I am feeling very angry and frustrated in this land of turboliberals and bet there are folks here who can relate. I also feel so alone and alienated with this in my real life. If no Hexbear, I would have snapped by now (this is the same feeling that is there with covid & libs versus covid in reality, but Gaza is what seems to be breaking me).
The issue I have is with the local libs, including family (partner and kid excluded) and withessing the disregard and apathy, willfull ignorance and downright denial of what is going on.
I am in the same group chats with these people. In the last days I’ve posted a few links to the chat about the flotilla, because I refuse to let them be completely comfortable in ignoring what is happening.
What they do is completely ignore the post. No comment, no reaction, no discussion. Ever. They just pick right up after it to post about a hobby or a new treat they bought or whatever, like the thing isn’t even there. They also never discuss Palestine at all when I see them.
This is very different from the way things used to be in this country. This has changed with covid and the ukrainazi & nato stuff where people have become a lot more divided. But now there is just this silence. People talk only about the most mundane shit and endless treats and it’s driving me up the wall.
This same goes on in Mastodon where my bubble is very local, this is a small ass country. There are maybe two people like me who post about Palestine, but the rest is just focused on whatever hobby, work thing, everyday thing or maybe occasional lib thing they are into. But never Palestine. The last two days have been just endless biking or foss posts or whatever from them and I have again also seen the whiny posts about posting about the genocide without a cw, because these people don’t want these bad news to pollute their vibes. And I get why a cw is useful, but these are calls for it just so very comfy middle class turbolibs don’t have to feel bad that they are at brunch and can’t be arsed to even voice support for Palestine in public.
I want to rage at these people. I want to snap. I want to stand up on a table and yell at them to ask them what the fuck is wrong with you?! You have kids. You claim to be on the side of the oppressed. You have this veneer of being a good person, but you aren’t. You aren’t even donating money from your huge bs jobs salaries nor are you visibly shaken by all of this.
The things I see from Gaza often put me into tears. It’s breaking my soul. How does it not do that to these people, I cannot understand it. I hate them for it.
You must log in or # to comment.
How does it not do that to these people, I cannot understand it.
Because they don’t want to get to that point, in some cases. There are quite a lot of people who overtly avoid things like this very subject explicitly because they know it will hurt them and because they feel powerless. I’m not necessarily saying that is what’s happening here, but I do anecdotally know of some people like that
There are quite a lot of people who simply don’t want to confront the horrors of their reality
This could be it and I suppose I can sympathize with that, but the Red sails article and “first they came for the…” keeps playing in my head over and over again and I feel like this is being an accomplice to the genocide. It feels like a choice
They can get on board with talking about stuff like animal rights, or forest conservation, or some other “easier” point of outrage, but even those a lot less than before. But never Palestine.
carrying around a tablet playing videos of zionist atrocities to show to the people having dinner outside fancy restaurants
Or a battery-powered projector. Put it up on whole walls.
Re: Foss posts in mastodon.
I’ve also had the rude awakening of realizing that people view FOSS as a escapist hobby from reality.
They are absolutely allergic to any mention of the outside world or politics that isn’t debating on which tech treats you consume.
Yeah and the “bike tooter” & foss people venn diagram seems to be a full circle (with a bit of gamer thrown in). I find it baffling how much money these people spend on their private servers, foss carages and seven different bikes with a thousand different tires and accesories that they mostly only post about. How they have so much money!
I’ve long ago realized that most of the bike activists are also just middle class treatlerists spending all their loose cash on Shiny Stuff. When I’d be more interested in seeing the freedom the actual biking can give to people.
Foss chuds will spend hundreds of dollars on the self-hosted homelabs but get scared when a minority says reverse racism isn’t real.
It really does feel like foss spaces are majority treatlerites or young westerners (not mutually exclusive): there needs to be a heavy emphasis on diversity and socialism rather than this faux-libertarianism.
oh yeah, I was confused on how FOSS-adjacent spaces (and some of the generally the pro-user, anti-surveillance crowd) are somehow also libertarians who see communism as another form of authoritarianism, causing for example, the whole anti-DEI sentiment seen sometimes in some projects. The whole copyleft vs permissive license debate too. Honestly, like… for all the horrendous things the FSF have done, they’re one of the ‘extremists’ who actually care about projects not getting stolen by companies
If the group chats where your links to Palestine issues are getting literally no reaction are on corporate-owned platforms, it may be worth checking if others are actually seeing them or if they’re being silently hidden from others without your knowledge.
They are not.
Is the issue here that they’re indifferent to or supportive of the genocide? Or that they’re just not vocal in their opposition to Israel?
I can no longer even be sure what they are, because they scoot past the issue so completely. But they do this with other things too now, it’s been like this singe covid & ukraine. It’s like the murican “be non political” mindset has made landfall here, this used to be very odd behaviour for most people I know.
For clarity, these are libs who are from the “the middle east is complicated” upbringing that engage with mainstream discourse and watch the national news, which is very much establisment driven. But they are so called progressives, they just no longer voice anything much at all.
Yeah there’s a strong “don’t bring up politics” sentiment in the typical American brain. Could also be outrage fatigue; they’re not just seeing what you’re posting, they’re seeing a thousand injustices in the news everyday and at that saturation level it feels like background noise. As with most things, on-the-ground organizing, fundraising for Palestinian causes, are more likely to be fruitful even if it feels like it’s hitting fewer eyeballs than Mastodon.
Just posted this on my masking thread:
The bourgeoisie and their running dogs are in denial about so many crises that threaten their treats. Masks (and Palestine) truly are a herald of the apocalypse for liberals and fascists.
I think it’s a lot to do with insecurity because we live in a dystopia where you have to acknowledge that every dollar you didn’t spend on charity could have been used to save a life that’s in the process in being ruined by this system, it is not surprising seeing so many people disengage entirely. It’s why being able to picture an alternative system to Capitalism and then working towards a better system is crucial in order to not succumb to nihilism.
