Bells ringing for the end of history
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spatch convinced me that after two in the morning while still sick was not the best time to write angrily about how much I did not enjoy the double whammy of discovering the Jewish analogues in Attack on Titan right before receiving an e-mail from one of the progressive organizations on whose mailing lists I've gotten over the years that in the same back-to-back sentences disavowed anti-Semitism while encouraging its readers not to be silenced from calling out "AIPAC's negative impact on our politics." So I just yelled about it a lot in the shower, especially the part where the actual influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is massively outweighed by the Armageddon money of Evangelical Zionists. I don't like the rhetoric of diversion, but it does feel once again like divide and conquer: the marginalized tear each other's throats out and the status quo keeps hegemonically quo'ing on. [edit] This article by David Schraub is extremely on point. See also this petition by Bend the Arc.For obvious current reasons, this post is making the rounds of my friendlist again: "How to Criticize Israel Without Being Anti-Semitic." It is almost impressive how easily the old conspiracies shift shape, except I just wish they wouldn't. It's not an impersonal process. I wish people wouldn't do it.
Most of the snow melted out of the streets overnight, but there are still gull-colored furrows of slush on the sidewalks and rain-flattened drifts in the lees of the houses; the clouds have remembered we're a seaside city and are piling up as over a tide-line, Vorticist grey and blocky with startling breaks of blue. Meltwater off the gutters sounds like rain plinking and gurgling in the downspouts. At least we didn't get ice dams this time. Frustratingly, I feel worse today than I did yesterday, and I have to remind myself that healing is not a flick-switch binary process. I suspect I will not actually leave the house for a movie this evening, however. Have a few links. I could use some more nice ones.
1. Ed Simon on Jewish horror: "There is the upsetting ambiguity of monotheistic horror—not that God's actions are the devil's, but that they could be."
2. Relatedly: is it impolite that I want to communicate with Tumblr for the sole purpose of pointing out my own Jewish demon stories? (Or Rebecca Fraimow's. Or Veronica Schanoes'. Or Jane Yolen's. Or Elana Gomel's. Now I want an anthology.)
3. I like both of these poems: Bev Yockelson's "The Trans Haggadah Companion" and Syl Cheney-Coker's "The Colour of Stones."
4. The Reckless Moment (1949) is being released for the first time ever on Blu-Ray! I wish my computer could play those!
5. I get that Miquel Carbonell i Selva's Safo (1881) depicts the legendary moment before the poet throws herself into the sea for unrequited love of the ferryman Phaon, but she really looks to me like she's summoning the sea-storm. Maybe that's what she decided to do about that dude instead.
no subject
It was from MPower Change—I didn't even see the one from JVP! Great.
such a depressingly accurate summation of the current state of discourse.
Agreed. Although the definition of Jewish hell made me laugh in the middle of an otherwise awful afternoon, which I value.
Thank you for all the links. I found them all edifying, especially the Schraub one.
You're welcome. I'm very glad they were useful.
(I would still rather see Trump resign than Omar, but that won't stop me from calling her staffers and expressing disapproval)
I am in a similar position of having been very impressed by her recent apology, then somewhat less impressed by her succeeding dogwhistles, and either way feeling very strongly about the blaringly obvious double standard on display. I really liked Schraub's:
"There is a familiarity to Omar's case—of needing to acknowledge genuine wrongs worthy of critique, but also needing to acknowledge that the obsessive focus on these wrongs stems from baser instincts. The real parallel of how we talk about Muslim women like Omar is to how we talk about Israel itself—where real misdeeds and wrongdoings nonetheless cannot explain or justify the never-ending torrent of abuse, opprobrium and conspiracy theorizing."
There are so many conversations that have to be had and right now it seems impossible even to have the conversations about having the conversations. I am glad there are people with the energy to do it. I hope there are enough people really listening.
no subject
no subject
You're welcome.