Israel and Palestine, History, Politics, Confirmation Bias and the Hypocritical Racist Saviourism of the Western Left

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Confirmation bias

"im doing a paper on antisemitism and it so difficult to find sources that aren't pro-isreal. They're all going on about how saying that Israel shouldn't exist is antisemitic. no how is thinking something should not exist if genocide is a part of its creation antisemitic? The Israeli state itself is antisemitic and has continuously failed to support its population of Holocaust victims.

any help on finding decent sources would be much appreciated."

When all of your references are telling you that your starting external point of reference is Antisemitic, that is because it is... You can't unpack your biases and unlearn them by searching for references that confirm your biases. Learn that your assumptions are likely bigoted and you need to learn what you don't know instead of seeking validation of what you believe.

To specifically address "saying that Israel shouldn't exist is Antisemitic", Israel DOES exist and more than 40% of all Jews live there, and no matter your opinion of its founding or the conduct of its government.... unless you intend to conquer Israel by force, and believe me it's been tried, it will not cease to exist by political pressure. So the expression that Israel shouldn't exist is tacit war mongering. There is more to be said on the topic, but that will come later.

More below the cut, very long

Part 2 continues here

this is so far the single best summary of what's happening in Israel, Palestine and the West that i've seen on tumblr. of course it only has 240 notes.

please don't scroll past this

Thank you, I put a lot of effort into it💓💓💓

Though I think people find the (necessary) length daunting.

staying with my father and my teenage brother occasionally has been very enlightening actually i need to think about it positively

hmmm ok. fascinating. okay. amazing. and i have to live like this? okay

Timothy Snyder

Whilst I adore the idea that in the maybe 24 total hours Anakin was present on the Lars' farm, he fixed literally everything mechanical there because of *angst*, I think an infinitely funnier idea is that Padme did their taxes. She doesn't like sitting around doing nothing any more than Anakin, and she was there for several extra hours, there's no way she didn't ask for something to do, and I think that thing should be their taxes.

Cliegg and Owen weren't actually expecting to actually be able to use a coreworlder's work, but as it turns out, Padme totally helped them commit tax fraud even better than they already were without even being asked.

Bonus points if she was doing it at the same time Anakin was out committing bloody murder.

I feel like there's this weird dichotomy in the way trans people are viewed even by other trans people where top surgery (at least growth from e but sometimes even that isn't "Enough") is necessary to Count as Trans but don't you dare get bottom surgery you'll be a Freak . This isn't even like specifically ftm or mtf or anything like If ur transfemme you need to have tits and if ur transmasc you have to get your tits taken off or you're "not trying hard enough to be perceived as that gender" but if you get bottom surgery you get no representation even within the trans community and you'll be told horrible things abt ur neogenitals constantly even by other trans people. Even other trans people who mean well will say shit like "oh I'd only get bottom surgery if they came up w a technique that looks more realistic" Ike what rhe fuck no I promise u the results are very much Real Genitals anyway it fucking sucks i love u girls without tits I love u boys with tits I love u neopussy I love u phalloplasty and metoidioplasty dicks.

Literally nothing will make me more evil than just being sort of overwhelmed by Noises

the absolute most melted-brain take from anti-boycott goofs is the inevitable 'oh you dont like THIS where were you for THAT?' i dont know maybe because THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS FROM DIFFERENT PLACES IN DIFFERENT AMOUNTS AT DIFFERENT TIMES

i know this is usually bad faith argument from conservative scoundrels but i see others trot it out sometimes and it is biggest eyeroll. the ‘all things need to mean the same amount to you at all times or you are WRONG AND ILLOGICAL about your convictions’ crowd is such a mess

‘youre vegetarian now? where were you in 4th grade when you had cheeseburger?’ ‘oh you boycott this ai thing? where were you when other thing youve never even heard of happened?’ absolutely braindead trot. sorry devil its ok for buds to start taking action they didnt take before

goofballs: 'HOW DARE YOU START CARING ABOUT THIS THING? THE ONLY LEGITIMATE BOYCOTTS DEFY SPACE AND TIME EXISTING IN A PERPETUAL STATE OF UNDERSTANDING EVENLY DISTRIBUTED ACROSS ALL TIMELINES ENDLESSLY INTO BOTH FUTURE AND PAST'

It is vital for us as a society to stop shaming people for attempting to learn and grow. Changing your actions and beliefs in response to new information or experiences is good actually! That's normal! It's what you're supposed to do!

