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eretzyisrael · 2 months

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by Benny Morris

The drift of the Times article is that the innocent Arabs of Palestine just sat back and watched, as suffering victims, as the Zionists, Israel, and some international actors, principally Great Britain, did their worst.

This is pure nonsense.

Throughout the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, Palestine’s Arabs consistently rejected all proposals for a political compromise and flatly demanded all of Palestine, “from the river to the sea.” And they did not restrict their activities to roundtable discussions. In April 1920, May 1921, and August 1929, Arab mobs, whose passions had been whipped up by religious and political leaders, attacked their Jewish neighbours and passers-by in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Hebron, and Safad, killing dozens in what amounted to a succession of pogroms. (The New York Times studiously avoids this word, referring to them only as “assaults.”)

Emily Bazelon informs readers that the first bout of violence took place when the 1920 Muslim Nebi Musa festivities in Jerusalem “turned into a deadly riot,” in which “five Jews and four Arabs [were] killed.” Neither she nor any of the panellists mention that an Arab mob attacked, murdered, and wounded Jews or that the crowd of perpetrators chanted “nashrab dam al-yahud” (‘we will drink the blood of the Jews’). Nor does she tell us that the crowd shouted, “Muhammad’s religion was born with the sword,” according to eyewitness Khalil al Sakakini, a Christian Arab educator. After three days of rampage and despoliation, British mandate security forces finally restored order, killing all or most of the four Arabs Bazelon mentions in the process. The findings of the subsequent British investigation are included in the July 1920 Palin Report, which states: “All the evidence goes to show that these [Arab] attacks were of a cowardly and treacherous description, mostly against old men, women and children—frequently in the back.”

During the May 1921 pogroms, which encompassed Jaffa, Hadera, Rehovot, and Petah Tikva, dozens of Jews were killed, and women were raped. In the efforts to restore peace, British security forces killed dozens of the attackers. Leading contemporary Zionist journalist Itamar Ben-Avi wrote: “The Islamic wave and stormy seas will eventually break loose and if we don’t set a dike … they will flood us with their wrath … Tel Aviv, in all her splendour … will be wiped out.”

The August 1929 riots were deliberately incited by the mufti of Jerusalem, the country’s senior Muslim cleric, Haj Muhammad Amin al Husseini, who was soon to emerge as the leader of the Palestine Arab national movement. He and his aides told the Arab masses that the Jews intended to destroy Al Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount and build a (third) Jewish temple on the site, and that they had “violated the honour of Islam and raped the women and murdered widows and babies.” The resultant riots started in Jerusalem and quickly spread throughout Palestine. Dozens of Jews were massacred, and many Jewish women were raped, in the area around Jerusalem, and in Hebron and Safad. The British High Commissioner, John Chancellor, condemned “the atrocious acts committed by bodies of ruthless and bloodthirsty evildoers … upon defenceless members of the Jewish population [with] … acts of unspeakable savagery.” The British Shaw Commission, which investigated the multiple pogroms, concurred.Israel’s Perilous Moment, Then and NowHerf tells the complicated and often surprising story of the internal political struggles in Western capitals, as well as in the halls of the United Nations, that erupted at the end of the Second World War.QuilletteSol Stern

Bazelon comments that in 1929 the “Palestinians rebelled” against the British and “violence first broke out over control of the holy sites in Jerusalem.” (Throughout the New York Times piece, Bazelon uses the phrase “violence broke out,” instead of explicitly stating that the Arabs assaulted the Jews, though she does concede that in 1929 Jews were massacred in Hebron and Safad). The Canadian Derek Penslar of Harvard University, one of the three Jewish panellists, explains that “Muslims thought … that the Jews were planning to take over the Temple Mount” and recommends to readers Israeli historian Hillel Cohen’s book Year Zero of the Arab–Israeli Conflict: 1929, which argues that the Jews and the Arabs were equally to blame for the violence of that year. Indeed, Cohen writes that Jews—not Arabs—initiated the cycle of murders in Jerusalem that set off the countrywide violence. Penslar’s sympathies seem clear here and elsewhere—as when he remarks that “Many Zionists wanted to believe that they represented progress,” the implication being that he thinks otherwise.

#new york times #media bias #israel #palestine #benny morris #emily bazelon

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homomenhommes · 3 months

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … January 24

41 AD – Roman Emperor Caligula is assassinated at the Palatine Games by his own officers after a reign of only four years. He was noted for his madness and cruelty including arbitrary murder and arbitrary sex encounters with men, women, and animals, including forcing his officers into regular sex bouts.

Hadrian & Antinous

76 AD – The Roman Emperor, Stoic and Epicurean philosopher Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus or as he has come down to us, Hadrian was born in Spain. Hadrian was the third of the "Five Good Emperors". His reign had a faltering beginning, a glorious middle, and a tragic conclusion.

He is considered by many historians as the most versatile of all the Roman Emperors. He liked to display knowledge of all intellectual and artistic fields. Above all, Hadrian patronized the arts: Hadrian's Villa at Tibur (Tivoli) was the greatest Roman example of an Alexandrian garden, recreating a sacred landscape, lost in large part to the despoliation of the ruins by the Cardinal d'Este who had much of the marble removed to build Villa d'Este. In Rome, the Pantheon, originally built by Agrippa but destroyed by fire in 80, was rebuilt under Hadrian in the domed form it retains to this day. It is among the best preserved of Rome's ancient buildings and was highly influential to a many of the great architects of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods.

Today we recall his abiding love of Antinous, his eromenos (boy lover), who he honored so greatly in death. It was while visiting Claudiopolis that Hadrian espied the beautiful Antinous, a young boy who was destined to become the emperor's eromenos — his beloved. Sources say nothing about when Hadrian met Antinous, however, there are depictions of Antinous that shows him as a young man of twenty or so. They became inseparable companions and carried out one of the most storied love affairs of history.

