The show that cannot go on
Well here I go, being a fucking idiot because: “Paranoids are not paranoids because they’re paranoid, but because they keep putting themselves, fucking idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations,” as the proverb from Thomas Pynchon goes.
But I need to clear my throat and say again that the situation in Gaza is an ongoing and worsening genocide, that the campaigns against dissent (here and to an even greater extent in the US) are intolerably anti-democratic, and that a ceasefire cannot go far enough. So many lives wiped out and lives destroyed amidst pain unimaginable as we sit here in the relatively safe UK.
It is utterly sick, this perpetuation in the name of zionism, US hegemony, white supremacy. Who could have guessed, having enjoyed the cosy assurance that has come with a liberal-seeming media and its centrist-minded, sensible grown ups, that these fascist forces would amass themselves with such energy and hate against people with nothing (there) or people with issues (here). It is genuinely terrifying.
As a paranoid sort of guy who loves chuckling along to Pynchon more than joining barricades, I have to say that today, for example, there is nothing more important to do than protest, nothing better for a human (in possession of any humanity) to do than to put my head up, along with so many braver allies of Palestine, above the parapet and say a full-chested, Fuck this!
About two months ago I switched bank away from Barclays since they have too many interests in maintaining the occupation and clearance of an entire subjugated nation. I kept it to myself for a number of reasons. I was afraid to tweet about it and cynical about my own motivations. Was I, wondered, I still doing the bare minimum, and would I, wondered I, simply put a target on myself by confronting a vast multinational bank on the fervid feeds of Twitter.
Now, guess what, I no longer give a shit. I must try, according to Gilles Deleuze, to fight the cop in my own head rather than the streets. I should try and augment the positive, unafraid energy which Left Twitter exudes and which has been quietly inspiring me since long before October 7th 2023.
By sharing this, I am, deliberately putting myself into a paranoid situation. But all my mini psycho dramas together with real or perceived threats to my career prospects, are as NOTHING, not when compared with the actual knowledge of a family in Rafah who know that, hey, bad people really are out to get them. I would like for all of us to be free, once and for all, of this fear. Freedom for Palestine is freedom for you too.
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