Note: A few posts ago, I told you all I’d be writing songs for each post. That was a bit ambitious. Turns out having a busy life and kids and such makes finishing and publishing a song and article every other week kind of hard. Anyway, I actually did it this time. It’s a song for Zionists. It’s a work in progress and it’s honestly not very good right now so it’s only for paying subscribers because I know you love me no matter what. It’s called “The Nurturing Gaze”, or maybe “Have you ever seen your god happy?” or maybe “Don’t you think it is weird?” You’ll find it at the end of this article behind the paywall, otherwise this post is free for everyone. ❤️🎶 🙏
For many born-and-bred Zionists like myself, the massacre of October 7th marked an awakening that immediately put every Jew (and gentile) on Earth in one of two categories. Half of my Jewish brothers and sisters were defending Hamas, an organization that we had only, until then, known as a terrorist organization in Palestine. And the other half was suddenly stanning for Israel as they ruthlessly murdered Palestinians en masse. It was a jarring turn of events. October 7th rattled me awake from a deep Zionist slumber. My friends in the latter group watched in abject horror as I started posting solely anti-Israel, pro-Palestine content, out of the blue. I must have appeared to them like a person celebrating 9/11.
Palestine is, of course, bigger than Palestine. When the Zionists scream, “Why don’t you care about Sudan? Why don’t you give the land back to the Native Americans?” We say, “Yes, that too.”
With every new evil imperialist agenda, technology enables empathy and compassion to run amok. The Holocaust was the first imperialist atrocity caught on video. This is part of the reason it has had such a lasting effect on the global conscience, even though The Mongol Empire killed between 20-40 million people, European colonialists killed tens of millions of Native Americans, and Stalin killed 5 million Ukrainians.
These genocides haven’t been imprinted in our brains the way the Holocaust has been.
Like a dream, I only remember disconnected fragments from before I woke up:
The Russians live in an oligarchy and are only allowed state-approved media.
The Chinese live in an oligarchy and are only allowed state-approved media.
The Iranians live in an oligarchy and are only allowed state-approved media.
Hamas is an Iranian-backed terrorist organization that indoctrinates children, and that is bad.
Israel is a US-backed military state with the most advanced military in the world, and that is good.
The US is a bastion of international power, justice, and righteousness unparalleled anywhere else on Earth.
Looking back, it all sounds a bit fishy, no? A bit culty?
There is that moment just after you wake up from a nightmare where it still feels real, your body still remembers the house filling with water, you still feel suffocated. What might have looked outwardly like comfortable rest was actually a nightmare, and the body remembers.
Do we think, perhaps, that the Russians are taught that Russia is a bastion of international power, justice, and righteousness unparalleled anywhere else on Earth?
Do we think, perhaps, that the Chinese are taught that China is a bastion of international power, justice, and righteousness unparalleled anywhere else on Earth?
Do we think, perhaps, that the North Koreans are taught that North Korea is a bastion of international power, justice, and righteousness unparalleled anywhere else on Earth?
It’s almost as if in order to maintain the “imagined reality” that nations actually exist, a massive media apparatus is required. These imagined realities are what China, North Korea, Russia, and every nation have in common. Nationalism is an artificially induced slumber. When in reality, like a freeway cutting off a forest that used to be connected, borders isolate communities and ethnicities that used to flow freely. This borderless world is a state of affairs we have lovingly come to know as “anarchy.”
But a land without borders is anathema to nationalists—especially Zionists. They often repeat the reasoning that before the Balfour Declaration and before the West arrived in the Middle East, it was just a bunch of Arabs wandering around. They say this as if it’s uncivilized, as if it’s underdeveloped. But the whole Earth was like this before imperialism. Borders were changing daily, resistance started and stopped, empires came and went. Zionists come from a long tradition of imperialism. They are right when they say, “This is the way the world has always been.” None of this new. None of this is specific to the West, nor any race.
What is new is the possibility and moral imperative of global pacifism. What is new is that anarchy suddenly seems (to me anyway) more attractive and efficient than democracy. What is new is the responsibility and the power of technology and the internet to help us achieve peace and stability rather than “progress.” What is new is that we know we have all the resources and wealth to maintain lasting peace, there is nothing left to achieve for the time being. What is new is the Earth’s environment is officially pissed off at us and our little disputes and pew-pew guns are only hastening our demise.
Interestingly, when Genghis Khan killed tens of millions of people, it actually decreased global pollution, but when we kill tens of millions of people with our fancy killing machines, we generate incredible amounts of global pollution and waste, therefore accelerating what will be our eventual extinction on this planet. The US army accounts for over 4% of global pollution and emissions.
Collective Amnesia
I believe that when we say generational trauma, what we mean is there are behavioral reverberations that echo through cultures and families. While DNA and epigenetics may play a role, they needen’t. The majority of Jews living today had no direct experience with the events of WWII, that means the rest of them, especially the Zionists, are traumatized and persecuted and otherwise emotionally affected by events which never actually happened to them—it’s stories their grandparents told them and plaques at the local Holocaust museum. That’s why they were so quick to say that October 7th was the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Pointing to numbers is crass, but the death toll on October 7th was 0.002% of the Holocaust, and so far the Palestinian death toll is 0.3% of the Holocaust. So, it turns out “never again” was really only about Jews, because in terms of mass murders of human beings, Israel’s response to Palestinians ranks much closer to the Holocaust than October 7th’s.
A really sad part about life as a homo sapiens is that as smart as we are, every generation is born into a new world but is stuck using the previous generation’s operating system. We spend so much time just reconciling the inconsistencies and contradictions between the new world and the old world, we barely have time to collectively envision the future.
This collective amnesia—“I only know what happened because people told me what happened”—means we are all cockily making decisions and judgments based on a bunch of now dead people and their stories.
I’ve been working out lately, and between sets, the app I use sends me little quotes to keep me motivated. As this article was on my mind this morning, one quote stuck out to me:
You must not be influenced by the opponent.
– Miyamoto Musashi
If, in the post October 7th world, our new opponent is nationalism (and it’s partner in crime—fascism), then we need to be conscious of how much of an energy suck and a distraction it is to focus on nationalists and fascists. While of course we should be speaking up for injustice, humans have a way of mirroring the people they surround themselves with. It happens by osmosis. That’s why all of Washington DC is corrupt, because they all have started using one another’s tactics and now they are so insular and confused there is not one ounce of clarity among them. They all spent so much time being influenced by their opponents, so they became one.
Remember to envision a beautiful future. One with nature overpasses, one without borders, one without presidents, one without war, one without corporate media, one without hunger, and one without waste.
Remember those old adages passed down to us like universal fact? “Treat others as you wish to be treated,” “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer,” “Those who forget history are bound to repeat it.” They are all meant for older generations who came from a different world and wanted a different future.
Treat others as they wish to be treated. Keep your friends close and send love to your enemies from afar. Forget history or you are bound to repeat it.
Thanks for reading.
Josh
