Capitalism, that great ever-hungry maw that eats and eats, can always find a way to corrupt, pervert, and sell anything. Revolution? Sell ‘em Che T-shirts and Castro pins, build up fake “Communist” parties and let them pay dues for decades. Mental health? Sell ‘em excessive “self-care” and personal narcissism gussied up as good mental hygiene. Liberalism plays into this too — the Cult of the Individual™ is part of the same machine as the hustle #grindset and the pharmatherapy complex. Right now, the Cult of the Individual is manifesting more and more liberal individualist corruption; as the Palestinian resistance continues to fight, intensifying their war against the zionist occupiers, the guilt machine has begun rolling out its newest brand of weaponized self-care.
“I don’t want to look,” and “I don’t want to think about it,” are two selfish manifestations of this self-care craze. We can’t afford to look away.
The children of Palestine, buried under rubble, shot through the head, heart, legs, taken off their ventilators, mutilated by blade-bombs and blown to bloody chunks by the zionist occupiers don’t get to look away. The brave resistance and the thousands of martyrs can’t close their eyes and make the war disappear. The ability to switch off the screen, change the channel, browse some other timeline, is a privilege. In the imperial heartlands, which benefit from the rape, massacre, and annihilation of Palestinian populations, of course you can choose to ignore that your lifestyle is steeped in gore. The powers that be, the ruling classes, don’t want you to remember every instant of your day that your cheap cell phones and gas come from the bloody hands of coltan miners, are pried from the dead fingers of Palestinians.
There are those of us who truly do need to take time apart. The freedom to isolate and protect our mental health is one that we should make use of — but only when it leads to an increased ability to fight the monstrous machine that is committing these atrocities. We need self-care so we can fight on, but it is maintaining the capability to fight that is important — not the care itself.
While these wounds are still open, they can’t heal. Looking away doesn’t solve anything. It is, at best, a temporary reprieve. At worst, it is willful blindness to the suffering of others.
Those in the centers of empire — in the corrupt and slime-founded West — have to become uncomfortable. It is only through discomfort that we can make change. The current, unjust, murderous order will never come to an end so long as people are comfortable. And to produce discomfort, we must ourselves be uncomfortable.
So give as much as you can. Give more, if you can. Push yourself through the discomfort. Don’t look away.
Fight.
Scrolling on twitter can produce mental trauma, but it pales in comparison with being the target of U.S. made munitions. Our heroic brothers and sisters in Palestine are bleeding and dying.
Let us fight for them with whatever weapons we have at hand, rather than bury ourselves in distraction.
Stand up.
Be counted.
This is the time.
