#UN biased activities

[kyreniacommentator]

60 Years of Cyprus Wrong Must Be Corrected

[tsukimefuku]

The broken idealist: Higuruma Hiromi

And how the world of JJK viciously punishes idealists.

Before we start, let’s set some premises:

This is an essay based solely on my opinions and my own knowledge of criminal justice. I’m no professional writer/essayist.

JJK is a critique on unfair systems that reward selfishness and nurture individualistic (oftentimes destructive) behaviors.

One of the main motifs in JJK is (un)fairness.

Even when rewarded by these systems, individuals usually end up alienated (Gojo being the utmost example, but so is Sukuna to some extent).

The world of JJK punishes idealists very harshly. 

I might've read waaaaay too deep into his character (apologies in advance).

I am ABSOLUTELY biased in analyzing this character because I kin Higuruma very hard and identify profoundly with many of his struggles.

[queue “Pigs” by Pink Floyd] Let's do this.

The ideal of truth and Higuruma choosing to be a criminal defense attorney

Higuruma shows up in the manga as one of the top players of the Culling Games. Throughout a few chapters, Gege introduces him to us as a former criminal defense attorney that has lost it after one of his clients gets his innocence verdict overruled and is unfairly convicted for a crime he didn't commit, triggering Higuruma's cursed technique to awake, ending up in the deaths of the Judge and Prosecutor that contributed for the wrongful conviction.

Along those chapters, we get to see two very interesting things: Firstly, the fact that Higuruma actively chose to be a lawyer, instead of pursuing a career as a judge. Second, his stance and lines about truth, especially this one: "Even if no one else does, I want to keep my eyes open."

Higuruma, for me, is a prime example of how someone moved by truth and justice can become a self-righteous, cynical individual (I'll refrain from the word "villain" because he wasn't ever an actual "villain" in the story). From the get go, when we get more information on his past, we can see his mental state slowly declining as he gets progressively more overworked fighting an unwinnable fight. 

We have some very important pieces of information from chapter 158: Japan has a 99% conviction rate. The public opinion about defendants is that they're always guilty. Higuruma earns little, works a lot and his job is usually trying for a miracle, to be that 1%. And, finally, that Higuruma chose to fight an unfair system from within. 

That not only has huge parallels with the world of cursed energy, but is one the most important messages I feel that JJK is building up to — you can't reform a broken system from within, because structurally and systematically unfair systems will always push things back into a state of unfairness / status quo. We see this when Gojo says, at the beginning of the manga, that even if he killed all the higher ups at that point in time, other assholes would just take their places. To a more fundamental level, we see it in Yuki's failed efforts to end curses from the perspective of a jujutsu sorcerer, and the way the story is progressing towards a complete rupture with the current state of cursed energy altogether to give place to something new.

The message is: To fight an unfair system from within and by its own rules is and always will be a losing game.

Now to Higuruma's fallout, we have a perfect storm for what happened to him — an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. 

I'll dive a little into criminal law (and c.l. procedure) and make many oversimplifications to get a point across, so I apologize to any other criminal lawyers out there reading this and cringing at the oversimplifications.

In theory, the Criminal Justice System should be preoccupied with the truth. Criminal Law, in essence, is attributing a penalty (prison, fine, death, etc.) to an act (to kill, to rob) described by law as a crime. In that regard, then, one could only suffer said penalty if they actually committed the act that the law described as being a crime. 

Where does truth come into place here?

To investigate if something happened in the world of facts (the real, concrete world) is essentially a search for truth, which to me is very telling of Higuruma's choice in becoming a criminal defense attorney. 

In an unfair system in which 99% of people are convicted, it'd make no sense for this man to become a prosecutor. The prosecution is already benefiting from the system, considering the way the scales are tipped. That's a given.

But regarding the judgeship, things become more interesting. In a fair criminal justice system, the judge is forbidden to engage in probationary activity (which means, basically, that the judge cannot search for evidence, investigate or look for witnesses, he can solely analyze what the defense and prosecution bring to him in order to give a verdict — the judge does not engage in the most important activity in finding the truth).

Why can't the judge do that?

Because when the presumption of innocence is in place, anyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, ergo, if there is not enough evidence to convict, the person must be acquitted. If the judge engages in that activity, they'd be taking on the prosecution's job — to prove the occurrence of a given criminal act. We have separate places for judging and prosecuting for a reason.

The scales are already in favor of the prosecution (they literally have THE STATE’S aid ikn the form of police forces to investigate and taxpayer money to foot costs during criminal lawsuits), so anything that might end up harming or weakening the presumption of innocence is strictly forbidden, including having the judge engage in probationary activity. If the lack of evidence is enough to acquit someone, then having the judge searching for evidence automatically harms the presumption of innocence, because if there is not enough evidence to convict someone, the judge MUST acquit. 

In that scenario, then, the best place for someone who wants to search and defend the truth against unfairness is the Defense stand, clearly. 

Everything said up until now about how the criminal justice system should work is just the theory, however. The reality of it is far sinister. The criminal justice system is a machine perfectly conceived to chew out those who fight for fairness, because fairness is not one of its main goals. It's main goal is serving as an instrument of power (in the most Foucaultian sense of the word) and control over citizens and, to some degree, appease collective concerns about crime rates and violence by making examples out of people, whether they're guilty or not (I could go on a tangent here for hours about the criminal justice system, capitalism and protection of private property by the state, but let's not do that, lol). 

