#vigilante settler violence

[mauricedharris]

How you can help stop vigilante settler rampages (or at least try to do something)

Headline and photo from Times of Israel on June 21, 2023 A couple days ago I visited the websites of my House Rep and both Senators and sent them versions of the following message. Please feel free to copy and paste (or modify) as you wish. The content speaks for itself. Dear Senator _________, I am writing to express my strong support for the comments of US Ambassador Nides, in which he…

[sufrimientilia]

hmm, do you have any ideas for western/cowboy style whumps? recently saw The Good The Bad And The Ugly and the desert scene and the hangings are... quite inspiring.

eee my first ask!!

i'm sure you've seen this lovely post by @wollemi-whump. i stared at it for inspo

cowboy whump 2: electric boogaloo

the slow impact of boots on dirt, metallic jingling of spurs with each step. those same spurs kicking hard into whumpee’s side or digging into their throat

the hard thudding of nearly a dozen horses thundering closer and closer, a whole posse coming in for the attack or stampeding a runner

treated like another one of the cattle. lassoed and dragged along on foot, forced to run and hike for miles, made to drink from the same containers as the horses or denied water until they collapse

getting jerked around by a lariat kept tight around their neck or wrists, cutting and digging deep

lawman of the town overworked, over-stressed, always threatened by outlaws

lawman of the town corrupt by power and willing to toss anyone in jail for stepping out of line

small town mentality in Old Western format. just one doctor, just one minister, just one sheriff. maybe one of them is a creep/evil

everyone knows everyone and getting expelled into the wild frontier by mob mentality can happen

duels fueled by honor, aggression, booze. or getting pressured into facing the fastest draw in the West with a whole mob watching

duels where the winner still catches a bullet

duels in the town square that descend into chaos when the friends of either opponent get involved

frontier justice: lynching, vigilantism, gunfighting

frontier crime: horse theft, cattle raiding, bank robberies

very public hangings, shootings, or punishments (i.e. getting dragged by a horse)

saloon fights

the hard metal clang of a spit bucket bouncing right off of whumpee’s head

getting spat at with the sheer force of lightning

violence and alcohol. drunken aggression, broken bottles used as deadly weapons, forced to sit and drink under gunpoint before being challenged to a duel

droughts and limited resources. chapped lips and desperate sips out of a leather canteen, food too hard to come by. it's no wonder people become outlaws

dehydrated and asking for water only to gulp whiskey out of a canteen

lone survivor of a gang or posse that got wiped out

bounty hunters and getting hunted. posters with crude sketches of their face, wanted dead or alive, a hefty reward leaving them with no one to trust

forced to work on the railroad, pounding away at metal for hours and hours under the blistering sun

tied up and left on railroad tracks

tied up and shoved into a railroad cart and shipped east

native tribes being a true force of danger, almost like bogeymen among the townsfolk. faster on horseback, deadlier with arrows, experts of the land

getting targeted and hunted for being indigenous, forced to run and hide as resources are taken or destroyed by settlers

left for dead out in the desert and waking up in the care of a native tribe

stung by a scorpion

bit by a snake

boiling hot desert days, dark cold desert nights

shot off their horse by an arrow or bullet and landing hard on the ground while the horse keeps going

injured or sick while riding horseback. bleeding all over the saddle, barely able to hold on, slumping forward and eventually falling off

injured or sick while traveling across the frontier. huddled by the fireplace at every makeshift campsite, carefully draped over the horse or riding in the arms of caretaker

deteriorating away in a stagecoach with the constant clip-clop of horses rocking them back and forth

[mariacallous]

On July 29, a day before rioting by anti-immigrant protesters broke out in Britain in the wake of a deadly stabbing attack, dozens of Israeli right-wingers stormed two army facilities to protest the arrest of soldiers for allegedly abusing a Palestinian prisoner. What the two incidents had in common was the role of social media in organizing and fanning the flames of far-right violence and an underlying foundation of populist distrust of government. But they differed in one very important way: In Israel, the protesters were openly backed by some government officials and lawmakers; indeed, at least two Knesset lawmakers and a junior cabinet minister were among the rioters. The events in Israel thus were more analogous to those in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

The ordeal in Israel began when military police came to arrest nine reserve-duty soldiers at the Sde Teiman detention facility, where Hamas prisoners are held. Dozens of civilian activists answered calls broadcast on social media to protest and were soon storming the base. Later that day, the rioters moved on to Beit Lid in central Israel, the base where the military court was to hear the charges against the arrested soldiers, and briefly forced their way in.

Rather than expressing concern about a vigilante attack on a military facility, far-right leaders condemned the army. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, alongside Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, demanded that the military prosecutor “take her hands off the reservists.” The police—which are under Ben-Gvir’s authority—took nearly two weeks before beginning an investigation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken no action against members of his government who took part in the riots.

The Sde Teiman incident was an unusual case of far-right violence inside Israel proper. The West Bank has long been a wild west, with extremist settlers not only directing their attacks against Palestinians but against the army, too, when they feel it is interfering with their interests. That the lawlessness and violence have now spilled over the border into Israel, aided and abetted by some in the government, should come as no surprise: The far-right elements in Netanyahu’s government value chaos not only as a vehicle for promoting annexation of the West Bank but as a means of undermining institutions at home to better secure their grip on power.

