#I don't have words to describe how I feel for the men of Palestine | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dirtytransmasc · 6 months

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the men and boys are innocent too.

we cry "the innocent women and children" to appeal to the masses, to try and force their sympathy, but the men and boys are innocent too.

I have seen sons crying out for their mothers, their fathers, their siblings. I have seen them break down at the loss of their families. I have seen them cling to their dead and grieve.

I have seen fathers cradle their dead children, seen them kiss their faces and hold their little hands. I have seen them faint with grief when asked to identify the dead. I have seen them carry their sons and daughters. I have seen them fasting to provide what little they can for their families.

I have seen men and boys digging through the rubble with just their bare hands, I have seen them comforting strangers, playing with children, rocking them, hushing them, even if the face of such imminent danger. I have seen them cry, seen them grieve, seen them break down into each other's arms, seen them be selfless, beyond selfless, becoming something I don't have a word for.

I have seen the men who are doctors refuse to leave their patients, even when they have no medicine or supplies to give them, even when they're threatened with bombings. I have seen fathers who have lost all their children pick orphans up into their arms and proclaim them their child so they are not alone. I have seen men and boys digging pets out of the rubble.

the men are innocent too. the men and boys are being hurt and killed too. the men and boys are grieving too. the men and boys are scared too. the men and boys are fighting to save their people too. the men and boys deserve to be fought for too.

#I don't have words to describe how I feel for the men of Palestine #the things I have seen them do after everything they have been through goes so far beyond selfless #what do you call this? this prevailing goodness and willingness to give everything they have and more? what word even touches it?#I don't think there is one #islamophobia has conditioned us to see these men and boys as evil and dangerous #we see this in how we speak about Palestine #and we need to uncondition ourselves #they're just as innocent and of value and good as the women and children #so fight for them #they don't deserve this any more than the women and children #free palestine #palestine

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augmented3rd · 1 month

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we don't want radical change because we're comfortable

We don’t want radical change

Throughout history, the beginnings of a revolution typically means the destruction of the current system. This destruction however is entirely deceptive. And sometimes destruction might not even be the most appropriate word. Transformation. That’s a better word.

I hesitate to call it a destruction because it simply isn’t ‘destruction of the current system’. It’s hard to call it destruction when features of that ‘current system’ are used to set up the replacement system. Therefore, transformation.

Whether it’s moving from communism to democracy, there are overlapping features. Nothing is ever truly destroyed. Unfortunately the pseudo-left uses this ‘inability of destruction’ to be complicit in the realities of capitalist realism.

Our belief that ‘there is no alternative’ is what makes us complicit. I see this increasingly among the North-American pseudo-left.

The pseudo-left cares more about their image than inciting a revolution. They are more concerned about denouncing the bad but reiterating the fact that things can’t change.

It’s the ‘Do you condemn Hamas?’ questions while men,women and children are being indiscriminately murdered in Palestine.

The concern on corporate profits ‘helping the economy’ while people in the Congo work harrowing conditions so we can all have iPhones.

The neo-imperialist organisations that claim to be beacons of supplying foreign aid and support yet making developing countries reliant on them rather than self-sufficient.

I could easily go on and on.

Because we’re comfortable

Going back to capitalist realism, a phenomenon that Fisher explores in his book is the apathy that capitalism creates in the consumers consciousness.

He describes this apathy as a ‘mental paralysis’ created by the fear and cynicism of late capitalism.

Now our apathy spawned by capitalism might not look like the ‘drug induced haze’ like in the novels of Philip K. Dick, but it feels that way.

That phantasmagoric haze is not only paralytic but oh so seductive.

The seduction that breeds our apathy is an underlying feature of late capitalism. Late capitalism gives us entrepreneurial dreams about a life that we could have.

It worked for Musk, Gates, all those others. It might just work for me too. Cue all the youtuber merch and influencer Instagram shops.

We fall into the quicksand of capitalism, being workers for a corporation but our own bosses in our ‘side hustles’.

