O Brave New World...

Ruby's machinations on my behalf (and her worry for my social and political isolation) has resulted in Tim calling to see if I want to join his weekly Sunday evening Zoom on, well, maybe mostly on Palestine. They started by reading The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, by Rashid Khalidi, which I have started and need to finish. But they've done other stuff since then -- the very good interview of Khalidi by Tariq Ali in Jacobin, etc.

I will strive very hard not to be an asshole and take up too much air time.

He said if I had any reading ideas, to throw them into the ring... two things that occurred to me, though neither are at all new. They're quite old by now, in fact. Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, which I gather informed Khalidi... I read it in grad school -- it's a historical and theoretical exploration of nationalism, and I think would be useful, counterposed to, say, Marx. And Lenin, who grappled with it in practical terms. Also -- and I have never read it, though I should -- Orientalism by Edward Said. I am also thinking about Palestine and Marxism, but it might be super fucking heavy, so maybe not.

I am really grateful to Tim for being open to it... I mean, he asked me when they had just started the Khalidi book.

But Ruby's right: I need somewhere to focus my anger and rage and despair about capitalism and imperialism and Zionism. I am so angry at the impunity with which Israel murders fucking ANYONE, ANYHOW, ALL THE TIME. Blowing up pagers and walkie-talkies in a coordinated attack that also of course killed many innocent children and women. Bombing four apartment buildings to dust to get to one Hezbollah leader. Continuing to flatten Gaza and kill children there, while pivoting to send not only settlers but tank bulldozers in to Gazafy the West Bank. Tank bulldozers. I remember when I first heard about the tactic of destroying the family homes of accused Palestinian "militants". WTAF -- there could be no clearer metric of colonialism. Israel has more than matched the European wholesale annexation and clearing of Native Americans. You don't want a people to question your right to occupy their land? Make them homeless. Make them refugees. Literally destroy their homes. And face absolutely no consequences for doing so.

She wants me to do phone banking for "Uncommitted" -- I don't know about that. I don't want to tell people especially in swing states NOT to vote for the fucking wretched, spineless, Zionist-enabling Democrats... in the face of Trump/Vance. God, it's hard to believe that this is where I am on fucking electoralism. I never thought I'd vote for a Democrat ever in my life, but now I've done it twice and will do it again. Ugh. I am pretty sure I voted for ... god, did I? For Hillary Clinton? Eep. I know I fucking did for asshole Biden. Maybe I did not, since California was (and is) a safe state and the Electoral College makes the popular vote meaningless, in 2016. But Trump broke me, by 2020. I don't know. Maybe I will phonebank. Physically I cannot manage demonstrations. But I need to do something besides donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund and promote it on my FB feed.

Okay, in other news, I finally made a Safeway order for early this evening. I am sitting here in the recliner -- okay, RECLINING HERE, in the recliner, listening to my entire iTunes/Music list of 10,000 songs on shuffle, editing it down as I go. Ludacris, followed by Sahana (a Bengali woman, Sahana Bajpaie singing, I think), followed by "Louise" by Human League.

Those are all three great songs. I like that kind of mix-and-(not)-matching, though most people I know do not.