How did these extremists come to wield so much power so quickly? The far right in Israel doesn’t have anything close to popular backing for its agenda: In the 2022 election, it captured just 10.8 percent of the vote (considerably less than the 37.1 percent for France’s National Rally and its allies and 23.5 percent for Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, to name two recent European elections). But it has managed to exploit an unusual situation in Israel: a combination of Netanyahu’s political vulnerability and Hamas’s devastating success on Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel has been under almost continuous right-wing rule for the past half-century, but the government formed by Netanyahu at the end of 2022 was right-wing in a very different way. The Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties, together with much of Netanyahu’s once center-right Likud party, not only take a traditional right-wing hard line on national security issues, but they also distrust the institutions of government and the people who work in them—what, in the United States, Trump supporters call the “deep state.” Everyone from the attorney general and army generals to officials in the Finance Ministry are seen as ideological enemies, perhaps even traitors. Thus, it’s no surprise that when the army, which is ordinarily regarded in Israel as sacrosanct, finds itself in conflict with extremist settlers in the West Bank or rioters at Sde Teiman, the far right sides with the latter.

This worldview is not very different from the anarchical, archly anti-establishment, and paranoid strain of Trumpism. In the Israeli context, however, the religious element is paramount; indeed, it is rare to find people on the extreme right who are not religiously observant. Thus, the far right’s program seeks not only to undermine the country’s liberal and democratic foundation and replace it with a more authoritarian government but to turn Israel into a religious state. Many even hold that the war and violence now besetting Israel will bring the Messiah and redemption. They want to encourage it.

The early months of the Netanyahu government saw the far right try to undermine the state from the inside. The judicial overhaul, which sought to subordinate the judicial system to politicians, was the centerpiece of that campaign. But it was not the only one. Ben-Gvir wrested personal control over the police, turning it into an instrument for protecting the right and repressing anti-government protests. Taking control of civilian affairs in the West Bank, Smotrich unilaterally advanced a policy of de facto annexation, illegal land grabs, and settlement-building.

As far-right leaders have grown more assured of their grip on power, their followers have come to feel freer to take their agenda to the street. There is no evidence that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are personally directing this violence and vigilantism, but they are encouraging it. Ben-Gvir ensures that the police avoid confronting and investigating far-right violence. He has eased the rules for handing out gun licenses, enabling more than 100,000 to be issued since Oct. 7, in many cases with little or no vetting.

It is unlikely that there is any grand strategy to spread the violence from the West Bank into Israel, but the occupied territories have served as a testing ground. Under the current government, extremist settlers have felt a new sense of empowerment and immunity in the knowledge that many of those in power back them while the rest remain silent. The result is that far-right violence has soared.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that in the first 10 months of the war, settlers were responsible for some 1,250 attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, of which around 120 led to death or injury. Most of those incidents have been relatively small, but from time to time they involve dozens of rioters or more. The most recent mass rampage occurred on Aug. 15, when some 100 masked settlers stormed the Palestinian village of Jit, shooting, torching vehicles and homes, and throwing stones. One Palestinian was killed. An army investigation revealed that troops arriving at the scene initially failed to stop the rioters, who appear to have included off-duty reserve soldiers, in uniform and carrying army-issued weapons.

There’s no indication that this violence is condoned by a majority of Israelis or even a majority of religiously observant Jews, who make up less than a quarter of Israelis. But none of this matters because the far right has gained control over large swaths of the government. Spurned by the center right, Netanyahu saw the far right as the only way he could return to power in the 2022 election and engineered a merger between Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit to ensure that they amassed as many votes as possible. Today, they have the power to make or break the government and have established their authority over the police, the state budget, and West Bank policy. Determined to stay in power at all costs, Netanyahu turns a blind eye to their provocations and their repeated affronts to his authority.

Since Oct. 7, the far right has also set its sights on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as another establishment bulwark of secular values. Traumatized by its failures during the Hamas assault of Oct. 7 and preoccupied by fighting the war, the IDF was slow to respond to the surging violence in the West Bank and the penetration of far-right values into its ranks, especially among reservists.

The defense establishment has finally woken up. “Nationalist crime has reared its head under the cover of war and has led to revenge and sowed calamity and fear in Palestinian residents who do not pose any threat,” Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs warned in a parting address to troops in July before stepping down as army chief for the West Bank. In a letter to ministers in August, Ronen Bar, the director of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, warned about “vengeful attacks that are sparking another front in the multi-front war we are in; putting more players into the cycle of terror; a slippery slope to the feeling of a lack of governance.” The United States and some other Western powers have also sought to contain the violence by imposing sanctions against known perpetrators.

But the pushback is unlikely to have any profound effect on a government that sees the defense establishment and Israel’s allies as enemies. In any case, the IDF’s hands are largely tied since it’s subordinate to the civilian politicians who are creating the problem to begin with. Inside Israel, the army has no authority to act, and the police now appear firmly in Ben-Gvir’s hands.

Where will it lead? Having gotten away with it once at Sde Teiman and Beit Lid, violent right-wingers will no doubt try to strike again inside Israel. Polls show that Israelis increasingly distrust institutions, and social media can be effective at bringing out crowds. Whether they can scale up the anarchy by enlisting hundreds or thousands of people to join them remains to be seen. The far right has yet to create a mass organization capable of mounting a sustained campaign of chaos. But with its iron grip on power, it might not need one.

[embodiedfutures]

We, academics, clergy, and other public figures from Israel/Palestine and abroad, call attention to the direct link between Israel’s recent attack on the judiciary and its illegal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Palestinian people lack almost all basic rights, including the right to vote and protest. They face constant violence: this year alone, Israeli forces have killed over 190 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and demolished over 590 structures. Settler vigilantes burn, loot, and kill with impunity.

Without equal rights for all, whether in one state, two states, or in some other political framework, there is always a danger of dictatorship. There cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid, as Israeli legal experts have described it. Indeed, the ultimate purpose of the judicial overhaul is to tighten restrictions on Gaza, deprive Palestinians of equal rights both beyond the Green Line and within it, annex more land, and ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population. The problems did not start with the current radical government: Jewish supremacism has been growing for years and was enshrined in law by the 2018 Nation State Law.