Hadrian and Antinous in Egypt

In October 130 AD, while Hadrian and his entourage were sailing on the Nile, Antinous drowned, for unknown reasons. though accident, suicide, murder or religious sacrifice have all been postulated. After Antinous' death, Hadrian's grief knew no bounds, causing the most extravagant respect to be paid to his memory. Cities were founded in his name, medals struck with his effigy, and statues erected to him in all parts of the empire.

Following the example of Alexander (who sought divine honors for his lover, Hephaistion, when he died), Hadrian had Antinous proclaimed a god. Temples were built for his worship in Bithynia, Mantineia in Arcadia, and Athens, festivals celebrated in his honour and oracles delivered in his name. The city of Antinopolis or Antinoe was founded on the ruins of Besa where he died. One of Hadrian's attempts at extravagant remembrance failed, when the proposal to create a constellation of Antinous being lifted to heaven by an eagle (the constellation Aquila) failed of adoption. Legend was that his likeness was placed over the face of the Moon.

Hadrian died in 138 on the tenth day of July, in his villa at Baiae at age 62.

Frederick II & Voltaire

1712 – The Prussian King Frederick II, aka Frederick the Great, was born. (d.1786) Interested primarily in the arts during his youth, Frederick unsuccessfully attempted to flee from his authoritarian father, the "Soldier-King" Frederick William I. Young Frederick persuaded his lover, Hans von Katte, a Lieutenant in the Royal Guard, to help him flee the king's ruthless domination. They were captured and von Katte was sentenced to death. The prince was ordered to be present at von Katte's execution by sword.

For another ten years Frederick had to live under the yoke of his tyrannical father and accept his arrangements for a marriage that was probably never consummated. (Upon his father's death in 1740, Frederick immediately separated from his wife, Elizabeth Christine of Brunswick.)

Frederick was a proponent of enlightened absolutism. For years he was a correspondent of Voltaire, with whom the king had a turbulent friendship. Voltaire was later to write a book exposing Frederick's homosexuality, but it was published only in 1784, six years after its author's death. In his correspondence with Voltaire, Frederick early on evinced a great interest in what we would today call gay culture. In an astonishingly open fashion, this interest was encouraged by Voltaire.

It was not only through literature that Frederick extolled homosexuality. He collected ancient artwork, notably ancient carved gemstones picturing nude athletes and the Adoring Youth, a Hellenistic bronze that had previously belonged to another famous homosexual general, Prince Eugene of Savoy, which he placed in view of his library window. He commissioned frescoes of Ganymede for his palaces; and, in 1768, inspired by Voltaire's poem bearing that title, had a Temple of Friendship built in his garden at Potsdam, inscribed with the names of lovers and friends of antiquity, such as Orestes and Pylades and Nisus and Euryalus.

Apart from Katte, a few of Frederick's great loves are known: Fredersdorf, the handsome guard assigned to him after his escape, who eventually became his Majordomo; Count Algarotti, the seductive Italian writer; and the abbé Bastiani, a Venetian who was made Canon of Breslaw (Wroclaw) Cathedral and who did not hesitate to show his compatriot Casanova the love letters he had received from the king.

Close to him also, but showing the same tastes in a more outrageous manner, was his brother Prince Henry. Voltaire called him a Potsdamite (that is, a Sodomite), and he was reputed to recruit only homosexuals in his regiments.

The philosopher Diderot, well informed and not prone to exaggeration, wrote in March 1760 a note on Frederick in which he says: "The only one thing that this admirable flute player was missing was a mouthpiece that should have been a little cleaner." He also penned a poem entitled Parallèle between Caesar and Frederick (undated) that includes the statement: "Caesar was generous, Frederick is miserly. When I compare them I see but one point in common, namely that they were both buggers. But there wasn't a Roman lady who was worthwhile with whom Caesar did not sleep, whereas His Prussian Majesty never touched a woman, not even his own wife."

The works of Niccolò Machiavelli, such as "The Prince," were considered a guideline for the behavior of a king in Frederick's age. In 1749, Frederick finished his Anti-Machiavel — an idealistic writing in which he opposes Machiavelli. It was published anonymously in 1740, but Voltaire distributed it in Amsterdam to great popularity. Under Frederick, Immanuel Kant published religious writings in Berlin which would have been censored elsewhere in Europe.

Frederick had famous buildings constructed in his capital, Berlin, most of which still exist today, such as the Berlin State Opera, the Royal Library, St. Hedwig's Cathedral, the French and German Cathedrals on the Gendarmenmarkt, and Prince Henry's Palace (now the site of Humboldt University). However, the king preferred spending his time in his summer residence Potsdam, where he built the palace of Sanssouci, the most important work of Northern German rococo. Sanssouci, which translates from French as "carefree" or "without worry", was a refuge for Frederick, where he surrounded himself with freethinking men—no women were allowed—many of whom, such as Count Algarotti or the philosopher La Mettrie, were homosexual. Voltaire describes the utter freedom of their suppers there (for instance, discussing Plato's theory of the Androgynes) and the exact way in which Frederick would pick handsome soldiers for his sexual "schoolboy games."

Near the end of his life Frederick grew increasingly solitary. His circle of male friends at Sanssouci gradually died off without replacements, and Frederick became increasingly critical and arbitrary, to the frustration of the civil service and officer corps. The populace of Berlin always cheered the king when he returned to the city from provincial tours or military reviews, but Frederick took no pleasure from his popularity with the common folk, preferring instead the company of his pet Italian greyhounds, whom he referred to as his 'marquises de Pompadour' as a jibe at the French royal mistress. Frederick died in an armchair in his study in the palace of Sanssouci on 17 August 1786.

