect it is a challenge to the rest of us to prove with our own freedom that there are other ways to meaningfully resist a society whose cruelty has become intolerable.

[sage-lights]

today's been a hard day scrolling through smoshblr, and i need to ask y'all honestly how to navigate it all. i'm gonna bullet point my thoughts.

dani saying that she was not valued at her most recent job (which is smosh because her linkedin says she left march 2024) because her mentors/superiors were eager to help her grow until her growth became a threat. so she faced an unpleasant and unsupportive work environment at smosh, a common phenomenon faced by plenty of black women and other woc in entertainment and in LA (source here)

kimmy announced she officially isn't a part of smosh anymore. didn't want to "spill tea" (which dani didn't intend to either, they just both want to be transparent about career changes). kimmy is also a woc who moved from cast to crew, despite still expressing that she wanted to be on camera. curious, huh?

today's smosh games video with noah and olivia. noah has been talked about quite a bit on smoshblr already for his zionist views. (source here)

learned olivia posted a pro-israel story back in oct, but i read the replies on the post and it says that she also has posted about a ceasefire in gaza, but i haven't seen screenshots of it yet (not saying that it's like "pics or it didn't happen" though). reading through the replies say that tommy and amanda (oof, this one hurts) also posted similar things on oct 7. hoping they've educated themselves and understand why we need to continue calling for a ceasefire and supporting palestine to end the genocide in gaza. (source here)

olivia parked in a handicap spot and claimed she didn't know? i didn't watch the who meme'd it when it was uploaded, but it caused many fans to be upset at olivia for it. (source here)

damien, angela, and mallory are the only three i've seen say anything in support of palestine. damien said talked about it on twitch, angela tweeted about it, and mallory posted stories about aaron bushnell. (if anyone has the screenshots/sources, please leave them in the replies!)

i need to clearly state that i don't mean to bring any of this up as a way to bash smosh. as this blog will tell you, i'm a huge fan and have been for almost a decade. but with every passing day, it honestly becomes harder and harder to stay a fan. yet, it's equally as hard to let go of something that has provided me so much comfort (and probably saved me many times over).

where do we as a community go from here? guess i'm just feeling a little lost right now.

again, none of this is meant to be hateful towards anyone. especially because we don't know who they are in their real lives. we only see their public personas.

and to anyone who is confused as to why we as fans should hold smosh accountable for these instances, they are a company with a massive following. they have influence and the things they say and bring attention to reached millions of people. but beyond that, there are people involved. people getting the short end of the stick, getting hurt, for the benefit of a few.

i hope this all made sense. and wow, it's a long ass post. as always, i really appreciate the other blogs on here for being willing to talk about these things. it makes me feel much less alone in my confusion.

please keep all discussions peaceful. absolutely no hate towards anyone will be tolerated.

[catdotjpeg]

The Palestinian town of Jericho has named a street after Aaron Bushnell, the US air force member who set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington to protest against the war in Gaza. The 25-year-old, who died on 25 February, “sacrificed everything” for Palestinians, said the mayor of Jericho, Abdul Karim Sidr, as the street sign was unveiled on Sunday. “We didn’t know him, and he didn’t know us. There were no social, economic or political ties between us. What we share is a love for freedom and a desire to stand against these attacks [on Gaza],” the mayor told a small crowd gathered on the new Aaron Bushnell Road.

[...]

In Jericho, Bushnell’s extreme act is seen as the most powerful expression of grassroots solidarity. Amani Rayan, a Jericho city council member who grew up in Gaza and moved to the occupied West Bank to study aged 19, said: “He [Bushnell] sacrificed the most precious thing, whatever your beliefs. This man gave all his privileges for the children of Gaza... He was a soldier who with his last breath, despite the pain, shouted ‘free Palestine’. This means he was clear to the depths of his being about why he was doing it.”

[...]

Jericho named the street just a fortnight after Bushnell’s death. “We made a quick decision so we would be first,” Sidr said. They also named a square for South Africa after its government took Israel to the international court of justice, accusing it of genocide. “These names will focus attention of both the locals and visitors,” Sidr said, adding that they were following a precedent set after the death of the activist Rachel Corrie. A street in Ramallah was named for the American after she was crushed to death by a bulldozer in 2003 while trying to prevent the Israeli army destroying homes in Gaza.

[...]

