I like what you say about AOC and Bernie. I had an unease about their tour but I wondered if I was just being purist. Your words remind me why we must never forget that they defended a genocide.
It is hard to not increasingly become a prepper, I find... focusing on shoring up things and learning skills to protect one's small family of loved ones (though how much time does work even allow us to do these things?)
Also, maybe I'm just inept, but I'm found it frustratingly difficult to leave the UK for another country. I tried the Netherlands but this coincided with lockdowns and I couldn't find work even when I was applying for multiple jobs a day.
That said, most of Europe seems to be sliding willingly into fascism, just maybe slower than us. It's sickening and wearying.
I really like this reminder though:
"It sounds silly, but this was an act of humanity, of agency. You can just do things. Sometimes those things can be silly. Sometimes they have to be."
thanks, nate. the title of this piece says it all. "bearing witness in the age of atrocity" is what we're doing; this is how we're living.
what gives this living a twilight zone quality is the vast number of our irl peers who *aren't* bearing witness, who can't face what's happening, who are willfully oblivious. outside of this blog & other online spaces - including twitter, where some of us have been communicating directly from the beginning with folks within gaza - it's very isolating.
squashing israeli avocadoes won't bring me much if any relief, personally. i'm with your commenter martin in believing that we don't have the power to make things better, & in fact: they'll get worse. gaza is a test case for many other parts of the world, a preview of things to come.
i laugh; i work; i schmooze; i don't take substances or meds. but at the same time, i'm constantly needing to perfect the art of living with cognitive dissonance, "ok daily reality" vs "not-ok bigger picture."
“Seize agency”…..Are enough people willing to die for peace and justice they may never witness? I don’t know that we’ve reached that tipping point yet, but if history is a guide, it is inevitable.
Support for Israel needs to be made prohibitively expensive. Squashed avocados will make Tesco think twice about sourcing. (Whose stolen water feeds those trees anyway?)
Israel's most dangerous exports are their 8200 alumni. Name them, shame them, and make it impossible for our political class to not shun them. Israel supporting Democrats must suffer electoral defeat. Too on a local level, police departments must be ordered to cease using Israeli developed spy ware.
To reiterate, support for Israel needs to be confronted. Anti-genocide candidates need to win seats in municipal and county governments. There is the saying, "all politics is local", this goes doubly for genocide and cattle class flights to El Salvador.
I agree that the suppression of this issue in the current tour is problematic but what do you make of Sander's public legislative record that established his support for Palestinians and his opposition to genocide? What about AOC's public record? Do you not think there is a chance that they are sincerely and strategically trying to accomplish a revolution within the Democratic party?
Nah, for all the impassioned writing and observing you do here, somebody has to tell you that the Keep Hopium Alive role that substackian “resistance” seems to want to play has to die also.
Here’s some advice- stop small-timing this shit. The scale of the violence is too great to permit useless We Can Do This Gang typing. The damage is already too great to even mention, and it’s just getting started. Any violence in return is going to be met with ferocious, well-paid death delivered by the authorities.
If that’s too much to hear, block me or tell me to stop commenting, and I will understand.
As an old person I have found the lack of response to images of violence disturbing. The photographs that came out of Vietnam had a real impact on people, but now pictures of far greater human carnage go unnoticed, or cheered.
Bearing witness is important, but I don't see it or anything else impeding, much less stopping, the crazy violence.
I like what you say about AOC and Bernie. I had an unease about their tour but I wondered if I was just being purist. Your words remind me why we must never forget that they defended a genocide.
When are we going to remember that words are cheap?
Thank you for this Nate, and thank you for caring about it all Xx
It is hard to not increasingly become a prepper, I find... focusing on shoring up things and learning skills to protect one's small family of loved ones (though how much time does work even allow us to do these things?)
Also, maybe I'm just inept, but I'm found it frustratingly difficult to leave the UK for another country. I tried the Netherlands but this coincided with lockdowns and I couldn't find work even when I was applying for multiple jobs a day.
That said, most of Europe seems to be sliding willingly into fascism, just maybe slower than us. It's sickening and wearying.
I really like this reminder though:
"It sounds silly, but this was an act of humanity, of agency. You can just do things. Sometimes those things can be silly. Sometimes they have to be."
thanks, nate. the title of this piece says it all. "bearing witness in the age of atrocity" is what we're doing; this is how we're living.
what gives this living a twilight zone quality is the vast number of our irl peers who *aren't* bearing witness, who can't face what's happening, who are willfully oblivious. outside of this blog & other online spaces - including twitter, where some of us have been communicating directly from the beginning with folks within gaza - it's very isolating.
squashing israeli avocadoes won't bring me much if any relief, personally. i'm with your commenter martin in believing that we don't have the power to make things better, & in fact: they'll get worse. gaza is a test case for many other parts of the world, a preview of things to come.
i laugh; i work; i schmooze; i don't take substances or meds. but at the same time, i'm constantly needing to perfect the art of living with cognitive dissonance, "ok daily reality" vs "not-ok bigger picture."
I just got 3,000 COVID tests and am distributing them to my community.
I pray every day for Peace & Plenty for All - and then put feet to my prayers.
Hope? False hope. It always has been, false hope.
No lives matter.
America sent dogs to attack Black children in my lifetime. No one has ever been held accountable.
Black people are regularly murdered by the police, with no accountability.
Sonya Massey
Atatiana Jefferson
Brianna Taylor
Sandra Bland
And on and on and on
Art shows the horror of being Black in America- https://www.famsf.org/artworks/birmingham-63
“Seize agency”…..Are enough people willing to die for peace and justice they may never witness? I don’t know that we’ve reached that tipping point yet, but if history is a guide, it is inevitable.
Thanks Adam
Support for Israel needs to be made prohibitively expensive. Squashed avocados will make Tesco think twice about sourcing. (Whose stolen water feeds those trees anyway?)
Israel's most dangerous exports are their 8200 alumni. Name them, shame them, and make it impossible for our political class to not shun them. Israel supporting Democrats must suffer electoral defeat. Too on a local level, police departments must be ordered to cease using Israeli developed spy ware.
To reiterate, support for Israel needs to be confronted. Anti-genocide candidates need to win seats in municipal and county governments. There is the saying, "all politics is local", this goes doubly for genocide and cattle class flights to El Salvador.
I agree that the suppression of this issue in the current tour is problematic but what do you make of Sander's public legislative record that established his support for Palestinians and his opposition to genocide? What about AOC's public record? Do you not think there is a chance that they are sincerely and strategically trying to accomplish a revolution within the Democratic party?
Nah, for all the impassioned writing and observing you do here, somebody has to tell you that the Keep Hopium Alive role that substackian “resistance” seems to want to play has to die also.
Here’s some advice- stop small-timing this shit. The scale of the violence is too great to permit useless We Can Do This Gang typing. The damage is already too great to even mention, and it’s just getting started. Any violence in return is going to be met with ferocious, well-paid death delivered by the authorities.
If that’s too much to hear, block me or tell me to stop commenting, and I will understand.
As an old person I have found the lack of response to images of violence disturbing. The photographs that came out of Vietnam had a real impact on people, but now pictures of far greater human carnage go unnoticed, or cheered.
Bearing witness is important, but I don't see it or anything else impeding, much less stopping, the crazy violence.
Our species is in trouble.