What is this world?

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@OmarHamadD Here in the US organizing my little Palestine events that don't have the impact I wish, please know I've been following you and sharing your writing, telling people about "one of Palestine's beautiful poets." Your life matters very much to me and those who read you.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@yousefmohmoud25 Sending greetings and hope for small moments of beauty despite everything.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@ZaqoutMe Thank you for doing this! I love how your art brings cheer and humanity and is a gift to this sweet little girl.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@ZaqoutMe .

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@MarkRuffalo Thanks for being brave and continuing to speak up. You inspire me.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@davidsirota @AbdulElSayed It is truly the best, as good as in Lebanon!

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@wolflovesmelon Thank you for doing this! You did inspire us! Be safe!

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@citrinowicz Check out Trita Parsi's explanation of what happened.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@OmarHamadD I'm so glad you got the medication. So sorry for your illness. Salemtak!

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@Mai_Gazan Allah yerhamo. I'm so sorry.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@khalil_hinawi Please stay with us if you can. If it's too hard no one will blame you but you matter to us.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@yousefmohmoud25 Please don't give up. By staying around, you are resisting the forces of de-humanization. By staying, you help others around you have courage to stay. Thank you for posting here. If you do give up, it doesn't mean you're bad, though. It's natural to be depressed in genocide.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@OmarHamadD Omar, thank you for your words. Thank you for continuing. In these dark times when we outside Gaza are bombarded with sickening propaganda, your words have always brought human dignity to light. Your work has fed my activism and determination to keep going.

[Omar Hamad | عُـمَـرْ 𓂆 @OmarHamadD]

Why have we only mastered the art of dying?
I walk between hunger and death,
leaping lightly between the two,
knowing well that my leaps can never surpass either.
As if I’m playing on a tightrope stretched above a graveyard,
smiling at a gray sky
from which missiles fall like barren rain.
I reach out for a crust of bread through the window of memory,
only to watch it burn before it ever arrives.
I hear my mother calling me from a place that no longer exists,
and my father’s voice whispers:
“Don’t run too much, my son… death does not like to tire itself.”
It knows us well,
knows our names,
and the little dreams we never got to finish.
It knows I once wanted new shoes,
and a family photo that doesn’t blur with the sound of explosions.
It knows my little brother hasn’t yet learned how to pronounce the word “homeland,”
and my sister used to hide her letters beneath the pillow,
so the one she loved could read them…
but the one she loved is gone too.

I stand between hunger and death,
with an unbaked loaf in my heart,
a song without melody,
and a childhood tangled in the wires of absence.

Sometimes…
I think if I were to die now,
maybe I’d finally rest.
But I’m afraid my son would inherit me,
would walk my path through the rubble,
would become as skilled as I am
in leaping between hunger and death—
without falling…
and without surviving.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@khalil_hinawi Hi Khalil. It is totally understandable to feel that way, my friend. Those feelings are actually trying to protect you from the pain of your hard situation. I hope you can hang in there. The world would be a worse place without you in it.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@khalil_hinawi I am grateful you talk about your life and feelings here. You inspire me to go to protests, write to American officials, and organize small events that bring awareness to what you and others are going through. 💕🇵🇸

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@khalil_hinawi My family and friends in the US are with you, including many who aren't Arab. We think about you and what you are going through. We do what we can to move towards justice for Palestinians. You deserve justice and we won't give up. Sending love.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

All the takes are correct and yet they also miss the point.

Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it.  It is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this.

But these are all just symptoms.  The deeper reality is that liberalism has failed, liberalism is dead, and people urgently need to wake up to this fact and respond accordingly. It is a defunct ideology that cannot offer any meaningful solutions to our social and ecological crises and it must be abandoned.

Democrats have proven over and over again that they cannot accept even *basic* steps like public healthcare, affordable housing, and a public job guarantee - things that would dramatically improve the material, social and political conditions of the working classes. And they cannot accept a public finance strategy that would steer production away from fossil fuels and toward green transition to give us a shot at a liveable future.

Why? Because these things run against the objectives of capital accumulation. And for liberals capital is sacrosanct. They will do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation, it is their only consistent commitment.  At home, they suppress and demonize progressive and socialist tendencies. Abroad, they engage in endless wars and violence to suppress input prices in the global South and prevent any possibility of sovereign economic development.

The Democrats have done all this purposefully and knowingly, for my whole life, not as some kind of "mistake" but in full consciousness that it is in the interests of capital.

And because liberalism cannot address our crises, and because it crushes socialist alternatives, it inevitably paves the way for right-wing populism.  They know this pattern, and yet they risk it every time - this election being only the most recent example. They did it in 2016, when they actively crushed the Sanders campaign and sent Trump to the White House. They do it because ultimately they (and I mean the liberal ruling class here) don't really mind if fascists take power, so long as the latter too ensure the conditions for capital accumulation. They 100% prefer this to the possibility of a socialist alternative.

So, progressives have to face reality. The dream of "converting" the Democratic party is dead. This is now a fact and it must be accepted. The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@RyanRozbiani "Trump is on the side of Israel" -- Trump ally Guliani at recent Madison Square Garden rally. The way he will "bring peace" is through American interference and Lebanese civil war. Don't vote for Trump.

[What is this world? @NabatiTogether]

@AnasAlSharif0 I called the White House comment line, told them to stop the genocide, and recited part of your message. The White House comment line number is 202-456-1111. I am asking others to do the same. I will protest for you. Thank you for your steadfastness.