You are so right. Stop working, stop feeding the killing machine, I also said it in a post, but we have to be many, not one, not two. Are we capable of waking up and unite? I don't know, I doubt it.
The propaganda and apathy in the West is imo opinion far too strong. The psychops and the destruction of education have really made societies unable to resist anything, which includes of course the exploitation of their ownselves.
Starbucks says the boycott is affecting its bottom line, but it’s really the biggies, Chevron, Google, meta, Apple, Microsoft, Palantir, Boeing, GM that must bite the dust.
"They actually seem to promote performative activism which yields no results. Now you're aware of it, check your algorithms, and see the pattern." -- Good point. Notice how Palestine Action consistently gets maybe 1 or 1,5K likes. No more.
Yes but people painting Palestine flags on canvas or some other artistic expression like painting Palestinian heros whilst blindfolded - is beautiful but ultimately doesn't stop genocide. Hundreds of thousands of views.
I cannot even remember the amount of times I have been replying on X to all these performative posts that flag-waving and marches have made things WORSE. And that we need to evolve.
This is well written, it’s got a lot of verve and heart (macerated heart, obviously and understandably).
But if posting on the most-used internet media were irrelevant, the Israeli government wouldn’t be spending hundreds of millions on it. Protect your heart behind 6-inch-plated cynicism, and the PR war still matters. (Though lots of those millions are going to influence TV, a medium we are priced out of - “wealthy leftists” isn’t an oxymoron empirically, but the rarity of exceptions does tend to prove the rule.)
And BDS/striking(work stoppage) is great, but like war tax resistance, won’t do anything unless it’s organized and with critical mass. Westerners, ingrained in individualism and freedum, need some help understanding that only by joining a larger group and following orders can they make any real impact. (Another objective for the PR war.)
What organizations can people in NATOland join to leverage their otherwise inconsequential individual power into something impactful?
No I don't think posting is irrelevant: a lot of awareness has been raised etc, though bans are typically around actual evidential footage coming out of Gaza and links to Zionism rather than activism. I believe Pal Action - whose work actually does cause real change - are always getting loads of their accounts and posts taken down. If you see now, most of them are not of their actions anymore but more informative in general of what's going on and upcoming court cases etc. Which aligns with what I was saying about consequence-bases activism (activism with a consequence/result)
My point was that the posts that do get traction and left on these platforms precisely because in relation to genocide itself, the action does nothing - it's meaningless. Such as people doing amazing artworks blindfolded of the palestinian map or flag or Khaled Nabhan etc. Beautiful and arguably may have some benefit for the soul - showing solidarity and love - but ultimately they are irrelevant in stopping genocide and have no practical benefit at all. The more of these videos we watch, the less time we have to watch other videos, or to gain more knowledge of what is happening.
Your pain is palpable, Aya. I am so sorry on behalf of my government and honestly most people I know for not doing enough (some are even still in denial). I cry on a regular basis for the people of Palestine and I know it doesn’t help but please know that there are those of us out there.
Hmmmm…so, you made me feel pleased with myself because I have been thinking like this for a while now. I mean, the idea of focusing on one individual. However, the more I read the more I realised I was being read the riot act! I confess that I feel helpless - I have boycotted the ultra apartheid state for years when the consensus was to just boycott settlement goods; a silly splitting hair exercise. As you say we will have to harness our collective approach and efforts.
You sound like someone who worked it out way before us all. Kudos!
The whole thing is designed to make us feel helpless. Hence the promotion of performative acts and the suppression of acts of consequence by social media algorithms. Of course placards calling for the release of Dr Hussam would do nothing, but people felt good about their Instagram posts with them. The last news I saw was that they'd confirmed torturing and beating him and then moving him to another place which predictably they said, 'we moved him but we don't know where he is.' How can that not make someone feel helpless and hopeless when they thought holding a placard would work? Dr Hussam is being treated like every person the IDF get their hands on and the IDF will do anything the most depraved human mind can think of as a matter of routine. They've done it for 77 years.
As a species and as the human race, we need to start growing up because do not act as grown ups. We aren't to blame for it because we have been infantilised so much. But we are to blame if now we know, we don't start working out how to act like adults.
When I say infantilised, I really do mean it. For example, '360 reviews' at work are time consuming BS which is like getting a report card at school. 'Working hours' where you must be in the office or 'at work' even though you've finished the work, is the same. Like putting grown adults in school and monitoring them to make sure they don't go out too long at play time. Work should be about the work you're contracted to do and you doing that work, not about being bound for a certain amount of time each and every day when you have literally no work to do in that time. It's being treated like a child.
Pantomimes designed to get adult laughs are still children's events but catered a little bit to an older audience. It doesn't take away they are children's events.
