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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys · 2 days

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Hey I saw you have a titanium ankle - how does having that kind of implant feel? Obviously not the same thing but my dad's getting a hip replacement soon and I wanna know more beforehand

In my case it's a bit different, if I understand hip replacements correctly - rather than anything being replaced, I got... bolt-ons. Literally.

(Basically, to keep a boring story short, when I was 24 I walked down some stairs, an act I have performed my whole life without incident. This, I suspect, was the problem. I forgot to Respect The Stairs. So one moment I was moving smoothly and one might say procedurally downwards from one step to the next using both feet in an alternating fashion (that being the style at the time), and then the next I was falling.

And I caught the bannister! I went maybe three steps at most. But unfortunately, when I tried using my right foot in my usual manner (i.e. to support my body's weight in an upright position), I apparently placed it sort of... on its side? With the sole of my foot angled outwards to the right rather than directly down.

So when my weight came down I literally snapped my foot off. Those are not my words, you understand. Those were the words of the medical professional who looked at my x-rays, closely followed by "Your skin is holding it on.")

Anyway it took three operations over two weeks to bolt it back on, so what I have is an extensive and beautiful Mechano-like construct made of plates and screws holding the bones together. I have naturally slim ankles, so if you pay attention you can see that one is a bit wider than the other now (which does affect boots); also I can feel the edge of one of the plates if I press with my fingers.

But actually other than that, there's no difference. I can't feel a weight difference at all. I can't point that foot as well as the other, but that's the injury rather than the plates. The doctors at the time told me I could eventually have them removed if I wanted, but only after five years; but honestly, I haven't been affected enough to care. It's actually a stronger ankle now than the bio-one, so eh.

Also I did try magnets. Didn't take, titanium is not magnetic.

OH - it also doesn't get picked up by those walk-through airport metal detectors, but it does if they have to use the wand on you, because that's more powerful. I imagine that will be the same for your Dad. So it shouldn't affect travel or what have you.

In any case, I hope any of that was helpful, and good luck to your Dad! They're supposed to be magical things, hip replacements, so fingers crossed he gets his smoothly and without complications.

#asks #health care

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ridiasfangirlings · 2 days

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How to buy K merch in the Year 2024

I got several asks about this so rather than do each individually, I’ve decided to just make one big How to Buy K Merch in the Year 2024 post. I’m going to skip over the more obvious western sites like eBay and focus more on Japanese sites here. Because there hasn’t been much new K merch in some time keep in mind that most of what you will be looking for is secondhand, which means availability will vary.

Shopping Services

For some of these sites you will need a shopping service, so we’ll start there. This is by no means a comprehensive list of available shopping services, just ones I’ve used and liked.

FromJapan - This one is very straightforward — copy and paste the url of the item you want into their search bar. For anything in certain sites like Rakuten this will pull up a page that will give you the item and its price in your currency and you can just click add to cart. For other sites you may need to request a price quote, there’s a small form to fill out and they’ll get back to you on if they can order it. Timing depends on when you make the request. The nice thing about FromJapan is they will hold items for you for 45 days, so you can collect multiple purchases from multiple sites over time and have them all shipped at once. The bad side is that after 45 days they will discard your items, so keep an eye on when your oldest item arrived (you can see how long it’s been at their warehouse on your account page, and they will email you as the deadline gets close too).

Treasure Japan - Treasure Japan is a much smaller service than the others on this list but also the one I’ve used the longest. Being a smaller service means they tend to be more able to purchase items that might have seller restrictions, particularly from places like Mercari. Some listings when pasted into other shopping service sites will have a ‘cannot purchase from this seller’ warning, because some sellers don’t want to deal with shopping services. I haven’t had much trouble with this merchandise-wise, but when I’ve run into it with j-fashion Treasure Japan has been able to order when the bigger services couldn’t. Their site is set up so you will input different sites in different sections, there’s one for auction, one for ‘flea market’ (this will be places like Mercari) and one for shopping sites.