That's why Keita's trial is the perfect storm to break Higuruma's psyche so deeply. All the systematic unfairnesses that exist in the Japanese Criminal Justice System chomp away his ideals — one might say, what constitutes the very core of who he is — and unceremoniously spits it right back in his face. 

Independent defense lawyers are systematically in a worse position regarding resources to gather evidence in their client's favor; it's easier to convict someone who's already under the gavel than to start a new investigation on somebody else and spend even more taxpayer money; to convict a person whom the people deem as guilty soothes the public opinion regarding how well the criminal justice system actually works to "keep society safe from these foul criminals" (not human beings); the appeal is a limited resource in most criminal justice systems, so after one gets their innocence verdict overturned, to get it back is extremely hard.

Everything worked perfectly to break every inch of Higuruma's ideals. It's no use for you to be the only one willing to stare truth in its eyes if everyone else looks away because it's more convenient to let the unfair gears keep turning the way they do. You'll give yourself to unnecessary suffering meanwhile nothing ever changes. This could even help draw a parallel between Higuruma's and Geto's fallouts: to realize how broken the system is, how you can't break a wall with the toy hammer the wall builders give you, and how lonely/depressing/infuriating of an experience it is to realize all this and still know there is absolutely nothing you can do. 

The game is rigged, and if someone ever so chooses to not play by those rules, they're viciously punished.

Now that we've gotten to the breaking part, let's see how it manifests in Higuruma's own cursed technique and domain expansion.

The broken idealist and the cynicism

Someone had made an amazing post about how Higuruma's domain expansion was a perfect demonstration of his own cynicism at the moment his abilities were awakened, but I couldn't find it! So OP, if you by any chance end up reading this, HMU, because what you said will be featured here. (Edit: found it. Thanks, Eugie! The post can be accessed here, and @wolke17 made a deeper analysis after it, take a look at their profile)

In order to talk about Higuruma's cynicism stemming from his disappointment with the criminal justice system, we need to talk about his domain, so that's what we're gonna do now.

In his domain expansion, we meet his shikigami, Judgeman, who is an all-knowing creature responsible for giving off the verdict at the end of the debates between the two parties. According to Higuruma, Judgeman knows absolutely everything about someone's life the moment they enter his domain.

All is well up until now, isn't it? Hm, not so much. There are some very serious philosophical conundrums to having an all-knowing being bestowing judgment (skeptical catholics went crazy over this for many centuries). 

Think about this: in a Courtroom, we have a judge who needs to get to know the facts, and is presented with two different hypotheses about the facts (prosecution and defense), for which the evidentiary activity (collecting evidence) is needed to support one hypothesis or the other. Given that we abide by the presumption of innocence, you don’t even have to prove the defense’s hypothesis to get an acquittal, as long as the prosecution one isn’t proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

What’s the issue with having a judge that is omniscient? 

First off, why would two hypotheses need to be confronted if the judge already knows the answer — if the person did or did not commit the crime?

On another note, now going into more of a “well he’s just judging based on the allegations”, it gets deeper. We have a judge that knows what happened, but simply decides based on the parties arguments. This is a huge issue because firstly, it obliterates the value of truth in the justice system — if criminal law is attributing to a particularly reprehensible action a penalty, and judgeman knows if that action took place or not, yet doesn’t decide according to what happened, but according to who best defends their point of view, it annihilates the very own reason for collecting evidence, the reason that a judgment needs to take place and the reason for criminal law even existing.

In Higuruma's domain, then, truth becomes the least important thing. In there, who has the better argument wins the debate. The judgment that happens within Deadly Sentencing is not about truth, it’s about the game's rules (or, more specifically, his domain's rules) and who plays them better, which makes it all the more ironic that Higuruma sees so much “potential” in the Culling Games due to its rules and established mechanics.

In a courtroom setting, having an omniscient judge is always, in any scenario, a cynical game of wits, and it fits perfectly with the philosophical fallout Higuruma experienced after Keita's conviction. His perspective got switched from "who deserves to win according to the truth" to "who plays the game better". He lost faith in the criminal justice system, and to a deeper degree, he lost faith in fairness in the world as a whole.

And that's why we can arrive at the conclusion that Higuruma is, in essence, a "broken idealist" character: he's not pandering to the idea that "the winner should be the one who plays the rules better” because he truly believes it; he's doing it out of resentment, because he got time and time again punished and was subjected to a hell of a lot of suffering for upholding his own ideals of truth and fairness. He's not acting, he is reacting to being unraveled and broken the way he was.

It also shows in his discourse regarding the weak, and the way he tries to place himself above what he dubs “the ugliness of people”, as the only one who sees the truth (“darkness is only darkness / people are ugly”). It’s a mirror: he experienced his own helplessness (or weakness) with Keita’s conviction, so in an effort to try and protect whatever is left from his own psyche, he’s actively denying how helpless he really feels by putting himself above the “truly weak”. 

In the end, however, Higuruma kept his idealistic essence alive instead of giving himself over to the story that he told himself as a defense mechanism, unlike Geto, which is why it was possible to bring him back.

Even broken, he remained an idealist at heart.

written by tsukimefuku ㋡ comments and reblogs are appreciated. do not copy, translate or repost. copycatting is for losers.

[sokosmic]

Synastry Observations #1

💕 The Venus - Neptune conjunction brings soulmate energy. There is so much compassion, understanding, and unconditional love between the two of you. Together you may be inclined to escape into your own world. A world filled with art, music, and poetry. A place where your fantasies come to life. The Neptune person may idealize the Venus person. They find Venus beautiful. The Venus person gets swept away in Neptune's fog. The trouble with this aspect is that it can also bring deception and illusions. The ability to see one another clearly may be distorted here. Boundaries may be muddy because of a desire to blend into one.