American Jews have long been at the forefront of social justice causes, from racial equality to abortion rights, but have paid insufficient attention to the elephant in the room: Israel’s long-standing occupation that, we repeat, has yielded a regime of apartheid. As Israel has grown more right-wing and come under the spell of the current government’s messianic, homophobic, and misogynistic agenda, young American Jews have grown more and more alienated from it. Meanwhile, American Jewish billionaire funders help support the Israeli far right.

The Israeli government, Goldberg stated, fights against human rights, democracy and equality and propagates the opposite: ��authoritarianism, discrimination, racism and apartheid”.

“Accusing Israel of apartheid is not anti-Semitic. It describes reality,” he said.

Goldberg’s standpoint was not an outlier, he urged Klein to understand. Rather, it represented a growing chorus of voices, including leading Israeli academics propagating the term apartheid to describe the treatment of Palestinians by the current regime. In fact, if Klein were right, Goldberg wrote, then some of the best-known Holocaust and anti-Semitism researchers from Israel, the United States, Europe and worldwide would be anti-Semites.

He referenced a petition co-initiated by Omer Bartov, the Israeli-born historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, titled The Elephant in the Room, which states: “There can be no democracy for Jews in Israel while Palestinians live under an apartheid regime”. The petition has been signed by more than 2,000 academics, clergy, and other public figures at the time of writing and is emblazoned with an illustration that includes a large elephant with the words “Israeli occupation” alongside a speech bubble that reads “Let’s just ignore it”, and surrounded by dozens of people freely waving placards for various social justice movements. “Palestinian people lack almost all basic rights, including the right to vote and protest,” the petition reads, “Settler vigilantes burn, loot, and kill with impunity.”

...

It is a position shared by Bartov, who recently told the Washington Post: “You can call me a self-hating Jew, call me an antisemite … People use those terms to cover up the reality, either to deceive themselves or to deceive others. You have to look at what’s happening on the ground.”

[myemuisemo]

As "John Ferrier Talks with the Prophet" in Letters from Watson, I'm sucked down the rabbit hole of Mormon Escapee Narratives.

There were several that were wildly popular in the years between the LDS settlement of Utah and the time when Doyle was writing. The one I can find an online copy of is Fanny Stenhouse's memoir, which appears to have had a couple versions under variant titles. The one I've paged through is Tell It All: The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism (1879, with foreword by Harriet Beecher Stowe). There's also an 1872 version titled Exposé of Polygamy in Utah: A Lady’s Life among the Mormons.

Fanny Stenhouse's existence is documented, and she went on the lecture circuit in the 1870s as an opponent to polygamy.

Her story matches Doyle's description of conspiracy theories, secret organizations, and atrocities in Salt Lake City so closely that it's likely he got his ideas from Stenhouse or similar materials. Newspaper coverage of happenings in remote Utah would, whether in London or Edinburgh, have been scanty and sensationalist -- although there is one historic event that might have excited interest, and its absence from the story muddles the timeline.

In spring 1857, President Buchanan sent the U.S. Army to the Utah Territory. The LDS residents feared renewed persecution, turned plowshares into swords, and fought a guerilla war of annoyance against the army. In September 1857, a group of Mormon militia slaughtered an entire wagon train of settlers bound for California (the Mountain Meadows Massacre). The wikipedia entry linked is worth a read, as it captures the "what really happened? who lied about what? was this an LDS policy or a group that acted recklessly on its own?" questions that swirl around efforts to make sense of the history of this era.

The "Utah War" wasn't the first incident of violence between LDS and "gentiles." Back in 1838 in Missouri, harassment and violence toward LDS settlers was met with the formation of the Danites (aha! Doyle mentions them!), a vigilante secret society that retaliated violently. The 1838 Mormon War is an appalling read on so many levels.

Whether the Danites were still operating in the 1850s in Utah is a question that historians today dispute. Their reputation in the 1830s was that they were determined to remove dissent within their own people, so the idea that forces within the LDS community would silence a man for disagreeing has some historical basis.

What's seriously missing in Doyle's account is that in 1858, Brigham Young's plan for thwarting U.S. troops was to evacuate Salt Lake City -- so thousands of LDS faithful boarded up their homes, gathered their goods, and marched off into the mountains. (There was talk of burning the city, but that apparently didn't happen.) Obviously, people came back, but that's a big thing for John Ferrier to have lived through without remarking upon. A year of widespread want from culling herds and missing portions of the planting season, combined with military occupation, seems like a big deal.

If we assume none of that had happened yet, then it's early 1857 and only 10 years since Ferrier and Lucy were rescued -- making his twelfth year of wealth in the future, the discovery of silver in Nevada also in the future, and Lucy just fifteen. The latter is still plausible for her being pressured to marry, alas. I think the timeline's just a bit muddled, though -- even with today's online resources, researching 30-year-old events in a far-away place can get messy.

Ferrier's unwelcome visitor is none other than Brigham Young, charismatic leader of the LDS community, and governor of the Utah Territory from 1850 to 1858. He was also a Freemason (remember the Masonic ring, weeks ago?).

Polygamy doesn't come up! What?!? We're in a generic sort of romance plot, where the innocent flower is to be given to a less noble and honest man than her preferred suitor. We know that the Drebber son is going to turn out to be a terrible man, but there's nothing especially indicative of it in Brigham Young's proposal. Since there's no mention of young Drebber or young Stangerson having pre-existing wives, it's likely Lucy is being offered the position of the legally married first wife.

Ferrier's plan is to flee. Since Doyle's readers are in the future, they may have a tingle of fear related to the doctrine of "blood atonement" (which was discussed in Stenhouse's book as well as in newspaper accounts) and the 1866 murder of Dr. Robinson.