We end up at a crossroads where the continuous class struggle is not only external but internal.

We fight for better conditions of the working class, but secretly hope for upward mobility. It’s what neoliberal capitalism was designed for.

After all, it’s easier to have a more docile working class when you ensure that the system works sometimes and infrequently. We fail to realise the nature of our subjugation.

Therein lies the cognitive dissonance. We know we are being gaslit. But the comfort and familiarity of the current system makes us resistant to change.

Our unwillingness to disrupt the status quo ends up affirming that there is indeed no alternative.

That neoliberalism is a powerful and dangerous thing.

The average North American is a hyper-individualised fool who sees everyone as competition for their own upward mobility.

We are exhausted, depressed, and lonely and those qualities do not make a good revolutionary mass.

So how do we move forward?

I do not know. I do have my ideas. We must embrace a radicalism beyond the pseudo-left's rhetoric. What form this radicalism takes remains uncertain.

Of course that’s not saying much. Acknowledging this imperative is a mere beginning.

And I’ll admit, this is still a learning curve for me. I will think more, research and communicate with others who are more seasoned on this topic than I.

I hope to make an update on this in the future.

#leftist #socialism #marxist #communism #books and reading #reading #literature #politics #politique #politik #markfisher #mark fisher #capitalist realism

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seleneprince · 6 months

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@thebusylilbee (For some reason I couldn't reblog that reply of yours with this post. Pity)

A following of this beautiful, reflexive reblog:

Wow, you were so expressive, so passionate, so full of rage back there. I would've feel intimidated if you have added a deep, complex explanation of your point between all that messy spit of words..

As much as I would love to give you a full and detailed explanation of why your reasoning is fucking WRONG, I know by the way you wrote your thoughts you're not the type to willingly hear arguments that go against your beliefs and you're firmly set on your own interpretation of reality, so I'll be quick with this and leave you to keep swimming in your ignorance.

From all that load of bullshit and rage filled nonsense you spit out, there was one thing you're absolutely right about it:

"Hamas WOULD not need to exist"

Damn right they don't, their mere existence is a crime. I don't know how many palestinians outside Gaza you've spoken to but I can quote what the ones I came across have said about Hamas, here some examples:

"They're the real monsters. They do nothing to protect us and just keep making everything worse"

"We weren't allowed to leave because they shoot down anyone that tried to flew the country. They don't care about our lives, just our usefulness to them"

"We can't complain, we can't speak up, if they so much sniff someone's dislike towards them...."

It's hard to translate some of them, but you get the picture. Hamas are terrorists, that much is known. They've been also opressing, humiliating, torturing, raping, displacing, robbing and imprisoning people since their creation, but they've done it in a way that only those lucky enough to escape can confess their crimes. The rest are dead. But foolish, uncultured idiots like you don't want to hear that because it's much easier to pin Israel's government as the SOLE villains of this story and buy the propaganda western media is feeding you.

"if ZIONISTS hadn't created a fascist apartheid state called Israel"

Honey, I don't know what the fuck they taught you in History class, but the "fascist apartheid" state you speak of doesn't exist. Israel was created by the United Nations as part of a plan to give both the arabs and the jews their own territory and cease the continued conflicts.

(Fun fact: The Arab League refused this idea because they didn't want the jews to have their own land, and so shortly after proclamation, five Arabs countries joined forces to attack the freshly created Israel state and invade them. Or, using that term some people in this site love, colonize them. Israel fought back, won for some dumb stroke of luck and, as a solemn "fuck you", they also took a 25% more of the territory that have been accorded)

Now, the Israel's government has clearly changed a LOT (speaking in euphemisms ofc) back from the original days where they genuinely just focused on the Israelis and right now there's really nothing good left in that corrupt, self-centred circle of men.

"zionist ideology wasn't RACIST GENOCIDAL AND INHUMANE."