Buyee/Tenso - Buyee is a shopping service, Tenso is a forwarding service. They’re owned by the same parent company but are separate sites and you’ll need a separate account for each. Buyee is directly integrated with some sites like Mercari and Yahoo Japan, you can put in the url into their search bar and get a listing that you can buy immediately. Like FromJapan, any sites outside of the ones they’re integrated into will require you to request a quote (I found this more difficult with Buyee than FromJapan, personally) and they will sometimes be unable to purchase items. They will hold your items for 30 days at no charge, and you can request to consolidate packages for shipping.

Tenso, as I said above, is a forwarding service and somewhat more complicated. Basically when you sign up they will give you a Japanese address (presumably one of their warehouses) and you can then buy directly from Japanese websites, inputting the address you were given in the address field and paying with your own credit card. The items will be shipped to Tenso and from there you can have them sent to you. Obviously this is more complicated than a shopping service. I’ve used it mainly for things that didn’t involve an item being shipped (this is how I signed up for Fan Clan back in the day, for example, though my lottery goods were sent via Tenso too) or sites that require you to sign up to purchase from. I wouldn’t recommend it for any marketplace type site unless you’re fluent in Japanese, since sellers on those sites may try to communicate with you.

Stores

AmiAmi (no shopping service needed) - AmiAmi is mainly for new goods but I’ll mention it here anyway, in case K ever gets more merch. AmiAmi usually sells out on preorders, you place your order and they will let you know when the item arrives. You pay at that time. They do sometimes get used merch though so you can keep an eye out there, sometimes there will be decent deals on items that only have small flaws like the box being damaged.

Amazon Japan (may or may not need a shopping service) - Did you know overseas people can buy from Amazon Japan? You do now! You will need to make a new account, even if you have an Amazon account in your country. Whether you need a shopping service or not depends on the item. Anything sold directly by the company will likely not need a shopping service — the majority of my K manga and the stage plays were all bought directly from here, and when I was supplying raws for Countdown and LSW I was buying the magazines from here as well (I’ve also used it for Pokémon plushies and sewing books). If the item is being sold by a third party seller though you will likely need a shopping service. The site will tell you when you try to check out.

Surugaya EN (no shopping service required)/ Surugaya JP (shopping service required) - This is a secondhand shop and a great place to find merch. The main difference between the English site and the Japanese one is that the Japanese site has a larger selection (particularly doujinshi, and even more particularly spicy doujinshi). The English site periodically has free shipping sales so keep an eye out. Surugaya also has physical stores and will sometimes share merch between the store and the site so keep that in mind too, I have had items canceled before because they sold out in store and the listing hadn’t been updated yet.

Mandarake (no shopping service needed) - Another secondhand shop similar to Surugaya. I have not actually purchased from them myself and am not fond of their interface but I know people who have bought things from here. Like Surugaya they share stock with physical stores so something you want can sell out even after you’ve purchased.

Lashinbang (shoppng service required) - More secondhand shops. Lashinbang is rather small though so they don't always have much stuff, at least not for K.

CDJapan (no shopping service needed) - This is also better for new merch than secondhand but still worth a mention. I’ve found their prices tend to be worse than a lot of other stores though, this is more of a last resort for me.

Otaku Republic/Goods Republic (no shopping service needed) - Otaku sells doujinshi, Goods sells merch. The main draw is that these two are easy to search if you’re uncomfortable dealing with Japanese sites. I haven’t used them in quite a while but when I was buying from them they would send me free gifts with every purchase (my S4 cup came from them, as well as a bunch of clear file folders that I didn’t take pictures of because they’re being used as sewing pattern storage right now). The main downside is that while shipping is free over $50 they massively mark up the base prices to make up for it. I eventually stopped using this site because the shopping service was cheaper even with shipping and fees, you are paying for convenience. A lot of their ‘inventory’ is just listings from other sites including Surugaya, so check there first.

GoraShop (shopping service required) - This is Gora’s direct bookshop! They only have the season novelizations and Idol K books right now, as well as some Ayaka stuff.

