Neons Frustration Station

mikey_greenblatt

9/10 times that comment section is 😬

there’s always someone willing to prove the point:

You deserve to eat even if you have love handles.

even if your parents think you're too big.

even if teachers or classmates comment on your weight.

Reforming our current incarceration system into a justice system would be like reforming a dog fighting structure into a dog training structure. (And before anyone accuses me of comparing people in prison to dogs - no, I'm not, but I am saying that people who run prisons treat people like dogs.) Dog fighting structures were never designed to train dogs. The people that run them aren't qualified to train dogs for anything but violence (and are incentivized to continue training violence). The incarceration system creates violence and antisocial behavior. It is incentivized to continue doing so. It was never meant to repair social harm.

Prison abolition means, piece by piece, cutting off the supply of bodies to the incarceration structure.

When drug users get medical care instead of being criminalized, prisons are no longer needed to house drug users. When the mentally ill are given medical care instead of being criminalized, prisons are no longer needed to house the mentally ill. When homeless people are given housing instead of being criminalized, prisons are no longer needed to house the homeless. When impoverished people are given welfare and food benefits instead of being criminalized, prisons are no longer needed to house the poor. When youth are given opportunities outside of gangs, prisons have fewer gang members to house. We shrink the system, and we keep shrinking it. Next we create systems to reduce the population of domestic abusers. Next we tackle sexual assault. Every time it shrinks, we look at the remaining population and figure out what population we can tackle next.

Nobody cares about what cis white men went through when 9/10 they themselves were bigots towards black people at that time. They should have suffered more

Hey! Yeah. This is a suuuper wide net, so I’m not sure exactly what you’re after, religious/spiritual texts or more academic/historical stuff? Other?

I have some you can get started with listed below off the top of my head though.

Disclaimer: Just because I list these books doesn’t mean I agree with everything in them. Sometimes reading is about exploring different viewpoints, even ones you don’t agree with. That information is still important and valuable. That said, I am human, and have very clearly and obviously weighted it towards particular topics. ✦ The Torah. Of course. If you grab a version with commentary like Etz Hayim, it’s easier to understand and super interesting. ✦ Mishnah / Talmud. The Mishnah is digestible; the Talmud is huge and full of arguments Rabbis had centuries ago. ✦ Vayoel Moshe by Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum

✦ Judaism as a Civilization by Mordecai M. Kaplan

✦ This Is My God by Herman Wouk

✦ Jews Against Zionism by Thomas A. Kolsky

✦ The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand

✦ Judaism Does Not Equal Israel by Marc H. Ellis

✦ An Anti-Zionist Path to Embodied Jewish Healing – Wendy Elisheva Somerson ✦ Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left – Benjamin Balthaser ✦ If I Am Not For Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew – Mike Marqusee ✦ Solidarity Is the Political Version of Love – Rebecca Vilkomerson and Rabbi Alissa Wise

✦ The Founding Myths of Israel by Zeev Sternhell

✦ Colonialism and the Jews edited by Laurence J. Silberstein

✦ The War on Women in Israel: A Story of Religious Radicalism and the Women Fighting for Freedom – Shulamit Sztokman

✦ Jewish Women in Pre-State Israel: Life History, Politics, and Culture – Edited by Esther Hertzog and Hanna Herzog

✦ Jewish Voices in Feminism – Nelly Las

✦ A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism – Yakov M. Rabkin

✦ Rabbi Outcast: Elmer Berger and American Jewish Anti-Zionism – Jack Ross

Using the theoretical framework outlined in this article, we can better understand this situation. The relationship is power-unequal and takes place in a steeply hierarchical setting. The student’s career status is a clear vulnerability, used to establish power and discredit the student’s complaints. Unlike in cases of domestic violence, the hierarchical institutional setting in a mentor–mentee relationship is likely more salient than is gender. Still, the gender of the mentor matters, and he associates the student with feminized irrationality: the mentor is the holder of (masculine) reason, and the student is constructed as unreasonable and unknowledgeable. The mentor accuses the student of irrationality and lack of know-how, feminizing and discrediting him. The student is labeled “overly sensitive” because of age and ignorant of academia, potentially because of race and class. The student experiences “surreality” because this takes place in a power relationship and maybe this is just how mentor relationships are supposed to work. Finally, these gaslighting strategies become public when the mentor constructs the student as “crazy” to colleagues.

