#decolonize globally

[mos-twin-mattress]

I'm not gonna be quiet no matter how badly people want their feeds to go back to "normal"

I'm here and Im gonna fight!

[reasonsforhope]

People ask me sometimes how I'm so confident that we can beat climate change.

There are a lot of reasons, but here's a major one: it would take a really, really long time for Earth to genuinely become uninhabitable for humans.

Humans have, throughout history, carved out a living for themselves in some of the most harsh, uninhabitable corners of the world. The Arctic Circle. The Sahara. The peaks of the Himalayas. The densest, most tropical regions of the Amazon Rainforest. The Australian Outback. etc. etc.

Frankly, if there had been a land bridge to Antarctica, I'm pretty sure we would have been living there for thousands of years, too. And in fact, there are humans living in Antarctica now, albeit not permanently.

And now, we're not even facing down apocalypse, anymore. Here's a 2022 quote from the author of The Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace-Wells, a leader on climate change and the furthest thing from a climate optimist:

"The most terrifying predictions [have been] made improbable by decarbonization and the most hopeful ones practically foreclosed by tragic delay. The window of possible climate futures is narrowing, and as a result, we are getting a clearer sense of what’s to come: a new world, full of disruption but also billions of people, well past climate normal and yet mercifully short of true climate apocalypse. Over the last several months, I’ve had dozens of conversations — with climate scientists and economists and policymakers, advocates and activists and novelists and philosophers — about that new world and the ways we might conceptualize it. Perhaps the most capacious and galvanizing account is one I heard from Kate Marvel of NASA, a lead chapter author on the fifth National Climate Assessment: “The world will be what we make it.”" -David Wallace-Wells for the New York Times, October 26, 2022

If we can adapt to some of the harshest climates on the planet - if we could adapt to them thousands of years ago, without any hint of modern technology - then I have every faith that we can adjust to the world that is coming.

What matters now is how fast we can change, because there is a wide, wide gap between "climate apocalypse" and "no harm done." We've already passed no harm done; the climate disasters are here, and they've been here. People have died from climate disasters already, especially in the Global South, and that will keep happening.

But as long as we stay alive - as long as we keep each other alive - we will have centuries to fix the effects of climate change, as much as we possibly can.

And looking at how far we've come in the past two decades alone - in the past five years alone - I genuinely think it is inevitable that we will overcome climate change.

So, we're going to survive climate change, as a species.

What matters now is making sure that every possible individual human survives climate change as well.

What matters now is cutting emissions and reinventing the world as quickly as we possibly can.

What matters now is saving every life and livelihood and way of life that we possibly can.

[hussyknee]

It says a lot that Global South people are far more concerned about finding out about the conditions of Palestinians, building trust with Palestinian blogs and their vetting processes and actually finding which GoFundMes to donate to, whereas white and western users first and foremost question is who the scammers are and whether they're getting scammed. And then they can't understand why the white right wing and "fiscally conservative" liberals in their own countries, who distrust the government more than the left and associate poverty and opportunism with minorities, don't want to expand welfare and social security.

It's for the same reason as why you think scammers proliferate more than the millions of people in need, and distrust any minority representatives that offer accountability and advocate for themselves. Why you seek to validate that distrust instead of trying to find information and processes that enable you to trust. The difference between domestic and foreign issues is that white leftists are often poor themselves or live within proximity to poverty and recognise that they themselves are in need of social safety nets. So the brunt of their racist indifference and paranoia of the Other is turned against the people of the Global South victimized by the same colonial capitalist and imperialist military systems.