Aaron Bushnell Street is in the south of the city in a popular area of villas and parks, where people go for horse-riding and go-carting. It branches off from Mahmoud Darwish Street, named after the unofficial national poet of Palestine. Rayan said: “Here Aaron Bushnell and Mahmoud Darwish meet. Both are powerful names in the Palestinian story.” Like many in Jericho she hopes Bushnell’s family will visit. “We want to thank them for raising him and giving him that moral attitude.”

-- From "Palestinian town of Jericho names street after US soldier who set himself on fire" by Emma Graham-Harrison, 10 Mar 2024

[salvadorbonaparte]

My time in Connecticut is coming to an end. I thought I'd have time to visit 3 museums but the Wadsworth Atheneum turned out to be so big and filled with interesting art that I spent pretty much the entire day there. I also enjoyed some Puerto Rican music and culture in Bushnell Park, saw the state capitol, old state house and first church and ate fried green tomatoes for the first time. The people here are very kind. I simply have to return a second and perhaps even third time for the other sights Connecticut has to offer.

[pers-books]

Two Fifteenth Doctor audio adventures coming soon

Two brand new adventures are coming for the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday... this time on audio! 

Heading to County Durham, England, and North West America, these two new stories take the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday even further. 

Doctor Who: On Ghost Beach

by Niel Bushnell

A haunting tale of mystery and adventure for the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday!

The TARDIS arrives in County Durham, England, in 1958. Seaham Chemical Beach was once a scene of heavy industry, long since abandoned, but now local residents are having nightmares and seeing apparitions.

It isn’t long before the Doctor and Ruby are affected by the beach’s peculiar atmosphere. As they begin to forget exactly who they are, Ruby hears a distant voice calling her on.

Whose memories are filling the travellers’ heads, and what is the significance of Ghost Beach, in the Sea of Despair, on the planet Farfrom? Even more importantly – who is Reg?

Susan Twist, who played the recurring woman in the BBC TV series, reads this atmospheric original chiller by Niel Bushnell.

Doctor Who: Sting of the Sasquatch

by Darren Jones

A full-throttle adventure in America for the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday

In a National Park in North-West America, the Doctor and Ruby are pursued by large, ape-like creatures who seem to literally disappear into the trees. When Ruby falls ill after apparently being stung, the Doctor believes the infection is extra-terrestrial in origin.

They meet Dixie and Greg, two Bigfoot hunters determined to track down the mythical Sasquatch. Standing in their way is Ranger Peone, who’s adamant that the forest is too dangerous to explore. Dozens of people have vanished, or reappeared with no memory, in the last month alone.

Then the ape creatures kidnap Ruby, and the Doctor is determined to both save her life and solve the mystery of the Sasquatch.

Genesis Lynea, who played Harriet Arbinger in the BBC TV series, reads this tense and dramatic original story by Darren Jones.

Pre-order Doctor Who: Sting of the Sasquatch here

[uhaveeverything]

On Aaron Bushnell

Somewhere around the time covid hit, I was cast in a play that never quite came to fruition. My character was a tribute to David Buckel, a conservationist and lawyer for Lamda Legal who self-immolated in Brooklyn's Prospect Park to protest the inaction of world leaders on climate change. As a piece of character work, I put together a presentation for my fellow castmates based around the following zen koan:

"Put out the fire across the river."

A koan is a meditative tool, an idea meant to be held in the mind and contemplated. This koan, to me, is both a directive - "put out the fire" - and a statement that places the hearer in relationship to the fire - "across the river." It could be easy to see this (or any koan) as some mystical bullshit riddle without a particular meaning, but I see something very practical in it.

You can't put out a fire from across a river.

You can't always solve a problem from where you are.

David Buckel was someone who spent years in the business of finding solutions. He embraced uphill legal battles for LGBTQ Americans and their families, he worked with conservation groups to promote composting. He believed in compassionate systems. There was no unusual behavior leading up to his death, but it's not hard to imagine what was going on in his mind: the effects of climate change are rising, administrations aren't doing enough, and the actions of an individual won't save the world.

Easy to see how he lost hope. To picture him looking across the river and knowing that by the time he gets there it'll be burning out of control.