Using the theoretical framework outlined here, we can avoid calling this just a “bad” interpersonal situation. Instead, we can analyze how gaslighting dynamics are made possible and effective due to gender-based stereotypes, intersecting inequalities, and institutional vulnerabilities. The context of a hierarchical institutional setting is especially critical in this case. Gender is still relevant to the construction of rationality here, although less so as an individual-level variable. Overall, gaslighting mobilizes and worsens the power inequalities already present in the relationship and in the institutional setting.

When I started eating again during my ED recovery, I started gaining weight and holding onto it because my body was likely terrified of going without food for so long again.

And guess what? A lot of people in my life talked negatively about my weight gain either to my face or behind my back. People who *knew* that I had been starving myself. They claimed it was about my health, but I know now that it was fatphobia. It was much healthier for me to be eating 3 meals a day than starving myself 90% of the time, but they just saw that I had gone from skinny to fat, and to them, the fat was worse than the malnutrition.

I'm fat now, and much better off. No one who had bad things to say stayed in my life. And I'm better for it. But I worry about fat people with ED's who don't have the support I had. I worry about people who are ready to heal but the shaming from outside sources keep them in their illness or push them back in if they started to heal.

We're aware of the different interpretation worldwide. But we don't trust other nations to protect us from another genocide, so I saw it more as an expression of guilt than a promise I can rely on. There's a level of... scoffing at this other interpretation and seeing it as a bastardized version of the promise we made to ourselves. "You don't mean it, you don't actually care, you just want to feel better about yourselves."

And this might be something to keep in mind. We don't trust gentiles. So any demand from Israel to stop oppressing Palestinians is taken as... you felt bad for us as long as we were victims, you like us when you can tell romanticized holocaust stories about how all we did was be murdered, but once we can protect ourselves, you hate us again. "They're so antisemitic they can't stand seeing a Jew being strong, they want us to roll over and be murdered." So many Israelis aren't even trying for... good PR. Because they believe that the only way to look good to a world that hates us is to die.

When other countries stand against Israel, the response is that we always knew we were alone and universally hated. So that's another reason to be patriotic and defend the existence of this country. Because no one else will protect us. That's why you see Israelis doubling down rather than seeing how wrong we are.

The disdain towards holocaust victims doesn't show anymore when we talk about this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's part of the history of the meaning. Holocaust victims were seen as weak in early Zionism. To the point that survivors were mistreated.

If you see grains of truth in any of this, it's because these attitudes make use of very real antisemitism to lead us to these conclusions. Other countries are not doing enough to protect Jews and combat antisemitism. So it's easy to look at that and say "see? We can never trust them."

I only recognized how dangerous that was from other Jews, and even then only because I was constantly uncomfortable with listening to the concept of a "self hating Jew" as the only explanation for why they disagree with Zionism. I need a reason, even when my entire being disagrees with someone, I need to understand why.

Important (no alt text bc phone, feel free to add) removed the posters name but they're welcome to respond ofc.

So many Zionists think the only other option to what they're doing now is death. In 1967, a war which Israel won and knew it would win, Israelis were preparing large fields for Israeli burials bc they thought they would be killed en masse. Sorry for linking TOI here but this quote os relevant and it's hard to find for free online from a better source. Quote partway down the page "During the Six-Day War, Israelis prepared for their demise, following the ways of our perpetrators from World War II, digging mass graves just in case of catastrophe as well as producing atomic weapons."

In reality, Israel was not at risk and Israel in fact used this war as a reason to expand further settlements and commit the Naksa, the expulsion of a further 300,000 Palestinians. Egypt had no means of destroying Israel in 1967 just as Palestine has no means of doing that now. But that's not what Zionists teach their children. They hear Israel was almost destroyed in 1967, and that Israel did what was necessary to "defend itself."

"Why do Zionists team up with antisemitic right-wingers? Don't they know that Zionists mistreated Holocaust survivors and are currently doing a genocide?"

"Have Zionists seen the genocidal screeds that Herzl and Jabotinsky wrote? How can they possibly support such a morally bankrupt ideology?"

"Don't they know that Eric Adams teams up with Christian antisemites and John Hagee only cares about Israel because he thinks it will make Jesus come back?"

