ohnostarkrogers

[ohnostarkrogers]

What did the olive trees do?

today they burned down every last tree.

the trees that loved the people and gave them olives to eat, shade to rest, and leaves to listen to their stories.

the trees that told the wind about the people, and the wind who told every hill and valley, who told the river and the sea about the people the trees so loved.

the trees knew it was the people who gave them life, who planted them and watered them and protected them for centuries. the people who had loved them first. the trees knew this deep in their roots.

today they came with weapons and fire and terror to kill the people. after the people, they burned the trees alive.

the trees did not scream as they burned. after they watched the people die, they were heartbroken and preferred to rejoin them as martyrs hereafter.

an old man came upon the smoking fields. he discovered their charred remains and cried,

“they burned them! but why? what was their crime? what did the olive trees do?”

they hid the people’s secrets in their trunks, and stored their memories in roots underground. they gave the people strength to fight, and even when the people were gone, they became symbols of resistance.

this is what the olive trees did; they loved the people. they loved the people, and they died for it.

[ohnostarkrogers]

“The war will end. The leaders will shake hands. The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred son. That girl will wait for her beloved husband. And those children will wait for their heroic father. I don’t know who sold our homeland. But I saw who paid the price.”

— Mahmoud Darwish; Palestinian poet.

[ohnostarkrogers]

mary oliver, ‘from this river, when i was a child, i used to drink’

[ID: “‘What, precisely, will you grieve for?’ For the river. For myself, my lost joyfulness. For the children who will not know what a river can be—a friend, a companion, a hint of heaven.” end ID]

[ohnostarkrogers]

hmmm

[ohnostarkrogers]

I truly hate the word "unalive." There are so many other euphemisms that fictional Italian mobsters worked so hard to provide you with and you just ignore them.

[ohnostarkrogers]

what made u anti zionist / helped u unlearn zionism

Unlearning is a work in progress, but basically finding out the information I was given wasn't true. I was taught the "a land without a people for a people without a land" - found out Palestinians, you know, lived here, actually. Was taught all the violence we committed was in self defense - found out we destroyed whole villages to take over the land. Was taught our military is very ethical and never violent without necessity - saw what we do to Palestinians even today (and by "today" I mean before the current escalation in Gaza, I have no idea how anyone can ignore this one now). Was taught we "made the desert bloom" - learned some about native and non-native plants, and about the colonialist nature of trying to transform a whole ecosystem to suit us instead of living with the land as it is. From "Israel vs the Palestinian territories" to learning that even the lands taken over in 48... were taken from them. From "this is our land because this is where we come from" to learning that we aren't the only people that originated in this land and we can't just override the claim of the people who lived here for generations.

None of this, like, inherently means you'll let go of zionism. I know zionists who would agree with me about many of these points. But, I suppose, for me it's a broader anti-colonialism and anti-isolationism thing, and... anti-exceptinalism?

Like, I had to unlearn the idea that antisemitism is a unique and singular kind of oppression that no oppressed group can ever relate to or have solidarity with. The idea that we're alone, we'll always be alone, we're destined to be hated and murdered in ongoing and repeated extermination attempts unless we segregate ourselves in our own state with our own military where we can double down on "kill or be killed" over and over. And because we're the only ones who are this completely rejected by the rest of humanity, anything we do to achieve that goal of safety is justified regardless of who we hurt. Or even that our unique state as victims means we can't actually cause harm in the ways that we were hurt.

Antisemitism is unique in the same way that anti-Blackness is unique and ableism is unique, they all have their own elements. That doesn't mean we can't fight together and form coalitions with other marginalized groups. Romani people are another example of how our experiences are both unique and not. They don't face antisemitism, but they were still part of The Final Solution. We're not The Ultimate Victims, we're one group among many.

All of this together, for me, meant going from "we're the only nation not allowed to have our own country, self determination," to understanding that the issue isn't the question of the right to self determination, it's the fact that we decided to exercise it at the expense of other people. Pretty sure Romani people would face the same reactions if they decided to displace another nation for the sake of their own self determination. This isn't a game of musical chairs, we can't just go "your turn in exile, get out" and expect that to be okay.

Some stateless nations live in a specific location under another country, and they can declare independence in that place without causing harm. It's unfortunate that we didn't have that. But Palestinians shouldn't pay the price.

And Jewish people should be safe everywhere, not just in the small patch of land where we're the oppressor.

Final thing is, had to read a bit about what Palestinians think of all of this. Which is complicated, no group is a monolith, and I don't think I'm qualified to break that down. But after unpacking all the "about us" things, I had to look at their goals from liberation, and now I try to do my best to stay informed and support those goals.

[ohnostarkrogers]

june 2015

[ohnostarkrogers]

[ohnostarkrogers]

from Autopsy by Donte Collins

[ohnostarkrogers]

Kai Cheng Thom, from "to a lost sister", Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls

[ohnostarkrogers]

Missed Time, Ha Jin

[ohnostarkrogers]

the scariest thing about the generative AI thing is how quickly people have accepted it as an indefinite, irrevocable part of their reality. people have genuinely convinced themselves that ChatGPT is the only solution to most tasks - tasks they did with their own brain without any large effort two years ago. like you know damn well all of us used to write emails ourselves why are we pretending like this is an impossible task to do with your own two hands. what's with the fucking. AI revisionism. i feel like i am going insane.

[ohnostarkrogers]

[ohnostarkrogers]

[ohnostarkrogers]

"kill them with kindness" WRONG. chair attack 🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑

[ohnostarkrogers]

original print from depop

[ohnostarkrogers]

it really is crazy how quickly people were willing to just let chatgpt do everything for them. i have never even tried it. brother i don't even know if it's just a website you go to or what. i do not know where chatgpt actually lives, because i can decide my own grocery list.