I know a lot less about Aaron Bushnell, but I can imagine that someone who would join the military is someone who is driven to sprint toward the fire, to jump into the river, perhaps thinking that they'll be able to manage the fire or hold it back. I can imagine that same person arriving on the other shore and facing the inferno, seeing what has already been destroyed, coming to grips with the reality of how the fire is being stoked.

Apparently since yesterday there's been a lot of talk about mental health in regards to Aaron. As much as I believe in therapy and mental health improvement, I can't help hearing "he should have gotten help" in this case as "he should have had someone convince him things aren't so bad."

I'm not saying I want to see more people follow his example. Only that there is nothing irrational about feeling despair when one recognizes the scope of violence and destruction happening in front of your eyes, and how it continues by the hands of people in power.

I wish I could say Rest in Peace. But I feel that Aaron, and David, and all who have chosen this act, will continue to burn until the injustice they died for is resolved.

Put out the fire across the river.

[thephloxbayou]

Im so fucking angry.

I wasnt going to talk about going per protocol but this was so fucking lame it doesn't matter. It was never a threat or a blink on existence.

I went to a local vigil for Aaron Bushnell.

Now, a few things. This is my first time getting to go to anything like this. I have a sleep disorder, and I work nights. Usually activist groupings tend to happen last minute/you find out last minute. I'm far from Boston, on Cape Cod (I've mentioned where i lived generally before hence why I dont mind saying it here), and it's an ordeal to go even for fun. Things rarely happen on days I have off, and if they do, i probably worked the night before or have to that night. I cant take work off, im poor and its hard to get last minute coverage without my job being at risk.

But I found out yesterday about the local vigil. I rested up well before my shift, did it and came home and got very little sleep. But I could manage and that was the point, I could so I should. I had clothes prepped, black bloc even though i didnt expect anything to happen, and dressed for the cold and rain (its closer to 50 today). My phone was at home, my ID and house key in the car, parked some ways away and walked, only had my car key, a water bottle, and a few fruit snacks on me. It started at 1pm but I got there at 2 (lack of sleep plus making sure to eat a good meal just in case rather than run out on a near empty stomach).

I didnt expect a ton, this area is wealthy and white, but I wanted to be ready if anyone of color got harrassed because I have my privilege as a white person. Good to practice anyways. I also felt like maybe the gathering would have more energy, given that it came out that Aaron was a Cape Cod native. Either way, I was prepared to stand outside all day even if the rain that was forecasted was pouring down.

Well I walk up at 2... and they're wrapping up. Everyone (like 45 people) is standing around with signs, but theyre chatting and holding the signs down at their sides. They took a group photo with their signs calling for an end to this horribleness while smiling. I finally managed to say hello to the organizer, and mentioned that I didn't realize everyone would only be here for an hour. "Well it started to rain really hard." People stood around and talked about their anger at our government, and the horrors of whats happening in Palestine, then left because they were cold and it was wet (was listening to conversations and goodbyes. I was wandering on my own, everyone else was with friends). I heard the organizer talking about how he just vacationed in Costa Rica and was going back, then going to some other vacation spot.

My husband was surprised when I came home basically right after I left. I am so deeply angry by how comfortable these people out here are. This is not the first time Ive complained about that, i grew up with a hard life, we came out here on an opportunity, so I wouldnt off myself in the bad situation we had been in, and with his mother's help where she could (he grew up here). Ive never felt comfortable here because these people are living in a different world than I do, and even people who are just normal people and not some rich asshole look at me weird when I say stuff that I consider perfectly normal given where i grew up/class level. You're so angry over this, over the pain the people of Palestine are going through, that you go through the effort of organizing an event, and you stand around and talk about your "anger," and then you LEAVE after an hour because it's a little cold (warmest day we've had in weeks) and it's raining, which was forecasted and you could prepare for???

I havent calmed down. I cant go back to sleep cuz I already took my adderall which i need to stay awake on any regular day with that sleep disorder. I went ready for a fight, I wasnt expecting one but I was prepared, and expected at least a little energy from the group. But nothing. You accomplished nothing but making yourselves feel better.

I wish I could do more. I wish I had money to donate. I wish I had the ability to go physically support activist movement. All just like I wish I could during the summer of 2020. Im constantly torn between recognizing my position and suffering as valid and not a reason to beat myself up for not being able to do more, and feeling like I'm not doing enough and it's just excuses. But I just... cant fucking believe everyone I saw today. I mean yeah, i believe it, i know, i knew, but im just still furious. This is why we're in this fucking position people.

