Saw this post floating around, don’t wanna target anyone or argue with Zionists, but it is my duty (especially as an actually indigenous Jew) to educate well-meaning gentiles who might see this and think they have no right to speak on the matter. I’ll go point by point.

1) “Is it so terrible for a Jew to be a Zionist?”

If we were living in any other era, where the genocidal crimes of Israel were not as widely known (though they were very well documented), you could perhaps ask this question in sincerity. Many Jews (such as myself) grow up in religious educational settings which either fail to mention the human rights violations of the state or claim they’re justified because “they want to kill us!” Past a certain point, though, one can’t continue to claim ignorance of what Zionism actually does. Short answer: yes, it is terrible for anyone to claim to be a Zionist, but this will be more evident as I continue to analyze these arguments.

2) “Zionism is the belief in the inherent right of the Jewish people to return to their homeland”

First of all, Palestine is not the “homeland” of the Jewish people any more than Siberia is the homeland of indigenous american tribes. Is there a historical connection? Yes, but though assimilation and migration Jews have found homes across the world. For me, my homeland is Mexico, because my family has lived there for generations, partly through migration but mostly through having cultivated the land for millennia. Even biblically speaking, Palestine does not “belong” to the Jewish people, it belongs to G-d. Furthermore, there is no shortage of Jewish scholarship and activism that asserts that wherever we live, that is our homeland. Frankly, I’m more interested in fighting to stay where I am than fighting to force people out of their homes to accommodate me.

3) “Zionism is the belief in the Jewish right not to be murdered”

By murdering others instead? Once again, there is no shortage of Jewish scholarship and activism in favor of Jewish self defense where we live. Jewish resistance fighters lived and died fighting the nazis in Europe under the third reich. If Zionism was actually interested in preventing Jewish death, it would fight antisemitism where it is. “Preventing murder” is not an excuse to commit genocide.

4) “there are so many definitions of Zionism”

Sorry but I just think of this tweet from @jewdas on Twitter when I read this: “There’s a actual existing Zionism which practices apartheid and denial of human rights. But there’s another Zionism inside my head which is all rainbows and kosher marshmallows, so who can say which is the real Zionism?” In other words, the actual, material consequences of Zionist beliefs are more important than what any individual thinks their Zionism is. Once again, we live in the Information Age, where anyone can easily learn about the damage that Zionism has done in Palestine and abroad. There is no excuse to continue using the label that doesn’t presuppose complete ignorance of Israeli violence.

5) “zionists just want to be safe from antisemitism in the diaspora”

See points 3 & 4.

6) “and this is different from evangelical zionists”

Materially speaking, not really. Once again, see point 4. Until you pull all US/european colonial support for Israel, this claim falls flat.

7) “zionists just want to live peacefully with other indigenous people in the area”

That’s not what indigeneity is, it doesn’t mean “from there,” it’s a specific relationship to the land and to its cultivation. (On a side note, even biblically and historically speaking, Jews are not “from” Palestine.) See point 2. Zionism has proven it is not a peaceful ideology. See point 4.

8) “people refuse to see the difference in types of Zionism because they hate the Jews”

No, it’s because there are no material differences. See point 4. Evangelical Zionism and Jewish Zionism actually share quite a bit in common. The “Jewish state” would not exist without evangelical Zionists. See point 6. And the original Jewish Zionist thinkers had a vested interest in tying the two together.

tl;dr, Zionism is a violent ideology in practice, and no amount of making excuses can hide the fact that it is genocidal and serves European/American interests. Additionally, just because one is not Jewish does not mean one does not have a duty and an obligation to eliminate Zionism wherever it crops up. Zionism has had disastrous consequences for Palestinians, and as western citizens, we benefit from their suffering. It must end now. May Palestine be freed in our lifetimes.

I rambled about this in tags on another post but I can’t emphasize enough how only focusing on large-scale issues WILL lead to hopelessness & burnout. Activism must include small-scale, achievable works. If you don’t have something you can get your hands around and look at directly, despair will eat you alive.

I want to elaborate here for people who don’t think they’re capable of practical activism due to disability: what a LOT of volunteer groups need most is clerical and logistical support. Maybe you can’t get down to the river to pick up trash, but how about working the sign-up table? Or sending out email reminders or creating promotional graphics? How about making calls to the city to get funds for supplies?

Many volunteer groups rely on retired people to run their day-to-day functions, so as the economy worsens and retirement ages go up, charities are feeling the squeeze as their aging participants aren’t replaced. If you’re unable to work full-time due to disability but have the means to attend a zoom meeting once a month and take minutes, there’s an activist group that needs you. If you don’t have the financial means to donate to charities you care about, there’s a local advocacy group that needs help deciding how to allocate donation funds.

