Leftism - Tumblr Posts

Whenever I'm studying Marxism (and that's quite a lot of times actually) I remember Marx's idea that Revolution can only take form through hate.

Of course, I know now it's a very specific form of hate and that it's pointed to a specific community of people but when I started learning about it, I often found myself rebelling at the notion of hatred as a conductive to Revolution.

I thought hate was too volatile, too savage to be trustworthy but as I grow older and see the world as it is I see myself tasting that hate — and it's hard to actually put into words but this hatred is not ugly and unpredictable.

This hatred is actually quite beautiful, it's not a firing blaze scorching down the earth but a burning fire cleansing a wound, it's born out of indignation and love for humankind. It's there because I love humanity so much I can't help but feel the indignation for what happens to us to my very core and I can't help but turn this into anger, into hatred against those I know are responsible for this.

I really think Marx was onto something with this besides the whole political and economic points he usually made.

Jew here with a friendly reminder that:

Criticizing Isreal ≠ antisemetic

Supporting Palestine ≠ antisemitic

Believing in the Free Palestine cause ≠ antisemitic

BUT ALSO

A random ass Jew just living their life oceans away has nothing to do with the Isreal-Palestine conflict

Palestinian Jews exist

Jews that support Palestine exist (I am one of them)

Calling out ACTUAL antisemitism ≠ supporting Isreal

They start war, we win war, they complain, we get human rights allegations, repeat.

Key terms necessary for understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict : Part 1- Ancient Israel to the founding of modern Israel, Jewish terms

A/N: Hey! The results are in, and this is the topic my followers chose🫶 Writing this felt very much like retaking my high school history finals lol. Enjoy reading.

*These terms and definitions will be organized by topics, in chronological order. **If I have made a mistake or if you feel like I forgot something important- don’t hesitate to tell me in the comments. It is very hard to summarize thousands of years. *** Be respectful, I am human.

1. Key terms in Judaism and the connection to the land of Israel :

Israel and Judea- Were the two ancient Jewish kingdoms.

Zion ציון- Is one of the 70 biblical names for the city of Jerusalem. In fact, Jerusalem is referenced by this name in the bible over 150 times.

The word Zion is very much embedded into our culture: it is used in many prayers and Jewish texts written throughout Jewish history, songs etc.

Zion and the exile from it:

It is especially used when describing longing and the wanting of return to the land of Israel:

The most famous example that uses the word Zion is the biblical prayer from the book of Psalms, 137:

1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

תהילים פרק קלז א עַל נַהֲרוֹת, בָּבֶל--שָׁם יָשַׁבְנוּ, גַּם-בָּכִינוּ: בְּזָכְרֵנוּ, אֶת-צִיּוֹן.

This verse is an example of the longing for Israel: as it was written after the exile to Babylon.

*Yes, the funky Boney M song is based on this Psalms verse :) Coming full circle- It is also used in the official hymn of the modern state of Israel, Ha'Tikva. התקווה, written by Naftali Herz Imber. This word might sound familiar to you, as it is also the origin of the word "Zionism".

Zionism- is the notion that the Jewish people deserve to have a state of their own.

Semite- is a term for people relating to, or constituting a subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic language family:

Semite languages- are a group of ancient languages, that originated around the same time, in Africa and the Middle East- aka the neighboring countries of Israel.

The Semitic languages are: Hebrew and its other ancient dialects , Arabic, Amharic, Aramaic and more. Unfortunately , most of these are extinct and no longer spoken.

The languages that are still spoken to this very day are : Arabic, Amharic and Hebrew.

Some Hebrew Fun facts :

-While there are only estimated 8 million Hebrew speakers nowadays( most of them Israeli), Hebrew is considered a holy language in is spoken during prayer.

-Ancient Hebrew and modern Hebrew are very similar. So much so that if I were to time travel, I could have a decent conversation with my ancestors😊 (some pronunciations, grammar and words have changed, but it’s essential the same).

-Which cannot be done with Romanic languages or Celtic languages..