Kinkurido (shopping service required) - This is the King Amusement Creative shop. All Memories was sold through this shop but is currently sold out, if they ever restock Gora will likely announce it on their Twitter. They do have some other small K goods available, including some CDs and artbooks (and Sarumi body pillows).

Marketplaces

Mercari Japan (Shopping service needed) - If you’ve ever used the English version of Mercari, here it is again but Japanese edition. You can find a lot of good used pieces here but prices are set by the individual seller so be wary of overpaying the first thing you find. Be sure to use a translator to look at the description in case you're buying a damaged item. Sometimes shopping services can try to negotiate the prices if you ask.

Yahoo Japan Auctions (shopping service needed) - Similarly as above, if you’re familiar with eBay this is fundamentally the same thing. Some shopping services will allow you to place last minute ‘sniper’ bids, and most will let you set a maximum bid and keep bidding on your behalf until that max is reached.

Shopping tips and things to know

The good news about buying from Japan right now: the yen is weak, so you can get deals! In the US, anyway. This may depend on your country so if you’re unsure on the exchange rate you can google “[your country’s currency] to yen exchange rate” and it should give you an approximate.

The bad news: shipping is killer. Keep that in mind, especially if you’re buying heavy items like bags or shoes (yes, K has those, there are several SuperGroupies collabs. If you want a S4 purse or Yata Misaki shoes keep in mind you will probably be paying through the nose for shipping). For the European types, you may have additional taxes too so be aware of your country’s import laws. Ditto when it comes to customs. For my fellow Americans, I have never had a customs issue even when buying fairly pricey dresses so you’re probably okay on that end but I can’t speak for other countries.

Character tax is real. Basically, more popular characters will likely have more expensive merch because there’s more demand — for example, Fushimi and Yata merch tends to be more expensive than, say, Silvers merch. Keychains and pins are usually cheaper than larger items like figures and standees either way though.

Most of the Japanese sites will need to be searched in Japanese. For character names, I suggest going to the K wiki and grabbing your favorite character’s name in kanji and using that to search. For pairings, while marketplace sites like Mercari may have listings under the pairing name sites like Suruga will use the two individual character names so you’ll want to search under that. If your browser doesn’t have an add on to translate that’s very helpful to grab in order to make your experience easier. For K itself, in general this is really the downside of having a favorite series with a one letter title. However, using ‘Missing Kings,’ ‘Return of Kings’ or ‘Seven Stories’ can be helpful here but will likely mostly turn up merch made for that specific season/movie.

If you want to look up something specific like a plush but don't know the Japanese word for it, Jisho can be helpful. Look up the kanji for the word you want and then copy-paste into your search. The downside is sometimes there are multiple words for the same thing or a word may be in kanji but people use the hiragana more often and you won't know, but it should get you on the right path to start.

On buying spicier goods: most shopping services have it in their terms that they will not buy adult items. In practice, however, this depends. I've had FromJapan refuse to buy perfectly tame G-rated doujinshi. Treasure Japan has in their terms that they won't ship adult items but like 70% of my doujinshi collection was purchased through them, with an R18 Sarumi book purchased as recently as last year. I've heard Buyee also states that they won't ship adult items but it's hit or miss if they turn down your order, and if you buy directly using Tenso they likely won't even open your package. Keep your country's laws regarding importing in mind, especially if you think customs might be likely to poke around in your package. Don't get in legal trouble just for spicy drawings.

Buying secondhand is a marathon, not a sprint. Sometimes it takes a while for what you want to show up, so just keep looking! When I was collecting my nui set I literally bookmarked the search for “K ぬい” (nui) on Mercari and checked every day or so, which may be more obsessive than you want but it does get the job done (I was molded in the merch search mines of trying to find lolita dresses that haven’t been sold for 10 years, so I’m used to this kind of thing). If you keep looking you may even find things you didn't know you needed, like this Sarumi bedsheet I forgot to add into my collection post.

Happy hunting!

