We ask community members to appreciate the uncertainty inherent in critical analysis of current events, the need to constantly learn, and take part in the community with humility. None of us are the One True Leftist, not even you, the reader.
-
Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.
-
Content warnings: Posts on the newscomm and top-level replies on the newsmega should use content warnings appropriately. Please be thoughtful about wording and triggers when describing awful things in post titles.
-
Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.
-
Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.
-
Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.
-
Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.
-
American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.
-
Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.
-
AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.
Jesus christ, I think if I was presented with a birthday cake by the starving people who my state was genociding, I would fluctuate on a cellular level between "There are no words to express how destroyed I am at this moment, this burning solar fire of humanity has scoured away every comforting lie I have ever even half-believed to help myself sleep at night and I no longer have any idea how to live with myself" and "don't be an asshole, now is not the time for self-pity, yours is the least pressing plight of anyone for miles, these people baked you a cake now say thank you and share it."
I might just implode from the cumulative emotional pressure of that situation. That cake is like a psychic lance that focuses everything tragic and human about the situation and punches your heart out with it's tender absurdity. I would implode like the titanic sub. Especially after being released, to have an experience I now know countermands pretty much everything I've ever been told my entire life, to be invited even amidst relentless bombings and attacks into a cooling pool of shared humanity and then returned to the boiling acid bath of the "Isreali" vibrasphere in full genocide mode must be doubly shocking. And you cant talk about it with anyone around you, because nobody wants to hear it, because they all think the new friends you're now terrified for are all cockroach people. I wonder if any of them have some kind of mental break from the sudden isolating clarity of it all.
And while they've been released from the path of the indiscriminate zionist violence that's killed so many other of their own prisoners, I kind of don't think they're in much less danger now. I think if they keep telling truths like this that are inconvenient to the entity's government, they're probably at much more risk for very specific zionist violence.
I've gotten horribly, depressingly used to seeing shredded human bodies, but the cake is what finally broke me to tears. I read something recently on here about how if you keep scolling in search of one single piece of information that will galvanize you, youll be scrolling forever. I usually agree, but this time i found it. They baked him a cake. The knowledge is like a harpoon in my brain, dragging my thoughts back to the bleeding center of gravity and tugging on every connected nerve. They baked him a cake. Death to the zionist entity, death to America.
Would straight up render me catatonic I think. The cake is a bonkers level of kindness and generosity.
How could you come back from something like this unchanged?
The vast amount of starving children a cake could feed. The starving children that myself, my captors, and the families of those starving children which baked me the cake are well aware of. And yet, the cake is baked for me and given to me because I am a person and therefore worth celebrating. They gave me a cake because we both know the unfortunate situation I’m in is larger than me or them.
They gave me a cake because it is my birthday.
I know it's fucked up to spend extra time empathizing with the Israelis. But if I was one of those four hostages, and I found out that Israel had killed fifty people and wounded another hundred specifically in my name. Christ. How could you live?
That’s all I’ve been thinking about the whole time.
When I found out about the cake my brain broke. I can't express in words the despair I feel. Despair isn't even the word. Just heartbreak.
Hey, I feel your comment so deeply and it resonates so much. You wrote it so beautifully. Thank you.