The origin of the Zionism movement was born as a response to the growing anti-semitism, an actual racist genocidal and inhuman movement, that was happening all around the world. So using those particular adjectives to describe it it's ironic and fucking dumb, because they go against the very reason of its existence.

Now there are various ramifications of Zionism, such as political Zionism, liberal Zionism, religious Zionism, etc. Not all of them good obviously, but the main core of this movement was focused ONLY in protecting the Jews and their culture. I'll never understand how a government that knows the tragedy their fellows suffered even dared to inflict it on other people, but well, guess some humans don't learn from the past.

And last one, the very jewel of your whole commentary:

"You are so fucking stupid, it's incredible that you would fuckign DARE tag your braindead bullshit with a pro-palestine tag when you quite obviously know and understand NOTHING"

I dare to tag "pro palestine" because I'm with them and I'm actually defending their lives, their cause and know where they come from, unlike people like you that speak up all proudly against others and use big words you don't even know the meaning of. If you actually cared about these people, you would have done your research and find out everything about this topic. But you don't, you simply want to show your deep anger for their pain in the same way all influencers and fake activists have been doing since this started. You want to be "part of the trend".

The only one who obviously knows and understand NOTHING about this conflict is YOU, fucking uncultured and ignorant asshole. Everytime I see people like you speak up on this conflict makes my blood boil, because all of you have been blisfully blind while all the atrocities were happening but now the biased social media and tv shows and all these radical anti-semitist political figures are telling you how bad it is, you think it's time to "stand up against the unjustice".

People like you only see the surface of it plus the propaganda they shove in your throats, and not the centuries of dark history and events that have consequently lead up to this. So how about you shut the fuck and let the grown people speak about this matter?

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iamastrongchristian-blog · 5 years

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You Don't Need the Aprocrypha, Stay with the Bible!

Apocrypha comes from the Greek word "apokrophos" meaning 'hidden or concealed'. The Apocrypha consists of the books added to the Old Testament that are not considered canonical by Protestants.

Four Reasons Why the Apocrypha Is Not Canonical

1. The Apocrypha abounds in historical and geographical inaccuracies and anachronisms.

2. The Apocrypha teaches doctrines which are false and fosters practices which are at variance with inspired Scripture.

3. The Apocrypha resorts to literary types and displays artificiality of subject matter and styling which is out of keeping with inspired Scripture.

4. The Apocrypha lacks distinctive elements which give genuine Scripture their divine character, such as prophetic power and poetic and religious feeling.15

Most Christians do not know what the Apocrypha is and what it contains so I have decided to include a short summary of its individual books.

A Summary of the Apocrypha

161 Esdras (150 BC)

This book tells about the restoration of the Jews to Palestine after the Babylonian exile. It draws considerably from Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, but the author has added much legendary material. The most interesting item is the story of the three guardsmen. They were debating what was the strongest thing in the world. One said, "Wine." Another, "The king." The third, "Woman and truth." They put these three answers under the king's pillow. When he awoke he required the three men to defend their answers. The unanimous decision was: truth is greatly and supremely strong. Because Zerubabel had given this answer he was allowed to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem.

2 Esdras (AD 100)

Is an apocalyptic work, containing seven visions. Martin Luther was so confused by these visions that he is said to have thrown the book into the Elbe River.

Tobit (Early 2nd century BC)

Is a short novel. Strongly Pharisaic in tone, it emphasizes the Law, clean foods, ceremonial washings, charity, fasting and prayer. It is clearly unscriptural in its statement that almsgiving atones for sin.

Judith (About the middle of 2nd century BC)

Is also fictitious and Pharisaic. The heroine of this novel is Judith, a beautiful Jewish widow. When her city was besieged she took her maid, together with Jewish clean food, and went out to the tent of the attacking general. He was enamored of her beauty and gave her a place in his tent. Fortunately, he had imbibed too freely and sank into a drunken stupor. Judith took his sword and cut off his head. Then she and her maid left the camp, taking his head in their provision bag.

It was hung on the wall of a nearby city and the leaderless Assyrian army was defeated.