#k project #Talking K #helpful guides #there are other stores I may have forgotten but this is most of what I use #if anyone has alternate sites feel free to put those in the comments #the good news is since K is less popular now the merch tends to be cheaper but the bad news is it's harder to find #you just have to keep looking #I can't believe I forgot my Sarumi bedsheet #it's because this is an older picture I'm not using it right now

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needlebeetles · 17 hours

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gritting my teeth about the way some people are talking about tracker.

like, obviously we’re going to be more sympathetic to PCs than NPCs overall because we spend more time with them and everyone’s entitled to their own opinion but guess what that includes me!

you’re mad at the queer teenager with a fantasy chronic illness that she clearly struggles with accepting who was forced to leave home and dropped out of school for semi-amicably breaking up with her girlfriend and finding a more stable system elsewhere?

obviously Kristen would be hurt over her ex finding love in someone else who struggles with the same stuff she does (undiagnosed ADHD) but with a support system and money.

Tracker’s issues with Kristen that were brought up in fantasy high sophomore year (feeling as though it’s always about her business and that it can’t ever be about Tracker, Kristen not really wanting to go through the work of making up with Tracker when they could just ignore it) are what make her interesting! Otherwise she’s just romantic interest cardboard!

Tracker’s whole thing with Wolfsong Revival and it’s prosperity vs the “realness” of a more ragged religious movement is also something she’s shown to have issues around, given how she reacts when Kristen brings it up. She’s complicated! She felt like a tag along in fhsy (despite agreeing to basically that)! Her worst nightmare was something that happens to her once a month!

#Bugposts #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #fhjy #tracker o'shaughnessey #kristen applebees

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shakingparadigm · 2 days

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idk if your still busy so obviously finish what your doing before doing anything else but do you know how hyuna's prosthetic latches together?? I think theres like a knee-latch on her prosthetic that's a bit father down than her other leg but theres so much going of its hard to tell whats going in that area

Honestly I'm not sure how the mechanics of it would work, especially since there's got to be some weird alien technology or structure at play there. It's pretty different from what a prosthetic leg is like in real life, so it's tricky to make assumptions based on that, too.

There's some stuff I noticed about Hyuna's leg across the various official arts, though. Mostly the fact that it's inconsistent, and I kind of see a reason for it. Please forgive me as I go on a bit of a ramble.

In her original performance outfit the prosthetic is structured almost like it's just a normal leg molded out of metal. It's a lot more solid and is dark in color, almost black. It also seems as if it goes up to just her knee? Maybe it still goes up to her thigh and she just ripped her pants until the knee for better/unobstructed joint movement. It joins at the ball of her knee and seems to be composed of quite a few different parts, somewhat complicated.

In All-In, Hyuna's prosthetic is still mostly of average leg shape. The most notable difference is that the leg includes hollow spaces, most likely thinner parts assembled together as opposed to one solid leg. It's also a different, lighter color. We can infer from this image that her leg is until her upper thigh.

And then we have the latest one. Hyuna's leg in All-In seems to be until her upper thigh, but this image makes it seem as if it goes much higher than that (although it's most likely an artistic choice. maybe I shouldn't look into it too much. I've learned my lesson 😭). But it's interesting how this leg is the most unique, solid and without hollow spaces, but considerably thinner, more simple.

There's also the fact that you mentioned, the latch being farther down in comparison to her actual knee. It's different from her previous prosthetic legs which seem to join at the knee exactly and are much more similar to that of normal leg anatomy. For this prosthetic, her leg doesn't actually latch at the knee, it latches just a bit below it. The prosthetic knee may look a little lower, but it's just the way she's angled, left leg facing left and right leg facing forward.

Maybe I'm overexplaining something that's already obvious/basic knowledge, my bad. Also I'm no scientist, so I could be wrong.

Anyway, the fact that Hyuna's leg changes quite a bit is interesting. It could be a design shift from the earlier production of ALNST to the finalized version, but I personally like to think that Hyuna's leg changes because she replaces it sometimes. Her lifestyle calls for a lot of action, and while her body can heal itself overtime, her prosthetic leg is prone to wearing and breaking apart.

