Laura M. Noggle

*How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.* Henry David Thoreau

[Memo Torres 🌮 @el_tragon_de_LA]

The strategy has always been to attack education ever since the civil rights movements were heavily led by college campuses. They first started raising school fees and tuitions. They slowed if not stopped the creation of new universities while investing heavily in the prison …

[Noura Erakat @4noura]

In my most compassionate listening, I hear the folks who oppose genocide but are voting Harris as seeking to unite the center & the left in an effort to defeat fascism. There are problems with this: 🧵

[Laura M. Noggle @Nogglization]

"I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no 'two evils' exist.
There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say."

W.E.B. Du Bois
"Why I Won't Vote," The Nation, 1956

[Tiberius @tiberiusfiles]

One of the most profoundly-damaging & deranged parts of this horrific moment is watching Western society attempt to argue that allowing Israel to freely slaughter tens of thousands of innocent defenceless civilians trapped in a concentration camp is somehow the moral thing to do

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

The apartheid regime in South Africa did not fall because of moral pressure. It fell because of organized, multi-front resistance.

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

I feel like I should reiterate my position that you're not actually punishing the Democrats by refusing to vote for them in November. They don't care if you don't vote for them. They don't care if they lose. Their political careers will be fine either way.

It's entirely fine and legitimate to not vote for Democrats, but don't let that act dupe you into thinking your vote matters. It doesn't matter how you vote, and it doesn't matter how you don't vote. The US power structure is set up to be completely unaffected by voters. Acting like you could teach the Democrats a lesson by refusing to vote for them only feeds into the illusion that voting matters inside a power structure that has been deemed too important to be left to the hands of the voters.

There's a viral tweet from Glenn Greenwald going around that says "The US has no functional president and has not had one for months, and it's barely noticeable and barely matters because there's a permanent unelected machine that runs the government."

Greenwald is correct. Nobody with any real power cares all that much who the president is. The president doesn't even need to have a functioning brain. This whole show is being run by people who don't ultimately care all that much whether Democrats or Republicans are in office, including the party leadership of the Democrats and the Republicans.

You think Democrats have enjoyed playing the face of the evil empire these last few years? You think they've enjoyed having their political rallies interrupted by anti-genocide protesters and having their feel-good progressive image completely discredited in front of everyone? They'd all be having a lot more fun if the terrible things being perpetrated by the Biden administration were being done by Trump instead, so they could go back to playing the good guys.

They're happy to lose, which is why they're acting like they're happy to lose. They're doing absolutely nothing to appeal to progressives or energize their base. They're not articulating any real policies besides more of the same. They're not changing anything about any of the things that make normal people hate Democrats in the year 2024, and if they lose again in November they will continue to not change anything.

Americans don't live in the kind of country where votes matter. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is. Vote or don't vote however you want, but don't make the mistake of believing you'll be teaching the Democrats any kind of lesson that they will actually learn by doing so.

If real change comes to the United States, it won't be because of how any Americans chose to vote or not vote in any of their fake elections. There are no solutions to these problems in electoral politics.

[Craig Mokhiber @CraigMokhiber]

U.S. policy in Gaza is not a “failure.” It is a terrible success. Washington’s real policy has always been to support Israel in the destruction of Gaza, to render it unlivable, and to lay the ground for its ethnic cleansing. The ceasefire negotiation charade, the fake pier, the airdrop theater, the trickle of aid, the crocodile tears for civilian loss, the movable red lines, and the arguments with Israel on the pace of the destruction are all fig leaves designed to create diplomatic and political space for genocide. The U.S. is a successful co-perpetrator in Genocide.

[John Cusack @johncusack]

Let that fact - shatter your conscience

[Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده @RamAbdu]

Breaking: Aerial photos show the Israeli army's sweeping and destruction of neighborhoods it has entered in the city of Rafah. USA says it is unaware of any major operation in Rafah at the moment.

[Don’t Boo…Revolt! @BreeNewsome]

The only real non-partisan position is one that acknowledges how highly illegal all of this is

[Peter Daou @peterdaou]

I'm a grown up. I realize there are two sides to this:

1) People who oppose massacring children.

2) People who support massacring children.