The demand that everyone be perfect from the beginning is impossible and asinine. Yes, we need to hold people accountable for their mistakes, but that doesn't mean someone who fucks up once can never hold an ounce of esteem ever again. We also have to give people grace for their ignorance or weakness or just plain mistakes. These are two ideas that can and must coexist.

Give others the grace you would wish to receive if you ever err, because you'll need it at some point, no matter how good you try to be.

feeling a deep sense of kinship with danny here

Mood

One of us one of us

a shirt that is both very specific but could also at the same time apply to about 700K people

Great news! I found the whole text.

This is not only me, but like half my friend group.

I'm so glad that y'all are so into Monkey Man and the badass hijra priestess army, but friendly reminder that hijra are NOT trans women. Hijra are their own distinct gender; trans women are women. India has both :)

This is really...weird to post if you yourself are not a trans woman or hijra, op. Many (I would even say most) hijra are women. So many of us use the term hijra women instead of just hijra to emphasise this point. A lot of the hijra identity (and other trans identities in India like Jogta/Jogtini, Aravani etc.) is tied to the arts and religion in a way that the modern term "trans" does not fully encompass or represent, but that doesn't mean that these non-secular (i can't find a better word rn) trans people are not. Well. Trans. Hijra, Aravani and other transfeminine people and women have been active in LGBT and esp. trans activism at the grassroots within India for the longest time. I'm Indian and trans myself and I'm really so tired of this constant third-gendering (and thus misgendering) of trans Indians. (Not to say that many trans people don't view themselves within the third gender framework, but that that term has done more harm than good in the practical sense.)

Here's an excellent thread by an Indian trans women tearing apart the seminal anthropological text that has cemented the idea of Hijra "third gender"ness for its racism, orientalism, and transmisogyny.

https://twitter.com/talia_bhatt/status/1779895088266592638?t=HKXcxNoIXgo0pgWcMR-mzQ&s=19

Hijras are primarily considered "third gender" (which is similar to many other culturally embedded trans women in the global south being seen as a third gender) because western anthropologists and later Indian anthropologists uncritically accepted the degendering and marginalization trans women experience as ontological evidence of a third gender which was later taken up by state policies.

This has been done by ignoring hijras for decades who have self identified as women and using transmisogynistic talking points such as a lack of their wombs making it impossible for them to be women, their forced prostitution and begging because of their exclusion from the formal economy as "cultural practices", and their experiences detailing how despite their wishes and efforts society refuses to see them as women as evidence that they are not women. The vast majority of hijras are women; they exist as women, they take HRT, they get their legal names changed, etc. Calling them a third gender is structural transmisogyny.

Any post based on "jealousy is a normal and healthy part of a relationship and anything that sets it off is bad" is not an allo thing; it's a "love = possession" thing.

They are no more indicative of how relationships do or should work than the "DNI If You Ship Them" rants show how fandom does or should work.

Bandai Digirobo Tokima

Robot Watch 1998.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began in the lead up to Pesach, April 19, 1943. Poignant, as we head towards Pesach on this anniversary.

This was a fight the Ghetto Fighters knew they could not win. And they never intended to.

They fought for the right to die on their own terms, to protest the world’s silence in the face of their imminent end, and to demand their attention. They fought to die on their feet rather than their knees.

They fought to make a sound as the world said nothing.

They were defiant, proud, stiff-necked, to the end.

Stay proud. Stay defiant. Be loud when the world says nothing.

May their memories be for a blessing.

A lot of younger people have no idea what aging actually looks and feels like, and the reasons behind it. That ignorance is so dangerous. If you don’t want to “be old,” you aren’t talking about a number of years. I have patients in their late 80s who could still handily beat me in a race—one couple still runs marathons together, in their late 80s—and I lost someone who was in her early 60s to COPD last year. What you want is not youth, it is health.