💕 We often hear bad things about 12th House synastry, but it's honestly one of my favorites. However, I'm biased because I have a 12th House stellium 😏. At any rate...someone's Sun overlaying your 12th House will often shine a light on your spirituality and deep seated (un)consciousness. They can bring an awareness to your spiritual path that may be hidden from you. This is especially true if you have your Moon there. Your intuition and inner knowing is activated by this overlay.

💕 Mercury gets slept on so often because people love to idealize Venus (love) or Moon (feelings) or Mars (attraction) in synastry. But positive Mercury aspects in synastry are by far some of my favorite (I'm Mercurial so I'm biased). Mercury - North Node, Mercury - Moon, and Mercury - Jupiter to name a few. Mercury is often a glue that will assist you with being able to communicate with your partner in a way that you both feel heard and understood and allows you to work through misunderstandings in a healthy way.

💕 'Soft' aspects between Saturn and Venus - Sextile, Trine and sometimes Conjunction (depending on other synastry factors) - can produce a positive binding effect on the relationship of a couple. Saturn is a glue that brings a seriousness needed for endurance. Venus offers appreciation of the love involved. It sings tunes of beauty, art, and gentleness, while Saturn commits to and respects these things. The couple has an innate feeling that the connection is one that will be lasting and will endure tough times.

💕 A person who has their Sun in the sign of your North Node, you will find them attractive. Not necessarily in a sexual or romantic way (although it definitely could be!), but because the Sun person naturally embodies the creativity, vitality, etc. the NN person is striving toward, the NN person can't help but to be attracted to attributes of the Sun person. Depending on where the NN person is in their journey and reaching the attributes of the NN, the Sun person also finds the NN person to be intriguing. This aspect in synastry often indicates lessons to be learned from both individuals.

💕 5th & 11th House overlays are FUN. Planets falling into the 11H in synastry activates the desire to be genuine friends, share friend groups, or be a part of the same organizations or social groups. In the 5H, it activates the desire to take a risk on the connection or create something together...could be children, art, music, or whatever theme of the sign that rules that house.

These are my observations and opinions. Take what resonates and leave what doesn't. Thanks for reading!

-So.Kosmic 👽💜💫

[sepublic]

I really admire the writers for how they tend to handle limitations in this show and really make them work in favor of TOH, because I think about how Hexside originally wasn’t supposed to be that prevalent in S1, but then executives mandated it be. And instead of being begrudging about Hexside and dropping it the first moment they had as soon as S2 –with its greater creative freedom– rolled around, the writers actually made it work and continued to see Hexside through all the way to the end, instead of punishing fans who DID end up liking it. And that was quite a few of us, indicating it was done well enough to appeal.

The writers had the school setting play into Luz’s neurodivergency by showing how she learned differently, it played into Eda’s arc by having her get over her own biases and personal issues to let Luz grow, eventually leading to her starting a university. We got to see learning reframed in a positive light for a lot of these kids who are considered weirdoes for wanting that, and the beginnings of rebellion against the coven system. With Luz, this emphasized how she didn’t fit into any binaries and categories, which is a major motif she learns to be proud of. The theme of education and people being allowed to learn magic for its sake goes hand in hand. And Hexside provided the backdrop for a lot of important episodes. It’d end up being relevant to Hunter’s arc later on, and he was introduced properly in S2!

Plus, the shortening; With how that worked, the crew had to rush a lot of stuff, squeeze in a lot of major events within S2B. But they made the crowded feeling work, because it really helped you feel as helpless as the protagonists because they were being overwhelmed with so many revelations and issues. It helps the viewer relate to Eda’s sense of hopelessness, her lack of a plan. It made Edge of the World more tragic, because Luz tries to distract herself from the trauma of Hollow Mind with what seems to be a low-stakes adventure and this is explicitly brought up as a way to keep the kids safe… But it just ends up tying back into Hollow Mind and the Day of Unity anyway, showing that there is no escape. 

It’s like Pandora’s Box, the point of no return, the story event that’s activated the ending. It’s surrounding everyone on all sides, and with the Day of Unity impending, it feels as if there just isn’t enough time, both on a meta and in-universe scale. There’s no space to breathe, and that uncertainty of things ending too fast is recaptured; In a way, it’s as if the end of the show being brought about too soon for viewers is like the end of the world coming for the protagonists.

And again that makes me think of how Dana Terrace explicitly said that she wanted to focus on the good, the benefits, of the altered story and how the writers had to make things work and tie together in response to all that; “Limitation breeds creativity,” she said as her justification. And she said she was proud of the storyline they otherwise wouldn’t have done, and I agree now that I’ve seen it!!! It’s different yet meaningful in its own apples way, just as the original un-shortened plan would’ve been in an oranges way. Idk it’s just really cool, and I can see why that inspired Dana to attempt a ‘Choose your own adventure’ format for a Patreon project, to again have fun with that on-your-toes experience, before she had to focus on her new job.

[zatdummesmadchen]

I completely support Israel being held accountable for its crimes against humanity, but we also can’t ignore that Indonesia has been violently occupying West Papua - a region more than twice the size of occupied Palestine - for the past 55 years, and has murdered 500,000 indigenous West Papuans in the process. Indonesian soldiers routinely burn indigenous villages to the ground, pose with the bodies of murdered Papuan civilians, and actively prevent journalists from reporting on the genocide. West Papuans often refer to their homeland as “Indonesia’s Palestine.”

