This Monday, Israeli's held their annual, state-funded, police supported racist march through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem, celebrating the ethnic cleansing of 1967 when Israel seized all of Palestine, and shouting pro-genocide slogans like "death to Arabs" as they vandalize and ransack Palestinian shops.
And, it's important to mention the Israeli military's systemic practice of using Palestinians, including children, as human shields, forcing them to walk in front of columns of soldiers, and to open doors and tunnels that are potentially booby-trapped.
I've been catching up on the philosophical foundations of fascism and where I'm currently reading has been incredibly enlightening... Carl Schmitt wrote a bunch about the failures of liberalism and parliamentary democracy, and while Carl was an inconsistent fascist idiot, he did have some great points on those failures — other fascists realized this and picked up the gauntlet to weaken liberal democracy. The reason I mention this is that public attitude, news, and government are all corrupted by the liberal ideals of debate and inaction. "Just as the romantic avoids taking decisions, so to the liberal; faced with the question, 'Christ or Barabbas, the liberal answers with a motion to adjourn the meeting or set up an investigative committee.' " (Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, p20). There are no teeth to
back any indictment of war crimes. There is no incentive for governments to stop blowing our tax dollars on morally corrupt countries and their mass arsenals. Liberalism is about maintaining the façade above all else; it is an easily bastardized tool to maintain oppression and force people into a lose-lose-lose situation (continue in the same direction, fully complicit; try to work within an inherently unresponsive and broken system; or be labeled a terrorist for standing with full force against a given disaster). Not only Americans, but especially Americans, are mired in the intentionally disabling liberal rhetoric that we must play by the rules and essentially Be Perfectly Presentable — able at any moment to win some fanciful polite debate of morality — all while the machine grinds on and on and on and on.
Suffragettes fire bombed buildings to get the right to vote. Entire wars were waged to cripple American slavery (not for the pro-black reasons of human dignity and basic autonomy, but it worked!). There are LOTS of other excellent examples of this that my memory fails to recall in this moment. But my point is that fascism does not play by the rules. It breaks and rewrites them. So, too, must people aggressively change their perception of what force is necessary and justifiable to resist. Do not accept the narrative that respectability politics is the highest law of any land. Oppressors do not respect us no matter what we do or who we are. Don't let them direct your internal narrative.
Your foot note on the Aus government is interesting. It was an Aus general, Jim Molan who commanded in the battle of Fallujah in which many of the exact same war crimes the IDF are committing have a precedence, down to defecating in peoples bathtubs, offfices etc. Nicknamed the butcher of Fallujah he never the less went on to a career in the senate and was widely honored by the left and right sides of politics when he died. He cut off Fallujah from food and water and power and bombed the trapped civilians, used depleted uranium, white phosphorus and snipped the hospital. A real piece of shit.
In settler colonial countries and colonising countries I think we have to admit there is no official pathway out of the "Western white supremacist, colonial/capitalist patriarchy. Social revolution is the only solution". (Malcolm X) The institutions of these states and the states themselves are the enemies of freedom.
The only difference between the current genocide and all the others in history is that this one is live streamed.
About progressives, case in point: in a column last year Heather Cox Richardson refused to label what is happening in Gaza as genocide because it hadn't yet been "legally defined" as such.
I think your stance is valid. People shouldn't have to use or support methods they're strongly opposed to, as long as they're not using it as a pass to dip a toe in low-risk, symbolic resistance and not find ways to actually stop the situation.
I also feel there is a huuuuuge ethical difference between executing a prisoner who is already disarmed, years after the genocide has ended, and sacrificing one's own life and freedom to attack an *ongoing* genocide.
I plan on getting more into this difference in my "Death Ethics" series (here in future newsletters).
There’s one kind of killing which anyone this side of Gandhi would allow, and that’s active self defense, self defense to prevent an ongoing event. In that sense, the killing of active participants in a crime, and the Gaza genocide is surely that, are fair game, because their elimination may prevent the murder of innocents.
But there’s a lot of ambiguity there, and it certainly hasn’t saved a single Gazan life.