Paranoia that your empathy, emotional labour and wealth will be exploited is part of white colonial anxiety, that resents its own guilt and sees oppression primarily as a weapon that can be turned against the "privileged but innocent". It's why the tide of leftist support is turning against Palestine after nearly an year of genocide. Accountability for and cessation of the genocide might extract a heavy cost from their domestic politics, and the funds begging private citizens for financial aid are increasing by the thousands in proportion to the amount of tax money their governments are sending to blow those people up. Unable to pay this cost of their complicity, western liberals rationalize that their empathy for Palestine is being exploited and used to extort them. This is the racist fear that liberal Zionists so successfully leverage against Palestinians to sabotage their credibility, protests and cries for help and allyship. Today it's attacks against the credibility of GoFundMes, but in a few months liberals will be questioning the credibility of the genocide itself.

Propaganda works by giving people rationalizations, fallacies and false evidence for things they already want to believe. People are predisposed to despise vulnerability, believe themselves victimized when called to account, and cling to a comfortable status quo. These are the building blocks of fascism. Genocide, colonization and war is the status quo on which the Global North was built, especially the US, and Palestine is the first time this status quo has been so thoroughly disrupted since perhaps the Vietnam War. The easiest way to return to it is to not believe Palestinians, return to deprioritising foreign policy, and giving yourself license to ignore their cries for help by telling yourself that it's "too hard" to find trustworthy information. And Zionists are only too happy to provide justifications, rationalizations and "evidence" to do so.

You have perfect right to delete, block, scroll past or blacklist tags and do whatever you need to draw your own boundaries. That's not in question. What you do need to sit with and examine is this "distrust" and "anger at scammers". If your distrust of asks and GoFundMe accounts is not followed by the will to find and follow Palestinians accounts and trust that they have done all they reasonably can to verify a fundraiser; if you believe that scam accounts truly outnumber the desperate and displaced Gazans who cite internet access as essential to survival as food and water; if you're not willing to run some reasonable risk of being scammed just so you might end up helping a real family being genocided; if you don't consider whether the people casting doubt on the veracity of Palestinian users and GFMs and their vetting process might be racists and Zionist saboteurs speaking to your own biases; then your "distrust" is actually just racism. Are you really angry at scammers or are you trying to validate your distrust and decision to ignore pleas for help by deflecting the blame onto the asker?

[diaryofaphilosopher]

Subconciously, we see an attack on ourselves and our beliefs as a threat and we attempt to block with a counter-stance. But it is not enough to stand on the opposite riverbank, shouting questions, challenging patriarchal white conventions. A counter-stance locks one into a duel of oppressor and oppressed; locked in mortal combat, both are reduced to a common denominator of violence. The counter-stance refutes the dominant culture's views and beliefs, and for this, it is proudly defiant. All reaction is limited by, and dependent on, what it is reacting against. Because the counter-stance stems from a problem with authority - outer as well as inner - it's a step toward liberation from cultural domination. But it is not a way of life. At some point, on our way to a new consciousness, we will have to leave the opposite bank, the split between two mortal combatants somehow healed so that we are on both shores at once and, at once, see through serpent and eagle eyes. Or perhaps we will decide to disengage from the dominant culture, write it off altogether as a lost cause, and cross the border into a wholly new and separate territory. Or we might go another route. The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

— Gloria Anzaldua, “La concencia de la mestiza”

Follow Diary of a Philosopher for more quotes!

[creativemedianews]

Palestine solidarity must include decolonisation, not merely ceasefire

Palestine solidarity must include decolonisation, not merely ceasefire #antiwarprotests #decolonization

[timelesslords]

I’ve been meaning to make a post like this for a while, so here are some fiction anti-colonial/anti-apartheid/anti-genocide books that I read for the cultural studies concentration of my literature degree, that I think are super readable/accessible and don’t see recommended often:

1. The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan

A novel about a boy who was a victim of a terrorist attack as a child and how he becomes radicalized by the same terrorist group that killed his friends as a young adult.