There's nothing to add. I agree. I am not trying to imply that all of the countries supporting Palestine don't have their own interests or agendas or that they are perfect in any way. Such as China or, say, Iran. Not everything is black and white, and there are definitely multiple geopolitical reasons for their actions or stand.

There are definitely many biases when it comes to geopolitical situations and blatant hypocrisy.

I completely understand and do sympathise with the West Papuans.

Undoubtedly, the situation is awful and has been going on for years. Basic research shows plenty of results of the brutal Indonesian occupation and brutality against the people.

《 Here is this website I found which might be helpful to gain some insight, feel free to drop more and I will add it to the post. 》

The West Papua Genocide Monitor

Welcome to the Awareness Campaign page for West Papua genocide. You have come to the right place if you are looking for information about West Papua genocide. - the introduction. Very good information.

The situation is indeed very similar to Palestine, with some mentions of settler colonialism in some of the articles. Hence the name is fitting I suppose. Hypocrisy runs high in politics and history, no doubt.

Countries such as Turkey and Egypt come to mind, its very telling. They probably put out statements to pacify the outrage and the anger of their own citizens since it would and should threaten their power otherwise.

This includes several Arab governments such as Jordan (there are huge protests daily)

The information about it is easy to find although I think a much more educated blog would do well in explaining the situation.

[jttwconfessions]

I REALLY appreciate the jttw artists on tumblr, like, you guys are the GOAT! Especially those that are chinese and are so open to sharing your own insights on the story and such. As someone who's reading jttw and actively trying to understand chinese mythology all-around, it's really nice to see people who actually know their stuff and interact with those who are trying to learn ♡ keep up the good work ! Yeah, this wasn't really a complaint or anything, just an appreciation thing, and I think a little positivity is nice once In a while on a blog with so many complaints, and I applaud the mods for being so un-biased when it comes to posting confessions, appreciate you guys a lot, and keep up the good work! :)

[secular-jew]

The Truth about Aid Flowing into Gaza. By Barry Shaw: The View from Israel

As Melanie Phillips aptly put it,

"In the remorseless attempt to demonise Israel, humanitarian aid has become the blood libel of the day."

Israel says there is no limit to the number of aid trucks being allowed into Gaza. The hold-ups at the crossing points are because the UN is struggling to distribute the aid.

That is because it uses the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, which is controlled by Hamas.

Israel's COGAT says that, over the past two weeks, almost 50% more food trucks have entered Gaza than before the start of the war.

On Wednesday, 257 trucks entered. Over the past few days, more than 100 trucks were transferred to the northern part of the Strip. Over the past two weeks, the number of operational bakeries in Gaza doubled from 10 to 20, providing more than 2.5 million breads per day to the population.

From the start of the war, more than 750 packages of humanitarian aid have been delivered by 25 airdrops mounted by an alliance of Israel, the US, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and France. None from Britain!

The media is showing a deeply biased, deliberately selective, picture of Gaza.

COGAT, which co-ordinates Israeli government activities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, published a video of Gazans queuing up at a plentiful shawarma stand in Rafah.

Social media footage has shown well-stocked Rafah markets. There have also been videos of Gazans contemptuously throwing air-dropped ready-to-eat meals into the trash.

Hamas hijacks the trucks and steals the food and other supplies, either for itself or to sell to the population on the black market.

On social media, there are videos of aid trucks being commandeered by armed men. There are also videos of Egyptian drivers warning others not to drive aid trucks into Gaza because they are being attacked with rocks hurled through their windscreens, leaving some badly injured and even killed.

This has nothing to do with Israel.

It has everything to do with the impotence of the UN and other international aid organisations that have been in Gaza for decades.

Even US officials are admitting that Hamas is stealing the aid that the Biden administration is falsely accusing Israel of failing to provide.

One senior official told journalists that the problem was with distribution once the 250 to 300 truckloads of assistance got into Gaza. He said: “This is a product of, if you will, commercialisation of the assistance; criminal gangs are taking it, looting it, reselling it. They’ve monetised humanitarian assistance. … The food is there; it’s coming in”.

David Satterfield, the senior US diplomat involved in humanitarian assistance for Gaza, acknowledged that police escorts for aid deliveries include Hamas members, and that Hamas has been using other aid delivery channels to “shape where and to whom assistance goes.”

Israel is being scapegoated for the war crimes of Hamas. Scapegoating the Jews is the consistent and defining motif of antisemitism through the ages.

Israel’s media spokesman Eylon Levy said this week: “We will accept being scapegoated no longer.” Israel isn’t on its knees. The Jews of Britain and America should get up from theirs and publicly tell Cameron and Blinken the same thing.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

There was another independent terrorist attack today, this time in Samaria, in the area of Yitzhar. The victim is reportedly a young Israeli man of 19 years, and he's in a serious state, while the terrorist is said to have been neutralized. The craziest thing at the link is a small summary about the Palestinian terrorist activity in these parts. In Judea and Samaria alone, an area geographically disconnected from Gaza, where Hamas does operate, but which is not under its rule, just from Oct 7 to Jan 15, there have been no less than 2600 (!) terrorist attacks recorded.

Bassem Eid, a Palestinian journalist and human rights activist, has published an op ed at Newsweek, where he's writing to his fellow Palestinians, asking them to stop blaming the Jews for the starvation Hamas is causing in Gaza.