Antisemitism A\N: This word is getting its whole section because it simply deserves it. Nowadays, every time a Jewish person says something is antisemitic, they will usually be bombarded with mocking comments about how Jews like to call everything antisemitic. If had a nickel for every time I got those comments or an Arab person tried to troll me in the comment section by saying "I can't be antisemitic if I'm a Semite myself"... Let's make it clear (once again).

As I have explained before, the word Semite refers to a group of ethnicities. However, the word Antisemitic refers to Jewish hatred: "Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews.[2][3][4] This sentiment is a form of racism,[5][6] and a person who harbors it is called an antisemite. Though antisemitism is overwhelmingly perpetrated by non-Jews, it may occasionally be perpetrated by Jews in a phenomenon known as auto-antisemitism ".

TLDR: Don't be a Jerk and use antisemitic rhetoric, blood libels, and stereotypes... You don't get to choose if something is antisemitic or not, Jews do.

2. Modern Israel and its founding

The Knesset- Is the Israeli parliament consisting of 120 members, elected democratically every 4 years. Usually- there have been 5 elections in the last 5 years. It also currently has 36 ministers. Yes, that _IS_ a lot.

Kibbutz- "Kibbutz is a community where people voluntarily live and work together on a noncompetitive basis. The first kibbutzim were organized by idealistic young Zionists in the beginning of the 20th century."

As time moved on, starting in the 80s, many Kibbutzim struggled financially and closed down. Today, there are 265 Kibbutzim left, with approximately 200,000 residents. Less than 20% of them are communal.

Unfortunately today, the word Kibbutz has a different connotation:

British mandate- Yep, they colonized us too lol. After the first world war, Between 1917 and May 1948 (Israel was founded literally as soon as the mandate ended).

Fun fact- Today, there are still a few rules left from the British mandate In Israel (Most of them were updated or changed by Israeli law makers after it's founding, usually by the Knesset and the Supreme court of justice).

“Homa U’migdal” (חומה ומגדל Tower and stockade)- During the British mandate, Jewish settlements were built overnight due to a legal loophole still valid from the Ottoman rule. The loophole prevented the British from destroying the new settlement: "Homa U'Migdal is the name of an operation that the leaders of the Yishuv initiated in Palestine, during which 52 new settlements were founded. This operation was a response of the Yishuv to the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt and the restrictions the Mandatory authorities placed, both on the building of new Jewish settlements, and on the amount of Jewish immigrants allowed into Palestine. The building of each settlement began at night. First, the guard tower and the defense stockade were set up, so the operation was named “Tower and Stockade”. According to an old Ottoman law that was still valid during the Mandate period, the destroying of a building was not allowed after the roof had been erected. For this reason the British did not destroy the "Tower and Stockade" settlements which had not received building permits. "

The 2-state solution - The notion that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be two states for two people- one for Arabs and one for Jews.

Balfour's declaration- is the famous letter sent by then-British foreign secretary Lord Balfour to Lord Rothschild in 1917. In the letter, Lord Balfour stated that the British Empire would support the forming of a Jewish Zionist state in the land of Israel.

Peel Commission- was a community created in 1936 by the British rule during their Mandate over Israel. As the name suggests, the head of the Commity was Lord Peel. A suggestion for a Two-state solution was suggested to representatives of both Jews and Arabs. Unfortunately, the Arabs have refused it.

1947 Partition Plan- A partition plan suggested by the UN, that included another draft of the two-state solution, with different borders. The Arabs have refused it once more.

Declaration of Israel's Independence from Britain:

And so, as the British mandate ended on May 14th, 1948, the people's Council (that later served as the initial government of Israel) declared the formation of the modern state of Israel.

The day following the declaration, the Arabs in Israel revolted and with the help of 5 foreign armies that invaded Israel, tried to stop the formation of Israel: Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.

They failed and Israel was formed.

You can watch David Ben Gurion, head of the council (and Israel's future first prime minister) declare its formation/independence here.

PS- this was the flag of Palestine before the current one:

Sources:

-Semite languages pic: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Semitic-languages

-Kibbutz: * https://kibbutzulpan.org/about_kibbutz/ *https://www.hamichlol.org.il/%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%91%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C (Hebrew)

-Homa U'Migdal" : http://www.zionistarchives.org.il/en/Pages/TowerStockade.aspx

I cannot help but like Saw Gerrera.

