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sorry to say this but not every act of protest is meant to be palatable. actually scratch that, to protest is to disrupt, it's to inconvenience, it's to make you unable to ignore the protesters message, it's priority should never be its palability.

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it’s insane watching the video of Aaron Bushnell because after self immolating one of the first things that happens is a cop comes and trains a gun on him and then does not take the gun off him for the entirety of the fucking video. as if he’s going anywhere. as if he’s not completely incapacitated already. as if he’s not already dying. there are shouts “GET ON THE GROUND, GET ON THE GROUND” at him, as if that’s even remotely helpful in the situation. you clearly hear another officer(?) shouting “I DON’T NEED GUNS, I NEED FIRE EXTINGUISHERS!” in obvious frustration. it’s insane that an officer’s reaction to a suicide is to pull a gun on that person and shout at them. Aaron Bushnell couldn’t have foreseen that he would be live-streaming such a stark example of the utter uselessness and brutality of cops, who are trained to point guns first, regardless of the situation. but like he says in the video before he sets himself on fire, “this is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.” how long has this been normal? as long as this police state has existed. fuck the police. free palestine.

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Aaron Bushnell's final social media post before his self-immolation.

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#AH

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Brown University is doing everything they can to make sure the press doesn’t cover the fact that 19 of their students are on hunger strike calling for Brown to divest from weapons manufacturers. Let’s make sure the story gets out:

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(February 8, 2024)

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Winter solstice comes with a promise: drag your weary heart over. There is more light on the other side.

#what about a february postcard. its been a year. maybe yes

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Rashida Tlaib has set up a petition to send to the White House to recognize and stop the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement happening in Gaza. If you’re a US citizen please sign. I have no illusions that this will change policy, but the public outcry against their actions must continue. We will not be distracted or discouraged from continuing to object to these humans rights violations.

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Bye Bye Tiberias (2023, Lina Soualem)

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find a protest near you

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“Here in Gaza, we are born every moment we survive death. We live a new life with a heavy spirit and tired heart”

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A few weeks ago the UN reported that everyone in Gaza is facing a food crisis -and that 1 in every 4 people in Gaza are starving -a quarter of their population is hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people. EVERYONE is hungry -their medical systems have collapsed and there are imminent outbreaks of diseases. How HUMILIATING and dehumanizing it is to have to fight for basic necessities. Imagine seeing a humanitarian truck -something rare because as we know the IOF has been collectively punishing Palestinian people for months now and has been committing mass genocide under the guide of 'war.' Not letting through resources to prevent people from dying from starvation is beyond depraved. And the fact we will NEVER see this on western/European mass media is just... absolutely infuriating.

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I’m in the process of organizing a gofundme for a family to get out of Gaza and into Egypt. If anyone with a big following on Twitter can help me spread it there, please let me know.

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Hind is constantly tweeting about being overwhelmed and hopeless. Bisan is sharing videos of children dying--literally someone trying to give a child chest compressions before giving up, the camera lingering on the child's limp, dead body. Today, Motaz posted video of his bombed out neighborhood--footage of a hand that does not end in an arm but ends in frayed and tattered meat. His neighborhood lost 45 people, his cousin also died.

His last tweet, 16 minutes ago, is him in the rain, the caption begs for the genocide to stop. "Please god, stop this."

Things have been dire and are getting more bleak. Using these people as inspiration porn--repeated lines of "Palestinians haven't lost hope, so we shouldn't other"--grows useless as it is clear it is very hard for them to manage hope. Hind has flat out admitted to being overwhelmed and losing feeling. The dead child, whose face was drenched in blood, cannot hope. It is not their fault, it isn't a matter of them not trying enough. It is a sign of Israel's cruelty.

How bad it is gotten--how much worse it is getting as Israel faces little resistance from the international community, as lack of food and medical care and sanitation spreads disease, how much the rain and cold sucks out the capacity to do anything other than survive and stress--means we should push harder. Fueled by righteous fury at injustice and needless suffering, not human beings turned into mascots, we must push and pull things harder until the system of suffering breaks.

I don't even know what that means. Every call to action feels so pathetically weak in the wake of all of this. But we must figure out what pushing harder means and fast.

Every day spent doing nothing or the bare minimum is more lives lost, more hope lost.