We already knew that the IDF has been using millions of leaflets, phone calls and text messages (millions of each) to warn Gazans to evacuate from dangerous war zones, and that in itself costs a lot of money. I don't think I've ever come across any country investing this much money in evacuating the population of the other side in a war. But now, I saw a TV report on how the IDF is trying to do even more. I've found the footage that they showed, a short vid of an IDF drone, that has speakers attached to it, so it can announce to the residents of a specific project in Khan Younis to evacuate it:

The IDF has also shared an intercepted phone conversation, where they recorded an UNRWA teacher, who is also a Hamas terrorist, talking about his part in the Oct 7 massacre, where he brags about having kidnapped an Israeli woman. The call took place 7 hours after the massacre began. In this context, and while the UN continues to express itself in a way that unjustly vilifies Israel, it's no wonder that Israel's envoy to the UN has been called back for consultation, something Israel hasn't done in 8 years. Honestly, I think at this point it's clear that it's not just that the UN has been biased against Israel since before Hamas had started this war. As Israel continues to expose the complicity of UN workers in the Oct 7 massacre, the UN now also has the motivation to do its best to discredit the one country that can prove its guilt better than any other.

I generally don't talk about the negotiations for another hostage deal. It's a lot of emotional ups and downs to follow them, and I also know many reports are denied quickly, some can be just plain false and made by people eager for attention, while other can even be statements intentionally made to pressure one of the sides in one direction or another. I follow the reports, but IDK which ones I believe myself, even when they come from normally reliable media sources. However, I've heard this report on multiple Israeli news sources, and I tend to believe it reflects the genuine belief on Israel's part, so I'm passing it on. Apparently, the Israeli officials in charge of negotiations now believe that Hamas is intentionally not agreeing to any deals, because it wants escalation during Ramadan. It tracks for me, it's clear that the idea of fighting during Ramadan will be used as parpaganda against Israel, even though Hamas are extremist Islamists, who have no issue with violence during Ramadan, and even the US has made it pretty clear through Blinken's statement, that they currently see Hamas as the side saying no to a truce as part of a hostage deal.

It took way too long for this committee to be appointed, it took them too much time to do anything while the world either denied or justified the crimes perpetrated on Oct 7, it's releasing its port 5 months after the massacre, when the initial info started coming out just days after it, but an independent UN envoy has finally officially confirmed that there is "clear and convincing evidence" regarding the sex crimes of Hamas, committed against victims on Oct 7 itself, and against the hostages since then.

This is 22 years old Noa Farage.

She was a surfer, was planning to travel to South East Asia for 6 months, and volunteered as a scouts counselor. She was very excited to go to the Nova music festival, because it was going to be her last time hanging out with her best friend Roni before her trip. On Oct 7, Roni survived, but Noa was murdered by Hamas terrorists.

May her memory be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[modernbaseball]

The reason I keep getting accused of being a terf is because I post openly about being a (hairy) dyke. I think people need to re evaluate their own biases and the fact that it is you and not me who is the problem in this situation

Why do u assume a woman loving feminist dyke hates trans people? How r you letting other people that i don't even fucking know or interact with effect how you percieve me? Do u think a dyke's default state is to oppose trans rights? Do u think it's a good fucking choice to push women like me that stand up for trans people away from your own community because of your own assumptions about me? Assumptions that you made on the basis of me being gay and a woman?

If your trans activism operates on profiling and accusing random women it's not very good activism. Terfs GCs and people accusing me of being such leave me the fuck alone don't try to debate me don't try to derail my fucking posts just LEAVE ME ALONE. You will be blocked on sight. U people are un fucking believable

[girlactionfigure]

Some good news for Israel from the World Health Organization (of the United Nations):

An Israeli physician, Dr. Asher Shalmon, was appointed a member of the organization's executive committee.

Beyond that, the organization approved a resolution condemning Hamas's military use of medical facilities such as hospitals and clinics as well as ambulances.

The call for the unconditional release of the Israeli abductees in Gaza was also accepted, recognizing that they do not receive any of the rights they deserve.

##

It may sound trivial to you, but the ratification of such a decision by one of the UN agencies (which is always biased against Israel) is a real achievement that could help Israel in the legal arena, especially with regard to the targeting of operatives and terrorist activity in medical facilities across the Strip.

[kyreniacommentator]

UN is lost for words and needs to look at its Cyprus double-dealing records

UN does not respond to allegations of double standards between parties in Cyprus The UN did not explain why it tried to prevent the construction of a humanitarian road connecting the Pile and Yigitler villages in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) but took no action against projects initiated by Greek Cypriots. Continue reading Untitled

[juana-the-iguana]

Navigating media during war

Here are some tips to navigate the conflict without a paid subscription. Disclaimer, I am based in the United States and this advice is for people in the US. These tips may apply for all wars, but I wrote this with the Israel-Hamas conflict in mind.

My qualifications: I am a reporter who has worked on both local, state, national and international stories. I have covered breaking news, and have done enterprising news and investigative journalism. I will graduate with a MA in Journalism in a month. 

Reasons to question my authority: I have less than five year of professional experience. I have never reported on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or anywhere else in the Middle East. I speak neither modern Hebrew nor Arabic. 

Moving on:

The best tip I can give you is pick a few good news sources and wait two days after any given event or incident before claiming to understand what happened.

In the United States, our news industry is incentivized toward breaking news, which means that organizations sometimes air information without having time to thoroughly fact check it. This becomes especially evident in times of war, when it is hard to obtain information and even on-the-ground reporters don't have the full picture of what's happening.