He’s an evil character certainly. Saw targets civilians, kills and tortures POWs. He’s a mess of paranoia who serves as example of a person who’s worst aspects have been brought to the fore by war.

But.

Saw Gerrera is willing to throw down as both terrorist and revolutionary. He fights the empire relentlessly, harnessing anti imperial sentiment and ACTING on it. He’s willing to free wookiees on Kashyyyk when no one will (even though he abandons them later). Speaking of, his organization is diverse, in aliens and himself being a person of colour. Giving the impression of them in the Star Wars galaxy being lumpen proletariat. The people who’d be most disenfranchised by the Empire representing more of a people’s struggle. Plus in Andor he is shown to be unwilling to work with human supremacists which gets him points from me. Don’t work with racists it ain’t a good idea (plus it’ll turn out bad, remember what happened to Walter White in Breaking Bad?).

My problem is that Saw’s less revolutionarily nuanced then I’d like (Byproduct of not being written by people who know what actual anarchists are I guess). He’s more caricature of violent revolutionary descending into paranoia. This is really expressed by the fact that violence is Saw’s main tool and he and his partisans do not embrace a diversity of tactics. It hurts their credibility and isolates the Partisans as terroirists.

Still I love him with Luthen, I appreciate his struggle and I acknowledge his faults. Regardless of them though, it’s important for the rebellion to have someone who will fight the empire for the right reason. Because the empire is evil and facist. And it is of import to note that Saw acts (irresponsibly maybe) but in service of The Cause, helping the oppressed by hurting the system of oppression.

(I will not credit him with Tech’s death. Saw wasn’t responsible for the Batch and it was pure coincidence they ran into each other that day. Saw did his mission, fucking shit up. If you wanna credit anyone with Techs death give it to the people literally shooting at them. The Empire. (plus It is good whenever someone try’s to kill Tarkin.))

Something that I've noticed in my art that I feel like is a huge part of it is the deconstruction of capitalism and advertising. Because I'm autistic, when I was little, I never actually understood commercials, but I was obsessed with them. I loved commercials despite not understanding them and what their purpose was. That's why when I thought of the commercial dimension, it wasn't actually advertising anything. It was just the aesthetics of commercials that you can see in the pieces of art I make to this day. It's the vibe of a commercial without any of the actual substance and purpose, which I just find really interesting that my brain clinged to that.

Changed my blog name from maxisawell to maxisanangrywell and content is going to shift just a tiny bit. Gonna post about things going on in the states, and still posting COD headcanons.

in case you're wondering how we got to the point fascism is so rampant in this country, I urge you to look at the history of the USA with the lens of a POC person. And to also look up Operation Paperclip. We've always been the wolf hurting some sort of minority, now they're focusing their attention to the vast majority of us.

It's almost like AFAB people were warning us when they overturned Roe they would come for others too.

Further more, if Israel is a police state and our best friend/political foothold, what makes you think this line of genocidal thinking hasn't came from the United States and fester here? This right now is about control, they are pushing us right now to see how much we fight back, so fight like your life depends on it because it does.

Saying this right here, right now.

If you are celebrating that Helene caused catastrophic damage in the Appalachian mountains, based on the mountains being filled with "sundown towns" unfollow me. Right fucking now.

You sound ignorant, dumb and are proving you are just as bad as the fucking MAGA right wing bigots you claim to despise.

The Appalachian mountains are filled with incredibly far left people. There is the occasional town where there are more right leaning folk. I will not deny that. However there are many cities there that are incredibly diverse. Not only that, but diversity is not the only thing that dictates how left an area is.

The people of Appalachia have been routinely fucked over multiple times, until all that is left there is the rich people within their mansions, and the poor, struggling to survive. They did not have the infrastructure to withstand this storm, they didn't have the money to leave.

THEIR BOSSES WERE TELLING THEM TO STAY AT WORK UNTIL THE FLOODING GOT SO BAD THEY LOST THEIR LIVES WHILE THEIR BOSSES FLED.