No they aren't. You just don't hear about the opposition because the media, government, academia, and corporations are all in the club.
Even among Republicans, a majority under age 50 now oppose Israel. Numbers are far higher among Democrats.
On the Ukraine War the same is true but with the numbers flipped by party.
We are on the verge of realizing the threat is not from Russia, China, Hamas, or any external force. Our leaders are the threat. Grassroots left and right are talking to each other.
This is why the propaganda and censorship is ratcheting up. They know we know. We know they know we know.
We really need to talk to each other, something our leaders have heavily discouraged. I'm on the right, but I want the left to be on their game.
The enemy is consolidation, and it comes from both government and corporations. If the left is co-opted and screaming about cancel culture while embracing Blackrock then we're likely to miss consolidation threats from the corporate world. Likewise, if the right is co-opted and screaming about immigrants who write op-eds then we're likely to miss consolidation threats from the government.
Remember Occupy Wall Street? The Seattle WTO protests? The left got a little too close to the mark there. This energy was co-opted and redirected into the dead end of intersectional cancel culture crap. Similar things are happening on the right now. We got a little too close to kicking out the neocon snakes. This energy is being redirected in a very similar cancel culture bait and switch surrounding fake antisemitism.
The enemy is not the left or the right, the enemy are the elites who constantly divide and conquer. There is reason to be optimistic but we need to keep up the pressure: fearlessly talk to each other even when we disagree, read voraciously, have a healthy and independent media diet, be self-sufficient, and engage with our local communities.
This is the worst fear of those in power: that we will unite around liberty despite our differences. That we will make them obsolete.
I agree, we do need to talk to each other and stop being divided . That is why I call my Substack Courageous Conversations.
We do have a common enemy , the parasites…they are not elite , the politicians and the corporations.
I do remember the Occupy Movement and witnessed how it was co-opted. .
As I reside in England, I am only an observer of US politics, but it is pretty similar here. There are deliberate divisions and distractions manufacturing fights and parallel protests.
You are right JC , the worse fear of those who should not be in power is that we unite.
We can do this , we can unite , as most people want peace, harmony and safety. The majority want to stop the suffering and bloodshed in Gaza ❤️🩹
There's good points in this, but it's frustrating to me because I've seen Palestinians & others make them for a long time & they largely aren't cited for doing so here - instead the reliance is on mainstream news media sources. Plus, this falls into the typical white progressive & radical pattern of routinely using language like “far Right, homophobic, patriarchal, authoritarian” & “oppressive” to describe Hamas, but not the PA or Israel (or any of the nation-states funding those entities), despite the fact that they are those things & have more power to enforce those things than Hamas. It's another manifestation of the same double standard being criticized.
I'm also just wary of claims of anything being the “only” way to proceed, even if they're the only way one may concieve of or find conscionable, as well as reliance on ableist putdowns like “psychopathic” where it's easy enough to simply describe what these profiteers do & condemn them for it. As well as using “ethnic cleansing” where the word “genocide” or something else equally strong applies just fine, & that holds for every mention of the term in this article.
Of course, I'm well aware this comment is mostly complaint & criticism, just as I'm well aware how most white people, including anarchists, leftists, progressives, & so on, have responded to similar interventions in the recent past, but that doesn't make it any less irritating or important to understand the effects of these choices when it's being reproduced by a writer with decades of political experience & a public platform far larger than most. There's also the way this fits into a broader pattern of the white “resistance” under u.s. administration seemingly retreating into focusing its energy on appealing to (gently or forcefully, but still) white progressives to move beyond their liberalism. It's like a rerun of 2017.