1746 – Gustav III was King of Sweden from 1771 until his death. (d.1792) He was the eldest son of King Adolph Frederick and Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, she a sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia. (See above)

Gustav was educated under the care of two governors who were amongst the most eminent Swedish statesmen of the day, Carl Gustaf Tessin and Carl Fredrik Scheffer; but he owed most perhaps to the poet and historian Olof von Dalin. His education was far more liberal than that of his uncle, Frederick the Great.

On the whole, Gustav cannot be said to have been well educated, but he read very widely; there was scarcely a French author of his day with whose works he was not intimately acquainted;and his enthusiasm for the new French ideas of enlightenment was sincere.

A vocal opponent of abuses by the nobility, he seized power from the government in a coup d'état in 1772, ending the Age of Liberty and venturing into a campaign to restore royal autocracy. As a bulwark of enlightened despotism, his expenditure of considerable public funds on cultural ventures contributed to his controversial rule. Attempts to seize first Norway through Russian aid, then to recapture the Baltic provinces through a war against Russia were unsuccessful, although much of Sweden's former military might was restored. An admirer of Voltaire, Gustav legalized Catholic and Jewish presence in the realm and enacted wide-ranging reforms aimed at economic liberalism, social reform and the abolishment of torture and capital punishment (although freedom of the press was curtailed).

A patron of the arts and benefactor of arts and literature, Gustav founded several academies, among them the Swedish Academy, created a National Costume and had the Royal Swedish Opera built. In 1772 he founded the Royal Order of Vasa to acknowledge and reward those Swedes who had helped to advance process in the fields of agriculture, mining and commerce.

By proxy in Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen, on 1 October 1766 and in person in Stockholm on 4 November 1766, Gustav married Princess Sophia Magdalena, daughter of King Frederick V of Denmark. The match was not a happy one, owing partly to an incompatibility of temper; but still more to the interference of the jealous Queen Mother. The marriage produced two children: Crown Prince Gustav Adolf , and Prince Carl Gustav, Duke of Småland. For the consummation of the marriage, the king requested the assistance of Adolf Munck, reportedly because of anatomical problems both spouses possessed. Gustav's mother supported rumors that he was not the father of his first son and heir. It was rumored at the time that Gustav indulged in homosexuality. The close personal relationships he formed with two of his courtiers, Count Axel von Fersen and Baron Gustav Armfelt, were alluded to in that regard. His sister-in-law implied as much in a diary.

Gustav was assassinated at a masked ball by a conspiracy of noblemen claiming only to commit tyrannicide, although later research has revealed more personal motives.

1928 – Heterosexual actor Michel Serrault (d.2007) was a French stage actor and film star who appeared from 1954 until (and including) 2007 in more than 150 films. He was best known for his role as Zaza in La cage aux folles.

Although he wanted to be a circus clown, Serrault's parents sent him to a seminary to study for the priesthood. He spent only a few months there before taking-up acting. His first professional job was in a touring production in Germany of Molière's Les Fourberies de Scapin. After military service in Dijon, he returned to Paris and joined Robert Dhéry's burlesque troupe and appeared in their second hit show, Dugudu.

In 1948, he began his career in the theatre with Robert Dhéry in Les Branquignols. His first film was Ah! Les belles bacchantes, starring Robert Dhéry, Colette Brosset (Dhéry's then-wife), and Louis de Funès in 1954. Serrault played in the 1955 suspense thriller Les diaboliques, starring Simone Signoret and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

He met and worked with Jean Poiret in the early 1950s, which led to a song and comedy cabaret act and their playing together in 18 films from 1956 to 1984, and in a number of plays written by Poiret. The films they worked together in included Cette sacrée gamine (1956), with Brigitte Bardot, and Sacha Guitry's last film, Assassins et voleurs (1957).

From February 1973 through 1978, he portrayed the role of Albin/Zaza opposite Jean Poiret in the play La cage aux folles, written by Poiret. He recreated the role for the film version of the play, which was released in 1978. Serrault died from relapsing polychondritis at his home in Équemauville on 29 July 2007 at age 79.

1944 – German performance artist and counter-tenor Klaus Nomi was born in Immenstadt, Germany (d.1983). Nomi is remembered for bizarrely theatrical live performances, heavy make-up, unusual costumes, and a highly stylized signature hairdo which flaunted a receding hairline. His songs were equally unusual, ranging from synthesizer-laden interpretations of classic opera to covers of 1960s pop standards like Chubby Checker's "The Twist" and Lou Christie's "Lightnin' Strikes."

Born Klaus Sperber in Immenstadt, Germany, in Nomi's youth in the 1960s, he worked as an usher at the Deutsche Opera in West Berlin where he would sing on stage in front of the fire curtain after the shows for the other ushers and maintenance crew. Around that time he also sang operatic arias at a Berlin Gay club called Kleist Casino. Nomi moved from Germany to New York City in the mid-1970s. He began his involvement with the art scene based in the East Village. Nomi died on August 6, 1983 in New York City, one of the first celebrities to die of an illness complicated by AIDS. His ashes were scattered over New York City.

1951 – Michael Cohen (d.1997) was an American singer-songwriter from New York City. He released three albums in the 1970s which were among the first to deal with explicitly gay themes.

Cohen was licensed as a cab driver in New York City in 1972.

Cohen self-released his first album, eponymously titled Mike Cohen, in 1972. This was followed by two albums on Folkways Records, "What Did You Expect: Songs about the Experiences of Being Gay" (1973) and "Some of Us Had to Live" (1976). The latter two are available from Smithsonian Folkways.

