We Are the Jungle

And we are the weeds

Although this quote is from 2022, it haunts me, especially when I look at what’s going on in Gaza, in Ukraine, in other war torn areas, and in western nations.

Josep Borrell said the quiet part out loud. I thought he would lose his position at the United Nations over this, but no. It seems to mirror the worldview of so many people in power and those who pander to them in the west.

“Yes, Europe is a garden, we have built a garden. Everything works. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden,” arguing that instead of building a wall, diplomats have to “go to the jungle.” - Josep Borrell

He apologized, but said he couldn’t understand why some people found his statement offensive. I guess his colleagues couldn’t understand why it was offensive either.

To me, reality on the ground demonstrates what’s offensive about this statement. It’s the mindset that allows the west to impose upon non-western countries in vile ways. It’s the mindset that sees power and money as the only important goal, humanity be damned. The bottom line is the bottom line for these people. Everything else, it seems, is merely collateral damage.

This worldview is what makes housing, which is a human right, become a commodity instead here in the west. And why life in western countries isn’t affordable, and how that’s OK with the wealthy clique who wield power.

People in other parts of the world who aren’t part of that clique are the jungle. And, here in the west, we are the weeds.

Not the manicured, fake smile, cold heart, dead eyes garden.

Not the tradition of exploitation and white supremacy dressed up as bringing democracy.

No, we’re the jungle, the weeds, the unwanted, those without rights.

The jungle is any country that hasn’t been infiltrated by the west through coups, assassinations, colour revolutions or a combination thereof to become a neoliberal entity.

Their countries’ leaders are portrayed as the latest international Hitlers, their elections accused of being undemocratic if its citizens don’t vote in a way favourable to the west. Those citizens’ aspirations just wrong. Like European and other western countries, they’re expected to be vassals of western leaders and their own countries’ powerful people, at least the ones who are aligned with the west.

And what about western countries? What about us, the weeds? You know, those of us who aren’t rich or affluent, the ones who are homeless, struggling to get by and whose cupboards are bare, or close to it?

Josep and friends don’t want us looking at structure, and they’ve quite successfully gotten us blaming each other: immigrants, women, people of colour or anyone else who is already struggling. Pitting people against people, country against country, group against group.

Fascism is on the rise for a reason, and it plays into the hands of the powerful forces that are wreaking havoc on the rest of us. Redirecting the justified anger at our failing system from those who create it to those who suffer under it. This has always been an effective strategy for those in the west who hold power.

The system is working as it was designed to, funnelling our tax dollars to the very wealthy at the expense of everyone and everything else. We’re not supposed to notice this.

We’re not supposed to notice that the USA and its allies are funding and arming Israel as it commits genocide, or that bombing Gaza to rubble, starving people, murdering children, reporters and doctors, and destroying hospitals, schools and universities violates international law.

This kind of destruction has massive humanitarian and environmental consequences.

We’re not supposed to notice that some people are becoming exorbitantly wealthy at the expense of those who aren’t a part of their in group. Much of that wealth comes from waging wars, even when they don’t make any sense, when there’s no strategy behind them.

We’re not supposed to extrapolate. If they can justify committing genocide in Gaza, what else are they capable of? What would they do to us if they had the chance? What are they already doing? People are homeless and starving, innocent people are being killed. In Gaza, they’re committing genocide. Would they do that in western countries to the have nots? I don’t want to find out.

Ah, the garden, where the beautiful people never need to slum it in the world most of us know as reality. They can pretend their ‘garden’ is what they’ve earned, and not what most of them inherited. They can pretend that with corporate gouging and the resultant costs of living, that the underclass just don’t know how to manage money.

How do they justify the genocide in Gaza? My guess is that they just ignore it. They need Israel as an ally, they want the position of power in the Middle East, and they feel superior to the Palestinians. International law be damned. Some say international law wasn’t intended for the western allied nations, but to use against the ‘jungle’ in service of the west. The bottom line is the bottom line.

That class is used to this kind of thing, and were able to convincingly lie about it before social media came along. Seeing what was happening on our screens threw a monkey wrench into their narrative.

Oh, dear. What to do? Accusations of anti-semitism, vilifying, imprisoning and even murdering reporters who tell the truth, censoring media. Still, people keep finding out.

We have to stop believing the fairytales of the rich and powerful of the western world.

They spin a make believe world about how we’re bringing democracy to the uncivilized world, while they pillage, plunder and do any number of underhanded nefarious things.

They say things like politics in the Middle East is complicated so we shouldn’t try to understand it or judge what’s going on. Like homeless people are dangerous, but not the policies that make them homeless. Like people need to defend these profiteers in times of war. That to not be spell bound by how incredible these people are makes us blasphemous. To believe the biased and violent messages delivered to the public via Hollywood.

Western leaders are arming and funding genocide, providing diplomatic cover and using our tax dollars to fund all this.

They’re gouging their own populations for everything they can get.

Hear the fingers snap. The spell must be broken.

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I love the BDS campaign and the effect it’s having on Israel’s economy.

Here's an excellent list of products from Israel: https://boycott.thewitness.news/browse/1

Here's a way to help others not in your bubble to boycott Israel: https://www.cjpme.org/stickies_2024_en

And here's where you can support Palestine by buying a keffiyeh: https://www.hirbawi.ps/