Cartoons - typically for children. Now directed at adults.
Even entertainment. There are ball pits for adults. Crazy golf for adults.
Everything that was designed for children has been redesigned for adults by making it a little more crude and offering alcohol at intervals. Humans in the West - in this period of time - never psychologically grow to be adults.
Milestones for adulthood - a stable home, marriage etc - are impossible to achieve. Gig economies and the price of land. Sex has lost any meaning within marriage and is now largely just a bodily act devoid of an emotion. It's so pointless in fact they create 'toys' to help with the act. And yes, the word 'toy' is completely intentional as toys are for kids.
The majority of people are emotive and reactive and not reflective. They never see the long term and always look at the short. It means that our newspapers are constantly peddling hate of anyone for the slightest slip or misstep. Careers and reputations lost because of the childishness of the populations they're part of.
The only actions most Americans can take is to boycott corporations which invest in Israel and to refuse to support politicians who support Israel, with the ultimate goal of eliminating all American aid to the genocidal apartheid state. Once that's done, the Great Mistake of 1948 will correct itself.
In the end, that is both the least we can do, and the most effective thing we can do. It's also something the Zionists cannot stop once it gets going.
The 2nd amendment was written at a time when guns were a necessary part of existence for people. Firearms had a practical purpose for hunting and so everyone knew how to use them. Not the case today. Hollywood and video games have changed all of that. Now they are seen as mere toys to be played with, not as deadly weapons.
The 2nd amendment also calls for a "well regulated militia" - a citizen army which doesn't exist now. Given the division of the country enacting the 2nd would result in a chaotic bloody civil war without a united goal. The US is divided neatly in half. The elite who created this will retreat to their bunkers and watch the chaos ensue. With the blanket surveillance we are under it's highly doubtful that any organization could take place. It would be quelled before it began. There has never been a time in history like this one due to technology and the surveillance system we are under. Civil liberties have been slowly eroded in the name of safety.
America for the last 40 years has been voting for the "lessar of two evils" and led down the path to where we now are believing it is their "duty" to vote. Evil is evil. There is no lessar. The protests and resistance should have started long ago. It has been a carefully orchestrated plan and Americans have been suckered into it.
A national boycott on consumer goods would be a start to reverse the situation, but Americans refuse to do it. Americans are too addicted to their comforts of material goods and programmed into believing they need them. While "Plan for the future" was once the saying, it's now "Live for the moment". Individually, start now and encourage others to do the same. The result is twofold - hitting the elite where it hurts, saving money and lowering your debt and contributing positively towards slowing climate change and ecocide.
The denial of the arrest or captivity of the Dr is exactly the same as the "Nacht und Nebal" (Night and Fog) program that the Nazis used in WW2 for Aryans who resisted the Reich. It was designed to make them disappear into thin air without the family knowing what happened to them. The treatment was worse than the death camps.
Is it strange that the Israeli government is using it? Not at all. Israel is a continuation of the Nazis. And so is the US for that matter by its actions. Americans are now incapable of seeing the most outrageous of lies- to their demise. Complacent in the belief that the government will take care of them when it's the government who is destroying them is true insanity.
America has become a spreading cancer infecting the world. Climate change and ecocide, the result of capitalism , consumerism and overpopulation are being completely ignored and require immediate action. Difficult times are ahead for all.
I get your frustration but Activism comes in many forms. I don't spend money as I have none so BDS for me is useless. All that this old man can do is make a nuisance of himself with bombarding M.P.'s and others with influence with letters. Too many of you who complain about your political representatives have never contacted them directly.
To do something practical we need Proportional Representation to give us a voice, this two party system is not democracy. Without fixing our democracy, we cannot get the change we desperately need. Open Britain is a grassroots movement, hundreds of thousands strong, fighting to make democracy work for everyone.
Activism isn't a problem. Even low scale activism is welcomed. Activism which causes harm but people do it anyway because it's performative, is not. Activism which is purely performative and this distracts others from consequential activism (activism that has consequences aka results) is also not activism, however anyone wants to label it.
All of your actions that you have described are positive activism .
Ps I actually ran for Parliament so very much 'put my money where my mouth is.' You will also see some of the letters sent to MPs on my substack. :)
You are so right. Stop working, stop feeding the killing machine, I also said it in a post, but we have to be many, not one, not two. Are we capable of waking up and unite? I don't know, I doubt it.
The propaganda and apathy in the West is imo opinion far too strong. The psychops and the destruction of education have really made societies unable to resist anything, which includes of course the exploitation of their ownselves.
Starbucks says the boycott is affecting its bottom line, but it’s really the biggies, Chevron, Google, meta, Apple, Microsoft, Palantir, Boeing, GM that must bite the dust.