You are not going to find a perfect news organization. They're all going to fuck up in some capacity. If you have a strong stance on this issue, you're going to be more sensitive to those mistakes and real or perceived biases. (And, for the record, it is possible for one organization to hold multiple biases depending on the time of day, presenter and facet of the war being discussed.) That's why it is genuinely important to consume multiple news sources.

So if you're wondering why I chose these sources it's because a) they're free, b) they issue corrections when they're wrong and c) they do not engage in disinformation.

In no particular order: BBC, Reuters, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, AP. You should not rely on only one of these. You should fact-check these against bias sources that don't outright lie. 

Now onto the sources you should avoid. Let's get into disinformation: What is it? 

Disinformation is the intentional spreading of false information. It's lying. Misinformation is inaccurate information that is spread around, but not done with malice.

All news organizations have misinformation at some point. You should NEVER trust a news organization that engages in disinformation, about anything, unless several years have passed, the people responsible for the disinformation have been thoroughly purged from the group and they cite every goddamn thing they said.

The two big organizations I recommend avoiding because they engage in disinformation are Fox News and Al Jazeera.

Fox News lied about the 2020 election in the United States and actively contributed to an attempted insurrection. Al Jazeera is an arm of the Qatari state and has lied repeatedly about, well, just about everything of interest to the Qatari government, but especially Israel. They have made several highly consequential lies in this ongoing conflict that have had tangible, catastrophic consequences on the entire globe. 

Advocacy groups are not news outlets.

Also, don't trust terrorist organizations. Yes, the UN, WHO, Amnesty International and pretty much every NGO under the sun and the vast majority of news organizations cite them, but that's not because they're reliable, it's because they're the only group releasing information from Gaza.

You shouldn't take the IDF at face value either, but if what the IDF is saying is verified by the US, EU and/or other reliable, third parties, then that information is probably true. 

No news source is perfect. That's just a fact. I cannot stress the importance of looking at multiple sources.

Here are some things to look out for when watching/reading the news.

- If a news source is attributing facts to two different sources, ask yourself, "why?" Information is hard to come by. Sometimes one source doesn't report everything you want to know. But sometimes you know your source is unreliable, you don't have any alternatives, so you want to distance yourself from that. What does this look like? 

You might see people cite two sources to report death counts in Gaza: the Palestinian Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, and Save the Children which analyzes information about the number of children killed. Save the Children gets the estimated number of deaths from Hamas. 

- Does it make sense to have this information at this time? If there was an explosion and a government states that 500 people died in it, well, how much time did it take them to count those bodies? Does that sound feasible?

- When you're listening to eye-witness interviews, do their perspectives or narratives match up with the physical scenes you are seeing? They might not be lying, it could be a miscommunication, but for the context it is presented in, it might not be accurate.

Language to look out for:

Occupation, blockade, siege, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, ethnic cleansing, legitimate military targets and apartheid are all distinct things. All of them, with the exception of apartheid, have specific legal definitions. If people are using these things interchangeably, maybe they're sharing opinions. That doesn't mean that what they're saying isn't valuable, but it does mean that you probably shouldn't cite them when debating international law.

Now let's elaborate on "occupation" for a second. Egypt occupied Gaza from 1949 to 1967. Then Israel occupied Gaza until 2005. In 2007 Israel started the blockade on Gaza and last month, after the 10/7 massacre, they started a siege. As noted above, these are distinct things.

If people are talking about occupation or settlements in the context of this conflict it means either one of four things:

- They are talking about the West Bank, which is under occupation and where settlements do exist

- They are talking about the history of Gaza pre 2005

- They do not know that Gaza isn't under occupation and that there are no longer settlements there (which means that they are not an informed source)

- Or they assume the entire Israeli state is occupying Palestine which, whether you like it or not, is not factually or correct

Just because something feels wrong doesn't mean it is illegal. Occupations, blockades, sieges, the use of white phosphorous and bombing areas where you know there are civilians are all legal in certain contexts. 

Legality might not matter to you personally, but when you're watching the news and trying to assess who is sharing facts and who is sharing opinions, you should keep this in mind.

Other notes:

- Rockets need fuel. Ventilation systems in tunnels need fuel. 

- Movies and tv shows are filmed in Gaza and the West Bank. If you see a photo of someone in a body bag texting or women laughing while painting a baby doll red, it might be a behind-the-scenes video from one of those things.

- There are a lot of AI generated pictures being used, especially in propaganda. Count fingers, arms, legs and look at backgrounds to see if what you are seeing makes sense. But for the love of god, if you don't like something, that doesn't mean it's AI.

- There are a lot of photos circulating from past wars. Be careful before you reblog. Reverse Google image search is your friend. 

- If you are not sure if something is real or not, wait a week. If the US, EU and dozens of journalists say it is true, believe it.

Finally, social media. When is it appropriate to use social media for news?

News aggregates are usually okay. I'm talking places like r/worldnews. They are pulling from other news organizations, so they can repeat those flaws, but they give you a mix of headlines from multiple sources. And they'll very often post large parts, if not the entirety, of articles from sources from the New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal that have paywalls in the comments. But also beware the comments because they can be disgusting.

Social media is also very good for sharing the individual human experience. The issue with that is that you can't always vet the person on camera or being spoken about, so they could be lying, spreading misinformation and it isn't the whole picture. 