Cohen was influenced by James Taylor and Leonard Cohen (no relation) and his music is very much in the folk rock style.

"What Did You Expect: Songs about the Experiences of Being Gay" consisted of nine songs that recounted Cohen's coming-out experience, ballads about his lover and a cover of a song by Leonard Cohen (no relation).

"The Last Angry Young Man", which opens What did You Expect?, deals with the misconceptions around homosexuality of the older generation while "Gone", from the same album, deals sensitively with the death of a gay friend. Frieze Magazine describes Cohen's "Bitterfeast" from the same album as a "raw and chokingly emotional" ballad based on a poem by Leonard Cohen.

After releasing a third album on a small label, Cohen "dropped off the radar" until his death in 1997.

You can read some of his lyrics in his own hand here: Queer Music Heritage

1983 – Frank James Michael Grande Marchione , usually credited as Frankie Grande, is an American musical theatre actor, producer and YouTube personality.

Grande was born in New York City. He grew up in Englewood, New Jersey and moved with his mother to Boca Raton, Florida, at age 10. His half-sister is singer and actress Ariana Grande. He graduated from Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania in 2005, having triple-majored in biology, theatre and dance. Grande is openly gay.

He began his acting career in 2007, appearing as Boots the Monkey in a national tour of Dora the Explorer Live! (Dora's Pirate Adventure) and in regional theatre productions including the title role in George M!, Mike Costa in A Chorus Line and Lewis in Pippin, among others. Later in 2007, he joined the Broadway cast of the musical Mamma Mia!, in the ensemble and as understudy for Eddie, in which he performed for three years. Grande was named "Mr. Broadway" in the "Mr. Broadway 2007" charity benefit. He co-founded the non-profit arts organization "Broadway in South Africa", travelling to South Africa to work with disadvantaged youth for seven years, before it merged with buildOn. Grande also helped buildOn to build a school in a rural village in Malawi, and in 2014 buildOn honored him for his efforts with its Global Impact Award.

Grande has produced shows on and off Broadway, including Broadway productions of Hamlet (2009) starring Jude Law, La Bête (2010–11) starring David Hyde Pierce, and Born Yesterday (2011) starring Jim Belushi. He also produced Brooke Shields' one-woman cabaret show in 2011. Grande has performed in cabaret acts in New York City, including at Birdland Jazz Club and 54 Below.

In 2012, Grande established a YouTube channel and has also been building a following on Twitter and Instagram. Earlier in 2014, he was a contestant on the reality television series Big Brother 16. His philanthropic work includes co-founding the non-profit arts organization "Broadway in South Africa" and work for buildOn.

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oatbugs · 3 months

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what the fuck even is a neuron. "describe how neuronal activity drives pathway-specific depolarization of peripheral astrocyte processes" i'll drive ur pathway-specific despoliation of astrocyte processes what the fuck i'm gonna fail this module idk what a brain is i feel so underqualified wdym test on 15 march i haven;t had a thought in my life

#i want a neuroscience-adjecent career and yet i am abt to run this module into the ground istg #are u ever so anxious that you end up doing nothing which u cant afford bc u have to catch up to many modules in a very short space of time #yeah #personal #studyrants #block this tag if u dont want to see these posts ill probably post a lot abt the horrors #GEVI expression colocalized with the astrocyte marker glutamine synthase 🤪#just tell me ur in love w me

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torahtot · 3 months

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Judaism's ecological imperative is a delicate balance between "mastering and subduing" nature (Bereishit 1), and "serving and protecting" it (Bereishit 2). So we have Jewish laws that prohibit needless waste, the destruction of species, and the despoliation and overexploitation of the environment. The general principle is that we must see ourselves as guardians of the world, for the sake of future generations.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

#jew blogging #tu bishvat

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beskarandblasters · 28 days

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🖼️

Congratulations Kel!!!

This is a big ask so I totally understand if you cant fulfill it.

But I'd love a mood board for my Din fic Despoliation of the Flesh

But I understand if you can't take time to read it or even want to!

Regardless a big congrats! It takes a lot of work to reach 2.5k on Tumblr. 🖤🖤🖤

Hi!!! Thank you so much!!! First off I just wanna say I loved the fic!! It’s been on my TBR since you posted it and this gave me the push to finally go read it!!

I had so much fun making this moodboard and I hope I captured the vibes 🤍🤍

#kel answers #my mutuals <3 #kels 2.5k celebration #kels one year anniversary

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sheisadykewomon · 24 days

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That which is Sacred, what should we call it? We’ve been told to name it he, him, his. That it was blasphemy to do otherwise, to say she, even as they desecrated the Divine with comparisons to mortal overlords, those cruel masters, despoliators, persecutors. No. Reconsider. That fearful address to an authoritarian punisher takes us far from true reverence. Rather revere the roots of Being, manifesting in all Nature around us, within us. The profound silence, and the Deep calling to the Deep.

Deeply I go down into myself. My god is Dark and like a webbing made of a hundred roots that drink in silence. ― Rainer Maria Rilke

There are myriad emanations of the indescribable Source, but Goddess women call it she, as medicine to what they have forbidden in us, to us. That Shakti, the effulgence that pours through all living beings, including the rocks. The Shekhinah, the ever-flowing waters of Nummo, of Anahid. The Tao that is “the mother of whatever exists under the sky, upon whom myriads of beings depend for their birth and existence,” as the Dao De Jing says.

READ THE REST HERE

#max dashu #feminism #goddess movement

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ao3feed-dinbo · 1 month

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by DjarinMuse

Din Djarin must under any circumstances redeem himself and atone in the living waters beneath the mines on Mandalore. Boba Fett has joined him, together they recruit Bo-Katan to show them the way there.