Yes, I said this about a year ago too. Disrupt everything: https://ayauk.substack.com/p/disrupt-everything
"They actually seem to promote performative activism which yields no results. Now you're aware of it, check your algorithms, and see the pattern." -- Good point. Notice how Palestine Action consistently gets maybe 1 or 1,5K likes. No more.
These people actually do something.
Yes but people painting Palestine flags on canvas or some other artistic expression like painting Palestinian heros whilst blindfolded - is beautiful but ultimately doesn't stop genocide. Hundreds of thousands of views.
I cannot even remember the amount of times I have been replying on X to all these performative posts that flag-waving and marches have made things WORSE. And that we need to evolve.
Awesome post, Aya. Tremendous.
This is well written, it’s got a lot of verve and heart (macerated heart, obviously and understandably).
But if posting on the most-used internet media were irrelevant, the Israeli government wouldn’t be spending hundreds of millions on it. Protect your heart behind 6-inch-plated cynicism, and the PR war still matters. (Though lots of those millions are going to influence TV, a medium we are priced out of - “wealthy leftists” isn’t an oxymoron empirically, but the rarity of exceptions does tend to prove the rule.)
And BDS/striking(work stoppage) is great, but like war tax resistance, won’t do anything unless it’s organized and with critical mass. Westerners, ingrained in individualism and freedum, need some help understanding that only by joining a larger group and following orders can they make any real impact. (Another objective for the PR war.)
What organizations can people in NATOland join to leverage their otherwise inconsequential individual power into something impactful?
Hi Joe,
No I don't think posting is irrelevant: a lot of awareness has been raised etc, though bans are typically around actual evidential footage coming out of Gaza and links to Zionism rather than activism. I believe Pal Action - whose work actually does cause real change - are always getting loads of their accounts and posts taken down. If you see now, most of them are not of their actions anymore but more informative in general of what's going on and upcoming court cases etc. Which aligns with what I was saying about consequence-bases activism (activism with a consequence/result)
My point was that the posts that do get traction and left on these platforms precisely because in relation to genocide itself, the action does nothing - it's meaningless. Such as people doing amazing artworks blindfolded of the palestinian map or flag or Khaled Nabhan etc. Beautiful and arguably may have some benefit for the soul - showing solidarity and love - but ultimately they are irrelevant in stopping genocide and have no practical benefit at all. The more of these videos we watch, the less time we have to watch other videos, or to gain more knowledge of what is happening.
And that's why those videos are promoted.
Your pain is palpable, Aya. I am so sorry on behalf of my government and honestly most people I know for not doing enough (some are even still in denial). I cry on a regular basis for the people of Palestine and I know it doesn’t help but please know that there are those of us out there.
Thank you for this 🙏🏼
Hmmmm…so, you made me feel pleased with myself because I have been thinking like this for a while now. I mean, the idea of focusing on one individual. However, the more I read the more I realised I was being read the riot act! I confess that I feel helpless - I have boycotted the ultra apartheid state for years when the consensus was to just boycott settlement goods; a silly splitting hair exercise. As you say we will have to harness our collective approach and efforts.
You sound like someone who worked it out way before us all. Kudos!
The whole thing is designed to make us feel helpless. Hence the promotion of performative acts and the suppression of acts of consequence by social media algorithms. Of course placards calling for the release of Dr Hussam would do nothing, but people felt good about their Instagram posts with them. The last news I saw was that they'd confirmed torturing and beating him and then moving him to another place which predictably they said, 'we moved him but we don't know where he is.' How can that not make someone feel helpless and hopeless when they thought holding a placard would work? Dr Hussam is being treated like every person the IDF get their hands on and the IDF will do anything the most depraved human mind can think of as a matter of routine. They've done it for 77 years.
As a species and as the human race, we need to start growing up because do not act as grown ups. We aren't to blame for it because we have been infantilised so much. But we are to blame if now we know, we don't start working out how to act like adults.
When I say infantilised, I really do mean it. For example, '360 reviews' at work are time consuming BS which is like getting a report card at school. 'Working hours' where you must be in the office or 'at work' even though you've finished the work, is the same. Like putting grown adults in school and monitoring them to make sure they don't go out too long at play time. Work should be about the work you're contracted to do and you doing that work, not about being bound for a certain amount of time each and every day when you have literally no work to do in that time. It's being treated like a child.
Pantomimes designed to get adult laughs are still children's events but catered a little bit to an older audience. It doesn't take away they are children's events.
Cartoons - typically for children. Now directed at adults.
Even entertainment. There are ball pits for adults. Crazy golf for adults.
Everything that was designed for children has been redesigned for adults by making it a little more crude and offering alcohol at intervals. Humans in the West - in this period of time - never psychologically grow to be adults.