And the answer is that nothing compares to the fear of annihilation. If someone has been so strongly indoctrinated to the point that they think that Zohran Mamdani and students at Columbia want another Holocaust, no amount of posting Jabotinsky's writings or hand-wringing about Christian Zionists will convince them otherwise. Some liberal Zionists genuinely hate what Jabotinsky wrote, but just as many are well-aware and don't care. Jabontinsky's racism was a small price to pay for what Zionists see as the only way to ensure Jewish survival.

The right-wingers like John Hagee support Israel, and if someone believes that Israel is the only key to Jewish survival, they don't care that he's an antisemite. Hagee thinks the Jews killed Jesus and thinks all Jews will be killed when Jesus returns? So what, let the goyim believe whatever they want, we need to guarantee that Jews will survive another generation. (Dangerously close to the 14 words, I know.)

Viktor Orban supports Israel, so he supports Jewish survival. He dislikes Jews? The fact that he's an antisemite doesn't matter, because for Zionists, Israel is the ultimate solution to antisemitism. Hold your nose and support him, because unlike those paying false lip service about racial and religious equality, Orban will ensure Jewish survival. Even if it's for his own ends, even if he wants to kill all the Jews in his own country. Those Jews can flee to Israel. Nothing else matters.

Zohran Mamdani supports all religious minorities in NYC including Jews, but to someone who's been brainwashed to think another Holocaust is around the corner and all Jews will need to flee to occupied Palestine, that doesn't matter. Either Mamdani knows and supports Palestine because he wants another Holocaust, or he's so deluded that he thinks he's helping the Jews but is going to get them all killed anyway.

The past 100 years have proven that setting up a Jewish ethnostate only makes Jews everywhere less safe, but fear of the idea of certain death drowns out common sense. It drowns out the millions of pictures of dead children. It drowns out the fact that Israel is doing another Holocaust in view of the entire world.

The Jewish students crying "they want to kill us" when their classmates wear keffiyehs and stage peaceful protests are being 100% honest to their understanding of reality. (Watch Israelism for free here.)

#How are we supposed to combat that?

#Still needs to be shared because like. I didn't see it this way until I read the above post

#But FUCKING HELL. We can't convince them they're wrong because THEY'RE NOT. So what CAN we do to stop them wiping out the Palestinians?

#PROVE THEIR FEARS ARE JUSTIFIED?

#I don't want that to be our ownly damn option!

I have a few thoughts on this and others please weigh in as my perspective is limited to my own life experience. I assume your tags refer to Jewish Zionists, so that is how I will approach it. None of these are guaranteed to work, but everything I link is free and most are from Zionist sources.

I know several Zionists whose worldviews were shaken by learning about how Jerusalem's Morrocan quarter was destroyed to make room for the plaza in front of the Western Wall. Getting Zionists to realize that Zionist-led expulsions did in fact happen, and happen in the name of Judaism, is key. Many have internalized the lie that the Nakba was voluntary, but this smaller expulsion and the fact that they were lied to about it is harder for their brains to fight. Israel is willing to lie to them, what else is it lying about? Link.

Zionist antisemitism, see how Herzl actually spoke of Jews. "The Yid, on the other hand, is a hideous distortion of the human character, something unspeakably low and repulsive...The Yid is the curse of the Jews." See also his diaries, I know multiple people who have become anti-Zionist after actually reading Herzl.

Herzl's very explicitly colonialist writings (for those who would deny it.) "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country."

Jabotinsky's genocidal writings (helpful for ppl who haven't rationalized it already) In his own words from his own institute: "Every native population, civilised or not, regards its lands as its national home, of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always; it will refuse to admit not only new masters but, even new partners or collaborators."

Demonstrate that Zionism/Zionism unchecked makes Jews less safe, especially in occupied Palestine. Example: Peter Beinart/other liberal zionists who are willing to admit that October 7 happened as a consequence of ongoing oppression of Palestinians. Extra helpful if they are willing to admit that one of October 7's main goals was to free Palestinians held in Israeli prisons (many without charge or trial.) That shows both that October 7 was not some senseless unplanned act and that it could have been avoided had Israel actually been a state with equality for all.

This op-ed detailing how the post-67 occupation fuels antisemitism.

I know Shaul Magid has written a decent amount about this also but I'm not super familiar.