What they find is not imperials, or a wasteland. A myth and cult long forgotten. Why was it so secretly guarded? Why does Bo-Katan Kryze herself know virtually nothing of it. Behind a hallowed hall beside the Living Waters they have been waiting, praying for the one to come along, the one who can show them that true ecstasy rests somewhere inside agony. And the creature that will show them has been waiting for the right man to possess.

(Din is not explicitly paired with Boba or Bo-Katan here but it may appeal to either crowd, the possession doesn't give them time to explore the potential is what i'm saying )

Words: 10298, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: The Mandalorian (TV), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/M

Characters: Din Djarin, Boba Fett, Bo-Katan Kryze, Grogu | Baby Yoda, Fennec Shand, Axe Woves, Koska Reeves

Relationships: Din Djarin & Bo-Katan Kryze, Din Djarin/Bo-Katan Kryze, Din Djarin & Boba Fett, Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda, Boba Fett & Fennec Shand, Din Djarin/Boba Fett

Additional Tags: Possessed Din Djarin, Helmetless Din Djarin, Din Djarin Whump, Dubious Consent, Assault, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Whump, Angst, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Possession, Aftermath of Possession, Hurt Din Djarin, POV Din Djarin, Din Djarin Has A Big Dick, Din Djarin Removes the Helmet, Loss of Control, Body Horror, Horror, Blood and Gore, Smut, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, POV Third Person, Protective Bo-Katan Kryze, POV Bo-Katan Kryze, POV Boba Fett, Bo-Katan Kryze Needs a Hug, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Pain, Planet Mandalore (Star Wars), Not Canon Compliant

#ao3 #fanfic #fanfiction #dinbo #bodin #din x bo #bo x din #din djarin x bo-katan kryze #bo-katan kryze x din djarin

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djuvlipen · 1 year

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so yesterday I attended a conference at my country's Holocaust memorial museum about the Romani genocide

I learned that a couple of years ago two Romani associations from my country had asked the State for financial compensation for the property that was stolen from us during WWII

As opposed to what popular narratives will tell you, the Jews were not the only ones to have been victims of despoliation during WWII. It's true that in the case of Roma, there were no big businesses and few small businesses to seize, there were no big houses or lands [in my country at least], but Romani caravans, horses, animals, machines and instruments for street shows and funfairs -- as well as jewelry and clothing, represented a lot of money. For the wealthiest families, it amounted to what's nowadays hundreds of thousands of euros. And of course they took everything through taxation, upon entry in camps, or because they had to abandon their possession upon arrests

So these two associations asked the State for financial compensation in 2020

And the State refused because they said financial compensation could only be given to those who had been systematically persecuted for racial reasons -- Jews. And as opposed to Jews, Roma had not been systematically persecuted for their race during WWII.

My country created special camps in which they put 10.000 Roma, they starved another 10.000 by starving us and excluding us from the workplace, they deported 1.000 Roma to the eastern death camps, they kidnapped thousands of children to put them in orphanages and to forcibly assimilate them, they stole hundreds of thousands of euros. And in 2023 they still say they didn't carry a genocide against Roma and in 2020 they denied the Romani Holocaust to prevent us from getting financial compensation for something that happened 80 years ago and that we still got no justice for

I hate my country so much

My family used to have money. It wasn't that incredible for Roma to have money back then, if you had a popular ambulant show you could run a successful business. My family had an ambulant theater, horses and caravans, I have pictures of this as well as administrative documents dating from that time period that prove it. I literally have pictures of my direct ancestors attending costume parties in the 1930s during the Great Depression. They were doing pretty great considering the time period. And then there were the 1940s and we were poor and now it's been eighty years and we are still poor and all my relatives are working class, a 60 year life expectancy and a history of substance abuse and severe mental illnesses. And the State still says there was no genocide and we are not entitled to compensation

#porajmos #porrajmos #samudaripen #holocaust

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female-malice · 1 year

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Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition from the Peoples of the South

An appeal to leaders, institutions, and our brothers and sisters

More than two years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic—and now alongside the catastrophic consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a “new normal” has emerged. This new global status quo reflects a worsening of various crises: social, economic, political, ecological, bio-medical, and geopolitical.

Environmental collapse approaches. Everyday life has become ever more militarized. Access to good food, clean water, and affordable health care has become even more restricted. More governments have turned autocratic. The wealthy have become wealthier, the powerful more powerful, and unregulated technology has only accelerated these trends.

The engines of this unjust status quo—capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, and various fundamentalisms—are making a bad situation worse. Therefore, we must urgently debate and implement new visions of ecosocial transition and transformation that are gender-just, regenerative, and popular, that are at once local and international.

In this Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition from the Peoples of the South, we hold that the problems of the Global – geopolitical – South are different from those of the Global North and rising powers such as China. An imbalance of power between these two realms not only persists because of a colonial legacy but has deepened because of a neocolonial energy model. In the context of climate change, ever rising energy needs, and biodiversity loss, the capitalist centers have stepped up the pressure to extract natural wealth and rely on cheap labor from the countries on the periphery. Not only is the well-known extractive paradigm still in place but the North’s ecological debt to the South is rising.

What’s new about this current moment are the “clean energy transitions” of the North that have put even more pressure on the Global South to yield up cobalt and lithium for the production of high-tech batteries, balsa wood for wind turbines, land for large solar arrays, and new infrastructure for hydrogen megaprojects. This decarbonization of the rich, which is market-based and export-oriented, depends on a new phase of environmental despoliation of the Global South, which affects the lives of millions of women, men, and children, not to mention non-human life. Women, especially from agrarian societies, are amongst the most impacted. In this way, the Global South has once again become a zone of sacrifice, a basket of purportedly inexhaustible resources for the countries of the North.

