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In all, at least 100 people set themselves on fire in the US and Vietnam to protest the war. After a long history on multiple continents as a tool of protest against religious persecution—the precedent on which Quảng Đức was drawing—these self-immolations cemented a new association in American culture between the tactic and anti-war activism. In February 1991, during the first US war in Iraq, Gregory Levey doused himself in paint thinner and perished in a fireball in a park in Amherst, Massachusetts, leaving behind a small cardboard sign that read, simply, “peace.” Malachi Ritscher, an experimental musician in Chicago, set himself on fire on the side of the Kennedy expressway during the morning rush hour one Friday in November 2006, after posting a long statement on his website explaining that he felt there was no other way for him to escape complicity with the “barbaric war” the US was then waging. He had been arrested at two previous anti-war protests. Scholars often associate the rise of political self-immolation in the 1960s with the rise of television: a spectacular form of protest for the society of the spectacle. But of course there are less painful ways for protestors to attract eyeballs. The reality is that self-immolation registers the near-total impotence of protest—and even public opinion as such—in the face of a military apparatus completely insulated from external accountability. It the rawest testament to the absence of effective courses of action. When war consists primarily of unelected men in undisclosed locations pouring fire on the heads of people we will never know on the other side of the world, there is very little that ordinary people can do to arrest its progress. But we still have our bodies, and it is in the nature of fire to refuse containment. To ask whether self-immolation is good or bad, justifiable or non-justifiable, effective or ineffective is in large part to miss the point, which is that it is an option, whether anyone else likes it or not. It illuminates our powerlessness in negative space, but it also affirms the irreducible core of our freedom, that small flame of agency that no repression can extinguish. Since Aaron Bushnell’s death by self-immolation this week in protest of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, his detractors have warned about the risk of “contagion,” suggesting that his protest will encourage imitators (who, they imply, share his alleged mental instability). There may or may not be additional self-immolators before the slaughter comes to an end, just as Bushnell was preceded by a woman, yet to be identified publicly, who burned herself outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta in December. But the purpose of lighting yourself on fire is not to encourage other people to light themselves on fire. It is to scream to the world that you could find no alternative, and in that respect it is a challenge to the rest of us to prove with our own freedom that there are other ways to meaningfully resist a society whose cruelty has become intolerable.

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“The killing of women and children is horrific—but in the reiteration of these disturbing facts there is something missing: the public mourning of Palestinian men killed by Israel’s war machine. In 1990 Cynthia Enloe coined the term “womenandchildren” in order to think about the operationalization of gendered discourses to justify the first Gulf War. Today, we should be aware of how the trope of “womenandchildren” is circulating in relation to Gaza and to Palestine more broadly. This trope accomplishes many discursive feats, two of which are most prominent: The massifying of women and children into an undistinguishable group brought together by the “sameness” of gender and sex, and the reproduction of the male Palestinian body (and the male Arab body more generally) as always already dangerous. Thus the status of male Palestinians (a designation that includes boys aged fifteen and up, and sometimes boys as young as thirteen) as “civilians” is always circumspect. This gendering of Israel’s war on Gaza is conversant with discourses of the War on Terror and, as Laleh Khalili has argued persuasively, counter-insurgency strategy and war-making more broadly. In this framework, the killing of women and girls and pre-teen and under boys is to be marked, but boys and men are presumed guilty of what they might do if allowed to live their lives. Furthermore, these boys and men are potentially dangerous not only to the militaries that occupy them, but to those womenandchildren who actually are civilians. The young boys, after all, may grow up to be violent extremists. Thus, kill the flesh—extinguish the potential. […] The Israeli war machine, much like the US war machine in Afghanistan or Iraq, does not protect Palestinian queers and women and children. It kills them, maims them, and dispossesses them alongside their loved ones—for the simple reason that they are Palestinian, and thus able to be killed with impunity while the world watches. Today, the difference between Palestinian womenandchildren and Palestinian men is not in the production of corpses, but rather in the circulation of those corpses within dominant and mainstream discursive frames that determine who can be publicly mourned as true “victims” of Israel’s war machine. Thus the sheer number of womenandchildren dead are enough to mobilize the US president and the UN to make statements “condemning” the violence—but the killing, imprisonment, and maiming of Palestinian men and boys in times of war and ceasefire goes uncited. In Israel men, settlers, and even soldiers are framed as victims of Palestinian terrorism and aggression. All are publicly mourned. In an almost direct reversal, while Palestinian boys and men have been the primary target of Israel, as evidenced by the population of political prisoners and targeted assassinations, are not seen by western based mainstream media as victims of Israeli terrorism and aggression. Palestinians are put in the self-defeating position of having to fight to be recognized as human, to be recognized in death and in life as victims of Israeli policies and actions.”

