other_life
bioconfused
owl behaviours
How would you feel about being set on fire?
I think it might be laziness more than anything, tbh. An easy way to look noble whilst dismissing things out of hand and never challenging yourself.
william_kent
Well-known member
not sure I ever said that! although I did bump into one of my Wing Chun brothers today who suggested I should resume "training"
You said you were in a Channel 5 documentary with your master and could do two-fingered, one-handed push-ups and hang from an open window by your penis.
william_kent
Well-known member
you're missing out the part where I did "frog jumps" down the length of the community centre and collapsed in a bloody sweaty mess in front of the camera, it was embarrassing
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
shakahislop
Well-known member
I mean in the grand scheme of things. Zoomed out. As compared to you know. Decision making in the IDF. What the Egyptian government are thinking. Who wins the US election. I'm not saying that it achieves nothing at all or is a waste of time or anything like that
sufi
lala
i think it has a disproportionate big effect, certainly compared to demos in yurp or the mid-east,
on the discourse and ultimately opinions in the us which are very important in the war
sufi
lala
the idf and the egyptian govt as well as hamas and all the other actors are trapped in their roles without space for maneuver
whereas the opposition to the war seems to have more potential for unexpeccted moves and forcing/changing events,
i dunno maybe i'm being overly optimistic
dilbert1
Well-known member
@other_life I hear you. The combination of haughty moral blackmail and political incoherence brings out some saltiness, sure, but I don’t point out uncomfortable or taboo realities to be cruel for cruelty’s sake. Even I winced a bit at the palpable disgust shown by my teacher, but both our reactions are informed by a sincere commitment to understanding (and the dream of potentially reconstituting) the project of freedom historically represented by the Left, and moreover, serious thought about its more recent and contemporary manifestations. When ideas, tendencies, slogans etc. which may have already been flawed or only half thought through in their own time, are then unreflectively or unconsciously repeated in a degenerated form and in new, nearly incomparable contexts, still holding undue sway for decades and decades, manifesting first as tragedy, then again as farce, then yet again as an interminable simulacrum of farce, some clearing of the overgrown ideological brush is in order, which includes (but is obviously not limited to) criticism of the supposed sanctity and irreproachability of the Left’s professed positions, criticism which is liable to be offhanded, merciless, “ruthless,” as has been asserted by the best of such critics in the past.
However right it is that these protestors exercise their freedom to assemble and voice their opposition to the policy of their own government, however justified their reaction to full-scale genocide is in moral terms, no matter how urgent they insist the duty to act is, we should not accept any of this as an invitation to stop thinking. My “bigoted” friend’s seemingly flippant and very jaded comment comes from the fact that the living connection she has with Palestine, with the reality of the situation there, puts in very stark relief the activism and discourse of the Western pro-Palestine protestors. And while its certainly true that America and other affluent Western nations are the center of the (capitalist) world, its the savior-complex, main-character-syndrome, cheap self-flattery that really sets her off. She wants no part in either their or Israel’s guilt-trips, and sees leftists’ absolute refusal to confront the fact that there’s nothing they can do to rescue the Palestinians as cowardly and self-absorbed.
The hopeless intransigence, empty phrase-mongering and narrow fixation on taking the “right” side, the side of the good and the true, do recall some of Lenin’s criticisms of the Dutch and German ultraleft of his day in his “Left-Wing” Communism, an Infantile Disorder, which was our most recent reading:
And, as Lenin quotes Engels in the same text,
However right it is that these protestors exercise their freedom to assemble and voice their opposition to the policy of their own government, however justified their reaction to full-scale genocide is in moral terms, no matter how urgent they insist the duty to act is, we should not accept any of this as an invitation to stop thinking. My “bigoted” friend’s seemingly flippant and very jaded comment comes from the fact that the living connection she has with Palestine, with the reality of the situation there, puts in very stark relief the activism and discourse of the Western pro-Palestine protestors. And while its certainly true that America and other affluent Western nations are the center of the (capitalist) world, its the savior-complex, main-character-syndrome, cheap self-flattery that really sets her off. She wants no part in either their or Israel’s guilt-trips, and sees leftists’ absolute refusal to confront the fact that there’s nothing they can do to rescue the Palestinians as cowardly and self-absorbed.
The hopeless intransigence, empty phrase-mongering and narrow fixation on taking the “right” side, the side of the good and the true, do recall some of Lenin’s criticisms of the Dutch and German ultraleft of his day in his “Left-Wing” Communism, an Infantile Disorder, which was our most recent reading:
And, as Lenin quotes Engels in the same text,
sufi
lala
i mean more important than israeli public opinion maybe even, israeli opinion is not gonna shift unless something else big changes, whereas US opinion especially in NY is crucial?
other_life
bioconfused
i didnt know the person in question was a friend, apologies. was being needlessly guarded
other_life
bioconfused
spitball - i think ~the movement~ is still thinking in terms of colonialism and not yet neocolonialism. vis a vis national liberation
sufi
lala
this sort of apartheid is like ultracolonialism
talking about genocide is so clinical and dictionary, "race war" is better terminology; escalating daily race war atrocities is not a sustainable programme
dilbert1
Well-known member
To be fair, calling someone deceased a “f*ggot” is extremely distasteful and has as much to do with her edge-lord temperament as her real frustration. And she’s actually my ex lol, definitely not the most civil person to be on the bad side of!