Recently, an act of protest was carried out by an individual outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC. In a profound expression of dissent, the protester, an active-duty Air Force member, set themselves on fire. The victim’s last words, “Free Palestine,” were a stark message against the suffering in Gaza.
Your points about the tug-of-war over how the act, and the young man who did it, are to be perceived are highly relevant in this discussion; I know of no one else who has touched on them besides you and me.
No one listens to me, and I'm used to it; but it gratifies me a touch to read you saying similar things.
The authorities and their water-carriers couldn't suppress this desperate, shocking act fast enough; so they're pivoting to minimization and trivialization of it in hindsight. They'll encourage the worst forms of discourse in the Spectacle to fight over it, hagiography vs. smearing invective; until those are the only two choices allowed.
The challenge is, to not engage with either; and to continue to know different.
Since I haven't joined any discussion online yet.... might as well here lol.
I don't think that the common people (workers) will react negatively to this. The common people won't know about it unless it seeps into popular culture. Which would be really weird but not unimaginable in our society. See South Park.
Anybody who follows your work in good faith has a conscience that has a difficult time functioning properly in our deranged society. Even if each of us is fortunate to have a friend group, the chances that our friends feel the same mental torment that we do in light of today's world is minimal. Most people disengage from reality to survive. And I don't mean "reality" like our culture says it, I mean people get immersed in cat videos or gardening or their dog or video games or anything ANYTHING that doesn't involve examining contradictions.
Because those of us who spend a lot of time contemplating the contradictions and fighting to educate people about them, we are often faced with such shit that it almost becomes laughable. In fact you have to laugh or you'd cry!
So I can't explain why, but I feel very proud of this guy, in a way that our society would not approve of. I guess it's that I understand the feeling of knowing things are so goddamn messed up, that you'd sacrifice your life in a desperate attempt to say something and be heard. Because you cannot bear the contradictions anymore, they're so extreme yet society just keeps whirring along and the vast majority of people aren't paying attention.
Dave DeCamp made an offhand comment on his news roundup, and maybe he doesn't stand by it but I want to mention it anyways. He said something like, "why would you light yourself on fire? There's so many better ways to protest."
And I just thought, what are they?? What are these better ways of protesting and taking a stand? Cause we're on the fifth month of a genocide, our government is doing it and openly cheering it, the majority of Americans don't care about it (not because they're bad people but because they don't feel like there's a damn thing they can do about it.) We've got a government that is so corrupt it needs a new word to describe it because it makes corrupt look bad. They openly tell us they're managing the economy so that a bunch of us lose our jobs. The ones that are supposed to lie to us about how much they care about workers don't even lie about that anymore..
It's like, I get this guy. Not to be Debbie Downer, but I think every single one of us in this space gets this guy, and have felt something similar to what he must have felt. If that opinion is not allowed in polite stupid society, I don't gaf.
Your points about the tug-of-war over how the act, and the young man who did it, are to be perceived are highly relevant in this discussion; I know of no one else who has touched on them besides you and me.
No one listens to me, and I'm used to it; but it gratifies me a touch to read you saying similar things.
The authorities and their water-carriers couldn't suppress this desperate, shocking act fast enough; so they're pivoting to minimization and trivialization of it in hindsight. They'll encourage the worst forms of discourse in the Spectacle to fight over it, hagiography vs. smearing invective; until those are the only two choices allowed.
The challenge is, to not engage with either; and to continue to know different.
Since I haven't joined any discussion online yet.... might as well here lol.
I don't think that the common people (workers) will react negatively to this. The common people won't know about it unless it seeps into popular culture. Which would be really weird but not unimaginable in our society. See South Park.
Anybody who follows your work in good faith has a conscience that has a difficult time functioning properly in our deranged society. Even if each of us is fortunate to have a friend group, the chances that our friends feel the same mental torment that we do in light of today's world is minimal. Most people disengage from reality to survive. And I don't mean "reality" like our culture says it, I mean people get immersed in cat videos or gardening or their dog or video games or anything ANYTHING that doesn't involve examining contradictions.
Because those of us who spend a lot of time contemplating the contradictions and fighting to educate people about them, we are often faced with such shit that it almost becomes laughable. In fact you have to laugh or you'd cry!
So I can't explain why, but I feel very proud of this guy, in a way that our society would not approve of. I guess it's that I understand the feeling of knowing things are so goddamn messed up, that you'd sacrifice your life in a desperate attempt to say something and be heard. Because you cannot bear the contradictions anymore, they're so extreme yet society just keeps whirring along and the vast majority of people aren't paying attention.
Dave DeCamp made an offhand comment on his news roundup, and maybe he doesn't stand by it but I want to mention it anyways. He said something like, "why would you light yourself on fire? There's so many better ways to protest."
And I just thought, what are they?? What are these better ways of protesting and taking a stand? Cause we're on the fifth month of a genocide, our government is doing it and openly cheering it, the majority of Americans don't care about it (not because they're bad people but because they don't feel like there's a damn thing they can do about it.) We've got a government that is so corrupt it needs a new word to describe it because it makes corrupt look bad. They openly tell us they're managing the economy so that a bunch of us lose our jobs. The ones that are supposed to lie to us about how much they care about workers don't even lie about that anymore..
It's like, I get this guy. Not to be Debbie Downer, but I think every single one of us in this space gets this guy, and have felt something similar to what he must have felt. If that opinion is not allowed in polite stupid society, I don't gaf.
Note: cat videos are beneficial in moderation.