This is my home, my family lives here, on the North Carolinian border. My family was from Banner Elk, I go there every year. I go to Linville to hike the falls, I go to Asheville and Boone for the witchy shops and the coffee shops. I was going to go this October for the breweries doing a mock Octoberfest.

This place was where people looked after others no matter their religion, skin color, gender or sexual identity. To sit here and post on Tiktok, Tumblr, Instagram or WHEREVER, that these people fucking DESERVED THIS, that it was KARMIC JUSTICE, and that they deserve the lack of aid they're receiving proves that you're a fucking wannabe leftist, but actually an authoritarian shitstain that doesn't deserve to lick the fucking gum on the bottom of my shoe.

Leftism is about COMMUNITY. About the whole of humanity helping the Earth and the Earth helping us. It's about helping your neighbor down the street, or that homeless man that says some weird shit. It's about giving a sandwich to Crackhead Jimmy at the gas station because he looked a bit more thin today. It's volunteer work, and community outreach. It's building a better tomorrow through helping people today.

If you are saying these people deserved this? That they deserved their homes, their livelihoods, their grandparents, aunts/uncles, parents, children, nieces/nephews, cousins, dogs, cats, horses and pets to be fucking swept away, to not know if they are ALIVE OR DEAD, if they will ever be found, To be HOMELESS.... Then you are not a leftist, you are a nazi in disguise.

If that bothers you? Good. You need it then. Be bothered, because your lack of empathy towards people who are suffering from poverty and a lack of infrastructure tells me that you're a shitty leftist and a shitty human being.

If you're wanting to do any sort of outreach, American Red Cross and other organizations will be able to help.

Donate, volunteer, do whatever you can in any amount you can. The damage is horrific, and the fact of the matter is over 1,000 people are missing and 100 are dead. I'm a weather nerd, and I know this is taboo to say, but this is genuine.... This is the Appalachian Katrina. Most of these places will never recover, as tourism is their main or only source of income.

The trauma from this event alone, regarding the lack of infrastructure, the casualties, and the missing persons will be catastrophic, and wreak havoc on the families there for generations to come.

Wage slavery is weird.

Moreover it sucks, obv, but like, why aren't more people talking about this?

Went to work today and the general manager says to all of us, "yall this store is making so much money omg, make sure to give yourselves a pat on the back !!"

And am i the only one who thinks that's strange? Like ma'am this is a grocery store, none of us are ever going to see that much money, why should we care? Why should we be proud of that? It just seems insulting to rub that in the face of wage employees. I would think that they would try and avoid talking about it to keep peoples mind off of the money they would never have, but it's jist the opposite.

When i first started this job they had sat me down to talk. They showed me some jpegs of the CEO, and 2 other people at that corperate level. I'm never going to meet these rich white dudes why are we even doing this? Management then went on to tell me the average gross revenue for the store, as if that matters to me, and management talking about that in a training setting i understood. What i didnt expect was my fellow unsaleried wage workers to be talking to me about it. Talking about how much money the store makes, how smart the CEOs must be to make all that money.

I dissociate though work for a few reasons, but this is always something that pulls me back a bit. Just being reminded, yet again, of how much money some other people have, and how much i dont fucking care.

I did NOT steal a bar of soap from Safeway because I absolutely do NOT believe that chain grocery stores are a plague. I absolutely DID pay seven fucking dollars for a bar of soap and did NOT just grab it with the razors and scan only the razors before putting them in my backpack. I am NOT poor in the slightest and I DO own a car. People who steal from mega corporations ARE criminals. Money DID pay for soap and it did NOT buy nectarines and apples instead.

A common argument that I hear from conservatives is that "people of the past were not so sensitive like people of today"

Mf people in 1950's America threw a tantrum because someone of a different skin color wanted to drink at the same fountain as them. Don't give me this bs about how people back then "weren't sensitive".

A small rant

I hate how right-wingers try to excuse spreading hateful or ignorant ideas as "just a joke" or "I'm just asking questions". Like they somehow think that jokes or questions cannot be rhetorical.