[tjnewsnigeria]

Youths in Agenebode, Etsako East Local Government Area of Edo State, Nigeria, have torched a local police station and killed suspected Fulani kidnappers, after accusing them of murdering a young man from the community. The violent incident, which took place over the weekend, underscores growing tensions between local communities and Fulani settlers in parts of Nigeria, where insecurity and kidnappings for ransom have become rampant. The unrest began after the recent abduction of a community youth. Despite his family paying a ransom, the kidnappers allegedly killed the young man. According to local reports, the phone of the murdered youth, still in use by the assailants, was traced to a Fulani settlement in the area. The enraged youths reportedly captured the suspected kidnappers and handed them over to the police. However, dissatisfaction grew when no immediate action was taken by the authorities. Community members gathered at the police station, demanding the suspects be handed back to them, accusing the officers of inaction. Escalating Tensions Tensions reached a boiling point when, during a confrontation at the station, another youth was shot dead by the police. In response, the mob set the police station on fire, forcing officers to flee. The community youths then retrieved the Fulani suspects from custody, and several were killed by the angry crowd. A key suspect, under pressure, led the mob to a shallow grave where the body of the kidnapped youth was found. Other mutilated bodies were also discovered at the scene. The suspect confessed to being involved in a series of killings, deepening outrage among the locals. Insecurity and Vigilantism This incident highlights the growing frustrations in Nigerian communities, where a perceived lack of police action has led to rising cases of vigilante justice. In parts of the country, particularly in rural areas, many citizens have lost faith in the ability of the security forces to protect them from banditry, kidnapping, and other violent crimes. Local leaders in Agenebode have called for calm in the aftermath of the violence, but the situation remains tense. Nigerian security agencies have not yet issued a formal statement on the matter, but sources indicate that additional police reinforcements have been dispatched to the area to restore order. The rising conflict between indigenous communities and Fulani settlers, often accused of involvement in kidnappings and other criminal activities, has further strained inter-ethnic relations in Nigeria. This latest episode in Edo State may further exacerbate these tensions unless decisive action is taken to address the underlying security concerns.

[jhavelikes]

My grandparents dealt with antisemitism for their entire lives. Weaponizing "antisemitism" to insulate a monstrous anti-democratic government and fascist vigilante settler violence from measured criticism and application of basic international law cheapens the concept.

(2) Alec Karakatsanis on X: "THREAD. Something must be said about today’s irresponsible New York Times article about antisemitism. I can’t believe it was published." / X

[qudachuk]

Religious nationalists emboldened now their representatives are major players in Benjamin Netanyahu’s new administrationFive bullet holes now scar the walls and window of Hummus Restaurant, a modest fast food outlet near the settlement of Eli on the Israeli-built highway...

[caxycreations]

We'll go with Ferus for this, and I'll answer it one by one. ^-^

Great WBW btw!! <3

Who or what groups would a 'normal' member of the public approach to settle a dispute?

Generally the party they have a dispute with. Ferus operates on a "Reasonable Retaliation" policy, which is the legal allowance of retaliation or settlement between parties regardless of action taken, so long as retaliation does not exceed the severity of the initial action. If a citizen retaliates, however, it does free the perpetrator of the original event from any legal repercussions, as the system will rule that retaliation has taken the place of due process and justice has been served.

There are limits to this, of course. Some laws, such as those against murder, kidnapping, and the like, are exempt from Reasonable Retaliation and will be handled by law enforcement. If a citizen does retaliate in these cases, it is seen as Vigilantism and treated as such.

If a person does need to approach an established group, organization, or law enforcement for a dispute, it will almost always be the Department of Public Affairs. The DPA is a branch of government with authority to mediate, officiate, investigate, and otherwise handle or manage any and all requests made by a citizen of Ferus.

They technically have authority over all branches of government, as the DPA is authorized to take action against any citizen, organization, government official, or government group on behalf of a citizen if such action is deemed necessary or warranted.

As example, if a citizen claims they were fired from a business for being transspecies (yes, it is in fact a thing on Relan, and yes, there are medical practices in place to help, it's not treated as a problem but some businesses do have harmful policies in place due to misconceptions) they can put in a request for the DPA to act on their behalf. The DPA will then investigate the situation to see if it is common to fire on the grounds of being transspecies, or if it is an outlier in the case of the victim.

They'll go on to investigate the company's policies and the legal backing of those policies, as well as any illegal content in their contracts and such. They will investigate duties required of the position, number of transspecies employees, interpersonal relations in the specific area the victim worked, etc.

If, at the end of the investigation, the DPA determines that the victim was in fact fired on the grounds of discrimination, or that any other factor has warranted a case in the victim's favor, they will take legal action against the company on behalf of the victim. This includes a lawyer of the victim's choice, or if they have no preference, a DPA-trained lawyer. The DPA is non-profit, instead making their money from donations and federal budget, all of which is then spent in the operation of the DPA and training of new employees.

How long has this system been around, and how'd it get started?

The system of Reasonable Retaliation has been around since the founding of Ferus, and was instated by the natives based on their tribal laws surrounding self-governance. They believed disputes should be settled between those involved and outside influence only complicated the process. It underwent changes due to settlers from Dornum insisting there be some level of regulation to prevent wanton murder and violence, a belief that, at the time, was justified as Ferus was a land of warring tribes and in-fighting within tribes was common due to disagreements over leadership and heirarchy.

The DPA on the other hand was founded as a result of the Gala Riots and the nationwide violence they sparked. There was no system in place for citizen complaint at the time, believing self-governance coupled with standard law enforcement would be enough.

When proven wrong, it sparked the creation of various new branches of federal influence, the DPA included. This puts the DPA at ~300-250 years old.

Are these adjudicators trusted by everyone, or do they have some sort of bias?

Funnily enough, the DPA, despite their immense legal power, has very little mistrust against it. The general public puts great faith in the DPA, and larger groups such as corporations and businesses do the same.