This needs to be said again and again: social media dehumanizes people. You know this, but you will fall victim to it anyway. Your algorithm will do its best to show you the best versions of the people and groups you like, and the worst versions of the people and groups you don't like to make you feel justified in adopting dehumanizing beliefs. 

For anyone interested, I'm going to update the list of news sources I think are trustworthy in the next few days. I've found a few small, independent and/or foreign outlets that use open source intelligence (OSINT) in their reporting and they seem pretty reliable to me, but I want to vet them a bit further.

EDITED: Removed the name of a news organization that I previously said I thought was reliable. They did not issue a correction after uncritically repeating Hamas's lie that the al-Ahli hospital parking lot bombing was an Israeli airstrike that killed 500 people, and spent days repeating these false claims as if they were fact.

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

im sorry but so much music, including some albums you've posted here, promotes misogyny, so your rule about no hateful albums is kinda limiting

so the conversation that goes with this question is so much bigger than one i can really have right at this moment, but i'll try to do my best with what i do have. hopefully that works for you.

⬇ rest of it down here

from a purely functional perspective, i'm unfamiliar with the vast majority of albums that are submitted to this blog, so unfortunately i'm not the best equipped to detect when albums are promoting bigotry, and there is absolutely not enough time in any of our days to go through the lyrics for every single submission (especially when some might not have been transcribed anywhere) to check for any bigotry.

then: there is the threshold. if we're aware of something that might be an issue, at what point does it become too much? for example, i have, in particular, given leeway to certain uses of un-reclaimed slurs when the date of usage may precede knowledge that those words are harmful, especially if the works are considered culturally significant (either in general or in the genre/movement itself). it's rather uncomfortable, but all things in their context.

the threshold is particularly relevant when talking about things that are deeply normalized in this cultural context. did this songwriter set out recreate violence or is it a really unfortunate reflection of the beliefs of the society the song was created in? obviously intention can only "protect" one so much since you have to look at the practical effects as well, but if you look at an album and can see that it was created to intentionally push hateful messaging, then that would be an example of something we wouldn't want to have on here without question.

you would be right to say that not allowing any discriminatory anything at all would be extremely limiting. most album covers with sexy women on them, i'm sure, are a reflection of societal misogyny. that's why, when we're aware of it, we have to judge things based on that context and hope that the people submitting albums also thought about this before submitting. we don't have so large a follower base that i'm particularly worried about malicious actors.

general criteria for stuff that i would consider over the threshold include (but aren't limited to): active use of dog whistles, especially in the titles, connection to a hate group, calls for violence (toward a vulnerable population), album art that is meant to make vulnerable populations feel afraid

the thing is, i have to be careful that if i'm going to reject an album submission, i have to be sure that any of my own unidentified biases aren't potentially causing me to do so. this is, i think, particularly relevant when minority/oppressed subcultures reflect bigotry that only exists in those communities as an end result of imperialist pressures. this is a difficult line to walk because i don't particularly want to participate on that side of, say, pinkwashing and its ilk. because of this, i tend to err on the side of permissiveness when it comes to subcultures that i'm not part of or familiar enough with.

anyway, if anyone thinks we might have missed something with an album that we've posted, please feel free to reach out and explain why we should take it down. please do this clearly and in a way that won't be easily misinterpreted, though. sending an ask off anon is the best way. again, it's really, really easy to miss stuff at the scale we have to do things at.

[angrybell]

The UN is at war with Israel.

I’m not talking about all its constituents members. I’m talking about the organization itself. Its keeps on staff a horrifically biased Rapporteur who was caught trying accept a fictional honorarium to give a speech about the evils of Israel. UNWRA is effective the logistics branch of Hamas and PIJ. UNWRA’s employees are given time off work to go and attack Israel.

If these things only happened occasionally, that would be one thing. But there evidence is damming. Either the UN has to be absolutely incapable of tracking anything that happens among its staff or the property it controls, or its an active participant. At this point, willfully being blind is out the window because too much has happened. The errors never favor Jews or Israel. They always, always, always favor the murderers who are fighting for an Islamic emirate to be created in place of a destroyed Israel.

And they support this. Look at who they choose to honor.

It has chosen to honor its dead employees of UNWRA, most of whom were members of Hamas or one of the other terrorist groups that operates from Gaza. The UN Secretary General ordered that the UN flag be lowered to half mast in honor of the Iranian president who died over the weekend. Honoring a man who made a career out of oppression at home and spreading terror abroad while making sure to stoke the fires of conflict between Israel and the Arabs occupying Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.

It has denied, despite massive amounts of first hand testimony, that Israel was subjected to an attack that violated virtually all norms of international law, instead choosing only to focus on Israel’s response. There was never a moment of silence that I can remember being held for Israelis. The closes was when UN Human Rights Council (perhaps the biggest joke of the UN’s various organizations) held a moment of silence for “loss of innocent lives in occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere.”

Jews, Israelis are not considered worthy of respect by the UN. They are an enemy who cannot be treated as humans. An Iranian who ordered the brutal repression of his own people, who supplied arms to the Houthis to carry out their acts of piracy, who supplied rockets to Syria and Hezbollah to terrorize their own people, and who championed Hamas, was given more respect than Shani Louk or Kfir Bibas.

And the Biden administration played along. They didn’t protest. They didn’t walk out. They participated in honoring a butcher.

The UN has decided it is at war with Israel. We should accept that and treat them as a combatant. They should be targeted. They should be subject to ICC prosecution because they are, in fact, aiding and abetting Hamas’ crimes. If ICC will not do it (because they wont, they’re just as biased and bigoted) then the US should prosecute them.