It's like some people think that ideas just don't affect the real world in any tangible form. Like they are just having a purely theoretical conversation that effects nobody at all.

People on the right need to realize that rhetoric is very capable of inspiring violence. Saying shit like "trans people are groomers" is the kind of shit that gets trans people killed.

And public figures who advocate hateful rhetoric will always try to distance themselves from the consequences of their words, saying shit like "I never said I condone violence", even when violence is the natural logical conclusion of their words. Yall cannot act like implying that Jews run the world is not a call to action to commit violence against them, that is pure bullshit.

A question I hear a lot is "why are so many losers defending billionaires online?" and I realized why.

It's not because they think that they will be given money or get noticed, it's because they want to maintain the narrative of capitalism as a pure meritocracy. Capitalist theory tells us that hard work and risk is what will make you rich, and an incongruence between what rich people should be and what they are breaks this. To admit that someone like Elon Musk is an idiot who only got rich off generational wealth is to admit that capitalism is inherently flawed. That's why rich people are placed on this pedestal of perfection where they can do no wrong.

They aren't defending the individuals; they are defending the ideal of capitalism they have been taught all their lives.

If there is one thing I hate homophobic people saying, it's that gay men are gross for having anal sex.

I get it, poop comes out of the anus. You sound like a 5 year old who just learned about sex: "ew, that's where you pee out of!".

Yes, the anus is "gross", just as many other parts of the human body are "gross". Genitals make pee, the vagina gets bloody every month, the mouth is a cesspool of spit and bacteria, skin is always covered in dead skin cells and makes sweat, but nobody ever complains about them being gross, because we have a novel concept called WASHING and HYGIENE. Homophobes always say that "it will never be clean, it will always be covered in shit", which is just plain untrue. It's fallacious and hypocritical to treat this particular part of the body any differently, and is clearly just an excuse to paint homosexual men as disgusting and degenerate.

And just to be clear, yes, I know that not all gay men have sex anally, and I'm not saying that everyone has to find it arousing themselves. I'm just saying that we really need to drop this stigma around anal.

Capitalism has ruined our basic humanity

The fact that the large majority of people in America look at a homeless person and think "ew, get this trash out of my sight" rather than empathizing, wanting to help that person, and reflecting on the systematic flaws that allow this to happen is a sign that your civilization has fundamentally failed at being civil, and is more comparable to savagery.

Always remember that anyone who owns little to no capital is your ally, not your enemy, and thinking so means you've bought into capitalist propaganda like a sheep.

Remember: Never let anybody talk shit about the working class or the poor

Be mindful of anti-proletariat rhetoric.

Don't tolerate bullshit ideas like "unskilled labor", all labor is skilled, and capitalists want you to believe in it so they can justify paying hard working people practically nothing. If someone is giving their time and energy to someone else, they deserve respect no matter what.

Don't tolerate parents teaching their children to look down upon common laborers as "trashy work".

Don't tolerate this idea that poor people are lazy, most are poor for a variety of reasons: poor mental health, no generational wealth, bad investments, drug addiction, disability, unwanted children; but none of them are just laziness. If you know any poor people, you know they bust their ass every day to get a fraction of what their bosses have.

Don't tolerate people who say you should vote for a party that doesn't give a shit about the real workers.

Don't tolerate divisive ideas meant to distract the common man from getting back the surplus value stolen from him.

Don't tolerate propagandic opinion pieces from rich folk who want to keep you ignorant.

Love the working class, and eat the rich!

Chuds on twitter getting mad about Joe Biden stepping down because it "betrays the democratic voters" is a prime example of how reactionary the right is.

Republicans have been degrading, and systematically trying to prevent democrats from voting for YEARS, and now they suddenly care about the rights of democrat voters? I call BS

This is a prime example of moving the goal post. They always have to be mad about something. They can't just let him step down peacefully (as they and everyone else have been pleading him to), it has to be twisted into some moral failing on him and the democrats.

The "finding out Santa isn't real" of capitalism is finding out that most rich people are just idiots who got lucky