[swforester]

A walk through Bushnell Park early in the day.

Hartford CT 4/15/23

[indizombie]

The radical Catholic priest, Daniel Berrigan, after traveling to North Vietnam with a peace delegation during the war, visited the hospital room of Ronald Brazee. Brazee was a high school student who had drenched himself with kerosene and immolated himself outside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Syracuse, New York to protest the war. “He was still living a month later,” Berrigan writes. “I was able to gain access to him. I smelled the odor of burning flesh and I understood anew what I had seen in North Vietnam. The boy was dying in torment, his body like a great piece of meat cast upon a grill. He died shortly thereafter. I felt that my senses had been invaded in a new way. I had understood the power of death in the modern world. I knew I must speak and act against death because this boy’s death was being multiplied a thousandfold in the Land of Burning Children. So I went to Catonsville because I had gone to Hanoi.” In Catonsville, Maryland Berrigan and eight other activists, known as the Catonsville Nine, broke into a draft board on May 17, 1968. They took 378 draft files and burned them with homemade napalm in the parking lot. Berrigan was sentenced to three years in a federal prison.

Chris Hedges, ‘Aaron Bushnell’s Divine Violence’

[alovingbutch]

3/1/24

Benedict & Bushnell

I just attended a vigil on my college campus for the recent killing of Nex Benedict. We held candles outside of our library. A crowd of us, queer and trans adults. Collectively mourning the loss of our sibling.

Nex was a 16-year-old child when they lost their life earlier this month. A non-binary student from Oklahoma beaten in the bathroom of their school by bullies who had been harassing them for a year.

This past month has been hard for me as a student and as a person. Scraping by, by my teeth to not fail my classes. All of that is made small as I mourn the loss of a trans child who will never experience the joys and stresses of university. At 16 most kids are preparing to start driving; a trusted adult white-knuckles their seatbelt as a child goes 40mph in an empty parking lot.

Nex was four years younger than me. Young enough to be my little sibling. Rest in peace, Nex. You are loved.

This week I am also thinking about the life of Aaron Bushnell. A 25-year-old Air Force member who set himself afire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. An anarchist, like myself, and a community-serving comrade. He dedicated the ending of his life to protesting U.S. support for Israel's ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Since his act, there has not been a day I do not think about it. The U.S.'s filthy involvement in the slaughtering of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. Journalists covering the daily massacres are targeted by the Israeli government and the weaponry provided by this nation.

Just as Aaron believed, we must remain hopeful that one day Palestine will be free from Israeli occupation. Today, tomorrow, and forever. Free Palestine.

[politicaltheatre]

We Are All Hostages Now

We have more sympathy for Flaco than we do for Aaron Bushnell. It doesn’t seem fair, and it isn’t, but we do.

Flaco, for those of you who do not know, was a eurasian eagle owl that escaped, with a little help, from the Central Park Zoo just over a year ago. He spent that year hunting Manhattan’s pests and perching for Instagram-able pictures, alone, the only one of his kind flying free in New York City.

Aaron Bushnell, as you should know, was a United States airman who killed himself yesterday by setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. He did so, he said at the time, to protest Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and his unwillingness to remain complicit.

Odds are, Flaco will still be remembered, fondly, long after Bushnell has been forgotten, “human interest” stories filling our airways and web portals for weeks or months. The reason isn’t that difficult to grasp.

We can project our fantasies onto Flaco, imagining how happy he was, how happy we might be if we were set free in our own way. The reality of how and why he died - he crashed into the side of one of New York’s glass towers - is easily brushed away. 

We’ll tell ourselves he had his time, as if a year of lonely freedom is all anyone could want, and maybe even build a small sculpture in some park, like we did for Balto, the sled dog.

Bushnell, on the other hand, only offered reality. At least, he only offered the chance to look at the reality of our decision making, of our indifference to the suffering of others, of our need to push that suffering away into some kind of abstract, far off warfare between equal sides, as though the people of Gaza had any means of defending themselves. 

Bushnell’s belief that his act would carry more weight than the death of an owl was, of course, delusional, but that, for too many of us, is the most comfortable thing about it. We can hold onto that delusion to belittle him and justify belittling why he felt compelled to do what he did.

