queermunist

Fascism is an insufficient term, as it denies the intimacy between liberal and far right forces. In this week’s newsletter, we present ten theses to understand this ‘intimate embrace’ and the rise of this far right of a special type.

Also, Guerilla History pod companion episode to go with the article.

What really struck me was Thesis Five: the far right of a special type provides a partial answer to the loneliness epidemic that comes with advanced capitalist alienation. It doesn't build real community or friendships or relationships, it's more like everyone being in the same fandom. They wear signifier merchandise and signal to each other with specialized language and all consume the same significant cultural products, but they don't actually build real community.

Instead they build ephemeral pseudo-anonymous online communities and temporary community through mass mobilization (rallies, marches, etc). They often don't know each other by their real names, or anything about each other's families, or their tastes outside of what they use to signal how antiwoke they are to each other.

But this is the closest thing millions of people have to community, even while the epidemic of loneliness continues untreated.

Building community is a radical act.

Carmelized onions and garlic, cubed potatoes, bell peppers, and egg substitute; topped with hot-sauce, with a cup of white chai on the side.

Just a simple chili made with four tomatoes, one onion, half a bell pepper, a three chipotles in abado sauce, a clove of garlic, a couple tbsp of chili powder, a tbsp of oil, and then topped with nooch and air fried kidney beans.

I think I'll spring for mango or pineapple next time.

Okay so I knew we had a holiday on Easter weekend at my job and I assumed we'd have Good Friday off, since that's what literally every other job I've had has done and since it's a semi-holiday.

Nope, we got Monday off. April fools! 😂

So now I just burned two attendance points because I was a no-call-no-show and lost out on holiday pay.

Death to America.

SUSAN ABULHAWA: I want to say that the reality on the ground is infinitely worse than the worst videos and photos that we’re seeing in the West. There is a — you know, beyond people being buried alive en masse in their homes, their bodies being shredded to pieces, these kinds of videos and images that people are seeing — beyond that, there is this daily massive degradation of life. It is a total denigration of a whole society, that was once high-functioning and proud and has basically been reduced to the most primal of ambitions, you know, being able to get enough water for the day or flour to bake bread. And this is even in Rafah.

And the people in Rafah will tell you that they feel privileged because they’re not starving to death, while their families in the north, the ones that they can reach, because Israel has basically cut off 99% of communication — what remains are basically communications by people who have, you know, set up some ingenious ways to keep internet in the north. But most people in the north have no idea what’s happening. As a matter of fact, at one point — I’m sure you all know Bisan Owda, who is on Facebook. She explained to me she often goes up to the border between Khan Younis and the middle area in the north where you can’t go beyond, and she explained to me that an aid truck, that sort of pushed its way through but was eventually fired on, had — people came up and ran up, thinking that the war was over and people were returning to the north. So, most people in the north are in total darkness and hunger and really have no way of communicating, no way of figuring out where to get food.

And, you know, what we’re hearing on the ground is surreal. It’s dystopic. What I witnessed personally in Rafah and in some of the middle areas is incomprehensible. And I will call it a holocaust — and I don’t use that word lightly. But it is absolutely that.

I recommend listening to the whole thing, but this is the most harrowing part for me. The death toll is likely a massive undercount and, if the Zionists have their way, we will never be allowed to know the truth.

And you all told me the blue maga border bill that Republicans rejected was 4d chess.

In Khan Younis, many of those taking flight on Monday were already displaced from other areas. Abu Mohammed told Reuters it was now the third time he had been forced to flee since abandoning his home in Gaza City in the north.

"Why did they eject us from our homes in Gaza (City) if they planned to kill us here?" he said.

At a home in Khan Younis that was struck overnight, flames licked the collapsed masonry and grey smoke billowed out from the rubble. A child's stuffed toy of a sheep lay in a pile of dust. Boys were picking through the wreckage. Next door, Nesrine Abdelmoty stood amid damaged furniture in the rented room where she lives with her divorced daughter and two-year-old baby.

"We were sleeping at 5 a.m. when we felt things collapse, everything went upside down," she told Reuters. "They told (people) to move from the north to Khan Younis, since the south is safer. And now, they've bombed Khan Younis. Even Khan Younis is not safe now, and even if we move to Rafah, Rafah is not safe as well. Where do they want us to go?"

The end of the article jumped out at me:

The Palestinian health ministry said 40 patients died on Tuesday, after five days without the fuel needed to power generators that fed dialysis machines and other vital medical equipment. The hospital had also run out of clean water, and doctors said they were subsisting on dates to survive as food supplies dwindled to nothing.