Damn it, thanks. I have no answer other than my anger and horror! I've taken the initiative a few times, like at a May Day demonstration, where I was happy that Palestinians were allowed to participate with flags. That was previously impossible in Germany because the cops would have come immediately. I started shouting the slogan, you know, the one that's forbidden here, "From the river, to the lake..." Then we shouted together. The Palestinians were enjoying this revolutionary moment; they wouldn't have dared to do it alone. I wanted to give them at least that, if there was so little else I could do, and the security guard came, and we shouted it in his face, and he left again. The tone changes. But of course, now people express regret and criticize the Israeli government and wash their hands of guilt. It's sickening, but we know how it is. And the left and their entire lying, hypocritical, bourgeois bubble suddenly claim to have known it all along. As if I had imagined that they not condemned any criticism of the Israeli government's crimes as anti-Semitism. Oh, what am I saying? If a fire were lit in the heart of Leviathan to destroy it, I'd be there. But I probably won't live to see that. Being on the right side feels good when you realize that Others are waking up a bit, and yet in this case, it's unbearable and feels like shit to be able to do so little. Only gather the evidence, fill the archives of horror, and help bring the truth to light. So, thank you for this text. Greetings and all the best!
Because they stood there for a long time and wouldn't have done it, because it was a union May Day demonstration and people who shout that slogan here quickly get into trouble, get thrown out of demonstrations, etc. And because they reacted to my beginning with hesitation at first and then with joy, that's why.
Are we more likely to defeat democracy and effectively pursue revolution under harris, or trump?
The smaller, but more sustained insurrections during Obama’s presidency vs the quickly contained and recuperated 2020 rebellion suggests the former. Voting takes 5 to 10 minutes every 3-6 months (if you’re doing all the locals and primaries). Is that minimal time not worth getting the more vulnerable, more defeatable politicians in place?
Harm reduction can also be capacity-building. It’s not about the lesser evil, it’s about choosing your enemy.
I've added a couple things:
This Monday, Israeli's held their annual, state-funded, police supported racist march through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem, celebrating the ethnic cleansing of 1967 when Israel seized all of Palestine, and shouting pro-genocide slogans like "death to Arabs" as they vandalize and ransack Palestinian shops.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/26/thousands-join-israeli-flag-march-through-muslim-quarter-of-old-city-in-jerusalem
And, it's important to mention the Israeli military's systemic practice of using Palestinians, including children, as human shields, forcing them to walk in front of columns of soldiers, and to open doors and tunnels that are potentially booby-trapped.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/24/world/israeli-use-human-shields-gaza-was-systematic-soldiers-former-detainees-tell-ap/
I've been catching up on the philosophical foundations of fascism and where I'm currently reading has been incredibly enlightening... Carl Schmitt wrote a bunch about the failures of liberalism and parliamentary democracy, and while Carl was an inconsistent fascist idiot, he did have some great points on those failures — other fascists realized this and picked up the gauntlet to weaken liberal democracy. The reason I mention this is that public attitude, news, and government are all corrupted by the liberal ideals of debate and inaction. "Just as the romantic avoids taking decisions, so to the liberal; faced with the question, 'Christ or Barabbas, the liberal answers with a motion to adjourn the meeting or set up an investigative committee.' " (Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, p20). There are no teeth to
back any indictment of war crimes. There is no incentive for governments to stop blowing our tax dollars on morally corrupt countries and their mass arsenals. Liberalism is about maintaining the façade above all else; it is an easily bastardized tool to maintain oppression and force people into a lose-lose-lose situation (continue in the same direction, fully complicit; try to work within an inherently unresponsive and broken system; or be labeled a terrorist for standing with full force against a given disaster). Not only Americans, but especially Americans, are mired in the intentionally disabling liberal rhetoric that we must play by the rules and essentially Be Perfectly Presentable — able at any moment to win some fanciful polite debate of morality — all while the machine grinds on and on and on and on.
Suffragettes fire bombed buildings to get the right to vote. Entire wars were waged to cripple American slavery (not for the pro-black reasons of human dignity and basic autonomy, but it worked!). There are LOTS of other excellent examples of this that my memory fails to recall in this moment. But my point is that fascism does not play by the rules. It breaks and rewrites them. So, too, must people aggressively change their perception of what force is necessary and justifiable to resist. Do not accept the narrative that respectability politics is the highest law of any land. Oppressors do not respect us no matter what we do or who we are. Don't let them direct your internal narrative.