This is how I see it (just a theory/maybe headcanon):

The leg she has in her performance outfit is one supplied to her by the aliens, which is why it looks much more sturdy, more like a true human leg. They're very advanced, so they'd know exactly how to make one that best suits her. Once Hyuna escapes to the rebellion, she doesn't have access to that kind of material anymore, nor does she know how replicate it. So instead she gets creative, taking scraps of metal and joining them together to make another leg, which is why it looks considerably lighter and less complicated. Whenever her leg breaks, she (or someone from the rebellion) creates a new leg from the material they can find, which is why her legs become progressively more simple and less conventionally "leg-like" . It's no problem to her though, and she's very proud of it.

#sorry it took me a while to get to this! I've been busy #also if there's any inaccuracies with how prosthetics work/wrong terms used for prosthetics pls let me know! i dont intend any disrespect!#alnst #alien stage #alien stage hyuna #alnst hyuna #asks

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birdbrainedboy · 5 hours

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I’m obsessed with this show and fear a hyperfixation anyways here are my thoughts on every character in the show

Edwin Paine: forever my favorite, even back before the show when I read the comics! I think it’s funny that basically every man in the show wants him? I’m intrigued by his character arc throughout the story regarding his sexuality as despite dying in 1916, he seems to have had time to slowly become more accepting of gay people (I’m guessing in part due to Charles, who is pansexual), to the point where there’s only mild internalized homophobia if at all, which just exhibits itself in him denying any possible feelings for Monty. I love how face-value and logical he is while still being a sweetheart

Charles Rowland: he has a pan flag pin on his jacket which confuses me bc can ghosts only wear clothes they would’ve worn when they were alive, or how do ghost clothes work? Because he died in 1989 and I’m near positive he didn’t wear that pin back there. Anyways I do love him but I wonder about some design choices, like the one earring (not sure why it just kinda annoys me). That was more a rant abt his design than his character, which I have nothing notable to say abt since I LOVE HIM he’s so real

Crystal Palace: sometimes she was a bit annoying the way she was trying way too hard to pry into everyone’s lives, but honestly that was just momentary annoyance since nothing could make me hate her. I love how her past was slowly revealed (as someone who already knew it from the comics) and how she came to terms with the person she used to be vs the person she is now. She’s so cool!

David the demon: honestly kind of caught me off guard at first bc the person I’m dating is named David but I actually enjoyed his character. LOVED when Crystal dealt with him in the end. He was very interesting

Niko Sasaki: I love Niko, but I have some problems with her character. First of all, I feel like ditsy anime-loving cutesy Asian girl with dyed hair is a weirdly common trope? But whatever my main issue is that it feels like characters who normalize the fetishization of gay men are so common. Like if Niko had been a guy obsessed with lesbian manga evb would be weirded out, so why is it different? If we ignore all of this tho I absolutely adore her and I’m actually praying she’s in the next season bc she was one of my favorites (esp her relationship w Edwin)

Jenny: She is so hot and cool and funny I’m in love with her

Esther: oh my god words cannot come close to describing how much I love her character. She felt powerless and weak in the past and now she’s become obsessed with making sure nobody has that power over her ever again. She was so fun and I loved her attitude! I’m sure she won’t show up next season, as she was the main antagonist of s1, and while I love her, I kind of hope she doesn’t since I think her arc was finished.

Monty: His personality was like 2020 “soft boy” who acts nice and dumb but is lowkey a manipulator. So obviously this kind of made me like ☠️ bc why is he acting like that… but I still love him to bits because he’s just a crow guys he didn’t ask to be human,, Anyways yeah his personality annoys me but also I love him so much so? It’s confusing. ITS COMPLICATED. I will cry if he’s not in s2

Kingham and Litty: I honestly thought they were annoying but I can’t lie they were so fucking funny. Every time they were on screen I laughed.