A priority for the Global North has been to secure global supply chains, especially of critical raw materials, and prevent certain countries, like China, from monopolizing access. The G7 trade ministers, for instance, recently championed a responsible, sustainable, and transparent supply chain for critical minerals via international cooperation‚ policy, and finance, including the facilitation of trade in environmental goods and services through the WTO. The Global North has pushed for more trade and investment agreements with the Global South to satisfy its need for resources, particularly those integral to “clean energy transitions.” These agreements, designed to reduce barriers to trade and investment, protect and enhance corporate power and rights by subjecting states to potential legal suits according to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms. The Global North is using these agreements to control the “clean energy transition” and create a new colonialism.

Governments of the South, meanwhile, have fallen into a debt trap, borrowing money to build up industries and large-scale agriculture to supply the North. To repay these debts, governments have felt compelled to extract more resources from the ground, creating a vicious circle of inequality. Today, the imperative to move beyond fossil fuels without any significant reduction in consumption in the North has only increased the pressure to exploit these natural resources. Moreover, as it moves ahead with its own energy transitions, the North has paid only lip service to its responsibility to address its historical and rising ecological debt to the South.

Minor changes in the energy matrix are not enough. The entire energy system must be transformed, from production and distribution to consumption and waste. Substituting electric vehicles for internal-combustion cars is insufficient, for the entire transportation model needs changing, with a reduction of energy consumption and the promotion of sustainable options.

In this way, relations must become more equitable not only between the center and periphery countries but also within countries between the elite and the public. Corrupt elites in the Global South have also collaborated in this unjust system by profiting from extraction, repressing human rights and environmental defenders, and perpetuating economic inequality.

Rather than solely technological, the solutions to these interlocked crises are above all political.

As activists, intellectuals, and organizations from different countries of the South, we call on change agents from different parts of the world to commit to a radical, democratic, gender-just, regenerative, and popular ecosocial transition that transforms both the energy sector and the industrial and agricultural spheres that depend on large-scale energy inputs. According to the different movements for climate justice, “transition is inevitable, but justice is not.”

We still have time to start a just and democratic transition. We can transition away from the neoliberal economic system in a direction that sustains life, combines social justice with environmental justice, brings together egalitarian and democratic values with a resilient, holistic social policy, and restores an ecological balance necessary for a healthy planet. But for that we need more political imagination and more utopian visions of another society that is socially just and respects our planetary common house.

The energy transition should be part of a comprehensive vision that addresses radical inequality in the distribution of energy resources and advances energy democracy. It should de-emphasize large-scale institutions—corporate agriculture, huge energy companies—as well as market-based solutions. Instead, it must strengthen the resilience of civil society and social organizations. Therefore, we make the following 8 demands:

We warn that an energy transition led by corporate megaprojects, coming from the Global North and accepted by numerous governments in the South, entails the enlargement of the zones of sacrifice throughout the Global South, the persistence of the colonial legacy, patriarchy, and the debt trap. Energy is an elemental and inalienable human right, and energy democracy should be our goal.

We call on the peoples of the South to reject false solutions that come with new forms of energy colonialism, now in the name of a Green transition. We make an explicit call to continue political coordination among the peoples of the south while also pursuing strategic alliances with critical sectors in the North.

To mitigate the havoc of the climate crisis and advance a just and popular ecosocial transition, we demand the payment of the ecological debt. This means, in the face of the disproportionate Global North responsibility for the climate crisis and ecological collapse, the real implementation of a system of compensation to the global South. This system should include a considerable transfer of funds and appropriate technology, and should consider sovereign debt cancellation for the countries of the South. We support reparations for loss and damage experienced by Indigenous peoples, vulnerable groups and local communities due to mining, big dams, and dirty energy projects.

We reject the expansion of the hydrocarbon border in our countries—through fracking and offshore projects—and repudiate the hypocritical discourse of the European Union, which recently declared natural gas and nuclear energy to be “clean energies.” As already proposed in the Yasuni Initiative in Ecuador in 2007 and today supported by many social sectors and organizations, we endorse leaving fossil fuels underground and generating the social and labor conditions necessary to abandon extractivism and move toward a post-fossil-fuel future.

We similarly reject “green colonialism” in the form of land grabs for solar and wind farms, the indiscriminate mining of critical minerals, and the promotion of technological “fixes” such as blue or grey hydrogen. Enclosure, exclusion, violence, encroachment, and entrenchment have characterized past and current North-South energy relations and are not acceptable in an era of ecosocial transitions.

We demand the genuine protection of environment and human rights defenders, particularly indigenous peoples and women at the forefront of resisting extractivism.

The elimination of energy poverty in the countries of the South should be among our fundamental objectives—as well as the energy poverty of parts of the Global North—through alternative, decentralized, equitably distributed projects of renewable energy that are owned and operated by communities themselves.

We denounce international trade agreements that penalize countries that want to curb fossil fuel extraction. We must stop the use of trade and investment agreements controlled by multinational corporations that ultimately promote more extraction and reinforce a new colonialism.

Our ecosocial alternative is based on countless struggles, strategies, proposals, and community-based initiatives. Our Manifesto connects with the lived experience and critical perspectives of Indigenous peoples and other local communities, women, and youth throughout the Global South. It is inspired by the work done on the rights of nature, buen vivir, vivir sabroso, sumac kawsay, ubuntu, swaraj, the commons, the care economy, agroecology, food sovereignty, post-extractivism, the pluriverse, autonomy, and energy sovereignty. Above all, we call for a radical, democratic, popular, gender-just, regenerative, and comprehensive ecosocial transition.

