Monday, September 2: Laborious Days
Summer winds down and fall ramps up, but the genocide continues, unperturbed
Go ahead and add Labor Day to the growing list of holidays that the apartheid state has spent bombing Gaza (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentines Day, the entirety of Ramadan, Easter, two Eids, Memorial Day, and now Labor Day).
Over the weekend, tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets, blocking roads and setting fires out of anger after six hostages were found dead in Gaza. The families of these hostages and much of the apartheid-enjoying public blame Benny Netanyahu for these deaths, saying they could have been returned alive in a hostage negotiation deal, if that were even remotely a priority for the genocidaires. Instead the apartheid state continued and even expanded its terror campaign, attacking the already-occupied West Bank and doubling down on their murderous intentions in Gaza.
Seeing a handful of dead Israelis getting more sympathy and attention than tens of thousands of murdered Palestinians really highlights the racist dehumanization at play. Every Israeli is mourned and given the right to a story, a full context to their life and death. Meanwhile, Palestinians aren’t even allowed an accurate death toll as the statistics just keep climbing.
Of course there will be those who continue to blame Hamas for the ongoing bombings and the needless bloodshed, claiming without a shred of evidence that the apartheid state is ready and willing to negotiate for a ceasefire. The depth of gullibility of this type of person is profound to the point of being lethally dangerous. There has been zero indication in the past 11 months that the occupying force has any interest other than increased ordnance expenditure. (As a brief reminder, international law explicitly states that populations under belligerent occupation have a right to resist).
In case you missed it, here’s a brief rundown of some of the war crimes committed by the apartheid state in just the past few weeks:
The genocide enthusiasts struck an aid convoy organized by the US humanitarian group Anera, killing 5 people and claiming they were “armed assailants” trying to hijack the convoy. Anera clarified that the people killed in the strike were actually employees of the transport company it was working with, but at this point the facts don’t really matter, there’s no bringing anyone back to life.
The apartheid state murdered 19 year old Mohammad "Medo" Halimy, a Palestinian content creator whose daily vlogs showed the reality of life under constant bombardment in Gaza. It’s clear that the apartheid state’s intention is to extinguish the life of anyone trying to share the Palestinian perspective publicly.
The gleefully murderous soldiers of the apartheid state grabbed a 10 year old girl and used her as a human shield as they illegally searched homes in the West Bank (notably not located in Gaza btw). The apartheid state’s attacks on the West Bank have killed more than 594 Palestinians since October 7, including 115 children who were killed using live ammunition, and 1,411 children injured, according to the United Nations.
The genocidal Israeli military shot an American teacher from New Jersey, who was in the occupied West Bank demonstrating against illegal Israeli settlement activity. As expected, an American citizen being shot by apartheid enthusiasts prompted the bag of bones pretending to be our president to do…absolutely nothing.
The apartheid state benevolently took a brief intermission in their ethnic cleansing campaign in order to allow vaccinations for some Palestinian children against polio. The World Health Organization said that the apartheid state has agreed to ‘limited pauses in its military operations’ to facilitate the campaign. Some of these children will be vaccinated against polio so they can survive long enough to be bombed into pieces. Some might call this humanitarianism, but I believe the more accurate term would be sadism
At this point, choosing to support Sheriff Kamala in November is choosing to actively ignore her direct involvement in this genocide. The presidential hopeful has been crystal clear in her unwavering support for the apartheid state. If Kamala and Joey Biden won’t stop a genocide to get a vote, there’s really no reason to believe they’ll pass policies that would materially benefit me or you or any community. It takes very little to stop sending weapons, just a phone call or two. But it takes everything to pass policies that benefit everyday working people, and that seems increasingly unlikely.
With just a couple of months until the presidential election, it’s clear that the democratic position on issues like immigration and the border are hardly distinguishable from the position of republicans. Both sides are perfectly content to fund and defend a genocide, and apparently nobody is talking about climate change anymore. It seems the “plan” for democrats is to continue highlighting the importance of access to abortion…which they already failed to protect.
If you still feel the need to vote, to exercise your civic duty or whatever, I’d consider supporting a third party candidate like Jill Stein of the Green Party. Voting for a third party matters not because Stein stands a legitimate chance at winning, but because getting the Green party to 5% of the popular vote ensures public funding, which would make it easier for people to fight back against both corporate parties in future elections. Personally, I’ve lost any and all hope in American electoral politics, but don’t let my negativity ruin the vibes. Do whatever makes sense for you, and understand that the generations to come will have questions about how we allowed all of this to happen.
Side Items
Corporate Culture: A 60 year old Wells Fargo employee in Tempe, AZ scanned into her office on a Friday like any other ordinary workday. Four days later, she was found dead in her cubicle. Denise Prudhomme was discovered dead in her office last month, raising questions of how her company and coworkers could’ve overlooked the presence of a dead body for so long. To anyone foolish enough to believe that "people need to return to the office for the company culture", when nobody notices a coworker’s corpse for four days, that's some kinda culture you’ve got
Artificial Unintelligence: I really enjoyed this essay by science fiction writer Ted Chiang, where he criticizes the embrace of “AI” technology without thought for what we’re consuming or what it’s doing to us. The article describes the training for large language models as “money laundering for copyrighted data”, which is about the most accurate description I’ve ever heard. The programs we’ve come to know as “AI” can’t actually speak, think, feel or create, yet somehow people have been convinced that they have the potential to solve so many of our modern problems. It’s called delusion folks, you should try it sometime
Fishy Mass Die-Off: More than 100 tons of dead fish were collected in and around a port in central Greece after a mass die-off related to extreme weather fluctuations. I’m sure it’s nothing…just another sign of impending climate collapse