Cat King: oh my god. He is so camp. I love him. There’s honestly not much to say he is simply iconic. Love how he’s afraid to be alone so chases after other people, he’s so real AGHH I love him

Night Nurse: Ruth Connell the woman you are… 😍 she reminds me of Muriel from Good Omens, in a way, and I love her! I really hope we get to see more of her in relation to the guy in the fish, and see her get to better understand human emotions and why they choose to cling onto the human world rather than pass on!

#dead boy detective agency #dead boy detectives #charles rowland #edwin payne #crystal palace surname von hoverkraft #crystal palace #niko sasaki #david the demon #neil gaiman #esther #monty crow #cat king #night nurse #good omens

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crystalis · 15 hours

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• • •

THREAD: The eruption of protests in solidarity with the Palestinian people at numerous Western universities, and throughout the United States in particular, represents a pivotal moment.

College students are, to be sure, not an accurate reflection of public opinion or faithful mirror of their societies. But their activism often serves as a bellwether, an indication of the shape of things to come.

Therein lies the enormous political significance of the encampments that are now being established at dozens of universities, from the Ivy League to state universities.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s student uprisings not only contributed to, but also portended the failure of the US imperial project in southeast Asia and its defeat in Vietnam.

Student activists also played a prominent role in confronting the worst excesses of the racial hierarchy that dominates the United States. Similarly, campaigns, at times including the occupation of administration buildings, in numerous universities during the 1980s

to demand divestment from South African and related assets, portended the end of Western backing for that country’s white-minority regime. When student activism reaches a critical mass, in other words, it is often a fairly reliable indicator of where things are heading.

In the present context the protests across university campuses are sending multiple messages. Most obviously, a rejection of Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and, no less importantly,

a rejection of their own governments’ complicity and support of Israel’s transformation of the Gaza Strip into a killing field and chamber of horrors.

While that is the proximate cause, it is either underpinned by or has developed into a broader opposition to Israel as a colonial apartheid state and to its policies towards the Palestinian people more generally.

Hence the demands that universities divest from assets implicated in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. In other words, this is a genuine solidarity movement that sees Palestinians as human beings with inalienable rights which go beyond the right not to be massacred.

Expressed differently, the solidarity movement has served to humanize the Palestinians. To understand the profound significance of this achievement,

recall that Israel and its apologists have spent decades engaged in a systematic campaign, ably assisted by the mainstream media, to dehumanize Palestinians.

It was within living memory an article of faith that Palestinians simply do not exist. That “Palestinian” and “terrorist” became synonyms. That Palestinians are motivated by anti-Semitism and nothing else in their opposition to Israel.

Opposed to this, Israel was presented as “a light unto the nations”, “the only democracy in the Middle East” possessing “the most moral army in the world” that fought only “wars of no choice” and did so with “purity of arms”.

Until the eruption of the 1987 popular uprising, or intifada, it was a commonplace that Israel’s was a “benign” and “liberal” occupation, one that selflessly gave more than it took.

More recently, in an update of Theodor Herzl’s “rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism” it became “the villa in the jungle”.

Yet within the past seven months the paradigm through which Western public opinion has traditionally viewed both Israel and the Palestinians has definitively collapsed. And nowhere more definitively than on college campuses.

The transformation of course did not happen overnight, and decades of struggle and hard work by innumerable individuals within the region and beyond were required to make this moment possible.

Israel’s lurch towards ever greater levels of violence and extremism, to the extent that it is today the darling of the Third Reich’s ideological heirs, has also played its part.

The outcome is clear. Israel has lost the battle for public opinion, and it knows it. And given that for Israel public opinion is as much a strategic asset as its nuclear arsenal it is, unsurprisingly, responding hysterically.

It’s a far cry from previous eras, where Israel and its apologists could either persuade audiences of the rightness of their cause, or sufficiently confuse them into passive neutrality.

Israel and its flunkies are today deploying the same playbook and tactics against university activists that they have for decades deployed against the Palestinians: discredit, delegitimize, defame, and demonize.

Thus, any student expressing any opposition to Israel’s genocidal campaign or solidarity with its Palestinian victims is immediately denounced as “Hamas”, “terrorist”, anti-semite”, and the like.