Following the steps of the Ecosocial and Intercultural Pact of the South, this Manifesto proposes a dynamic platform that invites you to join our shared struggle for transformation by helping to create collective visions and collective solutions.

We invite you to endorse this manifesto with your signature.

#cc

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holonetnews · 6 months

Text

Echoes of Valor: The Ghost Fleet of Bracca

BRACCA – Amidst the twisted metal and rusted relics of war, I embark on a haunting sojourn through a graveyard of starships. The eerie silence is punctuated only by the distant clangor of machinery and the murmurs of the wind. This is Bracca, a desolate world now home to the remnants of the Republic’s once formidable war fleet. I journey here seeking answers, haunted by echoes of valor and vestiges of battles won and lost.

As the galaxy reels in the aftermath of galactic warfare, the mighty Venator Class assault ships, those heralded bastions of Republic strength, now lay dormant and dismantled. The stench of decay and despondency pervades the air as these once-proud leviathans are reduced to mere salvage, their noble history overshadowed by the brooding scrapyards of the Scrapper Guild.

I navigate the intricate lattice of metal, each piece a silent testament to the men and women who fought with honor and gallantry. Questions linger like spectres, probing the rationale behind the abandonment and despoliation of these vessels of victory. The answer, like the ships themselves, is enshrouded in enigma, a convoluted tapestry of political maneuvering and economic exigency.

Yet, amidst the wreckage, whispers of rebellion and resurgence permeate the air. Scrappers, though resigned to their labor, speak of a silent reverence for the fallen fleet. In the eerie stillness of Bracca’s eternal twilight, one can almost hear the echoes of battles long past, the clarion calls of commanders, and the valiant roars of starfighters in combat.

In the eyes of the Guild, these dismantled goliaths are but commodities of metal and machinery, their worth measured in credits. But to the seasoned veteran and the keen observer, they are monuments to the Republic’s glory days, testament to the tenacity and spirit of a people undaunted.

My sojourn on Bracca uncovers not just the physical dismantlement of starships, but an exploration into the soul of a galaxy, at once marred by the scars of war yet unyielding in its spirit. Amidst the corroding metal and decaying starfighters lies an indomitable will, an unspoken vow that the echoes of valor shall rise again from the ashes of despondency.

Here on Bracca, amidst the silent graves of Venator Class assault ships, the saga of the Republic is etched in rusted metal and silent echoes, a narrative of power, betrayal, and undying resilience. As I depart this ghostly world, the silent behemoths stand testament to a chapter of history, their solemn grandeur echoing the unuttered pledge of resurgence and the haunting lullaby of battles yet unfought.

The ghost fleet of Bracca may lay dormant, but the spirit of the crews that fought onbord them, indomitable and unyielding, slumbers not. In the haunted echoes of valor, amidst rust and wreckage, the soul of a galaxy breathes, awaiting the dawn of resurrection.

— Deena Tharen, Holonet News.

#hnn: exclusive #hnn: report

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nicklloydnow · 1 year

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“As Foucault writes in the book’s famous last sentence, one day “man would be erased, like a face drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea.” The image is eerie, but he claimed to find it “a source of profound relief,” because it implies that human ideas and institutions aren’t fixed. They can be endlessly reconfigured, maybe even for the better. This was the liberating promise of postmodernism: The face in the sand is swept away, but someone will always come along to draw a new picture in a different style.

But the image of humanity can be redrawn only if there are human beings to do it. Even the most radical 20th-century thinkers stop short at the prospect of the actual extinction of Homo sapiens, which would mean the end of all our projects, values, and meanings. Humanity may be destined to disappear someday, but almost everyone would agree that the day should be postponed as long as possible, just as most individuals generally try to delay the inevitable end of their own life.

(…)

In the 21st century, Anthropocene anti-humanism offers a much more radical response to a much deeper ecological crisis. It says that our self-destruction is now inevitable, and that we should welcome it as a sentence we have justly passed on ourselves. Some anti-humanist thinkers look forward to the extinction of our species, while others predict that even if some people survive the coming environmental apocalypse, civilization as a whole is doomed. Like all truly radical movements, Anthropocene anti-humanism begins not with a political program but with a philosophical idea. It is a rejection of humanity’s traditional role as Earth’s protagonist, the most important being in creation.

Transhumanism, by contrast, glorifies some of the very things that anti-humanism decries—scientific and technological progress, the supremacy of reason. But it believes that the only way forward for humanity is to create new forms of intelligent life that will no longer be Homo sapiens. Some transhumanists believe that genetic engineering and nanotechnology will allow us to alter our brains and bodies so profoundly that we will escape human limitations such as mortality and confinement to a physical body. Others await, with hope or trepidation, the invention of artificial intelligence infinitely superior to our own. These beings will demote humanity to the rank we assign to animals—unless they decide that their goals are better served by wiping us out completely.

(…)

Since the late 1940s, humanity has lived with the knowledge that it has the power to annihilate itself at any moment through nuclear war. Indeed, the climate anxiety of our own time can be seen as a return of apocalyptic fears that went briefly into abeyance after the end of the Cold War.

Destruction by despoliation is more radically unsettling. It means that humanity is endangered not only by our acknowledged vices, such as hatred and violence, but also by pursuing aims that we ordinarily consider good and natural: prosperity, comfort, increase of our kind. The Bible gives the negative commandment “Thou shalt not kill” as well as the positive commandment “Be fruitful and multiply,” and traditionally they have gone together. But if being fruitful and multiplying starts to be seen as itself a form of killing, because it deprives future generations and other species of irreplaceable resources, then the flourishing of humanity can no longer be seen as simply good. Instead, it becomes part of a zero-sum competition that pits the gratification of human desires against the well-being of all of nature—not just animals and plants, but soil, stones, and water.