The primary reason is that, if the DPA has any bias, it's bias towards the truth. False reports are dealt with by forcing legal action on the accuser, while genuine claims that turn up nothing warranting or necessitating legal action are often met with small compensations in the form of assistance in recovering from the event. They side in favor of the victim, regardless of whether the victim turns out to be the accuser or the accused, in all cases. This is why they are so trusted: Whether or not your case calls for legal action against anyone or anything, as long as you truly were harmed in some legitimate way, the DPA will aid you, free of charge.

And, is this system organized by some form of "government", or some other method?

They are organized and primarily funded by the Ferusian government, though their federal funds only stretch as far as the cost of upkeep and employee salaries. All costs of training new employees and establishing new places of operation are paid for through donations from the public, none of which reach the pockets of any individual in the DPA. Donations are strictly for training and expanding the DPA to reach more locations and help more citizens.

Worldbuilding Wednesday!

Hey all, Arch here! It's that time of week, and I've got a Prompt for you!

In a given society of your Setting, who or what groups would a 'normal' member of the public approach to settle a dispute? How long has this system been around, and how'd it get started? Are these adjudicators trusted by everyone, or do they have some sort of bias? And, is this system organized by some form of "government", or some other method?

Tagging @imslowlydisintegrating @athenswrites @hessdalen-globe @caxycreations @theprissythumbelina @thatndginger @writeblrsupport @avrablake and anyone else who'd like to take part!

[96thdayofrage]

WAR DAY 7️⃣1️⃣8️⃣1️⃣ 🍬 "That the lie of Israel continues to be embraced by the ruling elites—there is no daylight between statements in defense of Israeli war crimes by Nancy Pelosi and Ted Cruz—and used as a foundation for any discussion of Israel is a testament to the corrupting power of money, in this case that of the Israel lobby, and the bankruptcy of a political system of legalized bribery that has surrendered its autonomy and its principles to its major donors. It is also a stunning example of how colonial settler projects, and this is true in the United States, always carry out cultural genocide so they can exist in a suspended state of myth and historical amnesia to legitimize themselves.

"The Israel lobby has shamelessly used its immense political clout to demand that Americans take de facto loyalty oaths to Israel. The passage by 35 state legislatures of Israel lobby-backed legislation requiring their workers and contractors, under threat of dismissal, to sign a pro-Israel oath and promise not to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is a mockery of our Constitutional right of free speech. Israel has lobbied the U.S. State Department to redefine anti-Semitism under a three-point test known as the Three Ds: the making of statements that 'demonize' Israel; statements that apply 'double standards' for Israel; statements that 'delegitimize' the state of Israel. This definition of anti-Semitism is being pushed by the Israel lobby in state legislatures and on college campuses.

"The Israel lobby spies in the United States, often at the direction of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, on those who speak up for the rights of Palestinians. It wages public smear campaigns and blacklists defenders of Palestinian rights–including the Jewish historian Norman Finkelstein; former U.N. Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Territories, Richard Falk, also Jewish; and university students, many of them Jewish, in organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine.

"The Israel lobby has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to manipulate U.S. elections, far beyond anything alleged to have been carried out by Russia, China or any other country. The heavy-handed interference by Israel in the American political system, which includes operatives and donors bundling together hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in every U.S. congressional district to bankroll compliant candidates, is documented in the Al-Jazeera four-part series 'The Lobby.' Israel managed to block 'The Lobby' from being broadcast.

"In the film, a pirated copy of which is available on the website Electronic Intifada, the leaders of the Israel lobby are repeatedly captured on a reporter’s hidden camera explaining how they, backed by the intelligence services within Israel, attack and silence American critics and use massive cash donations to buy politicians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secured the unconstitutional invitation by then-House Speaker John Boehner to address Congress in 2015 to denounce President Barack Obama’s Iranian nuclear agreement.

"Netanyahu’s open defiance of Obama and alliance with the Republican Party, however, did not stop Obama in 2014 from authorizing a 10-year $38 billion military aid package to Israel, a sad commentary on how captive American politics is to Israeli interests."

—Shift to the Far-Right

"The investment by Israel and is backers is worth it, especially when you consider that the U.S. has also spent over $6 trillion during the last 20 years fighting futile wars that Israel and its lobby pushed for in the Middle East. These wars are the greatest strategic debacle in American history, accelerating the decline of the American empire, bankrupting the nation at a time of economic stagnation and mounting poverty, and turning huge parts of the globe against us. They serve Israel’s interests, not ours.

"The longer the mendacious Israeli narrative is embraced, the more empowered become the racists, bigots, conspiracy theorists and far-right hate groups inside and outside Israel. This steady shift to the far right in Israel has fostered an alliance between Israel and the Christian right, many of whom are anti-Semites. The more Israel and the Israel lobby level the charge of anti-Semitism against those who speak up for Palestinian rights, as they did against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, the more they embolden the real anti-Semites.

"Racism, including anti-Semitism, is dangerous. It is not only bad for the Jews. It is bad for everyone. It empowers the dark forces of ethnic and religious hatred on the extremes. Netanyahu’s racist government has built alliances with far-right leaders in Hungary, India, and Brazil, and was closely allied with Donald Trump. Racists and ethnic chauvinists, as I saw in the wars in the former Yugoslavia, feed off of each other. They divide societies into polarized, antagonistic camps that only speak in the language of violence. The radical jihadists need Israel to justify their violence, just as Israel needs the radical jihadists to justify its violence. These extremists are ideological twins.

"This polarization fosters a fearful, militarized society. It permits the ruling elites in Israel, as in the United States, to dismantle civil liberties in the name of national security. Israel runs training programs for militarized police, including from the United States. It is a global player in the multibillion-dollar drone industry, competing against China and the United States.