The UN is a failed experiment that is irredeemable at this point. It should be destroyed,

[antoine-roquentin]

Part 1 in this series about... something. I’ll figure it out when I write more.

Howard Imbrey was a CIA agent. Having started in the CIA’s WW2 predecessor, the OSS, he was placed undercover in diplomatic roles at American consulates and embassies in Sri Lanka, India, and Ethiopia during the late 40s and 50s. This was a traditional role for intelligence agents: with diplomatic immunity, they would be safe from prosecution, while embassy parties and other events allowed them to pick up gossip from inside the country.

However, it did limit agents and paint a large target on their back. Imbrey operated in a friendly environment in India, where he could rely on British-trained police chiefs as informants in the battle against the Communist Party of India in Maharashtra and Kerala. In other parts of the world, governments would monitor the movements and activities of those who came out of the American embassy, knowing them to be spies.

In 1958, Imbrey was instead embedded in a fake corporation headquartered near the UN in NYC, with a real businessman as his partner. They worked closely with UN diplomats to find actual businesses to promote, to keep the whole thing legit. At the same time, it allowed Imbrey the chance to question the diplomats and businessmen for gossip and to meet with other informants the CIA had already cultivated across the continent. Some of these informants included Cyrille Adoula and Albert Kalonji, head of political parties and breakaway factions devoted to undermining Patrice Lumumba’s elected government in the Congo.

The article attached was important to developing his cover. Initially, it ran in Fortune, owned at the time by Henry Luce’s Time Inc., while the screenshots are from John H. Johnson’s Negro Digest. Luce was historically close to the CIA and the American government in general. He hired CIA agents onto his staff and allowed them to write propaganda as they saw fit. He directed his journalists to publish opinion pieces attacking those who exposed CIA secrets, like Ramparts magazine. At one point in the Congo Crisis, US Ambassador to Belgium William Burden, a friend of Luce’s, phoned him to get him to bury a story on Lumumba. No information has come out either way on just whether the journalist who wrote this article knew Imbrey was CIA or was simply ordered to by higher ups, but it seems likely that the editorial staff of Negro Digest simply saw it as fitting with their focus on black lives and reprinted it unwittingly to the CIA’s benefit. Later on, Imbrey would find another cover as a journalist with a CIA-controlled news outlet in Paris, Brussels, and Rome, which allowed the CIA to fly informants to him.

None of this was known to anyone until 2001, save for a brief acknowledgement of thanks to Imbrey’s wife in a book by Larry Devlin, CIA Station Chief in the Congo. That year, Imbrey suddenly gave two interviews in April and June, and then died a year later. One was to a high school student at a private Episcopal school in Maryland. It’s roughly written, and clearly transcribed by someone who’s writing the names of Congolese officials by ear rather than knowledge, but deserves to be read, not because Imbrey lets his guard down consciously, but rather because of the implicit biases he still has and the distinction between the secrets he wishes to keep and those he feels fine in revealing. Particularly humorous is when the kid tries to ask him about whether the CIA operated independently from the president, and Imbrey denies it, saying “That’s an Arab type of operation.”

The other was to Charles Stuart Kennedy, a career diplomat who retired in the 80s and subsequently made a post-retirement life of interviewing other diplomats for the public record. Since many CIA employees were embedded as diplomats, he ended up running into a bunch. His interview is much more detailed and professional, albeit with the same transcription errors on names, and makes for excellent reading for anybody who enjoys salacious historical gossip. Imbrey talks about reading Popeye the Sailor bootleg Rule 34 as a kid, kidnapping fishermen in the Indian Ocean with submarines to train them to use radios to spy on the Japanese Navy (sounds like UFO abductions), supplying porn to the higher ups in the Indian Navy, etc. But two particular moments stand out, one being what may be the single worst denial of American involvement in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba:

Q: Did you get involved at all with the Lumumba business?

IMBREY: No, the only thing I can tell you is they sent out this shellfish compound to chief of station Larry Devlin and he sent it back with an angry note saying, “Don't you know the Belgians are going to kill him, what do you want us to do?” We kept totally out of that one. Then Lumumba really put himself in terrible trouble when he gave a rise of one rank to everybody in the army and then found he couldn't pay the new prices. Then the army rebelled; they put him in an airplane, took him south and they pulled him out of the airplane on the driveway, brought him up to the chief of the Lunda tribe and in Munongo's office and I guess they shot him there or it may not have been there. In Munongo's office they began asking him a couple of questions. Well, this was according to his answers. Munongo took a bayonet and put it right into Lumumba's chest and Captain Gatt, a Belgian, was right there and he fired a bullet in the back of Lumumba's head to put him out of his misery and that was how it happened, but no Americans were involved.

and whatever this is, which happens to coincide with the CIA’s MHCHAOS operation on American soil:

Q: When you came home what were you doing?

IMBREY: That's where we turn off the tape recorder.

Q: All right, well then, we'll just skip over that. When did you take off again where we can talk?

IMBREY: Let's see. I was sent back to Rome in '72. Turn it off for a while and I'll tell you about it.

[banqanas]

@elenilote replied to your post:

I am (un)fortunate enough to be Gunchan biased cause he honestly has the prettiest merch. And yeah the rose theme for Stars is just exquisite - like their promo team is absolutely top class. When I get home later tonight I will happily share my merch stash!

We all know that the difference between Omi and Gunchan is just this close👌 👀 Omi is more lowkey nowadays whereas Gunchan is still actively appearing on tv and CMs