Additional/background reading:

2. The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam

a 24 hour snapshot of the last few weeks of the Sri Lankan civil war where the Sri Lankan goverment bombed a no fire zone, killing as many as 70,000 civilians, the vast majority of whom belonged to the Tamil ethnic minority. (this book is extremely graphic but very worth reading imo)

Background/additional reading:

3. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

A post-colonial novel spanning several decades centering on two WWII veterans living in Britain; one a white Englishman, one a Bangladeshi immigrant.

additional/background reading:

4. An Imperfect Blessing by Nadia Davis

A novel about the Indian community in South Africa, told primarily through the lens of a teenage girl and taking place during the dissolution of the apartheid state.

background/additional reading:

5. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

A modern retelling of Antigone set in post-9/11 Britain and Pakistan.

additional/background reading:

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This is why I don't agree with blanket statements like "humanity is a cancer upon the Earth". The majority of environmental destruction has been perpetrated by western countries over the past few centuries of colonialism and industrialization, and we are the primary source of ongoing demand for resources like timber and fossil fuels. Blaming all of humanity as a whole is short-sighted, to say the very least.

While indigenous people are not a monolithic entity and each community has their own ethics regarding the land, we are seeing increasingly that when indigenous land managers are in charge, the result is a much more sustainable conservation of the land and its resources. The indigenous peoples of the Amazon have been caring for these places for thousands of years, and allowing them to continue those relationships is having a positive effect overall.

[infodumpmedaddy]

This short article actually gave me tremendous hope for the world! We are capable of more!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Gaza was an open air prison...

... but also, look at how beautiful it was before all the destruction following October 7th.

Israel should not hold any control over Gaza...

... but also, they should be responsible to feed them and provide them with all their basic needs.

October 7th didn't happen...

... but also, if it did, it was justified.

We're anti-Zionist not anti-Semite...

... but also, let's target all the Jewish businesses.

Ceasefire now!

... but also, globalize the intifada.

The hostages are propaganda made up by Israel...

... but also, look at how well they were treated.

The IDF is an army of weak pansies...

... but also, look at how much they destroyed and how vicious they are.

We want peace...

... but also, resistance by all means necessary.

We're anti-genocide...

... but also, "from the river to the sea."

Does anyone else's head hurt?

==

God is both good and inscrutable. Gender is simultaneously not just innate and unchangeable, but also independent of biology, and socially constructed.

Their ideology is incoherent, contradictory and self-refuting because they're trying to use fraudulent scholarship and nonsensical academic jargon to obfuscate from the fact that what they really want is dead Jews and Israel wiped out. They don't want peace, they want Israel to fall.

[theadaptableeducator]

Threads of Dominion: The Interwoven Collapse of Colonialism, Nationalism, Imperialism, and Capitalism

Umberto Eco, the renowned Italian philosopher, semiotician, and cultural critic, offers a rich theoretical framework to analyze the interconnectivity and unsustainability of colonialism, nationalism, imperialism, and capitalism. His work often addresses the dynamics of power, ideology, and culture, which are crucial for understanding these phenomena. Interconnectivity Colonialism and…

[mos-twin-mattress]

Michelle Salzman, a republican from Florida called for the GENOCIDE of ALL Palestinians.

I would like to call for her to be terminated from the Florida House of Representatives.

She is CLEARLY an EVIL and DANGEROUS woman if she can call for the DEATHS of 2.2 MILLION brown people.

if someone was calling for the Genocide of ALL Israelis I;m SURE this woman would be calling them evil/anti-semetic, etc. But bc they are Brown, bc they are Arab, and Muslim people feel perfectly fine with calling for their deaths. Because they are RESISTING they're own murder, bc they are calling for DECOLONIZATION, they are the evil ones in the eyes of the White Western World.

I BEG you ALL to look past the White and Western Centric views we've grown up with and view BROWN and BLACK people as yours to love and protect and care for! Wether Muslim, or Christian, or Jewish! Even when they dont blindly and mindlessly comply with authority, because they dont deserve to die just because they didn't roll over or beg like a dog!

if you agree with Michelle Salzmen then I really DO NOT welcome you on my page!

