I've been in Berlin the last few days, it's been really interesting.
There's the expected anti-communism literally everywhere (honestly even more than I expected). But there's also some gems to be found, and I didn't even make it to any of the Soviet or DDR memorials or locations. What gets me the most is the appropriation of communist landmarks and memorials for capitalist/fascist purposes.
I did find a really cool picture folder of the rebuilding of East Berlin at a flea market, as well as a book of speeches from a 1983 SED conference which I'll share here when I have a chance. There's also a few museum exhibitions now talking about German colonialism which positively surprised me.
Berlin is like the center of performance lib politics, wannabe artsy failsons and is gentrified to absolutely cater to rich tiktok influencer anglophones, Its like a world of its own.
So Israel just gonna lay siege on Gaza, cut off electricity, humanitarian aid, food, and water, while continue bombing and airstrikes to let 2 million people slowly starve and die?
How is this not a war crime, and how did they not learn from history
It's a good time to rewatch the Palestine coverage from Empire Files, Abby has been covering this for years. In one video she interviews random Israelis and the things they say are insane.
There's a huge international book and publishing fair in Frankfurt every year, this year's edition is coming up this week. The entity that organizes it predictably condemned "terrorist attacks against Israel" and now many of the Arab participants are canceling last minute. The book fair organization is at a complete loss, at least in their external communications they pretend to have absolutely no idea why Arabs could be backing out.
I met with History grad students today to help organize them/give them resources to improve conditions in their department. As I was talking to them I found out that apparently there's a 70 year old grad student in their department who is a part of their department that was a part of the Phoenix Program and proclaims that the US won in Vietnam. I'm going to make this old fucks life hell, wish me luck!
Feeling pretty mean and gross, I fucking hate arguing with people who love me.
Last two times I have spoken to my well-meaning family about Palestine it has ended with us storming away from each other. We'll agree about 99 percent of the matter but whenever it comes down to "is hamas popular among Palestinians" things get fucking ugly and it's freaking me out, they are otherwise perfectly rational people but they need me to agree that Hamas is actually taking advantage of Palestinians as a whole. (For clarity's sake my position is that no I am not a fan of baby killing or whatever but I'm not letting things get framed as though this is a separate war between the IDF and hamas with the palestinians being caught in between.)
The thing is I know I'm in the right but unlike some of you brave posters I've got no experience with how to endure these huge arguments with family without feeling sick and depressed afterwards
They'll virtue signal to feel good about themselves when the news cycle isn't bloodthirsty, but as soon as there's a green light they're more than happy to call for the bloodening of entire ethnic groups.
At the end of the day it's like cheering for a sports team and feels like a game to them as their wars haven't come home to burn them in their comfy suburban areas.
So roughly how many blocks/unfollows have yall done on Twitter/X TikTok, etc, lately? Itโs been unbearable past week. I could at least handle Ukraine-flag-in-bio ppl because there are so many different kinds of people that are supporting them, and some are just normal misguided people who just hear the โXโ country is being attacked narrative and just jump in vaguely in support. Plenty of funny pages and channels I see have shown support for Ukraine and its cringe but I get why. They donโt hear anything about the Euromaidan, or what the Alley of Angels means to the people of Donbass. The media NEVER covers that. To openly support Israel after the decades of hatred and violence on Palestine is unmistakably genocidal. The News was not silent when Jenin Refugee Camp was attacked. The news talked about Shireen Abu Akleh and what happened at her funeral. And thatโs just recent events for those with no attention span (or not old enough) to remember the other awful events in Palestinian history that Israel resided over, most infamously being the Nakba and redrawing of maps to overwhelmingly benefit Israel at the behest of Palestine. If people wanna openly ignore that and jump out of the woodwork when Palestine defends itself, I disregard their concerns completely and I block/unfollow them depending on how egregious their posts are
My current situation doesn't leave me much time to be as active as I used to, got way more work and less time to be online, which is a shame, not a fan of so much mandatory grass touching. I miss being able to discuss with and see the thoughts of fellow comrades as much.