Tag Archives: uspol

Why no foreign uprising about Gaza genocide ?

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One person on Mastodon asked why people in Western countries, the countries complicit in the Gaza genocide,
do not rise up and overthrow the regimes.

Very interesting question.

And can I write about this here without getting arrested immediately ?
You never know in this “cool”, former colonist, Netherlands country.
Therefore I’ll keep it polite and “classy”.

My gut feeling not based on facts tells me that this is not feasible in Western Europe.
In South America maybe. In Africa and Asia it’s possible.

And then there’s the mysterious USA.
One wonders what happened to all the bragging gun lovers wanting to defend themselves.
Now that the enemy within, the fascist Trump regime, is destroying parts of USA (with Putin
in Russia laughing” there is still no civil war. Ironically Elon “Nazi salute” Musk who
made hints about civil war in the UK is still influencing millions of people without
any repercussions.

How about the Netherlands (further abbreviated as NL) ?

Since a really long time I have been thinking that the middle class has grown too big,
and too many people have been happy with their TVs, cars, and more recently an
incredible amount of people appear to be married with their phones.

As long if there is not a critical mass of angry people in a country
who want big chances there’s little chance for an uprising.

But in general for uprisings various other ingredients can be important.
For example, a corrupt military.

However, one thing is that mass surveillance is pretty strong in NL.
Cameras everywhere, and climate activists getting arrested for no reason, just
for intimidation.
(With some “funny” exception like diamond stealing. A bunch of guys stole several
diamonds during the day at an exhibition and <checks notes> they got away by
using electric steps, and still not arrested as far as I’ve seen in the news.)
The other thing is that fossil fuels dependency (and possibly lobbying, bribes)
is pretty strong, as well as the “special” relationships with the USA and Israel,
meaning that there’s all kind of companies involved backing the government’s
status quo.

Add to that the massive rise of fascism, with fascism ideas been normalized in
talkshows, newspapers, TV, radio and so on.
Currently the Netherlands has these fascist political parties in the 2nd Chamber :
PVV,FvD,JA21,Groep Markuszo, and the fascist leaning VVD,BBB,SGP.
That’s a scary seven political parties.

Regime change in the Netherlands, whether that is by voting, discrediting
fascists, demonstrations, writing to your MPs and so on, is not realistic
any time soon.

What can do you if you’re in the Netherlands apart from boycotting Israel ?

Take on the fossil fuel, by doing this it basically weakens the power of the
current government.

– Buy a solar panel for your balcony.
If you don’t want to spend money on it start a crowdfunding campaign.

– Experiment with wind energy for small things that need little amount
of energy.

– Stop cooking on gas. Buy a rice-cooker. Eat more raw food and bread.

– Break with the banks that support climate-destruction, war, apartheid.

– Break with health care insurance companies that support
climate-destruction, war, apartheid.

– Urge your city to do more for public transport.

– Start talking about Israel’s apartheid. NL has a history with
apartheid in South-Africa, that is an emotional connections. Lots of
politicians, newspapers and journalists are still very afraid to use the word
genocide in regards to Gaza. Therefore empathize on the word
apartheid. Israel is an apartheid state and NL is shamefully supporting
that very much.

– Ask your work to be allowed to work more from home if you need to
travel by car to your work.

– Donate to projects that will support Palestine, for example
Plant een olijfboom.

– Call out government and complicit people about them falling for the
lobbying by CIDI. If they really stand for all Jews in this world why
is a Jewish group like Een ander Joods geluid every time excluded
from talks with the government ?

– Promote music that is anti-genocide and pro-Palestine, for example
the Irish band Kneecap and Bob Vylan.

– Consider traveling to the West Bank to support Palestine people
against the Zionist settlers violence simply by staying there.

– Follow the Global Sumus Flotilla sailing with more than 100 boats to Gaza
to break the illegal siege.

– Write angry letters to your newspapers about the shameful Israel apartheid
complicity of NL.

– Tell people that the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will
be free” is not a violent slogan. Go read about the violent Christian Crusades
history and you’ll see the name Palestine. Jews and Palestians have lived
in peace in the past in the same area.

