Individual revolutionary actions never change anything until suddenly they do. The Arab Spring is an obvious example.
I want to be clear, this is a tragedy. A person opposed to genocide just died and that’s terrible, and furthermore, it’s our fault because we didn’t give him any options to oppose genocide. If we were organized he’d have options. We aren’t, and he was alone.
And how did that one, specifically, turn out in the long run? I’m not an expert, but it is my understanding that the Arab Spring is considered by most to have been a failure.
Well, it successfully overthrew several governments and collapsed several countries. It accomplished something.
The problem, of course, is that there wasn’t an organized revolutionary movement behind it. Spontaneous uprisings almost never work out for the better, we can’t just overthrow the government and then expect things to naturally work themselves out.
Tens of thousands of children blown to pieces and buried under rubble. Systematically starving and depriving the population of sanitation, clean water, soap, antibiotics, or literally any means of surviving a severe wound. There’s no anesthesia in the entire strip, and Israel prevents aid workers from bringing any inside, so they have to do all treatment and amputations without it. Israeli soldiers round up children into prisons and torture them. They target aid workers, reporters, doctors for sniping. They rape and torture prisoners, cut their limbs off, and then they brag about it.
And it’s why we shouldn’t kill ourselves. We aren’t the ones that deserve to die.
They receive far less food aid than what was coming in before this phase of the genocide, and back then Israel counted the calories crossing the border. They were only receiving enough to survive before, and now they’re getting less. That means, by definition, the amount coming in is not enough to prevent starvation.
That’s why the UN and WHO and HRW and every other credible humanitarian agency has highlighted the famine and placed the blame squarely on Israel for starvation as a weapon.
Also, the small amount of aid crossing the border can’t be transported anywhere because all the roads are rubble. There’s people hiding in the tunnel that have never seen an aid truck.
Also there’s no way to even cook anything because they have no power and no fuel and barely anything to even safely burn. No refrigeration. No clean water to wash or cook with. Rotting body parts and open sewage and soot and silicate dust everywhere. It’s a death camp.
They receive far less food aid than what was coming in before this phase of the genocide
They receive 3500 calories per day per person. How much more do they need? They’re already the fattest assholes in the whole Levant.
That’s why the UN and WHO and HRW and every other credible humanitarian agency has highlighted the famine and placed the blame squarely on Israel for starvation as a weapon.
But the UN analysis deliberately ignores most of the food aid. It even says it does.
Starvation in Gaza has been totally refuted.
Also, the small amount of aid crossing the border can’t be transported anywhere because all the roads are rubble.
It can be moved and distributed by hand, if Hamas were willing to do so.
This isn’t suicide in the sense that the word “suicide” implies. It was a deliberate political statement. Calling it suicide misrepresents and diminishes the intent behind Matt Nelson’s actions
People make plenty of excuses for why they kill themselves. Plenty of scared and lonely people have complete manifestos on why they are actually winning by ending their own lives.
The end result is still someone killed themselves and left a hole in the lives of everyone who cared about them. And it should not be celebrated.
How is ensuring his message is heard celebrating suicide? Are you saying it’s better if we ignore this message that he felt so strongly about as to literally end his life? What in God’s name are you trying to say? He ended his life in an act of protest against the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The idea that we should not respond to that is genuinely offensive. Your description of him as scared and lonely without even knowing him is also genuinely offensive.
I have lost friends to suicide. I myself have been suicidal. I don’t know anyone who ended their lives by committing acts of self immolation in front of a genocidal colonial nation’s consulate.
What about the Vietnamese monks who self immolated in protest of the persecution of buddhists in South Vietnam? Thích Quảng Đức was one of them. His action is regarded as heroic. It would be offensive to suggest that his message in death not be remembered. It would also be offensive to suggest that he killed himself for some other reason. As though there’s no conceivable motivation someone could have for taking their own life other than mental health problems.
So that means we need to rent a billboard to make sure everyone knows Little Johnny Smith killed himself because Amy Jo wouldn’t go to the prom with him?
There is a reason that news outlets have increasingly made it a point to not publish suicide letters. Whether they be individuals slitting their own throats or kids committing suicide by cop. It just leads to people who can find a political use for their death glorifying it… as we are seeing in this thread.
As for people who have commit suicide to advance a political or military agenda of an organization: We glorify Thích Quảng Đức even though, to quote wikipedia
Quảng Đức’s act increased international pressure on Diệm and led him to announce reforms with the intention of mollifying the Buddhists. However, the promised reforms were not implemented, leading to a deterioration in the dispute
Do we also glorify Japanese Kamikaze pilots in World War 2? What about child soldiers so manipulated that they are willing to die for a warlord?
Suicide is NEVER the answer*. And all glorifying it and calling people “heroes” for killing themselves does is give scared and lonely people an excuse. They aren’t ending their own lives, they are dying for something more important, yeah…
And anyone whose immediate reaction is “how can I use this death to my own advantage”… they are a fucking monster.
*: Well, outside of euthanasia for medical reasons but that is a much more complicated topic that requires a lot of discussion on the proper way to ensure someone is ending it because of quality of life and not because they are lonely or angry.
So that means we need to rent a billboard to make sure everyone knows Little Johnny Smith killed himself because Amy Jo wouldn’t go to the prom with him?
He’s protesting genocide in the loudest way he could imagine. Degrading his action as something so shallow is disgusting.
Suicide ideation is never good. There are always better alternatives than taking your own life.
