The Resistance That Is Rising

We live amidst lunacy that kills. Calm, reasoned reports of escalating state criminality are part of ending state criminality. Ditto for deep diving conceptual analyses. And also for historical contextualizations. All good. All needed. But we must also emotively emphasize the utterly obvious if we are to ward off and reverse dangerous lunacy. 

Too calm may make disgusting normal. Too calm may make every street corner a shooting gallery, every handheld device a bomb. Too calm may spread fire not cease fire. Too calm may turn health into illness and science into mysticism. Too calm, even meant as an emblem of civility, may incinerate empathy. 

Resistance is rising all over. It seeks to grow but those not yet active are often as conceptually awake as those who resist. Many know plenty. Maybe they are lulled by the mainstream’s calmness. Maybe they are paused by shock and awe. Let’s travel a little beyond calmness…

Netanyahu: You have flexed past statist elitism, nationalistic immorality, and ignominious infamy. You have attained fascistic bottom-feeding decrepitude. You disgust. You shoot children’s heads off. You starve children you can’t behead. Your Zionism produces anti-Semitism you decry to propel more carnage. You are quite the trickster but even Jesus would never forgive what you do.  

But what about youngsters in the Israeli Defense Force? What about neighborly Israelis living life and life only in Haifa and Tel Aviv? What about Israel’s supporters living life and life only in London and New York? How should we who are nauseated by what iIsrael is doing regard Netanyahu, the IDF, Israelis in Israel who cheer genocide, and Israel’s supporters around the world who ignore, alibi, or abet genocide? Should we curse or reach out?

Trump: You have slithered out of your Trump 1 bumbling hostility persona into something even more repulsive, your Trump 2 full on mendacious malevolent persona. You acclimate others to your vile aims until you can escalate your aims further and further still. You say anything you think will aid you. You repeat and magnify your lies until people accept fabrication as sophisticated truth telling. You decry waste and fraud and you spew waste and flaunt fraud like no one has ever seen before. You produce profiles in cowardice married to profiles in hypocrisy bathed in hate and papered over with self denial. All that you touch becomes obscene. You annoint the rich, you make the rest supine by fearful choice or coercive constraint. You make grisly, ghastly, and grim look quaint. You want peace, you say, but here come the Marines. Quite a trickster, you are. Meanwhile garbage rises, beauty declines and dignity dies. You make malicious the new normal. You crown yourself King. Like Netanyahu, you too are disgusting. Actually, for you disgusting would be a big step up. You are like a flesh eating bacteria that morphs to eat sociality, solidarity, and compassion and to deposit in their rightful place hate and self loathing. So how should we relate to your supporters, your abettors, and to those who hate your hate but go to work as usual. To school as usual. To Netflix as usual. To life and life only as usual—all while you corrupt, defile, and deny life? 

As we rightly resist Israeli war, Trumpian fascism, and so much else, can we be extremely enraged but also regard the ignorers, supporters and even the proximate perpetrators of what Israel hurls at Gaza’s schools, hospitals, homes, and streets and of what Trump unleashes on civility at home and abroad with proper militant outrage without, however,  hurling dehumanizing epithets and becoming naysaying haters? Can we resist and also reach out? Can we block but not burn?

It is getting difficult. It really is. We don’t want to think of fellow humans much less of neighbors, offspring or parents as planners, perpetrators, abettors or even just ignorers of genocidal flesh eating fascism. We don’t want to hate or even just to scorn fellow humans. But can we hate and scorn the acts and yet somehow recognize that those involved in or who ignore the acts have minds and hearts just like ours? Can we hate the acts but not dehumanize the people? Can we organize to block the acts, to reverse the acts, and to then positively seek much better, but not lose our own humanity in the process? That is the resistance that is now rising. That is what we need still more of.

Could Israelis’ have hated the actions perpetrated on October 7 yet have understood the circumstances and feelings that led to those acts? Could Israelis have not dehumanized the perpetrators much less dehumanized all Palestinians? Could Israelis have not called Palestinians vermin thereby normalizing and incentivizing genocide against Palestinians? Could Israelis have avoided reducing themselves to perpetrating fascistic barbarity?

For that matter, can opponents of genocide and supporters of Palestine avoid damaging our own movements by emboldening repression against it? Can we in the U.S. hate repressive and even murderous policing and not call the cops pigs? Can we hate  misogynist Trump but not dehumanize Trump’s supporters? Can we arouse in ourselves appropriate energy to battle mind numbing, life threatening fascist trends but not let fascist feelings invade our own choices? That is the resistance that is rising. The resistance that people not yet involved need to learn of, assist and lead.

We need to comprehend that against everything holy, moral and worthy, Israel seems literally hell bent upon mayhem until nothing remains of Palestinians—and perhaps of Israel and the rest of the world as well. To fight back and not become what we rightly reject is part of our task regarding genocide and regarding Trumpism too. It’s not easy to express outrage and deliver militance but also not dehumanize. Many are trying. We should all try. Collective resistance can succeed. That is the resistance that is rising and that people not yet involved need to learn of, assist and lead.

We must tell it, think it, speak it and breathe it. We must reach out and march, block and blockade, disobey and strike. There is no time to waste. The hour is getting late. 

Detailed, calm, reasoned reports, conceptualizations, and contextualizations of criminality help. But we must also communicate appropriate passion. Rail at Netanyahu and genocide. Rail at Trump and fascism. But then organize to block their gut wrenching agendas. Then reach out to grow our side and to shrink their side. Offer positive strategy and inspiring vision. That is the resistance that is rising. 

In the U.S., the next big day is June 14th. A military extravaganza for the devil’s birthday. They got the guns, we have to have the numbers. If you speak, speak to grow resistance. If you write, write to grow resistance. If you assemble, assemble to grow resistance. If you teach, teach to grow resistance. If you play, play to grow resistance. Block deportations. Block repression. Unite to resist it all as the one whole evil that it is. Grow to build much better. That is what can win. That is what must win. That is the resistance that is rising. 

Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc. His personal interests, outside the political realm, focus on general science reading (with an emphasis on physics, math, and matters of evolution and cognitive science), computers, mystery and thriller/adventure novels, sea kayaking, and the more sedentary but no less challenging game of GO. Albert is the author of 21 books which include: No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World; Fanfare for the Future; Remembering Tomorrow; Realizing Hope; and Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Michael is currently host of the podcast Revolution Z and is a Friend of ZNetwork.

Originally published in ZNetwork