If that’s the case, then humanity can no longer be considered a part of creation or nature, as science and religion teach in their different ways. Instead, it must be seen as an antinatural force that has usurped and abolished nature, substituting its own will for the processes that once appeared to be the immutable basis of life on Earth. This understanding of humanity’s place outside and against the natural order is summed up in the term Anthropocene, which in the past decade has become one of the most important concepts in the humanities and social sciences.

(…)

In the Anthropocene, nature becomes a reflection of humanity for the first time. The effect is catastrophic, not only in practical terms, but spiritually. Nature has long filled for secular humanity one of the roles once played by God, as a source of radical otherness that can humble us and lift us out of ourselves. One of the first observers to understand the significance of this change was the writer and activist Bill McKibben. In The End of Nature (1989), a landmark work of environmentalist thought, McKibben warned of the melting glaciers and superstorms that are now our everyday reality. But the real subject of the book was our traditional understanding of nature as a “world entirely independent of us which was here before we arrived and which encircled and supported our human society.” This idea, McKibben wrote, was about to go extinct, “just like an animal or a plant”—or like Foucault’s “man,” erased by the tides.

(…)

Like anti-humanists, transhumanists contemplate the prospect of humanity’s disappearance with serenity. What worries them is the possibility that it will happen too soon, before we have managed to invent our successors. As far as we know, humanity is the only intelligent species in the universe; if we go extinct, it may be game over for the mind. It’s notable that although transhumanists are enthusiastic about space exploration, they are generally skeptical about the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, or at least about the chances of our ever encountering it. If minds do exist elsewhere in the universe, the destiny of humanity would be of less cosmic significance.

Humanity’s sole stewardship of reason is what makes transhumanists interested in “existential risk,” the danger that we will destroy ourselves before securing the future of the mind. In a 2002 paper, “Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards,” the philosopher Nick Bostrom classifies such risks into four types, from “Bangs,” in which we are completely wiped out by climate change, nuclear war, disease, or asteroid impacts, to “Whimpers,” in which humanity survives but achieves “only a minuscule degree of what could have been achieved”—for instance, because we use up our planet’s resources too rapidly.

(…)

The Israeli thinker Yuval Noah Harari refers to this idea as “Dataism,” describing it as a new religion whose “supreme value” is “data flow.” “This cosmic data-processing system would be like God,” he has written. “It will be everywhere and will control everything, and humans are destined to merge into it.” Harari is highly skeptical of Dataism, and his summary of it may sound satirical or exaggerated. In fact, it’s a quite accurate account of the ideas of the popular transhumanist author Ray Kurzweil. In his book The Singularity Is Near (2005), Kurzweil describes himself as a “patternist”—that is, “someone who views patterns of information as the fundamental reality.” Examples of information patterns include DNA, semiconductor chips, and the letters on this page, all of which configure molecules so that they become meaningful instead of random. By turning matter into information, we redeem it from entropy and nullity. Ultimately, “even the ‘dumb’ matter and mechanisms of the universe will be transformed into exquisitely sublime forms of intelligence,” Kurzweil prophesies.

In his 2014 book, Superintelligence, Nick Bostrom performs some back-of-the-envelope calculations and finds that a computer using the entire cosmic endowment as computronium could perform at least 1085 operations a second. (For comparison, as of 2020 the most powerful supercomputer, Japan’s Fugaku, could perform on the order of 1017 operations a second.) This mathematical gloss is meant to make the project of animating the universe seem rational and measurable, but it hardly conceals the essentially religious nature of the idea. Kurzweil calls it “the ultimate destiny of the universe,” a phrase not ordinarily employed by people who profess to be scientific materialists. It resembles the ancient Hindu belief that the Atman, the individual soul, is identical to the Brahman, the world-spirit.

(…)

The apocalyptic predictions of today’s transhumanist and anti-humanist thinkers are of a very different nature, but they too may be highly significant even if they don’t come to pass. Profound civilizational changes begin with a revolution in how people think about themselves and their destiny. The revolt against humanity has the potential to be such a beginning, with unpredictable consequences for politics, economics, technology, and culture.

The revolt against humanity has a great future ahead of it because it appeals to people who are at once committed to science and reason yet yearn for the clarity and purpose of an absolute moral imperative. It says that we can move the planet, maybe even the universe, in the direction of the good, on one condition—that we forfeit our own existence as a species.

In this way, the question of why humanity exists is given a convincing yet wholly immanent answer. Following the logic of sacrifice, we give our life meaning by giving it up.

Anthropocene anti-humanism and transhumanism share this premise, despite their contrasting visions of the post-human future. The former longs for a return to the natural equilibrium that existed on Earth before humans came along to disrupt it with our technological rapacity. The latter dreams of pushing forward, using technology to achieve a complete abolition of nature and its limitations. One sees reason as the serpent that got humanity expelled from Eden, while the other sees it as the only road back to Eden.

But both call for drastic forms of human self-limitation—whether that means the destruction of civilization, the renunciation of child-bearing, or the replacement of human beings by machines. These sacrifices are ways of expressing high ethical ambitions that find no scope in our ordinary, hedonistic lives: compassion for suffering nature, hope for cosmic dominion, love of knowledge. This essential similarity between anti-humanists and transhumanists means that they may often find themselves on the same side in the political and social struggles to come.”

“But it doesn't really matter because it won't be long before we're all wiped off the face of the earth anyway: "but it's true! In three generations' time 75% of the animal spieces of the world will be wiped out! And it's all our fault! We've only got five generations of man left if you ask me and maybe it's just as well - mankind is the worst thing that's ever happened to this planet!"”

#antinatalism #transhumanism #the end #manic street preachers #richey edwards #richey james

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