"It oversees hundreds of cyber-surveillance startups whose espionage innovations, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, have been utilized abroad 'to locate and detain human rights activists, persecute members of the LGBT community, silence citizens critical of their governments, and even fabricate cases of blasphemy against Islam in Muslim countries that don’t maintain formal relations with Israel.'

"Israel, like the United States, has been poisoned by the psychosis of permanent war. One million Israelis, many of them among the most enlightened and educated, have left the country. Its most courageous human rights campaigners, intellectuals and journalists—Israeli and Palestinian—endure constant government surveillance, arbitrary arrests and vicious government-run smear campaigns. Mobs and vigilantes, including thugs from right-wing youth groups such as Im Tirtzu, physically assault dissidents, Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and African immigrants in the slums of Tel Aviv. These Jewish extremists have targeted Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, demanding their expulsion.

"They are supported by an array of anti-Arab groups including the Otzma Yehudit Party, the ideological descendant of the outlawed Kach party, the Lehava movement, which calls for all Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories to be expelled to surrounding Arab states, and La Familia, far-right soccer hooligans. Lehava in Hebrew means 'flame' and is the acronym for 'Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land.' Mobs of these Jewish fanatics parade through Palestinian neighborhoods, including in occupied East Jerusalem, protected by Israeli police, shouting to the Palestinians who live there 'Death to the Arabs,' which is also a popular chant at Israeli soccer matches.

"Israel has pushed through a series of discriminatory laws against non-Jews that echo the racist Nuremberg Laws that disenfranchised Jews in Nazi Germany. The Communities Acceptance Law, for example, permits 'small, exclusively Jewish towns planted across Israel’s Galilee region to formally reject applicants for residency on the grounds of “suitability to the community’s fundamental outlook.”' Israel’s educational system, starting in primary school, uses the Holocaust to portray Jews as eternal victims. This victimhood is an indoctrination machine used to justify racism, Islamophobia, religious chauvinism and the deification of the Israeli military.

"There are many parallels between the deformities that grip Israel and the deformities that grip the United States. The two countries are moving at warp speed towards a 21st century fascism, cloaked in religious language, which will revoke what remains of our civil liberties and snuff out our anemic democracies. The failure of the United States to stand up for the rule of law, to demand that the Palestinians, powerless and friendless, even in the Arab world, be granted basic human rights mirrors the abandonment of the vulnerable within our own society."

_____

🍬 Chris Hedges: Israel, the Big Lie. Israel is not exercising “the right to defend itself” in the occupied Palestinian territories. It is carrying out mass murder, aided and abetted by the U.S. Original to ScheerPost, republished in Consortium News, May 14, 2021.

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/05/14/chris-hedges-israel-the-big-lie/

[yourcousinthrockmortonskates]

I continue to be disturbed by this arming of settlers in the West Bank. It's state sanctioned vigilante justice, and the only reason to take actions like this is to further create unrest and violence in the West Bank. If "criminal record can be overlooked," weapons of war are being given to far-right settlers, ones with violent histories, who never looked for permission to attack Palestinians in the first place. Arming them with state provided weapons is a recipe for more violence, more suffering, and it will never lead to peace. If anything, it grants them more protection in perpetuating violence. It encourages previously violent actors to become violent, because now they have the excuse that they're defending their settlements.

One of the most disturbing factors, and one that should not be ignored, is the involvement of violence against the West Bank and Palestinian civilians of Israel. While it can be stated that the goal of this is eliminating Hamas, the association of Palestinians outside of Gaza to the point of arming civilians with 10,000 rifles after passing a phone interview... that's building security because you see any Palestinian as a possible threat. Sure, there could be Hamas militants in these areas, but assault rifles are not weapons for self-defense. Especially in the West Bank, arming settlers is a horrible thing to do. The settlers in the West Bank already don't care about Palestinians or actively hate them; after all, that's where Ben-Gvir lives.

specifically those in towns close to Israel’s borders around the country, as well as mixed Jewish-Arab cities and West Bank settlements.

It isn't limited to the West Bank either. Palestinian civilians of Israel and other Arabs are all seen as possible threats, considering Jewish civilians in Jewish-Arab cities are being armed.

As I think it is importantly noted in the NPR article/podcast, there are outspoken activists, young voices for the freedom of Palestine, but they are treated the same as militants. They're arrested and taken away. The suppression of activism is going to be a factor in why there is increased militants, especially when looking at the West Bank. When your voice is silenced speaking peacefully, extreme measures are taken to be heard.

[commajade]

makc podcast with devin zane shaw

-oppressors are not concerned with moral legitimacy, they already know what they're doing is wrong.

-"the petty bourgeoisie is necessarily a socialist on one side and an economist on the other. at once bourgeoisie and a man of the people. deep in his heart he flatters himself that he is impartial has found the right equilibrium, which he claims to be something different from mediocrity. glorifies contradiction because contradiction is the basis of his existence. he himself is nothing but social contradiction in action."

the first ideology i had to abandon in my political education was the idea that balance or neutrality is possible the fact is you are either doing harm or you are actively fighting against those doing harm and/or being killed.

-when people are trying to assess the moral legitimacy of violence they try to act as if it is possible to speak from a moral position of neutrality. in actuality, considering both sides is an act of complicity because it's speaking from that position marx characterizes as the position of the petty bourgeoisie by claiming the very debate is morally legitimate, opening a position of complicity.

-arguments against militant antifascism are predicated on the idea that effectiveness comes from optics, being able to funnel activism back into electoral success, public relations, public perception. that is opposed to what antifascism is. what we we're doing as antifascist organizers is disrupting and undermining and causing long term problems for far right and fascist organizing. providing solidarity and mutual abs and support to marginalized communities. both are community self defense. as long as it can do things, it contributes much more than optics.