[tominnepics]

[hussyknee]

Guys, Z-library is back up, but it desperately needs our help.

Z-Library is one of the largest online libraries in the world. We aim to make literature accessible to everyone. Today, Z-Library contains over 12,140,413 books and 84,837,000 articles Z-Library has many servers all over the world. Our stored data now totals more than 220 TB! Every month, millions of people use Z-Library for their purposes — and that means we are on the right track. But it will be difficult to achieve our goals without your help.

As you may know, almost all public domains of the library were blocked in November 2022 by order of the US Secret Service. The inner infrastructure of the project suffered some substantial damage too. Today, we are still under unprecedented pressure. At the moment, Z-Library is going through the hardest times in all the 14 years of its existence. The library might work with interruptions, and we ask you to be patient. Be sure – we are doing everything possible to provide free access to knowledge for millions of people across the globe, and we expect you to help us with that and to support us.

But despite all the difficulties, the library continues to function and develop. We have recently introduced several important features: the new recommendations section, comments to booklists, the new web-site menu, personal domains and Telegram Bot, and more.

Your active support gives strength to our Team and inspires to work. Each donated dollar is not only money for us, but it is also the confidence that you really need our project!

On 15 March 2023, as in March and September of each year, we launched additional fundraising to project maintenance and development. We will be extremely thankful for every dollar that will be donated. Furthermore, UNLIMITED downloads (for 1 month) are available for ALL contributors who will donate during the fundraising period. The fundraising will run until 1 April 2023

Millions of people use Z-Library every month for their purposes — this shows us that we are on the correct track. But it will be difficult to achieve our goals without your help.

Please consider making a donation.

I know there's a lot of discourse around book piracy right now, but you know who absolutely cannot afford to buy your books in dollars, afford the shipping fees, or don't have access/ travelling distance to the kind of fully stocked libraries you have in the West? The Global South. Our factories make your Kindles, your phones, your textbooks, and then we can't afford to buy them from your corps that sell them at around 300% grate price, and half the books are not even available for our region. Our universities don't get your funding or recognition, and when we do sell our personal possessions to get the money and work our asses off to get admittance to Western universities, y'all use us as grunts, exploit us and pass our work off as your own. Worse still, you buy out our local publishing houses and shut them down.

You cannot imagine the extent of global apartheid and colonial economic order that capitalism runs on. Amazon cheats you out of royalties? We can't even afford to buy your books. A dollar can buy someone a full dinner here. These sites – Z-lib, Internet Archive, Libgen, Open Library, Sci-Hub, PDF Drive, LibriVox – they are essential to granting the global majority our human right to knowledge, education and access. Z-Lib is by far the best one of them all.

You will first need to sign up to Z-Lib and access it through the private domain link they send you. It's a simple process, and every little bit counts. You're a leftist that believes in equal access for all? Then literally, put your money where your mouth is.

[deepseacityunderground]

its always really funny to me when leftists on this site try and claim that all other leftists on the Side They Disagree With are chauvanists and sheltered middle class babies

[petrichor-moss-and-lightning]

The men come with their barrels and buckets and bulldozers. They come with their knives and teeth and guns. And they salt the earth down to the marrow – raze the landscape with flames that bite chunks from the sky, turning the air caustic with thick plumes of smoke. All for a little bit of metal, a slip of paper. 

Can you even remember the taste of an open sky? The sloping bend of the constellations? 

When was the last time you heard the birds sing? 

Overhead, the clouds rumble. I know you can hear it too. They shake the sky raw with rage; grief for rivers turned slick and black; grief for the pale underbelly of a fish, turned upwards and rotting in stagnant waters. The stars have all but gone out now; the moon’s turned the wrong way round. 

We pray to an empty sky and wait for the end.

[kala-ya-aan]

Docile...every last one of us...like really wtf?😖✊🏽

#UpsetTheSetUp #BurnTheEstablishment