We will always prefer to celebrate those who seem free over those who are held in captivity. This is a large part of what drove the Palestinians of Gaza into the hands of an organization like Hamas. It is what led Hamas to take hostages on October 7th. We will always pay attention to hostages more than those who take them. We identify with their captivity. We want them to be free.

For generations, Palestinians have effectively been hostages themselves. Beyond the systematic arrests by the Israeli military, almost as if they have been filling a quota, the entire populations of the “occupied territories” have served as hostages, all of them kept prisoner so Israel’s Muslim neighbors would not attack. Anything happens to Israel, the Palestinians would die, too. 

This hasn’t prevented anti-Israeli terrorism, that has been a constant, but it has played a significant role in preventing attempts at full invasion or bombardment. You might think, “What about Israel’s nukes or the support of the United States and Europe?”, but they did not prevent previous attempts in 1967 and 1973. 

No, the Palestinians have served as hostages, the price paid, along with the destruction of the holy sites in occupied territories, for another invasion or full-scale attack, and that is no way to live a life.

What is more insidious, though, is how Israel has held the entire religion and ethnicity of being Jewish hostage. This is not unusual in politics. Religious groups of all kinds seeking political power have always held their own religions hostage in the same way: an attack on our politics is an attack on our entire religion.

This is ridiculous, of course. To criticize a politician or an army is not to criticize a religion or an ethnicity. A child could see that. And yet, for Israel it has been effective, exploiting guilt and shame over what the the Nazis did and, in the case of Germany itself, laws preventing actual anti-semitism.

If only the Israeli government were the only ones doing this. In the United States, our own government is routinely held hostage, threatened with shut downs by Republicans if the Democrats don’t give them what they want. The Republicans actually campaign on this, boasting of the power of the threat while blaming the Democrats for making them use it.

Bills in Congress are tied together, too. The same bill that would give Ukraine much needed money to defend itself against Russia also contains money for Israel to continue its onslaught against Gaza as well as money for Taiwan to defend itself against China and money our own armed forces.

Oh, and money to deal with immigrants crossing the border, you know, the thing Republicans say they want. 

But if they don’t fix the problem, they can campaign on it, much as they did with Roe v Wade for decades, so they’ll stop the bill - hold it hostage - to extract concessions to help them win votes. Or, you know, they'll shut the government down, holding its entire function hostage. They'll do that, too.

The problem with this kind of hostage taking is that you eventually have to let the hostage go. In overturning Roe v Wade, the right wing now has to defend having overturned it, their choices reduced to making a rational argument for why they did or doubling-down on the rights of eggs and embryos, effectively taking them hostage, like they have in Alabama. 

They couch this not as a way to control others but as an exercise in faith, in protecting life, in love. Making critics have to choose between defending themselves from charges of hate and keeping silent is merely a political tactic, something from the toolbox to be used, and to be used without empathy.

Hamas acted without empathy. Even now, Hamas would sacrifice every Palestinian life if it meant removing Israel from the maps of the world. What they did on October 7th was an atrocity. They committed that atrocity in order to draw their enemy into committing an even greater atrocity. And they succeeded, as much as any terrorists could hope to do.

Israel and its allies have now been exposed in ways they cannot have imagined. Instead of killings, territorial seizures, and kidnappings of their own being done away from international attention, they are now being done in front of thousands of cameras, a 24 hour-a-day newsfeed. The government and military have slaughtered tens of thousands of defenseless men, women, and children, and have been seen to show no empathy for a single one of them as they did it.

What happens, then, when Israel has no Palestinian hostages left, or simply not enough? What happens if the countries that have held back for so long no longer have financial incentives not to attack? What happens if the authoritarian leaders of those countries feel they must attack Israel in order to hold onto power over their own people?

If they have spent the past 75 years building the foreign policy of their countries in the same way Israel has built its own, those countries might, as Israel did in Gaza, decide to sacrifice the lives of the hostages held by Israel. All of them. Better to let the holy sites burn, they’ll say, than let Israel hold onto them one day more.

If that sounds, well, “biblical”, that’s what you get when people treat the world as though they are fighting a holy war. If Israel doesn’t stop what it’s doing and release all of its hostages, literal and figurative, it may end up giving Hamas exactly what it wants. 

And we’ll pay for it, too. Because we are complicit and there is no one coming to break our locks and set us free. That, we’ll have to do on our own.

- Daniel Ward