Milestones for adulthood - a stable home, marriage etc - are impossible to achieve. Gig economies and the price of land. Sex has lost any meaning within marriage and is now largely just a bodily act devoid of an emotion. It's so pointless in fact they create 'toys' to help with the act. And yes, the word 'toy' is completely intentional as toys are for kids.
The majority of people are emotive and reactive and not reflective. They never see the long term and always look at the short. It means that our newspapers are constantly peddling hate of anyone for the slightest slip or misstep. Careers and reputations lost because of the childishness of the populations they're part of.
When you see it, you can't unsee it.
We need to grow up and be adults. We really do.
Excellent article Aya.
As an old man with little in the way of resources I try to do what I can.
I’ve been boycotting products from Israel and the occupied territories for over fifty years and have been writing to my MPs and other representatives.
Were I forty years younger I would be destroying Elbit Systems factories.
We need concerted action coordinated across every country in the world.
We need to totally isolate this criminal regime and bring it down.
As individuals we can irritate but united we can have the effect of a cloud of midges and drive these gangsters into obscurity.
The only actions most Americans can take is to boycott corporations which invest in Israel and to refuse to support politicians who support Israel, with the ultimate goal of eliminating all American aid to the genocidal apartheid state. Once that's done, the Great Mistake of 1948 will correct itself.
In the end, that is both the least we can do, and the most effective thing we can do. It's also something the Zionists cannot stop once it gets going.
Come on! You guys literally have the second amendment which was made to deal with interference like AIPAC.
Are we at the torches and pitchforks stage yet? 😈 Because we really need to start defending ourselves!
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_|_( )_|_
Great article as usual!
The 2nd amendment was written at a time when guns were a necessary part of existence for people. Firearms had a practical purpose for hunting and so everyone knew how to use them. Not the case today. Hollywood and video games have changed all of that. Now they are seen as mere toys to be played with, not as deadly weapons.
The 2nd amendment also calls for a "well regulated militia" - a citizen army which doesn't exist now. Given the division of the country enacting the 2nd would result in a chaotic bloody civil war without a united goal. The US is divided neatly in half. The elite who created this will retreat to their bunkers and watch the chaos ensue. With the blanket surveillance we are under it's highly doubtful that any organization could take place. It would be quelled before it began. There has never been a time in history like this one due to technology and the surveillance system we are under. Civil liberties have been slowly eroded in the name of safety.
America for the last 40 years has been voting for the "lessar of two evils" and led down the path to where we now are believing it is their "duty" to vote. Evil is evil. There is no lessar. The protests and resistance should have started long ago. It has been a carefully orchestrated plan and Americans have been suckered into it.
A national boycott on consumer goods would be a start to reverse the situation, but Americans refuse to do it. Americans are too addicted to their comforts of material goods and programmed into believing they need them. While "Plan for the future" was once the saying, it's now "Live for the moment". Individually, start now and encourage others to do the same. The result is twofold - hitting the elite where it hurts, saving money and lowering your debt and contributing positively towards slowing climate change and ecocide.
The denial of the arrest or captivity of the Dr is exactly the same as the "Nacht und Nebal" (Night and Fog) program that the Nazis used in WW2 for Aryans who resisted the Reich. It was designed to make them disappear into thin air without the family knowing what happened to them. The treatment was worse than the death camps.
Is it strange that the Israeli government is using it? Not at all. Israel is a continuation of the Nazis. And so is the US for that matter by its actions. Americans are now incapable of seeing the most outrageous of lies- to their demise. Complacent in the belief that the government will take care of them when it's the government who is destroying them is true insanity.
America has become a spreading cancer infecting the world. Climate change and ecocide, the result of capitalism , consumerism and overpopulation are being completely ignored and require immediate action. Difficult times are ahead for all.
I get your frustration but Activism comes in many forms. I don't spend money as I have none so BDS for me is useless. All that this old man can do is make a nuisance of himself with bombarding M.P.'s and others with influence with letters. Too many of you who complain about your political representatives have never contacted them directly.
To do something practical we need Proportional Representation to give us a voice, this two party system is not democracy. Without fixing our democracy, we cannot get the change we desperately need. Open Britain is a grassroots movement, hundreds of thousands strong, fighting to make democracy work for everyone.
https://open-britain.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Democracy-Goals-1-1.pdf
Activism isn't a problem. Even low scale activism is welcomed. Activism which causes harm but people do it anyway because it's performative, is not. Activism which is purely performative and this distracts others from consequential activism (activism that has consequences aka results) is also not activism, however anyone wants to label it.
All of your actions that you have described are positive activism .
Ps I actually ran for Parliament so very much 'put my money where my mouth is.' You will also see some of the letters sent to MPs on my substack. :)