Corpses were piled in front of the hospital, with staff too terrified to move between buildings. The UN’s office for humanitarian affairs said staff at al-Shifa, for decades the linchpin of Gaza’s medical system, had begun preparations for a mass grave to entomb 180 bodies in front of the facility, as there was no way for them to leave in order to bury the dead.

Of particular note:

The Association of American Railroads, which represents freight railway operators, said its members have been hiring in recent years to address staffing needs and recognize employees' desire for better scheduling. The group said the number of overtime hours worked by BMWE union members increased to 4.7 hours per week in 2022, compared to 4 hours in 2016.

Cory Ludwig, who works as a machine operator repairing railway tracks in Iowa, said he’s been working Saturdays and some Sundays along with 10- to 12-hour shifts since September. Recently, he worked 13 days without a day off. With the mandatory Saturday work, he’s had to rely on friends and relatives to take care of his five-year-old and nine-year-old kids. He said the overtime demands have increased as he’s seen the number of workers assigned to his crew go down.

“You fall asleep and then you wake up in the morning and you go right back to work. It can really break a person down, it gets really wearing on a person after a while,” Ludwig said. “With less people trying to do the same amount of work, working long hours, working multiple weeks in a row without one day off, you get irritated and you get burnt out.”

Recently one of the union’s members had been working 22 hours straight when he fell asleep on the job, an error that could have put his colleagues’ lives at risk but also could have been avoided had the employee had a rest period, said Ballew. Another member was recently disciplined for refusing to work through his scheduled days off on short notice so he could care for a family member having health issues, Ballew said.

“The stress it puts on marriages and parenting and the things you leave behind for your spouse to deal with or the things you miss, that kind of stress builds up,” said Ballew. “In the rail industry, we have noticed recently a spat of suicides and I can’t help but think there is a correlation there.”

Thank God Biden stopped the railroad strike!

I swear if I hear another fucker say that the railroad workers got everything they wanted because Biden helped them negotiate I'll lose it.

Good thing I voted for the lesser evil in 2020! Gosh if I had stuck to principles we'd have had a genocide or something 😒

I recommend listening to the whole thing, but here's the nug:

YOUMNA ELSAYED: Yes, I just want to say one thing. I want to say this, and I want the world to remember my words. In my culture, in my language, we say, ”Kama tadinu tudan, walaw ba’ada heen.” In your culture, in your language, they say, “What goes around comes around.” And when it comes around, like this whole world is watching the genocides happening in the Gaza Strip, we shall be watching, too.

Israel fucked up. God damn journalists saying this openly? I mean, obviously the Western press won't cover this, but this is after Biden went whining to Qatar to reign in Al Jazeera lol

I held my nose for that shit in 2020 "to stop fascism" but fuck, this motherfucker endorsed genocide anyway. Not making that mistake again 🤢

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Clear enough, right?

Under this definition Israel's occupation and war of extermination is absolutely genocide, unquestionably. The goal is to kill, mutilate, and displace the Palestinian people. The goal is the total ethnic cleansing of Gaza, by any means necessary. Israel's war on Gaza is genocide.

However, under this definition are the completely justified goals of Hamas also genocide? They intend to destroy the settler-colonial monstrosity that is Zionism and eradicate the nation state of Israel; Palestine from the river to the sea. That, technically, means they are committed with intent to destroy the national group of Israelis by displacement, death, or simply making them into Palestinians after destroying Israel's government.

That doesn't seem right to me. I am absolutely in solidarity with Hamas and Palestine in their struggle against the Zionist entity. An occupied people destroying their occupier's government and settler identity can't be considered genocide, because it creates this legal and ethical equivalency with the settlers.

And yet, technically, that seems to be the case. Am I wrong?

And, by pointing out this technicality, am I just a dog for Zionism?

The nug:

While assertions have been made by both sides about the incident and death toll, the available evidence is less clear. However, analysis of the video footage rules out most explanations aside from an Israeli strike.

The devastation underlines the heightened risk civilians are facing as tens of thousands flee the north, on Israeli orders, during hostilities. The bodies of at least three children can be seen in multiple clips verified by the FT.

At least 1,400 Israelis have been killed, according to the government, including many women and children. At least 2,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombardment, about half of them women and below the age of 18, according to Palestinian officials.

On Saturday, Israel told Gazans that it would refrain from bombing two evacuation routes for six hours, including Salah-ad-Din street, where these explosions took place, so that civilians could continue to move south