– Share this story.

Boosting is not immediately endorsement. You can boost
a Mastodon post to share ideas, food for thought, food for discussion,
food for change. Go for critical thinking.

Like in the Monty Python movie Life of Brian where Brian from an open window
shouts to the huge crowd outside below “You need to think for yourself!”
(and the crowd, like a unison choir shouts “We need to think for ourselves”).

Critical thinking is something we need more than before in these times
where silence and looking away has become normal for many people.

Free free Palestine!

#freepalestine

On Violence

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For many months I have been wanting to write this. Thinking about it but never started because the whole story did not seem to be finished but now I will just start and write it in parts. My main reason to write this is because of a teacher at university in the Netherlands attacking and pressured for his anti Israel remarks.

So, let’s start :

What is violence ? 

Do you have your own definition of violence ?

Did you learn at school a definition of violence ?

Did you parents, caretakers, family or friends tell you a definition of violence ?

Or did you never think about it and maybe accepted what is happening year by year from the state violence, the only accepted violence ?

Is it violence when polluting companies destroy the planet in slow motion ?

Is it violence to let people live in increasing poverty while the rich get richer ?

Is it violence to exploit minerals in so-called underdeveloped countries and give nothing valuable really in return ?

Is it violence to not punish corrupt politicians and lobby groups ?

Is death penalty, like in some states in the USA, violence ?

Is torture and life sentence violence ?

Is pushing for more cars, more tobacco, more pesticides, more fossil fuel usage, violence ?

Is capitalism violent by nature ?

Let’s look back at the 9/11 Twin Towers attacks. Did you go with the visual impact roller-coaster from the Western mainstream media who were in shock ?

What did I do after those attacks ? I thought about it again and again and while I do condemn the killings of every human being and every needless killing of animals as well, I do see it as a big orchestrated thing, an almost “genius” thing so big that it is hard to believe there was no involvement from three letter secret agencies. And note the symbolism. This was done on September 11, which is also known as 9/11 which is the alarm phone number in the USA. Compare that with the abduction of Maduro of Venezuela on 3rd of January 2026, and then see what happened 3rd of January 1990. A fetish for numbers ? Coincidence ?

The visual impact of the 9/11 attacks wiped out all the past visual impact from the awfull USA past, the countless toppling of country leaders, the countless killings of people abroad and inside the USA. Except that the visual impact and the impact of words was usually diminished by most of mainstream media. In a time that video on mobile phones, TVs and computer possibly had more impact on a lot of people already.

Why mention the 9/11 attacks ? Because I’d like to compare it with the beeper attacks against Hezbollah in the last few years. Again it was a big orchestrated thing that definitely involved Israel’s Mossad. And what was in the mainstream newspapers in the Netherlands ? It looked like journalists were almost not able to suppress their admiration of the genius attack of the enemy. They didn’t mention the word enemy but it is business as usual here. The USA, the supposed self-acclaimed “Land of the Free, Home of the Brave” and “From paperboy to millionaire” worshiping.

The “Palestinian terrorists brutally murdered Israeli soldiers” or “Palestinians killed by air attacks. Israeli prime minister proud” is a choice of words which is considered “normal” in Western media.

And that makes me wonder about what I have been asking myself since years :

What is normal ? 

Is normal a static thing or a dynamic thing that can change one day to the other ?

Nobody every told me what normal is, not at school, not at the family, not with friends.

Yet I have heard parents in the streets snapping at their child in Dutch “Doe normaal!” which is “Behave!”. It is an abstract thing it seems but I guess it simply means “Shut up! Be quiet!”.

Children full of life eventually become introverts because we’re all so busy and in a hurry.

Every day we live in a world full of violence.

Some thinkers and philosophers mention that almost all people are violent because we live in duality, we live with conflict inside. Only very few manage to escape from the duality and break free.

Do we have a lot to learn ?

Do we have time ? Can we free up some time to re-evaluate and do better ?

To be continued, maybe.