Jump to content

benjii

Subscribed Users
  • Posts

    19,131
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

benjii's Achievements

  1. benjii

    Israel

    I edited my post.
  2. benjii

    Israel

    I can't take the credit!
  3. benjii

    Israel

    You could, if you wanted. But it would be sensible to consider if the person saying that is being literal or not.
  4. If I was going to have a Manics track, it would be Motorcycle Emptiness.
  5. benjii

    Israel

    If the entire army of any country is killed, I would say it's looking pretty grim.
  6. benjii

    Israel

    I just read an interesting analysis, which I post below without comment, other than to note that it is quite long for a SW post... * * * On October 7, 2023, Hamas, an authoritarian, Iranian-backed militia that has ruled Gaza for 17 years, launched a carefully planned massacre. It killed 1,200 civilians, and took 250 hostages. It did so with full knowledge that such a move would trigger devastating retaliation. And it did. A brutal, urban war erupted. Tens of thousands have since died, many of them civilians, many of them militants. The war was horrific, tragic, and yes, entirely avoidable. And yet, within days, hundreds of thousands marched across Western cities, not to denounce the massacre that sparked it all, nor to condemn the authoritarian militia responsible for using civilians as human shields, but to demand an end to what they instantly branded genocide. By mid-May 2025, London had seen at least 27 mass marches in solidarity with Gaza. One of them numbered over a million people. In contrast, during the darkest years of the Syrian civil war, when Assad used chemical weapons, barrel bombs, siege warfare, and starvation to subdue his population, London’s largest Syria-related protest peaked at 900 people. Most saw a few dozen. That contrast tells us something deeply uncomfortable. It’s not just about numbers. It’s about selectivity, and what it reveals. Syria: •650,000 dead •14 million displaced •100,000 executed in Sadnaya prison •150,000 missing •Genocide by starvation, siege, and sarin gas And yet, no mass marches. No relentless protests. No weekly hashtags. No demands that the UN or the ICC act “now or else.” Why? Because this isn’t about genocide. If it were, Syria alone would have moved the Earth. This is about something else. What we are seeing is not solidarity - but a displaced moral fixation. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a symbolic canvas onto which all manner of disillusionment, guilt, and anger are projected. It is less about the facts on the ground and more about what the conflict represents. To the radical left, Israel is a proxy for everything they despise: Western power, capitalism, nationalism, military strength, and in many cases, Jews themselves. To the Islamists, it is the embodiment of a theological rupture, a state they believe should not exist. To the bored and chronically online, it is a cause that offers identity, belonging, and purpose. The result is an emotional obsession with Israel and its perceived sins. Not a principled stand against human suffering, but a ritualized spectacle where moral outrage is directed surgically at a single actor, regardless of the broader context. And this obsession demands casualties - not for empathy, but for affirmation. The dead become evidence that the world is unjust, that the system must be torn down, that the protestor is on the side of the righteous. Thus, death becomes currency, and only some deaths are accepted at full value. Syrian deaths are geopolitically inconvenient. Uyghur deaths are economically awkward. Rohingya deaths are logistically distant. But Palestinian deaths - so long as Israel can be blamed - are perfect. It is why Egypt, which has sealed its border with Gaza and refused to accept refugees, is barely mentioned. It is why Assad, praised openly by Hamas leaders like Yahya Sinwar, is never held to account in these circles. It is why Iran, the primary funder and arms supplier of both Assad and Hamas, remains a shadowy afterthought. We are not witnessing solidarity with Palestinians. We are witnessing a hijacking of their tragedy to service a very different political agenda - one that is less interested in peace or justice, and more interested in purging the West of its sins, real or imagined. It’s not that these protestors don’t care. It’s that they’ve been trained - by ideology, by social media, by tribalism - to care in highly specific, narrowly sanctioned ways. Care that flatters their identity. Care that tells them they are good - because they are angry. And in that economy of virtue, Gaza is profitable. Syria is not.
  7. benjii

    Israel

    Haha, knew this was coming.
  8. I don't believe in an interventionist God But I know, darling, that you do But if I did, I would kneel down and ask him Not to intervene when it came to you Will not to touch a hair on your head Leave you as you are If he felt he had to direct you Then direct you into my arms Into my arms, oh, Lord Into my arms, oh, Lord Into my arms, oh, Lord Into my arms And I don't believe in the existence of angels But looking at you I wonder if that's true But if I did, I would summon them together And ask them to watch over you Well, to each burn a candle for you To make bright and clear your path And to walk, like Christ, in grace and love And guide you into my arms Into my arms, oh, Lord Into my arms, oh, Lord Into my arms, oh, Lord Into my arms But I believe in love And I know that you do too And I believe in some kind of path That we can walk down, me and you So keep your candles burning Make her journey bright and pure That she'll keep returning Always and evermore Into my arms, oh, Lord Into my arms, oh, Lord Into my arms, oh, Lord Into my arms 🥹
  9. Amazing track. Should probably be on my list actually. Straight to You is also amazing.
  10. Seaside B&B.
  11. Urgh, imagine getting pumped by that.
  12. Continuing the musical theme, what's your Top of the Pops? Not easy. There are literally loads of songs. Not what is objectively the best, but what you like/what has moved you. 1. Smashing Pumpkins, 1979 2. Alice in Chains, Would? 3. Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit 4. Pantera, Mouth for War 5. Smashing Pumpkins, This Time 6. Climie Fisher, Love Changes (everything) 7. Kanye West, All of the Lights 8. Jeff Buckley, Lover You Should've Come Over 9. Unida, Black Woman 10. FKA Twigs, Two Weeks Honourable mentions: - about twenty other Smashing Pumpkins tracks - several other Alice in Chains tracks - Fetty Wap, Trap Queen - Arianna Grande, No Tears Left to Cry - Madonna, Like a Prayer - Slayer, Raining Blood - Kunt and the Gang, Paperboy - Placebo, Nancy Boy - Miley Cyrus, Midnight Sky - Kak Hatt, Just How You Like It - Johnny Cash / Nine Inch Nails, Hurt [P.s. if none of the above are Jewish then I apologise for my latent racism.]
  13. benjii

    Music

  14. "Death to the IDF" is different from "Death to every member of the IDF", and the former is clearly a comment on the institution and not on every individual within it (and certainly not on "Jews", everyone's favourite conflation). In the same way that I would like the Russian army to get smashed in Ukraine, I do not wish death on every poor sod who gets caught up in it, nor on every Russian Orthodox Christian. That said, chanting it in the context it was chanted, without nuance or subtlety, was obviously likely to inflame and cause anger. Anyway, that's enough about this.
  15. Not particularly exciting.
×
×
  • Create New...