If you want to still be able to enjoy doing things in your 60s and 70s and 80s and even 90s, what you want to do, right now, is quit smoking, get some activity on a regular basis (a couple of walks a week is WAY better for you than nothing; increasing from 1 hour a day of cardio to 1.5 will buy you very little), and eat some plants. That’s it. No magic to it. No secret weird tricks. Don’t poison yourself, move around so your body doesn’t forget how, and eat plants.

If you have trouble moving around now because of mobility limitations, bad news: you still need to move around, not because it’s immoral not to, but because that’s still the best advice we have. I highly recommend looking up the Sit and Be Fit series; it is freely available and has exercises that can be done in a chair, which are suitable for people with limited mobility or poor balance. POTS sufferers, I’m looking at you.

If you have trouble eating plants because of dietary issues (they cause gas, etc.) or just because they’re bitter (super taster with texture issues here!), bad news. You still want to find a way to get some plants into your body on a regular basis. I know. It sucks. The only way I can do it is restaurants—they can make salads taste like food. I can also tolerate some bagged salads. On bad weeks, the OCD with contamination focus gets so bad I just can’t. However, canned beans always seem “safe,” and they taste a bit like candy, so they’re a good fallback.

If you smoke and you have tried quitting a million times and you’re just not ready to, bad news. You still need to quit. Your body needs you to try and keep trying. Your brain needs it, too. Damaging small blood vessels racks up cumulative damage over time that your body can start trying to reverse as soon as you quit. I know it’s insanely, absurdly addictive. You still need to.

You cannot rules lawyer your way past your body’s basic needs. It needs food, sleep, activity, and the absence of poison. Those are both small things and big asks. You cannot sustain a routine based on punishment, so don’t punish your body. Find ways to include these things that are enjoyable and rewarding instead. Experiment. There is no reason not to experiment—you don’t have to know instantly what’s going to work for you and what won’t, you just need to be willing to try things and make changes when things aren’t working for you.

You will still age. Your body will stop making collagen and elastin. Tissues you can see and tissues you can’t see will both sag. Cushioning tissues under your skin will get thinner. You’ll bruise more easily. Skin will tear more easily. Accumulated sun damage will start to show more and more. Joints will begin to show arthritis. Tendons and ligaments will get weaker and get injured more easily, as will muscles. Bones will lose mass and get easier to break. You’ll get tired more easily.

But you know what makes the difference between being dead, or as good as, in your 60s vs your 90s? Activity, plants, and quitting smoking. And don’t do meth. Saw a 58-year-old guy this week who is going to have a heart attack if he doesn’t quit whatever stimulant he’s on. I pretended to believe it was just the cigarettes, and maybe it is, but meth and cocaine will kill you quicker. Stop poisoning yourself.

Baby steps; take it one step at a time; you don’t need to have everything figured out right now. But you do need to be working on figuring things out.

All of the above.

U.S. fitness culture says "fitness" when they mean they can make you acceptable to others and to yourself by changing the shape of your body. Ditto with what U.S. diet culture means by "a healthy weight." The prescribed shape is only possible for people who diet obsessively, exercise obsessively--and only for a certain span of decades before loss of collagen elasticity and other factors take their toll.

It's a pursuit of the fountain of youth. The fountain of youth does not exist.

One piece of advice I would add to the above--I got this from an exercise club for middle-aged ladies who wear schlubby T-shirts and happily sweat and sing along to the music--your heart rate is a better metric of health than the amount of fat on your body. If you exercise enough to feel like you're working a little bit, repeat your exercise sessions at that level until it's easy, then step it up a little bit, stay at that level until it's easy, and so on, you will probably find that your pulse becomes less rapid while doing the same level of activity. That is a good thing; it means that your heart is stronger, so it doesn't have to beat as much to do its job. And that helps you become more vigorous and sturdy. And that is far more important than a visual ideal.

What's that bro? You began interacting with a media from a different country than yours and/or was made in time period different than the recent present day? Haha that's sick bro! Keep expanding your horizons bro! You're remembering to take into account that sociocultural norms, gender roles and genre expectations are different from what you are used to and meeting the story halfway, instead of forcibly superimposing your ideals into the story, right bro? Right? Right?

It could be. I got the quote from a tumblr post but no clue who.

catgirl strip club but all the poles are scratchposts

(Cat Lunch Break - KC Green)

THAT'S WHERE IT'S FROM?!