Your foot note on the Aus government is interesting. It was an Aus general, Jim Molan who commanded in the battle of Fallujah in which many of the exact same war crimes the IDF are committing have a precedence, down to defecating in peoples bathtubs, offfices etc. Nicknamed the butcher of Fallujah he never the less went on to a career in the senate and was widely honored by the left and right sides of politics when he died. He cut off Fallujah from food and water and power and bombed the trapped civilians, used depleted uranium, white phosphorus and snipped the hospital. A real piece of shit.
In settler colonial countries and colonising countries I think we have to admit there is no official pathway out of the "Western white supremacist, colonial/capitalist patriarchy. Social revolution is the only solution". (Malcolm X) The institutions of these states and the states themselves are the enemies of freedom.
The only difference between the current genocide and all the others in history is that this one is live streamed.
About progressives, case in point: in a column last year Heather Cox Richardson refused to label what is happening in Gaza as genocide because it hadn't yet been "legally defined" as such.
I’ll cut to the chase: “justified”. It may be justified to people with calculators, but is it just?
My father, who lost his father to the Nazis, was opposed to the execution of Adolph Eichmann simply because he was opposed to killing of any kind.
Many disagree with this, a fact that I can’t change but will never accede to.
I think your stance is valid. People shouldn't have to use or support methods they're strongly opposed to, as long as they're not using it as a pass to dip a toe in low-risk, symbolic resistance and not find ways to actually stop the situation.
I also feel there is a huuuuuge ethical difference between executing a prisoner who is already disarmed, years after the genocide has ended, and sacrificing one's own life and freedom to attack an *ongoing* genocide.
I plan on getting more into this difference in my "Death Ethics" series (here in future newsletters).
There’s one kind of killing which anyone this side of Gandhi would allow, and that’s active self defense, self defense to prevent an ongoing event. In that sense, the killing of active participants in a crime, and the Gaza genocide is surely that, are fair game, because their elimination may prevent the murder of innocents.
But there’s a lot of ambiguity there, and it certainly hasn’t saved a single Gazan life.
I look forward to reading more of your work.
This is all heartbreaking, thank you for your courage to expose the hypocrisy.
The “ majority “ are turning away, this is so sad and shameful as who knows who will be next …
No they aren't. You just don't hear about the opposition because the media, government, academia, and corporations are all in the club.
Even among Republicans, a majority under age 50 now oppose Israel. Numbers are far higher among Democrats.
On the Ukraine War the same is true but with the numbers flipped by party.
We are on the verge of realizing the threat is not from Russia, China, Hamas, or any external force. Our leaders are the threat. Grassroots left and right are talking to each other.
This is why the propaganda and censorship is ratcheting up. They know we know. We know they know we know.
Thank you JC for your encouraging response, that is so good to hear.
I made my comment on a day when my heart was really aching over Gaza ❤️🩹
It is my belief that Gaza is exposing the brutality of “Empire and Colonialism” and it is changing the world for the better.
We really need to talk to each other, something our leaders have heavily discouraged. I'm on the right, but I want the left to be on their game.
The enemy is consolidation, and it comes from both government and corporations. If the left is co-opted and screaming about cancel culture while embracing Blackrock then we're likely to miss consolidation threats from the corporate world. Likewise, if the right is co-opted and screaming about immigrants who write op-eds then we're likely to miss consolidation threats from the government.
Remember Occupy Wall Street? The Seattle WTO protests? The left got a little too close to the mark there. This energy was co-opted and redirected into the dead end of intersectional cancel culture crap. Similar things are happening on the right now. We got a little too close to kicking out the neocon snakes. This energy is being redirected in a very similar cancel culture bait and switch surrounding fake antisemitism.
The enemy is not the left or the right, the enemy are the elites who constantly divide and conquer. There is reason to be optimistic but we need to keep up the pressure: fearlessly talk to each other even when we disagree, read voraciously, have a healthy and independent media diet, be self-sufficient, and engage with our local communities.
This is the worst fear of those in power: that we will unite around liberty despite our differences. That we will make them obsolete.