-"the far right yearns for the recolonization of the project of settler colonialism, which it perceives incorrectly to have failed. white settlerism is a part of abs sometimes perceives itself within a long history of acting acting as the paramilitary wing of the broader project of settler colonialism. when settler hegemony is challenged by leftist movements, the far right fights for the reinforcement of settler state power. when the far right perceives the liberal institutions of the settler state to have failed the white supremacist project, it fights against the liberal institutions of the state. at no point does it truly challenge the underlying political economy of settler colonialism: continued capital accumulation and the dispossession of indigenous land"

holy shit i understand the storming of the capitol from earlier this year that makes so much sense.

-fascism: a social movement involving a relatively autonomous and insurgent base, potentially mass-based, driven by an authoritative vision of collective rebirth that challenges bourgeoisie institutional and cultural power while re-entrenching economic and social hierarchies.

-the far right wants to make capital accumulation more suited for the white petty bourgeoisie. vision of collective rebirth of palengenesis that drives it but is nurtured by the mainstream political imagination. dreams of settler colonialism. norms codified by settler hegemony.

-system oppositional organizing vs system loyal vigilantes

-this 3 way fight between us, the liberal state, and the far right. we need to be very careful about institutions and liberals using very superficial antifascist credentials (bare minimum statements, false solidarity, multicultural fascism, etc) against militant leftists of all kinds and dismantle community self defense.

[barbariccia]

Shepard: Have you worked with a Spectre before?

Garrus: Well, no. But I know what they're like.

Garrus explains his motivations for leaving c-sec in a little more detail: he didn't like being wrapped up in red tape and bureaucracy, knowing there was more he could be doing to further his investigations. He outright says c-sec's handling of the saren investigation was typical of the way they acted, and he's joined up with you to see how investigations are done outside of citadel space, to get some better insights into the world of justice.

and just like that, he goes from being a decent guy bored of being a pencil-pusher in a job where he could be dispensing justice to a goddamn vigilante, who wants to restore order to the galaxy where he knows he could be able tod and currently can’t. he’s frustrated, and understandably so - especially after the Council’s initial handling of the eden prime investigation. we tell him so long as he gets the job done, we don’t really care what he does, and move on to go say hi to wrex nearby.

i had to tweak the contrast and lightness severely in the screens i’ve been taking just to see the characters, jesus christ mass effect is so fucking dark-

on first impressions, wrex seems like your typical bodyguard/merc type, but he’s actually got a lot to say. he’s angrier than you’d expect, in a simmering, beneath the surface kinda manner... for reasons you wouldn’t expect.

remember the krogan rebellions?

enter the genophage! the word itself stems from the greek genos and phágos, translated literally as ‘the eater of offspring’, which is a pretty apt way of describing it.

Wrex: Ask the salarians if you want details. They made it. All I know: it makes breeding nearly impossible. Thousands die in stillbirth, and most never make it that far.

at the end of the krogan rebellions, the salarians created a biological weapon that infected every krogan with a genetic mutation that reduced the probability of viable pregnancies surviving. combined with the krogan’s proclivity for violence, combined with the fact that when they spread to other worlds it’s to fight, not to colonize... the krogan are a dying race, and none of them really seem to care.

there’s no feeling of sadness to wrex’s words, just a grim finality. they’re warriors, not settlers. there’s nothing that can be done for their race: and wrex has turned his back on them.

or so he says.

we’ll come back to wrex later and talk some more about the genophage and his feelings on it, but it at least reinforces the views that we’ve seen on the citadel so far: they might well have played a very important role in the rachni wars a couple hundred years ago, but now the krogan are a shade of the people they used to be.

there’s a line of dialogue before he opens up about what the genophage is that i really, really like. after the initial ribbing over shared experiences with the turians...

he’s an angry guy, sure, but he’s less angry than you might expect him to be. and yeah, wrex has the right of it in this, i think. he’s accepted that this is how things are for the krogan: there’s nothing more that he can do for them, and while he’s angry about their fate and the things that have been done to them and their lack of interest about fixing it...  he knows that the problem isn’t youspecifically. shepard might’ve been a bit of an ass, but it’s not your fault.

that being said, it shouldn’t necessarily be wrex’s place to explain something that he feels so strongly about, that’s affecting him personally as well, not just people he knows. we’ve already heard on the citadel itself that the krogan faced harsh repercussions for the Rebellions, and while taking in lore in the codex isn’t the most fun thing in the world, it shouldn’t be on him to, for lack of a better word, educate someone in a position of extreme authority (N7, now a Spectre) on this.

then again, the character isn’t the player, and with so many things introduced there’s gotta be some way to get across to the players the things that are going on in-universe, but...

[ao3feed-stucky]

by charlesdk

“What do you want to do?”

Steve pauses and looks at them.

What he wants is to stay with them. He doesn't have any family left, they all died before he even joined the war and became... this. Captain America turned whatever he is now. But Natasha and Sam have become his family over the years. Not just because they're on the run together, fugitives and vigilantes, but way before that too.

He doesn't want to leave that.

But he knows that, realistically, he can't stay with them and they can't stay with him.

So he looks at them with a smile and lies. “I don't know.”

OR; In which Steve retires and finally finds a place to call home.