Suicidal people seek painless and quick ways to die. This is the opposite because it isn’t suicide. It’s a revolutionary act.
That said? I also don’t think we should be killing ourselves to protest this war. It isn’t we who deserve to die for this genocide.
It’s not a revolutionary act, it’s suicide. He killed himself. And it changed nothing.
Individual revolutionary actions never change anything until suddenly they do. The Arab Spring is an obvious example.
I want to be clear, this is a tragedy. A person opposed to genocide just died and that’s terrible, and furthermore, it’s our fault because we didn’t give him any options to oppose genocide. If we were organized he’d have options. We aren’t, and he was alone.
And how did that one, specifically, turn out in the long run? I’m not an expert, but it is my understanding that the Arab Spring is considered by most to have been a failure.
Well, it successfully overthrew several governments and collapsed several countries. It accomplished something.
The problem, of course, is that there wasn’t an organized revolutionary movement behind it. Spontaneous uprisings almost never work out for the better, we can’t just overthrow the government and then expect things to naturally work themselves out.
He had a lot of options, but because the genocide is imaginary, the solutions are, too
Genocide denial.
Tens of thousands of children blown to pieces and buried under rubble. Systematically starving and depriving the population of sanitation, clean water, soap, antibiotics, or literally any means of surviving a severe wound. There’s no anesthesia in the entire strip, and Israel prevents aid workers from bringing any inside, so they have to do all treatment and amputations without it. Israeli soldiers round up children into prisons and torture them. They target aid workers, reporters, doctors for sniping. They rape and torture prisoners, cut their limbs off, and then they brag about it.
And it’s why we shouldn’t kill ourselves. We aren’t the ones that deserve to die.
I mean, yes, I deny that fighting a defensive war while taking reasonable precautions against civilian loss of life is a “genocide”, that’s correct.
Israel is not “systematically starving” Gazans; Gazans receive more food aid from Israel than any population in the world receives from anyone.
They receive far less food aid than what was coming in before this phase of the genocide, and back then Israel counted the calories crossing the border. They were only receiving enough to survive before, and now they’re getting less. That means, by definition, the amount coming in is not enough to prevent starvation.
That’s why the UN and WHO and HRW and every other credible humanitarian agency has highlighted the famine and placed the blame squarely on Israel for starvation as a weapon.
Also, the small amount of aid crossing the border can’t be transported anywhere because all the roads are rubble. There’s people hiding in the tunnel that have never seen an aid truck.
Also there’s no way to even cook anything because they have no power and no fuel and barely anything to even safely burn. No refrigeration. No clean water to wash or cook with. Rotting body parts and open sewage and soot and silicate dust everywhere. It’s a death camp.
You foul fucking monster. Stop spreading lies.
They receive 3500 calories per day per person. How much more do they need? They’re already the fattest assholes in the whole Levant.
But the UN analysis deliberately ignores most of the food aid. It even says it does.
Starvation in Gaza has been totally refuted.
It can be moved and distributed by hand, if Hamas were willing to do so.
This isn’t suicide in the sense that the word “suicide” implies. It was a deliberate political statement. Calling it suicide misrepresents and diminishes the intent behind Matt Nelson’s actions
People make plenty of excuses for why they kill themselves. Plenty of scared and lonely people have complete manifestos on why they are actually winning by ending their own lives.
The end result is still someone killed themselves and left a hole in the lives of everyone who cared about them. And it should not be celebrated.
How is ensuring his message is heard celebrating suicide? Are you saying it’s better if we ignore this message that he felt so strongly about as to literally end his life? What in God’s name are you trying to say? He ended his life in an act of protest against the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The idea that we should not respond to that is genuinely offensive. Your description of him as scared and lonely without even knowing him is also genuinely offensive.
I have lost friends to suicide. I myself have been suicidal. I don’t know anyone who ended their lives by committing acts of self immolation in front of a genocidal colonial nation’s consulate.
What about the Vietnamese monks who self immolated in protest of the persecution of buddhists in South Vietnam? Thích Quảng Đức was one of them. His action is regarded as heroic. It would be offensive to suggest that his message in death not be remembered. It would also be offensive to suggest that he killed himself for some other reason. As though there’s no conceivable motivation someone could have for taking their own life other than mental health problems.
So that means we need to rent a billboard to make sure everyone knows Little Johnny Smith killed himself because Amy Jo wouldn’t go to the prom with him?
There is a reason that news outlets have increasingly made it a point to not publish suicide letters. Whether they be individuals slitting their own throats or kids committing suicide by cop. It just leads to people who can find a political use for their death glorifying it… as we are seeing in this thread.
As for people who have commit suicide to advance a political or military agenda of an organization: We glorify Thích Quảng Đức even though, to quote wikipedia
Do we also glorify Japanese Kamikaze pilots in World War 2? What about child soldiers so manipulated that they are willing to die for a warlord?
Suicide is NEVER the answer*. And all glorifying it and calling people “heroes” for killing themselves does is give scared and lonely people an excuse. They aren’t ending their own lives, they are dying for something more important, yeah…
And anyone whose immediate reaction is “how can I use this death to my own advantage”… they are a fucking monster.
*: Well, outside of euthanasia for medical reasons but that is a much more complicated topic that requires a lot of discussion on the proper way to ensure someone is ending it because of quality of life and not because they are lonely or angry.
He’s protesting genocide in the loudest way he could imagine. Degrading his action as something so shallow is disgusting.