harlots-n-history - Tumblr blog

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it is just so damn dishonest to act like slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War or was of minimal importance

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many people have said it but bears repeating again:

Palestinian liberation calls for a 1 state solution under which all people are equal under both under the law and in practice.

In order to have peace the genocide, apartheid, and occupation must end. Settler colonialism must end. Second class citizenry must end. All Palestinians imprisoned must be released. Reparations must be made to Palestinians who have been affected by both current events and historical, from the Nakba in 1948 to today. Everyone who participated in the facilitation of the apartheid, and the violence of the apartheid and occupation required to maintain the oppressive regime, must be held accountable. Palestinians must be granted the right to return to their homes.

The idea that Palestinian liberation = carrying out a genocide on Israelis is nothing more than baseless, racist, orientalist fearmongering (and, to an extent, pure projection) that serves to justify the current genocidal regime and the apartheid having been maintained for decades. One people's freedom does not threaten another people. People are fearmongering over a hypothetical scenario (the same fearmongering used in South Africa; both during the reconstruction era following the abolition of slavery & also against abolitionists while slavery was still legal in the United States; in regards to the North American indigenous population; and so on) while an actual genocide is going on.

the only way to real actual peace, safety, and security is through the complete liberation of the Palestinian people, not the continued maintenance of the current regime or the apartheid that led to this current moment in time. apartheid is inherently violent; oppression is inherently violent. colonialism is inherently violent. if YOUR 'safety' is dependent on the oppression, displacement, and murder of OTHER PEOPLE then your conditions are not and will never be safe.

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In all seriousness, here are a few resources I think are helpful with regards to understanding just how thoroughly Henry Kissinger screwed the world over:

Kissinger by Behind the Bastards. This is a 6 part series done by the podcast Behind the Bastards, with the hosts of The Dollop on as guests. It's super funny and a very accessible foothold into understanding the scope of Kissinger's vast career.

Kissinger's Shadow by Greg Grandin. This book provides an in-depth analysis of Kissinger's tenure in the white house, covering both how he got into office, the changes he made in office, the policies he put forth, and their repercussions on the world.

ETAN's category on Kissinger. The East Timor and Indonesia action network has long been an outspoken critic of Kissinger's, and they've aggregated a lot of helpful articles here.

The Trial of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchins. While Grandin's book focuses less on the specificities of Kissinger's crimes, Hitchins has no such qualms and details each of them in depth.

I truly think understanding Kissinger, the way he thought, and the things that he did, are all indispensable when it comes to understanding the modern political climate and how foreign policy works in America and therefore, by necessity, in the world at large. The sheer amount of damage he was responsible for should never be underestimated.

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overconsumption is not a human right btw

you have a right to be clothed. you do not have the right to be clothed according to the newest fashion trends

you have a right to food/nutrition. you do not have the right to eat meat every day

you have a right to vacation. you do not have the right to take a plane to each vacation you take

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Family farms are central to our nation’s identity. Most Americans, even those who have never been on a farm, have strong feelings about the idea of family farms — so much that they’re the one thing that all U.S. politicians agree on. Each election, candidates across the ideological spectrum roll out plans to save family farms — or give speeches about them, at least. From Little House on the Prairie to modern farmer’s markets, family farms are also the core of most Americans’ vision of what sustainable, just farming is supposed to look like.

But as someone who’s worked in agriculture for 20 years and researched the history of farming, I think we need to understand something: Family farming’s difficulties aren’t a modern problem born of modern agribusiness. It’s never worked very well. It’s simply precarious, and it always has been. Idealizing family farms burdens real farmers with overwhelming guilt and blame when farms go under. It’s crushing.

Farming has almost always existed on a larger social scale—very extended families up to whole villages. We tend to think of medieval peasants as forebears of today’s family farms, but they’re not. Medieval villages worked much more like a single unit with little truly private infrastructure—draft animals, plows, and even land were operated at the community level.

Family farming as we know it— nuclear families that own their land, pass it on to heirs, raise some or all of their food, and produce some cash crops—is vanishingly rare in human history.

It’s easy to see how Anglo-Americans could mistake it for normal. Our cultural heritage is one of the few places where this fluke of a farming practice has made multiple appearances. Family farming was a key part of the political economy in ancient Rome, late medieval England, and colonial America. But we keep forgetting something very important about those golden ages of family farming. They all happened after, and only after, horrific depopulation events.

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Small little babies

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Here's some queer history in honor of the approaching Pride month.

It's an acronym.

The organization shut down in 1968 due to pressures from both straight and queer parties (there's always been those gays more concerned with being seen as normal than actual progress) but they permanently changed the face of the queer rights movement and their spirit lived in to today.

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Kissinger bears significant responsibility for attacks in Cambodia that killed as many as 150,000 civilians, according to Ben Kiernan, former director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University and one of the foremost authorities on the U.S. air campaign in Cambodia. […] Grandin estimated that, overall, Kissinger — who also helped to prolong the Vietnam War and facilitate genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh; accelerated civil wars in southern Africa; and supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America — has the blood of at least 3 million people on his hands.

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This is one of those true, declassified government things that always sounds made up but one of the things Henry Kissinger did with his career was use the CIA to help turn small, prosperous socialist nations into fascist dictatorships just to keep those nations powerless and possibly to keep socialist systems *looking* doomed and futile to the American public, like maybe just to scare Americans out of demanding better infrastructure or universal income. Yes it sounds like an insane conspiracy theory a maniac would invent. It also happened multiple times and several generations of people around the world are still living in misery because of it.

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Kissinger’s Murderous Legacy

3 million+ bangladeshis

3 million+ vietnamese

2.5 million+ cambodians

1.1 million+ iraqis

1 million+ indonesians

900,000+ angolans

300,000+ east timorians

200,000+ laotians

60,000+ mozambiqueans

40,000+ chileans

30,000+ argentinians

20,000+ western saharans

15,000+ egyptians

11,000+ guinea bisseauans

10,000+ indians

10,000+ pakistanis

10,000+ zimbabweans

6,500+ cypriots

3,500+ syrians

Henry Kissinger may have had the biggest hand in mass murder than anyone in human history.

Good riddance.

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obligatory bourdain quote in honor of kissinger's passing

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Enrique Favez is more often seen under one of his multiple other names. Specifically either a feminized version of his chosen name or his birth name. His legacy has largely been defined as the first female doctor of Cuba. His marriage discussed as one between two women. This understanding of his life is flawed in a number of ways, and much of his story is still tinged by present-day and past transphobia. He is not the first, and will not be the last transgender man to be swept post-humously into the category of woman dressing up as a man, and just like every other time it has happened, it is a failure and a tragedy.