#199: Eyeless in Gaza

Also the line between your explanation of the mythos of thunder gods from previous episodes and modern military fascination with air power is harrowing at best

"By creating conditions that demanded brute self-interest, where groups and individuals were pitted against each other for scraps of privilege, where the pain of isolation was preferable to the weight of empathy, the Nazis were able to preclude the capacity for solidarity, and thus the capacity for much resistance." And "From the shattered tools and bones of our predecessors, we craft our own weapons. Nothing is guaranteed to work, yet we attack regardless. We do so naked, having shed the rags of morality, ideology, and politics that had accumulated over time. We confront this world raw, in all its horrifying glory." Both from Serafinsky's "Blessed is the Flame" which is about violent resistance inside concentration camps When confronted with the bleak reality of either being murdered by the most asymmetrically sophisticated weapons in the world or simply caustically eroded from existence for the sin of being born in the wrong place and to the wrong people group, your choices are hope for rescue before you're in the ground or fight The people in concentration camps in ww2 had, at the very least, the vague hope that they would be liberated, the people of Gaza have been denied even that.

Listening to this after my third watch of “zone of interest” staring in horror at the “stand with Israel” sign outside of a local Applebees

Relistening to this on December 5

Thanks for this Michael. It was difficult at times hearing the pain in your voice. Such a heartbreaking time to be alive on this planet

Thinking about GDAMs as the evolution of the V2 program

"In 1947, Pett began testing different nutritional interventions on close to 1,000 children in six residential schools across the country. These experiments used the baseline of malnutrition and hunger experienced by Indigenous children in the schools as a way to test "a whole bunch of both interventions and non-interventions," explained Mosby. These experiments included some children, who were known to be malnourished, receiving no changes to their diets in order to act as controls in the experiments. "

Here's a fun one. The Daily caloric intake testing was originally done by Canadians on native chidden in their torture hell residential homes they kidnapped them to.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CyaB8jFOvDY/

Been listening to a lot of megadeth lately and this (aside from the very obvious “peace sells but who’s buying”) hits https://youtu.be/2G-chYSznL0?si=iMb5dCGcD3eRItQs

in no place has "A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now." been as true as in gaza -- continual buzz of death they've been living under for two decades, children born in a concentration camp who will die to rockets, never having even seen a single Israeli.

This was a dark one, but I got a good laugh at least out of “John Milton, what an asshole.” Pretty sure I haven’t heard that precise formulation before.

Thank you for doing this. Over the past week, when I haven't been distracting myself with videogames, I feel like I've been losing my mind. The things I've seen and read. To witness ungodly horror right in front of your eyes. And to see it being actively encouraged and supported. It boggles the mind. This helps me feel like I'm not alone and insane.

It is a literal genocide in real time on TV. I feel so sick. No one can get ahold of family members. They fucking bombed the only way out to Egypt and then told people to move south and bombed that exit route.

My dad is Libyan and my stepdad and the father of my two sisters is Palestinian whose family fled to Jordan years ago. Apparently my mom has a thing for guys who's countries get heavily fucked over.

Does anyone else feel like those kids in The Blair Witch Project? "It's not the same log, Mike! It's not the same log!!"

After reading/listening to so many statements that felt wrong or well-meaning but misguided, this is a bullseye. The truth leaves no doubt.

Thank you. The ending of this one is profound and terrifying. To the extent that words can be important at times like this, yours are. I hope you consider unlocking this episode.

It was difficult for us, old fans who've always been at the movies (haven't we)...

Applauding sadistic fascism, it’s the new liberal humanism. The moral logic of late capitalism. Good to hear a sane American. Sharing the grief, the rage, from Australia.

thanking you in advance as I press play, Michael, I’m sure this was harrowing to assemble.

I'm so glad you went into the conception(s) of genocide. People—but especially US Americans it seems—really do not have a good idea of any aspect of genocide. There's a book on this I read year's ago that's very important to me: _A Little Matter of Genocide_ (1992?) by Ward Churchill If anyone who's read this knows of a more recent similar book I would love if you'd share it here! For anyone who hasn't heard of it I highly recommend it & Ward Churchill in general.

Thanks for this episode. Needed to hear some like minded thinking and moral outrage after getting some texts from some Jewish friends saying they shouldn’t have to read my social media posts because they needed some safe space to mourn the Israeli dead.

Netanyahu knows if he has any consequences at all, it won't be for crimes against Palestinians..especially Gazans.

Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it

Any chance to unlock this? I’m hoping to share it.

The reference to eyeless in Gaza is from the Book of Judges Chapter 16. Samson's eyes are put out and he brings down the temple of the Philistines on himself and his captors. This is also the source of the "Samson option"

Anyway you can make this one free to link too? I wanna try n pass it around to some friends.

Of this is the judge judge, and the night does not end.

That "human animals" shit has been rattling around in my head on repeat as well.

Thank you for putting this out.

“Do you denounce the post office?” Ok but for real that would be a great lead-in to a Stamps dot com ad read.

An absolutely galaxy brained NYT columnist was in his 15th hour of responding to all the replies he was getting on Twitter - I should add that this person seems to occupy one of the center-lib spots at the paper - when at one point, in reference to how much Palestinians were answerable for/to Hamas as opposed to some other political entity, he basically threw out a “Vote!” So yeah, Palastinians, Gazans, etc.: if you’re still in line to vote, and the ground is shaking, and the power blinked out 96 hours ago, STAY IN LINE!

We all are guilty in the eyes of history. The most we can do is bear witness, but even that won’t absolve us. To quote Curtis Mayfield, “If there is a hell below, we’re all going to go.”

Coming back to this pod to feel remotely sane. Thank you MSJ.

Mike. How much does it fucking suck to have your elegant formulation of "we live in the fourth Reich" as fucking absolutely erected in thousand foot blazing letters burning the entire skyline of the spectacle as it is right now? Pretty shit right? Where literal Nazi genocidairs are cheered in the centers of liberal polity at the exact same moment that ethnic cleansing is cheered on and support for the oppressed is labeled as hitlerite or worse? God damnit. I think I'm going to have to leave this podcast for a while, and try and maintain enough blood alcohol that I don't go mad watching my culture sign off on genocide, soy facing fire corporate tie ins, funkopop with every hamburger meal for the ss.