Risky, but: show that Israel's violence against Palestinians has made worldwide Jewry less safe since the early 20th century. Zionists like to use the example of the Farhud where Jews were driven from Iraq in 1950 as an example of "Jews aren't safe anywhere" but neglect to mention that Jews lived very safety in Iraq for millennia before. The fact is that Israel played a role and actually encouraged Iraq's expulsions. Source, also read Avi Shlaim's Three Worlds. Not a justification of course, but a demonstration of Israel not making Jews safe.

Demonstrate that Islamic countries have not, in fact, expelled all their Jews. Iran is a good example because Zionists see the regime as basically al-Qaeda and this can make them think. Many many Zionist Jews falsely believe there are no Jews left in Iran. Alex Shams has written some intro-level stuff but determine for yourself if it's too rad for the ppl you're dealing with.

Also risky, but show that the ADL's count of "hate crimes" is overinflated by several orders of magnitude. They currently count basically all criticism of Israel as an "antisemitic hate crime." This also makes people take legitimate accusations of antisemitism less seriously, thus making Jews less safe.

Jews in general including Israelis feel that Israel is not actually a safe haven anymore. Even Zionist papers like the Times of Israel and the Forward admit this.

Palestinians with Israeli citizenship ("Arab Israelis") aren't defended by the Iron Dome and don't have bomb shelters (so Israel isn't safe/not equal treatment) Listed these ones bc liberal Zionists like to claim Bedouin communities as "Arab Israelis that Israel treats equally"

ID system graphic showing inequality of access

Mistreatment of Holocaust survivors in a state that supposedly needed founding specifically for them and their descendants.

Separating Yemini Jewish children from their mothers despite claiming to be a refuge for Jews who were expelled from their countries. Most liberal Zionists think that the "60's Scoop" of indigenous children was wrong. So this is wrong also.

Forced sterilization of Ethiopian Jewish women for the same reason, another instance of serious racism--these Ethiopian women were not "safe" in Israel.

"Stop exploding schools and hospitals" and "civilians don't deserve to die for the actions of their government" is probably the most basic form of anti-war political theory you can get. I don't think Palestinians just going to school or work or a social visit with their neighbors deserve to be killed. I also just happen to think that Israelis just going to a concert also don't deserve to be killed. That's not "playing neutral", that's being consistently anti war even when I think Palestinians have had the shit end of the stick regarding this conflict since it started. I also don't think Palestinians deserve to be rounded up, starved, shot, exploded, or subjected to chemical warfare because of it. I do- again- think that collective punishment is a war crime as defined by the Geneva Convention, and I don't think anyone *deserves* to die in the ways civilians usually die in war. I don't care what country said civilian is from. I'm not the world's biggest fan of countries or borders.

I'm also hideously tired of the US's involvement in war, having been actively at war for most of my life and manipulating world politics to make more wars for the rest. If we stop supplying military aid and funding to Israel, they will stop being able to enact such warfare on Palestine. Personally I'd like to cut military funding in the US in general because I'm tired of my tax dollars going to the war machine and I would rather them go to things like free education and healthcare instead of blowing up Syrian kids. Israel is just one of many countries the US is involved in that it shouldn't be.

But you also can't ignore that a lot of "Israelis" are literally a bunch of americans, europeans, brazilians, people who just converted into judaism last year and suddenly they are "granted the right" to own a land they have never been before. While palestinians who have lived there for literal centuries can't.

Criticize the government is all good. How about the settlers we see mocking palestinians's deaths on TikTok? How about the settlers who block and destroy aid for starving palestinians? How about the ones who watch and cheer for every bomb dropped in Gaza like it is fireworks? What do you say about them? What about the ones who literally protest for their "right to rape palestinians"?

I do want to point out that they posted this and then blocked me, but the answer is easily seen in the original answer to this ask.

My great idea is that the Israeli government and military stops killing Palestinians. The border opens. Peace is made. Those in charge of the horrific violence and those enforcing the decisions made are removed from power and judged in a world court. Reparations and rebuilding efforts are in full swing, equal representation in government and blended communities and the valuing of both Arab and Jewish culture takes place. Children are raised alongside each other and adults learn how to co-habitate with their neighbors. This is a land they both have been part of for millennium. So why can't they still both be part of it, this time peacefully?

Justice does need to happen. I'm not a big fan of revenge being dressed up as justice.