Additions to Esther (About 100 BC)

Esther stands alone among the books of the Old Testament in having no mention of God. We are told that Esther and Mordecai fasted but not specifically that they prayed. To compensate for this lack, the additions have long prayers attributed to these two, together with a couple of letters supposedly written by Artaxerxes.

The Wisdom of Solomon (About AD 40)

Was written to keep the Jews from falling into scepticism, materialism, and idolatry. As in Proverbs, Wisdom is personified. There are many noble sentiments expressed in this book.

Ecclesiasticus, or Wisdom of Sirach (about 180 BC)

Shows a high level of religious wisdom, somewhat like the canonical Book of Proverbs. It also contains much practical advice. For instance, on the subject of after-dinner speeches it says (32:8):

"Speak concisely; say much in few words…" "Act like a man who knows more than he says."

And again (33:4): "Prepare what you have to say, and then you will be listened to."

In his sermons John Wesley quotes several times from the Book of Ecclesiasticus. It is still widely used in Anglican circles.

Baruch (About AD 100)

Represents itself as being written by Baruch, the scribe of Jeremiah, in 582 BC. Actually, it is probably trying to interpret the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

The book urges the Jews not to revolt again, but to be in submission to the emperor. In spite of this the Bar-Cochba revolution against Roman rule took place soon after, in AD 132-135. The sixth chapter of Baruch contains the so-called "Letter of Jeremiah," with its strong warning against idolatry - probably addressed to Jews in Alexandria, Egypt.

Our Book of Daniel contains 12 chapters. In the first century before Christ a thirteenth chapter was added, the story of Susanna. She was the beautiful wife of a leading Jew in Babylon, to whose house the Jewish elders and judges frequently came. Two of these became enamored of her and tried to seduce her. When she cried out, the two elders said they had found her in the arms of a young man. She was brought to trial. Since there were two witnesses who agreed in their testimony, she was convicted and sentenced to death.

But a young man named Daniel interrupted the proceedings and began to cross-examine the witnesses. He asked each one separately under which tree in the garden they had found Susanna with a lover. When they gave different answers they were put to death and Susanna was saved.

Bel and the Dragon was added at about the same time and called chapter 14 of Daniel. Its main purpose was to show the folly of idolatry. It really contains two stories.

In the first, King Cyrus asked Daniel why he did not worship Bel, since that deity showed his greatness by daily consuming many sheep, together with much flour and oil. So Daniel scattered ashes on the floor of the Temple where the food had been placed that evening. In the morning the king took Daniel in to show him that Bel had eaten all the food during the night. But Daniel showed the king in the ashes on the floor the footprints of the priests and their families who had entered secretly under the table. The priests were slain and the temple destroyed.

The story of the Dragon is just as obviously legendary in character. Along with Tobit, Judith, and Susanna, these stories may be classified as purely Jewish fiction. They have little if any religious value.

The Song of the Three Hebrew Children follows Daniel 3:23 in the Septuagint and the Vulgate. Borrowing heavily from Psalms 148, it is antiphonal like Psalms 136, having 32 times the refrain: "Sing praise to him and greatly exalt him forever."

The Prayer of Manasseh was composed in Maccabean times (2nd century BC)

As the supposed prayer of Manasseh, the wicked king of Judah. It was obviously suggested by the statement in 2 Chronicles 33:19 - "His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him… behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers." Since this prayer is not found in the Bible, some scribe had to make up the deficiency!

1 Maccabees (1st century BC)

Is perhaps the most valuable book in the Apocrypha. It describes the exploits of the three Maccabean brothers - Judas, Jonathan, and Simon. Along with Josephus it is our most important source for the history of this crucial and exciting period in Jewish history.

2 Maccabees (same time)

Is not a sequel to 1 Maccabees, but a parallel account, treating only the victories of Judas Maccabeus. It is generally thought to be more legendary than 1 Maccabees.17

by Dag Heward-Mills

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