I agree, we do need to talk to each other and stop being divided . That is why I call my Substack Courageous Conversations.
We do have a common enemy , the parasites…they are not elite , the politicians and the corporations.
I do remember the Occupy Movement and witnessed how it was co-opted. .
As I reside in England, I am only an observer of US politics, but it is pretty similar here. There are deliberate divisions and distractions manufacturing fights and parallel protests.
You are right JC , the worse fear of those who should not be in power is that we unite.
We can do this , we can unite , as most people want peace, harmony and safety. The majority want to stop the suffering and bloodshed in Gaza ❤️🩹
There's good points in this, but it's frustrating to me because I've seen Palestinians & others make them for a long time & they largely aren't cited for doing so here - instead the reliance is on mainstream news media sources. Plus, this falls into the typical white progressive & radical pattern of routinely using language like “far Right, homophobic, patriarchal, authoritarian” & “oppressive” to describe Hamas, but not the PA or Israel (or any of the nation-states funding those entities), despite the fact that they are those things & have more power to enforce those things than Hamas. It's another manifestation of the same double standard being criticized.
I'm also just wary of claims of anything being the “only” way to proceed, even if they're the only way one may concieve of or find conscionable, as well as reliance on ableist putdowns like “psychopathic” where it's easy enough to simply describe what these profiteers do & condemn them for it. As well as using “ethnic cleansing” where the word “genocide” or something else equally strong applies just fine, & that holds for every mention of the term in this article.
Of course, I'm well aware this comment is mostly complaint & criticism, just as I'm well aware how most white people, including anarchists, leftists, progressives, & so on, have responded to similar interventions in the recent past, but that doesn't make it any less irritating or important to understand the effects of these choices when it's being reproduced by a writer with decades of political experience & a public platform far larger than most. There's also the way this fits into a broader pattern of the white “resistance” under u.s. administration seemingly retreating into focusing its energy on appealing to (gently or forcefully, but still) white progressives to move beyond their liberalism. It's like a rerun of 2017.
Damn it, thanks. I have no answer other than my anger and horror! I've taken the initiative a few times, like at a May Day demonstration, where I was happy that Palestinians were allowed to participate with flags. That was previously impossible in Germany because the cops would have come immediately. I started shouting the slogan, you know, the one that's forbidden here, "From the river, to the lake..." Then we shouted together. The Palestinians were enjoying this revolutionary moment; they wouldn't have dared to do it alone. I wanted to give them at least that, if there was so little else I could do, and the security guard came, and we shouted it in his face, and he left again. The tone changes. But of course, now people express regret and criticize the Israeli government and wash their hands of guilt. It's sickening, but we know how it is. And the left and their entire lying, hypocritical, bourgeois bubble suddenly claim to have known it all along. As if I had imagined that they not condemned any criticism of the Israeli government's crimes as anti-Semitism. Oh, what am I saying? If a fire were lit in the heart of Leviathan to destroy it, I'd be there. But I probably won't live to see that. Being on the right side feels good when you realize that Others are waking up a bit, and yet in this case, it's unbearable and feels like shit to be able to do so little. Only gather the evidence, fill the archives of horror, and help bring the truth to light. So, thank you for this text. Greetings and all the best!
“The Palestinians were enjoying this revolutionary moment; they wouldn't have dared to do it alone.” How do you know this?
Because they stood there for a long time and wouldn't have done it, because it was a union May Day demonstration and people who shout that slogan here quickly get into trouble, get thrown out of demonstrations, etc. And because they reacted to my beginning with hesitation at first and then with joy, that's why.
I agree with all this, but I do wonder:
Are we more likely to defeat democracy and effectively pursue revolution under harris, or trump?
The smaller, but more sustained insurrections during Obama’s presidency vs the quickly contained and recuperated 2020 rebellion suggests the former. Voting takes 5 to 10 minutes every 3-6 months (if you’re doing all the locals and primaries). Is that minimal time not worth getting the more vulnerable, more defeatable politicians in place?
Harm reduction can also be capacity-building. It’s not about the lesser evil, it’s about choosing your enemy.