[Jules @julesterpak]

If you meet someone, stop feeling obligated to follow them on social media

[Tiberius @tiberiusfiles]

👇

[Don’t Boo…Revolt! @BreeNewsome]

You think folks are being hyperbolic when they say Gaza is a preview of what’s to come for us here,

next thing you know they’ve installed militarized checkpoints at the NYC subway

[Don’t Boo…Revolt! @BreeNewsome]

“Trump will be worse!”

So get someone better than Biden

[Jon Stewart @jonstewart]

umm...note to CNN...a "chaotic incident" is college kids storming a basketball court, not a massacre at a food line...

[Sam Husseini @samhusseini]

I’ve updated my piece and it now includes the full video.

Ignoring Immolators Lulls the Society to Sleep: Aaron Bushnell at the Israeli Embassy: "FREE PALESTINE!"

In a minimally normal society, Aaron’s words and video of his immolation would be on every major media outlet and there would be thousands outside the genocidal Israeli embassy, shutting it down.

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Aaron Bushnell Burned Himself Alive To Make You Turn Your Eyes To Gaza

I watched the uncensored video of US airman Aaron Bushnell self-immolating in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington while screaming “Free Palestine”. I hesitated to watch it because I knew once I put it into my mind it’s there for the rest of my life, but I figured I owe him that much.

I feel like I’ve been picked up and shaken, which I suppose was pretty much what Bushnell was going for. Something to shake the world awake to the reality of what’s happening. Something to snap us out of the brainwashed and distracted stupor of western dystopia and turn our gaze to Gaza.

The sounds stay with you more than the sights. The sound of his gentle, youthful, Michael Cera-like voice as he walked toward the embassy. The sound of the round metal container he stored the accelerant in getting louder as it rolls toward the camera. The sound of Bushnell saying “Free Palestine”, then screaming it, then switching to wordless screams when the pain became too overwhelming, then forcing out one more “Free Palestine” before losing his words for good. The sound of the cop screaming at him to get on the ground over and over again. The sound of a first responder telling police to stop pointing guns at Bushnell’s burning body and go get fire extinguishers.

He remained standing for an unbelievable amount of time while he was burning. I don’t know where he got the strength to do it. He remained standing long after he’d stopped vocalizing.

Bushnell was taken to the hospital, where independent reporter Talia Jane reports that he has died. It was about as horrific a death as a human being can experience, and it was designed to be.

Shortly before his final act in this world, Bushnell posted the following message on Facebook:

“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’

“The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

Aaron Bushnell has provided his own answer to this challenge. We’re all providing our own right now.

I would never do what Bushnell did, and I would never recommend anyone else does either. That said, I also can’t deny that his action is having its intended effect: drawing attention to the horrors that are happening in Gaza.

I know this is true because everywhere I see Aaron Bushnell being discussed online I see a massive deluge of pro-Israel trolls frantically swarming the comments in a mad rush to manipulate the narrative. They all understand how destructive it is to US and Israeli information interests for people to be seeing an international news story about a member of the US Air Force self-immolating on camera while screaming “Free Palestine”, and they are doing everything they can to mitigate that damage.

As I write this, there are with absolute certainty people digging through Bushnell’s history searching for dirt that can be spun as evidence that he was a bad person, that he was mentally ill, that he was steered astray by pro-Palestine activists and dissident media — whatever they can make stick. If they find something, literally anything, the smearmeisters and propagandists will run with it as far as they can.

That’s what they’re choosing to do at this point in history. That’s what they would have done during slavery, or the Jim Crow south, or apartheid. That’s what they’re doing while their country commits genocide right now. People are showing what they would have done with their response to Gaza, and they’re showing what they would have done with their response to the self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell.

I’m not going to link to the video here; watching it is a personal decision on which you should probably do your own legwork to make sure it’s really what you want. Whether you watch it or not, it happened, just like the incineration of Gaza is happening right now. We each own our personal response to that reality. This is who we are.

[Ben Spielberg @BenSpielberg]

The first appropriate headline I’ve seen on Aaron Bushnell today is from Spain’s daily sports newspaper.

[Alex & Books 📚 @AlexAndBooks_]

There's no excuse to not read books.

You can borrow books for free from the library.

You can download ebooks for free from the internet.

You can listen to audiobooks for free from Youtube.

Put your phone down and pick up a book.

Your future self will thank you for it.