As Requested, I Have Made More Tokens!

As a leftist Jew who believes strongly in the cause of dignity and freedom for the Palestinian people, and that Israel has abused them, I am begging fellow leftists to understand that real life is not a comic book. A government being “the bad guy” in a situation does not automatically make anyone who opposes it “the good guy”.

Hamas denies the Holocaust. Hamas disseminates the Protocols of the Elders of Zion—the conspiracy theory it paints is what they mean by “Zionist”. Hamas forbids foreign aid educators from teaching human rights to Palestinians, and claims that even teaching that the Holocaust happened is a war crime. Hamas has written the aim of annihilating Israel (the country and its people) into its charter—the mass slaughter and violent expulsion of 7 million Jews from the land is written into its laws.

There is no crime any state could ever do that would justify any of that; there is no act of state repression that could ever make it acceptable to side with the organization spreading Nazi pamphlets and Holocaust denial.

Oppose Bibi Netanyahu. Oppose Israel’s far-right, authoritarian government. Oppose its apartheid policies. Oppose its violent abuse of the Palestinian people. That isn’t antisemitic. But Hamas is—verifiably, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to its core—antisemitic. Its portrayal of Israeli Jews as blood-thirsty, child-killing master manipulators that control international media and finance is antisemitic. Its insistence that Palestinian freedom necessitates the death & expulsion of Jews from the land is antisemitic. Its redefinition of “Zionism” as a pejorative to mean genocidal Jewish/Israeli Supremacy is antisemitic.

Supporting the Palestinian people in their plight is a noble and loving goal; please never stop that. But do not let Hamas co-opt that into excusing or denying their rampant antisemitism and war crimes.

Day Three - Love

“To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world.” ~ Brandi Snyder

Love is certainly one of the more... complicated emotions, one that is never the same twice. I feel privileged to have experienced love a few times in my short existence to date, I won't go into the sordid details because 1) a gentleman never kisses and tells and 2) it's none of your gorram business :p. Unfortunately (as I have learned through a lot of pain) lust can seem very similar to love at first sight and so the only way to truly find out is by riding it out and seeing where it leads.

Obviously, so far I've merely covered Eros (erotic love as defined by the greeks) and briefly mentioned Thelema (lust) however the greeks identified three other forms of love too;

Agape - which is defined as an unconditional, self sacrificing love - something that has been identified with religious experience though is also reserved for close loved ones like a partner or a child. Until recently I couldn't've said I'd experienced this, as I'm not in the slightest bit religious nor do I have any children however I admit that my feelings for my amazing girlfriend Amanda seem to have merged into this category - I would truly do anything for her (even though she can drive me crazy sometimes :P)

Philia - Brotherly love or close friendship, is again something I am blessed with - despite the fact that I am an only child, I feel a close bond with my best friends - while I cannot compare this directly with brotherly love, I can only estimate that it's roughly there... :P

Storge - is defined as familial love, something else I can certainly say I am blessed with, being part of a close knit family.

As far as I see it, love is an essential part of life in all its forms, for a start it keeps things ever changing, but also it is the glue that binds people together and has allowed us to create the great dynamic culture in which we live...

I probably rambled quite a bit there but Love is quite a hard abstract to talk about without going all tangential, though I must admit the timing is rather apt seeing as it's V day tomorrow...

Nik

iheartchaos:

In today’s really sweet and sad news story, an elderly couple in Iowa died just an hour apart, still holding each other’s hand after a head-on collision brought both of them to the emergency room. Be ready, because it’s about to get all sorts of dusty in here.

Read More

Iowa couple, married 72 years, die holding hands an hour apart. Damn all these onions in here.

Day Eleven - Being an only child

I've grown up without brothers or sisters, don't get me wrong, I would have loved to have a brother or a sister to share stuff with and to annoy and to play stupid games with, but I've always respected the decision that my parents came to.

Being an only child has been boring and somewhat lonely over the years but it has had it's advantages: it's taught me how to entertain myself and make the most of otherwise boring stretches, it's taught me to value company and friendship when it presents itself, it's taught me to be self sufficient to some extent and it's given me an unrestricted relationship with my parents - I don't have brothers or sisters to compete with for attention or praise or sweets, so I suppose to some extent it has spoiled me but due to the financial difficulties of our family, this has been tempered and I have learned to be resourceful with what I can get.

Do I regret not growing up with brothers and sisters? alittle maybe, it would be nice to have a younger sibling to look out for or an older sibling to learn from, but as things stand at the moment I wouldn't change a thing; it's made me the person I am today and given me a fantastic relationship with my parents and some solid and long lasting friendships that I wouldn't trade for all the money ever minted.

Nik.

Seeing reasonable people argue about whether or not a fetus is a person is driving me insane. It doesn't matter. it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

If you don't want to live in a world where the government can strap you down and force you to provide a life-saving organ transplant, you don't want to live in a world where the government can force you to carry a pregnancy to term. A person's right to life does not extend to using another person's body to survive.

I have accepted the lack of internal consistency from conservatives (you have to, to stay sane here), but ffs liberals, shut up about fetal personhood. Stop getting dragged into this debate! It is the wrong framing of the issue and I'm honestly terrified of what any "victory" under it would look like (like, increasing the mainstream acceptability of sentences like "they can't even x, therefore they're obviously not a person!" is chilling, no matter the original context.)

I don't have to donate my liver, I don't have to donate my blood, I don't have to donate my fucking uterus. It's that simple.

(could you imagine the "pro-life" conservatives meltdown if a state tried to institute mandatory blood donation?? I imagine they'd be saying "my body, my choice" pretty fucking quickly... Maybe we should actually do that 🤔)

Saw this and had to repost it

Neville confirmed for BAMF

Why do you even care about trans women? You're not even one of them.