You who have already been burned

I saw a video of a man being burned alive in a hospital tent. The IV still attached to his arm. Someone was trying to heal him and someone was trying to harm him and the latter won out in that contest as they almost always do. Murder being so much quicker and easier than medicine. By the latter someone I mean Israel and the United States of course. That goes without saying. The most prolific exporter of terror around the globe for longer than I've been alive and our unhinged henchman.

Everything America or Israel does is de facto legal

The relative evil of any given atrocity is evaluated in reverse by the character of the party committing it

Welcome to Hell WorldLuke O’Neil

I lied. I didn't watch the video. I watched maybe two seconds of it before I had to look away. How easy that is to do right? Look away. Then I saw a still photo of the video shared dozens and dozens of times anyway. I couldn't bring myself to watch the whole thing and I'm sorry. His name was Sha’ban Ahmed and he was 19 years old. I don't know if he would have wanted us to watch it. Some of us would want that if it were us and some of us would not. I suppose I would if I thought it was going to make a difference but no picture or video has made a single fucking difference over this past year of slaughter. No matter how horrific the images of suffering captured on film day after day of man woman child or infant being crushed or burned or assassinated by bullet there will always be someone saying that they deserved it. Often most of our elected officials and the majority of the western media. More typically some fucking random guy. I don't think I have ever read about or watched the death of a Palestinian without someone saying in the comments that they had it coming.

They’re not gonna serve you the massacred kids’ bones for your supper you fucking ogre.

Even the New York Times are apparently Hamas now. They recently published a piece based on testimony and evidence from 60+ medical professionals who had been working in Gaza about deliberate assassinations of children and were of course met with accusations of fabrication. The paper went so far as to publish this note defending their reporting.

Response to Recent Criticisms on New York Times Opinion Essay | The New York Times Company

The New York Times Company

The New York Times! One of the very media stewards of this genocide! Even they cannot get a pass for reporting now and again how many innocents Israel is slaughtering on purpose.

While our editors have photographs to corroborate the CT scan images, because of their graphic nature, we decided these photos — of children with gunshot wounds to the head or neck — were too horrific for publication. We made a similar decision for the additional 40-plus photographs and videos supplied by the doctors and nurses surveyed that depicted young children with similar gunshot wounds.

Here's a video of Sha’ban a few months ago asking for help from anyone who might be watching. Trying to explain his family's predicament. He was the provider for his family because he is the oldest he said. He had two sisters and two little brothers and his parents to take care of he said. He was studying software engineering he said. (His mother also died in the fire it appears.)

After that I saw an ice cream refrigerator with a neat stack of child and infant bodies packed into it. Wrapped in the white cloth shrouds that have become such a familiar sight all year.

"Here is the children's favorite ice cream fridge being their morgue in Gaza," the Palestinian journalist Maha Hussaini tweeted.

I just looked at her bio:

"Both a human rights activist and journalist, what's the difference anyway?" it reads.

That is right. I believe that. That is the job. Everything else is defense of empire.

It makes a sound like a snake when it falls

Every day for the past year I have spent my waking hours in an aghast sort of stupor. Thinking: no one is arriving to stop this? Surprised anew. Still no one? Not even after this? Or this? Or this? And then I resign myself to that grim fact and wake

Welcome to Hell WorldLuke O’Neil

The other day I shared an excerpt of a piece written by the celebrated British novelist and journalist Howard Jacobson in the Guardian. It was about how the news reporting on the deaths of Palestinian children every day was akin to blood libel. It was nonsense. It was vile nonsense. Exactly the type of thing you would expect from a guy who thought it was a good idea to then give an interview to Isaac Chotiner in the New Yorker to clarify his position. It did no go well.

Your piece brings up the number of children being killed in Ukraine and the number of children being killed in Gaza. And you say that the news coverage of the two has been very disproportionate. Can you talk about that?

Yes. It’s interesting. Of all the pieces that I’ve done, this is the piece that seems to upset people most. I’ve thought about writing it for many months and didn’t, and then I thought, Well, no, I’m going to have to do it and just risk it. And it upsets people because the minute you talk about the death of children, not only every word, but every comma, is scrutinized.

Crazy how that works.

