Skip to main content


Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

Israel:

“Except Palestinians.”

The US and other Western democracies:

“Except Palestinians.”

#israel #palestine #gaza #genocide #ethnicCleansing #UDHR #UDHR75

reshared this

in reply to Aral Balkan

it seems their playbook will be pretending like all the evidence we see from Palestinians is fake and all the evidence from Israelis is real, even though it's laughably more towards the opposite to anyone with an internet connection. Manufactured consent for the modern era.
in reply to Aral Balkan

To be fair, putting aside the terrible wars happening, no one can live on this planet without trading.... you can't be a good human being, do good thing, and survive. You have no access to food, water, shelter and the necessities of life... This is terrible.
in reply to Tio

@tio
I don't believe this is true.

We are heterotrophs and need to consume other life to survive. However, that doesn't mean we must consume more than what nature can regenerate. There are hundreds of millions of people living in harmony with nature, doing good things, right now.

In fact, we can also feed 10 billion people sustainably:

unep.org/news-and-stories/stor…

The problem ofc is that our societies, especially in the Global North, actively prevent this.

Let's change them.

@Tio
in reply to Timo Tiuraniemi

@ttiurani @tio You’re both arguing the same point :) (@tio was criticising the way things are today; his work is entirely based on creating alternatives to the status quo he described)
in reply to Timo Tiuraniemi

Maybe you misread or misunderstood. For one we need to consume food. That can be plants or animals. Nutrients. Second, show me in what society humans can simply have a life (access to their basic needs) without trading (having a job, making a business, etc.).
in reply to Tio

I probably misunderstood, but replied to this:

"no one can live on this planet without trading.... you can't be a good human being, do good thing, and survive."

which I understand to argue that no one on the planet can be a good human being and survive at the same time?

There are both (indigenous) people living directly off the land, and people within societies consuming very little, but still enough to not only survive but also have a good life.

So "no one" is not true.

This entry was edited (11 months ago)
in reply to Timo Tiuraniemi

@ttiurani @tio He means in our so-called modern societies. As in you can’t in London or New York or whatever city or town you or I live in and that we should try and change that.
in reply to Aral Balkan

@tio

I did understand the context, and I know I'm probably unfair here. Don't mean to argue with anyone, and could've just made this a separate point and not a reply.

The reason for my drive-by comment, is that I think it's really important to draw attention to how wildly different human experiences are, when there is talk about what "people" or "humans" or "planet" are. I believe doing this can unlock a lot of imagination.

Don't know if I succeeded in any of that here though.

@Tio
in reply to Timo Tiuraniemi

I see. Sure I should have said that pretty much no one. The people you are talking about are a very tiny minority. What I mean is that being a good human being is not enough in our "modern" society. There are no programs in place to help people have a life. Like the declaration of Human Rights says “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

I spent the last 15 years of my life creating a lot of "things", from books to documentaries or online free services for everyone. All scientific and educational. And I never traded them. Meaning I made no profit. I want to do good things and help people, get myself informed about how the world works, etc.. And I cannot survive in this world unless random people from around the globe support me financially. And that's a core issue within our global society, that people cannot have a life without being forced to do something in return or engage into this trade society.

in reply to Tio

I very much agree with your point. I read too much essentialism in your comment, not knowing the background.

While (I think) there is no research on how many people within countries are currently able to have a good life without consuming more than nature can regenerate, I don't think "very tiny minority" is accurate.

From the little I know, a sustainable level is surprisingly high and achievable almost everywhere with policy changes.

This entry was edited (11 months ago)
in reply to Tio

@tio@social.trom.tf @aral@mastodon.ar.al @ttiurani@fosstodon.org

Simply abolish the homestead real estate tax and employee wages and the whole system of forced economics and inflationary pricing will collapse. Every other solution is band-aids on a sucking chest wound.

in reply to Timo Tiuraniemi

@tio@social.trom.tf @aral@mastodon.ar.al

"A good life" is judged by whose standards?

Man is not the measuring stick for what is good. Man is inherently evil, and his idea of "goodness" is always self-serving and deceptive. When any other man tries to tell me what is "good" I ignore him with vigor. It doesn't matter if it is a priest or humanitarian or a prince. No man can decide what is good for another.

"I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts ... And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them ..."

in reply to firefly

@firefly @tio
What the necessary material conditions for good life are, should IMO be democratically decided. And as far as planetary limits are not transgressed – which means actively harming other people's possibility for a good life – there is no need to define the meaning of a good life for anyone else.

FYI: there are efforts to find the lower limits for these material conditions, like decent living standards:

link.springer.com/article/10.1…

in reply to Tio

@tio@social.trom.tf @aral@mastodon.ar.al @ttiurani@fosstodon.org

Man is not designed to live independently. Mankind is a distributed organism. Our souls are organs within a larger soul. One organ dies and another takes its place. Nothing can change that.

in reply to Timo Tiuraniemi

@tio@social.trom.tf @aral@mastodon.ar.al

Technically man does not consume other life to survive. A cow is dead before a man eats it.

in reply to Tio

in reply to Aral Balkan

And except Armenians, Afghans, any PoC in a small boat on the Mediterranean or arriving in the UK, and anybody else I forgot to mention...
in reply to Aral Balkan

There is nothing new here. It's just that millions are seeing it with new eyes.

"Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."

"For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known."

"Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops."

The Internet is one big block of housetops.

#hypocrisy #religion #israel #palestine #gaza #genocide #imperialism

in reply to Aral Balkan

Incidentally, that declaration was written post World War 2 by a committee headed by the wife of a US president. But all its stipulations were deliberately made legally non-binding. So that universal declaration is essentially a memorial to international political hypocrisy.
Unknown parent

Aral Balkan
@2_beers Oh, is that what all Palestinians think? Gee, I wonder if there’s a word for tarnishing an entire people with the same brush?… When it is done to Jews, we call it antisemitism.
in reply to Aral Balkan

And what about the right to life, liberty and security of the people Hamas took hostage, raped or killed? Perhaps you should direct your concerns towards Hamas and their Palestianian supporters, too.
in reply to G3rn0ti

@g3rn0ti mastodon.ar.al/@aral/111550845…


@[url=https://muenchen.social/users/godot]Martin Jost[/url] @LALegault Yes, a bunch of Islamist barbarians murdered roughly 1,200 Israelis including ~859 civilians and took hostages.

In the time since, Israel has gone on a genocidal rampage in Gaza, murdering more than ten times the number of Palestinians (~17,000 currently), the vast majority of which are women and children.

Happy?

Now fuck off.