The foot-stomping toddler who passes for assistant professor at Columbia University, to give but one example, has made it his vocation to vilify students at his own university.

Among the worst offenders, predictably, is Jonathan Greenblatt of the Defamation League, that self-proclaimed civil rights organization that used to conduct espionage in the United States on behalf of South Africa’s white-minority regime.

Once again going full Goebbels, he recently – without being challenged by his MSNBC hosts – denounced Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace as “campus proxies” for Iran.

The audacity of knowingly placing a target on Jews while drawing a generous salary on the pretext of defend their rights is hard to beat.

The problem for Israel and its apologists is that they have devalued their favorite terms of demonization to the point of making them trivial and meaningless.

Most people no longer care about being denounced as anti-Semites, terrorists, or agents of a foreign government by the likes of the Defamation League, and are no longer intimidated by the Zionist Inquisition,

because they readily understand it bears no relation to the actual definition of these terms and that these are deployed for the sole purpose of defending a foreign state and its policies.

Speaking of demonization, Vietnam’s National Liberation Front was hardly the Vienna Boys’ Choir, and at the height of the divestment movement South Africans accused of collaboration were being literally burned alive with “necklaces” consisting of petrol-soaked tires.

Yet today any student opposing Israeli genocide is absurdly required to take responsibility for Hamas and every one of its actions. It’s a sign of desperation by those who know their cause is lost.

Because they realize theirs is also a Lost Cause, Israel and its apologists are increasingly resorting to extreme measures, like deposing university presidents, threatening individual students and their employment prospects,

deploying agents provocateurs, and mobilising the police and security forces. Principle unfortunately often comes with a cost, but the manner in which the student movement has responded to these challenges has been nothing short of inspirational. END

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coolmachetefacts · 4 months

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Something zoomers and less informed millennials struggle with is that support for Israel has been baked into American society for decades and really only in the last ten years has that meaningfully changed.

The process has inarguably been going on longer than that, but has been most obvious to the lay observer for about a decade. Particularly, Trump made Israel a partisan issue. Trump brought to America the vicious hate of blood and soil Zionism. It's hard to fully encapsulate how much damage Trump's support for Israel did to the works of hasbara. Honestly, it's depressing.

More critically still, Christian Zionism—a necessarily antisemitic belief—has become the primary form of vocal support for the Israeli state. I don't particularly believe the average gentile is reacting to the plenary evil of the Evangelical beyond how loathsome they are or, indeed, their antisemitism in any meaningful way, but as with the reaction to Trump, at least we've gotten here.

Prior to around the turn of the century, American support for Israel was part of a cultural and political reaction to the Holocaust. Even different from a lot of powers in Europe that had found in a Jewish state an answer to their Jewish question, the United States was among several nations to make a blunt, direct statement about allyship with Israel as a deviation from historical antisemitism locally and abroad. Now, all but our most vicious antisemites claim to be Zionists and, vitally, Israel embraces them.

More notable still is how a reified, non-ideological form of anti-Zionism has taken root in American society. This, in particular, is a very new development.

Truthfully, I am deeply suspicious of any gentile who calls themselves an anti-Zionist. Anti-Zionism and Zionism both are ideologies with historical roots nearly two centuries old. Anti-Zionism is not merely a dislike of revanchism and far-right nationalism—things one should not need a deeper body of thought to dislike.

Nonetheless, where gentile anti-Zionism was once primarily a form of thinly-veiled antisemitism (it still is in many cases), it has seen more and more use by people seeking a specific term for their hate of state violence, which has further crystallized the change in the perception of Israel.

This, not just some mindless love of death, is why there is such a notable cleaving between the generations on the issue of Israel in the US.

#Israel #Anti-Zionism #Zionism #it's obviously more complicated than this #but I am not jamming out a book on tumbr dot fart with my thumbs #if I'm being honest #Americans shedding a reaction to the evils of the Holocaust is absolutely a bad thing for American Jews

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