I felt an odd sense of panic reading that interview. Not just his personal panic coming through but that of an entire ideology. Viscerally. A man and a worldview drowning under its own contradictions. The things you have to tell yourself to continue looking the other way while pretending you are bearing witness. The necessary ingredients for evil on a massive scale.

Don't worry though Sha'ban. Help is (perhaps) coming. Not today no. Not a few days ago when you were still alive. Not one year ago. Maybe if certain things go well just after the election they might take action to save you. You who have already been burned.

I imagine there are a lot of you that are annoyed that I focus on this so much. There has certainly been a large exodus of both free and paid subscribers this year. I'm not going to apologize for it though. And I'm not going to stop. (How brave!) This is the one story of the world right now. Yes the U.S. election is important (and I still hope Trump loses) and yes climate change is an existential threat. But if we cannot pressure our government to do something as easy as just fucking stop arming and funding a genocide then what hope is there that they will ever do anything much more difficult down the line? (Killing people is easy as I said and saving them is hard). What hope is there that when the climate does finally take an even worse turn that this sort of wanton indifference to human life isn't how we'll start treating everyone? First at the border and then everywhere inside the country. Imperial wars always come home after all. If we can do all of this killing (with zero benefit to our country or our people by the way) then something like Palestine awaits us all in the near future.

I just read this interview with the mayor of Dearborn Michigan Abdullah Hammoud.

What do you make of this 2024 political conundrum that those who care about Palestinians should still vote for Harris if they truly care about them?

When you have residents pouring in saying, “I have lost a family member, I have missed the burial that would provide some semblance of peace, and we couldn’t even find the body of my family member—we only found limbs that were cast because of the size of the explosion,” how would you approach them and say, “While I understand this pain you’re feeling, you still should cast your vote for the quote-unquote lesser of two evils?” It is a very difficult conversation to be had, and so what we are doing is: one, comforting our residents, first and foremost, and secondly, advocating for the vote. That is what we can do. 

The conundrum is real, but ultimately what I keep pushing back on is it’s not this community that has to move in its values and principles and any issues that it’s taken a stance on. It’s the candidates who have to move. 

And don’t move because of Dearborn, by all means. I’m not telling you to move because this small city in the Midwest is telling you to move on these issues. Move because the general American populace has said these issues matter to them. And this idea that people will forget? Remember we heard this nine months ago: “People will forget come November.” People are not forgetting nothing. Genocide is not something you can cast aside.

It’s not this community that has to move it’s the candidate.

I'm also thinking about this tweet.

You are the arsonist, not me.

I don't know. Good luck I guess to the Harris campaign. I do sincerely want to see Trump tossed out on his ass to be clear. To be rid of this fucking cancerous man for once and for all. (As I'm sure we will be if he loses right?)

“We have to live with these animals, but we’re not gonna live with them for long, you watch,” he said the other day of immigrants.

And yes I do still think Republicans are more evil than Democrats in a few ways. I only wish someone would tell them. When asked how her administration would differ from Biden's on The View the other day Kamala Harris said that she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet. Alright. Fine. Maybe it's a one off comment I thought at the time. But they really do seem to be going all in on this Republicans like us and we like them thing. A few days later she said "Today, I am announcing that as president, I will create a bipartisan council of advisors to give feedback on policy and inform my administration. Our democracy needs a healthy two-party system."

Campaigning with Tim Walz in Wisconsin on Monday Amy Klobuchar said "We're gonna see like a bus going through western Wisconsin with — I want you to picture this — Bernie Sanders and Dick Cheney together holding a sign that says brat fall."

I'm picturing it right now!

Then later that same day Walz said at another campaign stop "We’ve got Bernie Sanders, Dick Cheney and Taylor Swift."

People remember who Dick Cheney is right? The literal personification of evil in the liberal imagination not all that long ago.

Also that day on the Smartless podcast Walz said “She needs to appoint a Republican to the cabinet — I do think it matters to her — to a position of authority.” After that he listed off a couple of the "most conservative" politicians he knows who are also "honorable" and "honest."

Like I said good luck with all of that guys. Good luck to all of us. We deserve so much better than what we are being offered. And the world deserves us being so much better than we are.

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