Just Fucking Do Something

Utah Phillips once said of himself, amid one of his righteous harangues on one important topic or another, “Oh, yeah. No rant control!”

When it gets to the point that ranting is your most appropriate tool then the situation has gotten out of hand. And in the modern Western culture and what we have been convinced are our civilized social systems, so much has gotten out of hand that ranting has been elevated to a necessity.

Housing, food, policing, prisons, education, healthcare, climate crisis, immigration, work, law, diplomacy, trade, etc.

All of our current systemic solutions to the challenges of how to organize ourselves and our systems to support human needs are rant worthy. And that is often related to profit and capitalism.

But I’m not here today to rant about those. Because there is a pressing issue today that needs more attention.

There is a fucking genocide happening in Gaza, where Israel is slaughtering the Palestinian people and making life in Gaza for the survivors un-sustainable.

If you are not doing anything to spread awareness of this genocide, or to disrupt the ability of the US, other governments, and Israel to continue committing this genocide, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Most of us never have and never will face what Gazans are facing, most will not live in constant fear that today may be our last day alive. Most of us will not be traumatized by constant drone of planes and drones and rumble of tanks and exploding bombs. Most of us will not live in constant hunger or die of starvation or lack of clean water. Most of us will not be displaced. Multiple times. On foot. Carrying all that is left of our possessions, with our home reduced to rubble by bombs and shells and bulldozers.

Most of us won’t ever see our loved one’s head explode from an Israeli sniper’s bullet.

Most of us won’t ever have to struggle to rescue our dying sibling from under tons of collapsed concrete, or recover their crushed body from the tomb that was once their home.

Most of us will never have to collect our child’s body parts by hand in plastic bags. The kind of bag you might get at your local convenience store that says “Thank You” or “Have a Nice Day.” All courtesy of US Bombs and intelligence information delivered with vengeance by Israel.

Yes, if you are a US citizen (or UK, or Germany, or India), it is your bombs that are facilitating genocide. Your military intelligence services that are supporting genocide. You’re dollars that are supporting genocide.

You Can’t Be Neutral. It is not possible. Inaction supports genocide. Only active resistance opposes it. If you think you are being neutral, if you think you are not involved you are wrong. You are complicit. Every nation in the world is involved in every genocide, because the law requires nations to prevent genocide. And nations are ultimately us.

So…

Talk about it on social media

Talk about it in real life

Rant about it. You are not unhinged if you do, you are most certainly hinged when you rant against genocide.

Boycott companies that build the bombs and finance the slaughter, and companies that invest significantly in Israel.

Boycott the concerts and venues and parades and events that are sponsored by these companies and be vocal about it.

Join the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement. Palestine civil society groups have asked us all to do this for decades and if we had done this a decade or more ago, maybe we could have prevented today’s genocide, as we ultimately forced change in South Africa.

Join a protest. If you can’t find one, start a protest.

Join a Direct Action. If you can’t find one, launch a direct action.

Donate to Palestine support organizations.

Donate to Palestinians in need.

And while direct action is more important than electoral action. Don’t vote for anyone that is supporting genocide or will support genocide and pressure your current representatives to end support for genocide in Gaza.

Just fucking do something.

Now.