— Maya Mikdashi, Can Palestinian Men be Victims? Gendering Israel’s War on Gaza (via globalwarmist)

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Happy (belated) Kurotsuki day!!🌕🐈‍⬛ 1.11

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genuinely one of the worst things that’s happened to television in the last few years (exacerbated by streaming services) is death of Filler. going from 20 episodes to 8 because “we didn’t really need that episode where the main characters went to the beach right? it had no long lasting effect” but we DID!!! we needed to see how they act without the Big Bad Plot and to establish the dynamics between the characters and lay in the sun (do they forget sunscreen? how do they react to a thieving seagull? do they get buried in the sand or do they do the burying?). the plot isn’t everything. the action doesn’t hit as hard without the quiet moments. give us character development and our little scenes back

#succession beach episode when

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the flour massacre is ongoing. it is everyday. it was not an isolated event. it was not even the first time israel shot at and killed palestinians going for aid (they do it whenever they allow aid through). in fact, they did the exact same thing yesterday morning. just because smaller-scale murders go under the radar for lack of shock factor doesn’t mean they’re not happening continuously.

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The US, on 29 February, vetoed a UN Security Council (UNSC) statement that would have condemned Israel for the mass murder of over 100 Palestinian civilians who were awaiting the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza City. “We don’t have all the facts on the ground – that’s the problem,” US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told reporters on Thursday. He then claimed there are “contradictory reports” about the Israeli army's latest massacre and highlighted that Washington was focused on finding “some language that everyone can agree on.” Thursday's veto is the fifth time Washington has blocked a UNSC statement or ceasefire resolution that would hold Israel accountable for the atrocities it has committed in Gaza.

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This is not a natural disaster. This was not inevitable. They didn't grow up like this. It was inflicted on them by the vilest sadists on earth.

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why are there coloring books on audible???

#🍒 — miri's version

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i think i will be moving blogs, making this one my main and making sideblogs for diff fandoms, thoughts??

#🍒 — miri's version #like i dont wanna delete the fics that i have here but qhat should i do 🥹

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@sippybae

Rindou fans are eating good today!

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+ bonus:

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"B-but Palestinians can get their freedom with peace not violence 🥺🥺" no. Screw your feelings. The armed resistance against colonizers and murderers is what will give Palestinians their freedom and what will eventually achieve real peace.

An enemy that bombs and uses white phosphorus against civilians doesn't know nor practice what your broken moral compass describes as "peace". Freedom was proven throughout history not to be achieved through kneeling and asking the oppressor to kindly stop. Freedom needs to be taken by force. Your little Utopian way of thinking doesn't work in the real world. Your feelings don't matter because you're not the one living under occupation. Your feelings don't matter because you're not one of the thousands of children who lost their limbs. You're not one of the children who became orphans due to this genocide. You're not the mother who lost her child to the carpet bombing. You're not the father carrying the remains of your child in plastic bags. You're not the newlywed woman who lost her husband. You're not the one at risk of either getting killed any second or losing your loved ones in the blink of an eye!

"Peace" is not really a thing you see during a live ethnic cleansing!