This is Who We Really Are

What are you going to do about it?

Israel has thrown down the gauntlet.

It’s been showing us what it and its supporters really are: capable of extreme atrocities, lies, and every kind of immoral behaviour imaginable.

Israel and its backers have contempt for international law. They condone murdering journalists, care workers, teachers, women and children, and using starvation as a weapon of war.

Yep, those in power in the western world support Israel, and ordinary people are paying for all this devastation with our tax dollars.

As food and housing become increasingly expensive, NATO screams that our countries are not paying enough to their war machine.

It’s not like the world has changed. What we can now see on social media has increased our awareness. No matter how thick the propaganda, people can record what’s going on in the world around them, and upload it to their phones for everyone’s viewing.

For centuries imperialism has destroyed indigenous populations, stolen lands and resources, organized coups, and committed all kinds of barbarism, including genocide.

Israel’s recent behaviour is pointedly more barbaric, but it’s along the same lines of what has been hidden from the general public pre-social media.

There’s also a crack in the imperialist worldview that has dominated our psyches. Fewer of us believe that money going into the hands of the extremely rich at the expense of everything else is okay.

More of us are anti-racist, and are becoming increasingly aware of the destructive powers of imperialism and colonialism. And ongoing wars, environmental destruction and social injustice keep many of us awake at night.

Unfortunately, the majority of those who hold power in the west haven’t caught up.

Israel, as it carries on with its genocide of Gaza, bombs neighbouring countries and assassinates world leaders, holds us hostage, as do western leaders who support Israel.

And that’s the million dollar question: what are we going to do about it?

We are literally being held hostage. We look on helplessly as the horrors intensify and multiply, and our terror goes through the roof.

Our tax dollars are spent on arms to Israel, when they should be used to address our precarious environmental predicament, and our constantly eroding standard of living.

Palestinians are being killed, tortured, and everything that belongs to them is being destroyed. And when we protest, we’re called anti-semitic and the police are called in, sometimes brutally assaulting us.

Opposing Israel’s genocide isn’t about the perpetrators of this horror, it’s about those at the wrong end of genocide.

We’re all Palestinians now. All of us are disposable if we’re not part of the class that’s committing this devastation, while claiming that it’s Israel defending itself.

I’m terrified of the near future. What will Israel’s next provocation be? Or Ukraine’s and its backers?

And if we don’t achieve a major course correct, who’s next?

Which country that votes for a left leaning government will experience the next coup attempt?

People are becoming more savvy to western ways and, like Venezuela and Georgia, sometimes they succeed despite the western babble.

This isn’t always the case though. Just look at Pakistan.

As we worry about the precarious state of the environment and how we’re going to afford groceries and housing, we have to worry about the insanity and barbarity of western nations seeking global hegemony. At virtually any cost. On our dime.

Imperialism seems to be so deeply entrenched in the psyches of those in power that it’s the only lens they can see things through.

We can’t forget that this small group controls our media, entertainment industry and most of our politicians, so it’s easy to manipulate the gullible among us.

We’re told that Israel has the most moral army in the world, that the violence in Ukraine started in 2022 and not 2014, and that there were irregularities with the recent vote in Venezuela.

And our tax dollars pay for the weapons our countries send to support right wing governments that are malleable to the interests of the west. All the while, more of us in the western world become hungry and homeless.

We’re told that misinformation comes from social media, even though it’s where people in Palestine (and Congo, Syria and other places) can upload what they’re going through for the world to see.

Is this the kind of world we want? If not, do we actually live in a democracy?

How do we achieve peace, and social and environmental restoration? How do we develop systems that support all of life?

Western leaders and their many and varied mouthpieces support Israel and the atrocities it’s committing.

What are we going to do about it?