Words: 8052, Chapters: 1/9, Language: English

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Captain America (Movies)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Sam Wilson (Marvel), Clint Barton, Original Characters

Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Minor or Background Relationship(s)

Additional Tags: Minor Sharon Carter/Natasha Romanov, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), but without the snappening, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Bearded Steve Rogers, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Baker Bucky Barnes, Gay Bucky Barnes, Canon Disabled Character, Recovery, Friends to Lovers, Canon-Typical Violence, Sexual Content, Steve Rogers-centric, POV Steve Rogers

[radiumrat]

You know what, I'm kinda tired of people misunderstanding what it means to be latinx so I'm just gonna throw my two cents in as Your Local Mexican-American who can't speak for all Latinos (cause all Mexicans are latinos but not all latinos are mexican) but has some decent perspective

First off, I want to acknowledge that while latinos experience oppression (especially as of late) it is different and in many ways less severe than the oppression faced by the black community

Wanna know why? Cause white Latinos are the result of the pairings of south and central native americans and Spanish colonists! However, not all latinos are white latinos, they may be afrolatinx! But my experience is that of a white latino so I'm going to be focusing on that

For some background, the Spanish were not interested in colonizing the Americas (North, central, and south. The rest of Europe was late to the game) as much as it was interested in exploiting it. It was the violent conquistador campaigns and exploitative mining operations that brought the Spanish to the Americas, a new and dangerous world that was seen as unfit for women. With so many Spanish men in the new world and virtually no Spanish women, the colonists took partners from the existing Native populations, with varying degrees of willingness from the natives. From this came a class system based on how Spanish and how wealthy an individual was

After the colonial era which saw exploited labor from both Native American groups and African slaves, the class system slowly began to be based more on an individual's wealth and power rather than their race, but let's not pretend that those with strong Spanish lineages didn't have a huge leg up there.

What really started to change life for Latinos in the modern day United States was the opening up of Texas to Anglos, due to Mexico's difficulty in keeping the territory stable because of its size, distance from Mexico City, and the resistance of Native American groups. The result was the Mexican-American war which resulted in Mexico losing half its territory and the addition of almost the entirety of the American Southwest. As a result, the Mexicans already living in those areas became Americans. Their new government rarely allowed them to keep the land that their families had owned for generations, and at times had grown fairly wealthy from. Their deeds were tossed out and their land split up for white settlers

The Mexican Revolution in the early 1900s saw warfare between Mexican citizens that at times bled into the United States. Certain revolutionaries like Pancho Villa visited terror amd cruelty upon small border towns. This is why many white Americans associate Mexicans with violence and cruelty, even leading some to say that we had a propensity for it due to our race (ok colonizers) . This was also the justification for the indiscriminate murder of hundreds of Mexicans by vigilante citizens, robbers, and sanctioned authorities like the Texas Rangers in the early 1900s

The border between Mexico and America remained open into the nineteenth century, and even into the eighties only a small fee was required to cross, I'm talking dimes and quarters here

However, Latinos were still greatly discriminated against. Segregation era restrictions called out Mexicans by name but lbr, it applied to all latinos. Segregation restricted Latinos in similar ways it restricted Black people. It dictated access to facilities, restaurants, theatres, scools, and even juror seats

During the world wars, latinos along with other poc were sent to the front lines to die over their white counterparts. Even in death, some were denied burial in white graveyards, leading to organizations like the American GI forum

And that was for citizens. Trying to work or live in the us as an immigrant was a long and degrading process. Immigrants were subjected to physical examinations, public bathing, and many were sprayed with carcinogenic pesticides. My grandmother was given an x-ray as part of the immigration process while she was pregnant. She didn't know it could be harmful to the fetus and no one asked if she was pregnant. It resulted in a stillbirth.

Migrant workers were relegated to "low skill" jobs, often as farm workers. They worked long hours for little pay, and were exposed to pesticides that resulted in cancer, birth defects, and in the worst cases, death soon after exposure. Without access to education or childcare, parents brought their children to the feilds, and the cycle of exploitation continued. Thanks to the NFWA, conditions have improved but still aren't ideal, especially for undocumented workers who are at the greatest risk of exploitation

Even through ALL THIS SHIT, Latinos were STILL at risk of deportation, regardless of their citizenship. The American government rounded up Latinos, some of whom had lived in the United States for generations, and deported them to Mexico or South America, places some had never been.

Being a race of mixed people for over five hundred years means that some people have a lot more spanish blood, so much so that they may be blonde, pale, and blue-eyed, and some people have a lot more native blood, so they have broad or prominent noses, dark hair and dark brown skin. And as unpredictable genetics are, appearances may vary wildly even among siblings

In my family alone, which is to my knowledge exclusively descended from Native Americans and Spanish immigrants (with some german in there), we have curly hair, straight hair, auburn and black hair, thin bodies, fat bodies, heights ranging from 6"2' to 5"1', flat and broad noses, hooked noses, arched noses, flat faces, high cheekbones, shades of skin ranging from off-white to cocoa brown, thin lips, full lips, and a wide array of facial and body hair.

And all of these people are equally Latino! Lineages of Spanish colonialists and of Native groups can both validly claim latino heritage, even if they are not mixed

This is why the oppression faced by latinos can be very different depending on the individual. The more non-white you look, the more this history is attached to you. The darker your skin is, the more likely that you will be profiled, deported, arrested, disregarded, assulted, or exploited.

This is why it's inaccurate to say that Latinos are "honorary whites" or "basically white" (this was also an argument used by Anglos to deny that they were oppressing Latinos lmao) Yes, some latinos may be white passing and get preferential treatment over other more visibly non-white minorities, and some even act as oppressors, but there are also many others that are not afforded that luxury. We have a storied past, we have been subjected to A Lot Of Shit, and to loop me in with my oppressors makes me sick to my stomach.

Tldr: some latinos are white passing, but many aren't. We come in all shapes and shades because of our mixed heritage and those who are visibly nonwhite are still subjected to racism so don't equate us to our oppressors because not long ago having a spanish surname meant you couldn't be a cop

[parolim-prlm]

UN envoy gravely concerned over killings and retaliatory attacks — Global Issues

Mr. Wennesland said he was gravely concerned by the deteriorating security situation in the occupied West Bank, particularly the violence in Huwwara that erupted over the past 24 hours.  “My condolences to the family of the two Israeli brothers killed in a shooting attack yesterday by a Palestinian perpetrator and to the family of the Palestinian killed during a rampage by vigilante settlers in…