If you’re not sure how you or your disability can fit into a group, call and ask. My prison book group works from a basement that isn’t wheelchair accessible, so when I was unable to do stairs last year, I built them a database.

You can help and you are needed.

It definitely proved more believable. I mean it's a racist canard, but it tracks with people's preconceived prejudices much more than promises of help from the "everything's fine" dog.

Imagine telling people who are struggling to absorb the 28% increase in food prices how great everything is, that their struggles are all in their head and expecting that to go over well when you're basically just promising more of the same, or help to people doing well enough to be thinking about buying a home. Oh, and remember all those things you disliked about the GOP back in 2012? We support them now, yay! Fuck the immigrants, fuck the Muslims, more bombs, more guns, more cut programs, more we have the biggest military penis, look Liz Cheney supports us! A "Murica fuck yeah!" so loud and garish that it would make George Bush blush.

And then being surprised when you lose the election.

Because it's not just fear that won, it was credibility. And I have to say that it's a sad day when the promises of Donald J Trump are more believable than his opponent, no matter what each one was promising.

And wouldn't you know it, all of us have to suffer the consequences, especially those of us in marginalized communities, and somehow we end up getting blamed anyway. None of us knows exactly what's ahead over the next few years, but it's going to be hard, and much of the hope depends upon Harris supporters understanding why she lost, really understanding how the Democratic party could be so bad as to drive people into the arms of a fascist clown like Donald Trump.

This is the second presidential election in the past decade in which people were demanding real structural change that was lost to an idiot demagogue who promised just that, elections where the liberal candidate spent most of their time bad mouthing the opponent while telling struggling families that "everything is great actually and they'll be more of that coming" and whose main fear seemed to be the idea that anybody to the left of Ronald Reagan might win the highest office.

Trump's win has destroyed the Democratic party's credibility, and unless its supporters understand why and either fix their party or turn to something better (leftism), we're all going to have to deal with people who want to make the Handmaid's's Tale a reality holding political power.

7 reasons why solarpunk is the most important speculative fiction movement in the last 20 years

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It's not even radical, it's just the inversion of what is already done.

This is what y'all want, right terfs? That women are just weak little flowers that could never ever do anything against those big scary inherently evil beasts!

I am old enough to remember when we were fighting for the idea that women could do anything a man could do, if not do it better. But no, here we are.

If it looks like Sharia, sounds like Sharia, and smells like Sharia...

And not to pick on Islam, but it's the height of irony when these types of laws get proposed by the people who bleat on about scary Muslims, when they basically want to do the exact same thing here.

But I guess hypocrisy is no obstacle when it comes to bigoted religious extremists, because what they're really after, always, is control.

Hey, USAmericans? Wanna save your country? Run For Something!

Don't just run though, get involved too, no matter who wins.

My state expanded Medicaid thanks in part to the vote of my then Republican state senator changing his vote to yes, and one of the drivers of that change was meetings where we (a small group of people lobbying him) formed a working relationship and personalized the issue.

We got a pedestrian walkway in my city to cross a busy interstate intersection thanks in part to us lobbying city council members, and getting to know several of them personally.

All politics is personal, because all politics are people, people wielding power. If you have the time, or if you can make the time, get involved. If nothing else think of it as practice for the day when we are able to live in a better system, because that better system is going to require us to be able to collaborate and make collective decisions.

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This is exactly what the Capitalist Hellscape is trying to avoid. There is substantially less profit if people share things.

If communities and neighborhoods focus on "which resources can be shared because people don't need to use them all at once"... then every household does not need a blender, a lawnmower, a power drill, half a dozen suitcases, a set of wine glasses, a vacuum cleaner.

Every household needs a refrigerator. (For modern-US values of "need.") Every household needs umbrellas, one per resident, because your neighbors all need them at the same time you do.

But there's no need to own your own vacuum cleaner - you're not using it constantly, and you or your neighbors could adjust schedules so you share one among multiple households.

...And then the company sells one per three or four or fifteen homes, and their profits plummet. So they encourage the idea of "independence" and imply that your neighbors won't take good care of equipment that doesn't belong to them, and you need THIS ONE with the special features that matter to you...

(We have boy- and girl-coded toys because, post-WWII, manufacturers wanted to push sales, and "you need different toys per gender" was a great way to do that. Then in the late 60s/early 70s, with growing access to contraceptives, families started shrinking. They needed a way to convince a family of 2-3 kids instead of 4-7 kids that they still needed extra toys and clothes every year... enter color-coding by gender, to push families to buy two sets instead of one.)

Borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbor keeps you from rushing to the store, spending money on gas, buying a whole 5-lb bag of sugar (and maybe something else since you're already there), wasting a half-hour or more of your evening (maybe you'll buy some pre-cut vegetables or salad-in-a-bag since you've lost your prep time), and generally disrupting your life, making you more vulnerable to propaganda and advertising.

They do not want you borrowing a cup of sugar. So they make sure you're surrounded with messages to discourage it. Are you sure you trust your neighbor? Do you even know them? They'd probably want it back -with something like interest - when they come to your door, it's not going to be for a cup of sugar; it'll be for TWO cups of flour...

Individualism has brought a lot of value to the US, but it's reached the point of toxicity. It's past time we started relearning how to live in communities, not isolated residence pods.

I'm currently making a survival book, its going to inclue everything you need to run, how to cross borders (only if necessary), the safest states right now, the unsafest states, how to protect yourself in a red area, what places to stay at if your running, nearby jobs and other ways to get money, what foods are best to get, how to make certain foods, electronic related advice, the safest messaging apps, what not to say in messages, guide to doctors if you have a uterus or are a women, what plants are safe to eat, various poisons, how to deal with cops, a map of the local area and where cops hang out, how to survive in the woods, clothes you should bring, what to do about your period if your on the run, methods of birth control and what's the best, how to legally change your name and the amount of money it costs, how to a car if your in a non walkable area, first aid tips, how to get and use a burner phone, what type of weapons you might need and how to use them, a guide on how to use most commonplace guns, chargers to use for any devices you might bring.

All of it, I've got multiple notebooks to I'm spreading it across them.

I'm looking for other things to add too it, or if you see one or more subjects in here that you know a lot about/ can help with, feel free to reply or reblog with it, and if you don't want it attached to your profile, my asks are open and free to use. Anything is helpful, anything at all.

I'll be deleting this by January, you have until then to send.

Please, please please please, reblog this. don't just 'like' it

You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches.

I think I’d have minded less if I’d committed a truly heinous crime. Something that warranted death. Or even if I was the kind of person who would enjoy flinging a last defiance at my execution.

It was all just a show, anyway. They did it every year. They brought out a selection of criminals, and the Sorcerer who ruled us showed his power by bringing about their deaths by magic. Just to show, every year, what happened to anyone who crossed him.

There was a time, probably, when the people he executed really were rebels or assassins. In latter days he had to take what the dungeons offered. I was dragged up in chains between a pickpocket, sobbing in terror, and a man who’d killed another man in a brawl. There were few criminals of any note, by then. So instead of choosing the wickedest criminals, they chose based on appearance. The man who’d been in the brawl had a face like a clenched fist, and looked like a ruffian. The pickpocket, aging and with hands beginning to tremble, was a different kind of example. As was I.

“There aren’t many pretty ones, this year,” the man who chose me had said, examining me. “But this one will do. Not young, but not old, a woman, well-favoured enough for the gallows… what was her crime?”

The warder shrugged. “She tried to kill one of the sheriffs.”

The man looked down at me and I shrugged. “I hit him with a washing stick, because he tried to extort money from me, and he was a baby about it.” I refused to treat this as anything but pathetic, even after my sentencing. “I didn’t even break any bones.”

“Treason, then,” the man said, nodding. “Attacking the servants of the law. That will look well on the list. Send her.”

I had been debating ever since what to choose. Something quick? Something painless? I considered demanding that I suffer the attack I supposedly made on the sheriff, but then I realized the Sorcerer would only give me what the man had said I was going to do, and that was not a pleasant way to die. I had all but decided on something swift and relatively painless. Beheading with the sharpest of blades sounded good. It would be quick. 

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hey, why does this go so fucking hard?

If I ever come into "fuck you" money, I am going to do my damnedest to make this piece an animated movie.

If we're honest, the dark times have been ongoing, with both major US parties enthusiastically promoting mass murder in places like Iraq, and promoting the impoverishment and suffering of folks the world over, especially in places like Venezuela. The mask has come off, sure, but the genocide in Palestine is only the latest and most overtly egregious in a seemingly endless chain.

The only difference is that we're going to have more of that at home now, in a way that class agnostic folks are going to find it harder and harder to ignore.

The small silver lining is that it's an opportunity to inculate class consciousness and community building, so that maybe when history rightfully condemns our current leaders (and our collective inaction), it won't just be to allow those in the future to perpetuate the atrocity. But it's going to be a lot of work, and there will be great suffering in the meanwhile.

Eat the rich. 💫💫💫

And a Leftist says "It's because I care that I will act to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone again."