Force-Good

My mom’s voice: Are you done now? Can we get off the soapbox?

I’ve said it before here on the Couch here and I’ll say it again: I don’t want to be on any type of soapbox. I want to float in the warm ocean, look at butts and eat fruit. Why won’t the world let me do that? I’m tired of being the crazy shouty guy. I don’t even like to tell my waiter when they bring me the wrong dish! Some people get hard for confrontation. I’m not some people. That’s what they’re counting on though: the people who are comfortable ENOUGH, looking away and saying nothing. How would you feel, watching your community, your streets, your families, your gardens, your universities, your past, your future getting destroyed and knowing that people all over the world KNOW and are saying nothing?

We are five months into the genocide of the Palestinian people.

Don’t call it a genocide. That is an insult to the memory of the Holocaust.

I argue an insult to the Holocaust’s memory is treating the slogan ”never again” as something only applicable to Jewish people. It is applicable to all people. And one of the greatest crimes Germany is committing right now, in real time, is letting the Palestinian people be a sponge to soak up all their WWII guilt. They watch Zionists commit atrocities and tell themselves that by continuing to lend support, this somehow atones for what they did here in Europe back then. It is beyond sickening.

A country has a right to defend itself.

Is destroying an area’s homes, hospitals, universities, infrastructure, and herding all of its people into an open-air prison, starving and shooting at them, self-defense??

That is war. War is cruel.

No! That is NOT what war is. War is when two military forces go against each other. And they shoot at each other and whoevers got the most guys standing at the end, wins. An army on one side fighting against a civilian population on another is not war. We have laws and regulations for what is permissible in war precisely because being at war and conflict with another country does not give any power the white card to inflict mass cruelty.

Why is this so important right now? What about x, y, z happening somewhere else in the world?

Fvkn… sealion-ass. But okay. I’ll bite. Why do I care about this? I care about this right now, because RIGHT NOW, the country I physically occupy space in, and the country I am a citizen of, are both pumping money and arms into Israel and treating it like a moral right. THAT’S why I give a fuck. Because I KNOW about it. I am certain there are terrible things happening all over the world–but I cannot care about things I don’t even know about. Forgive me (and anybody!) for that! There is right now social momentum to stop ONE thing. Focus please, instead of being like… but whatoutbout… If someone yells, help help, I’m being murdered! Do you cross your arms and say, well I’d help you, but there’s OTHER people out there being murdered too. Do I -really- care about stopping murder if I aid you, but not also them? Like please people. Rub two brains cells together before you say shit like this; the lack of logic is devastating.

Don’t be so aggressive. It is not helping your cause. :<

Should people ask nicely? Should they tie up their message in a little present? Write it in frosting on a cupcake? Nah see, either someone believes something is wrong–or they do not believe it. If someone feels guilty and defensive for why slogans such as ”your silence is complicit” makes them feel bad, they need to look at where that guilt is coming from. Yes absolutely, we cannot know of every terrible thing and advocate against everything going on in the world at all times. But my god, it’s been MONTHS AND MONTHS.

I get it. We’re all just one little speck of meat, what can we do? That’s what they’re counting on and that’s why all rights are tied together, trans rights, queer rights, women’s right, Black rights, disabled rights. All such struggles spring from the same fount: a fundamental lack of regard one group has for another. A lack of respect. An urge to exploit and suppress. A group declaring overtly or covertly, hey. This group is weaker than we are. And we will exploit them. And they won’t be able to fight back. And nobody will say anything.

A cynical part of me believes that we will never achieve collective liberation, because (here’s the cynical part); you can never enjoy a right that was given to you. You have to take it. The only way to TAKE a right–is to physically show the group oppressing you that you will stand it no longer. Peaceful march and protest and action appeals to a conscience the oppressor simply does not possess.

It is the oppressed projecting their own morality onto the oppressor. AKA you can’t ASK people to be good for you. They never will be. You have to force good.

And I am weak. (Literally physically weak.) I cannot force any oppressor to be good. Ohhh, but what I can do, what any of us can do, is to make it VERY UNCOMFORTABLE to be bad. To be indifferent. To choose evil, oily, comfortable silence. You may not be socially strong enough to force good, but you can definitely make noise and make it increasingly uncomfortable to be bad. Because ANOTHER thing they are counting on (insult on injury) is not only do they want to oppress–they don’t want to have to feel an ounce of guilt about it. They want to be the Victim and the Good Guy. But to everyone asking, what can *I* do? Consider: the propaganda machine is failing. The eyewitness accounts through social media ensure that as much as Israel, the USA, Germany and other supporters want to keep claiming a moral high-ground here–it is simply impossible to do so. The world sees it.

Keep making noise. Keep sharing posts. Keep boycotting McDonald’s and Starbucks. Keep donating. Keep attending vigils and marches and show Palestinians here and abroad that we will not sit by and say nothing. That ceasefire Kamala Harris is calling for right now? Such a pathetic footnote, but in it, I see a recognition: Oh, shit. They’re not going to vote for us. Could Biden do the right thing because it was the right thing to do? Absolutely not (as he has failed to all this time, for months). Could he be FORCED to do the right thing?

Don’t be afraid to be loud, to make others uncomfortable, because you will never get anyone to pay attention by asking quietly and nicely.

You don’t get freedom peacefully. Freedom is never safeguarded peacefully. Anyone who is depriving you of freedom isn’t deserving of a peaceful approach by the ones who are being deprived of their freedom.

Malcolm X

That simple feeling of walking somewhere, with a friend, or with a family member. Of having a peaceful day of work, or being able to enjoy some time outside–time with your children or with your pets–time with a book or with some music. And remembering that there are people who have not known that peace for so long now. Wanting justice is the simple desire for others to be able to know the peace that we casually enjoy. So let’s keep going; let’s keep putting pressure on those who would spread lies SEE NEW YORK TIMES, by proliferating posts from reporters and people on the ground, and keep pushing. ❤

In January and in March. Marching for Palestine here in Munich.

Please follow @palaestinaspricht_MUC on IG if you also live in Munich and would like to get involved locally.