original post author: @flawed@kolektiva.social - archive.today
re: image source
(Image: Mario and Sonic Showing Support For Palestine by PetarMeMeMakerarts - I couldn't find any image of Luigi wearing a keffiyeh which itself argues against the present hypothesis.)
EDIT: Immediately after posting, I saw person interviewed outside the arraignment. But I don't know that person so I won't associate them with this sketchy piece of writing.
Palestine factor: Legitimacy of violent self-defense
Palestine is one of the reason why Luigi has the support amongst peasants as he has now, to the extent he has, even if we account for the general hatred insurance executives have amongst peasant population.
Western ruling class has exposed themselves so much by allowing their genocidal dog to commit crimes so openly, with full backing of all of Western states, they made quite a large percentage of peasants on the street to realize violence (self-defense form of violence) is a legitimate form of resistance to ruling class's unchecked crimes — whether those ruling class crimes are committed with/without legal sanction.
remainder of post
Luigi's alleged actions i.e sending insurance demon straight to hell wouldnt have had as much popular support, had it not been for everyone watching ruling class commit genocide with complete nakedness & with such brazenness, peasants (atleast a segment of peasants) realized if someone delivers even a tiny fraction of justice to ruling class for their crimes (even if they are a different segment of criminal ruling class, not the ones that are committing genocide), those actions are morally right & just.
I very much doubt the alleged vigilante would have had the same support in rest of society, if sizable segments of society were not already exposed to 14 months long genocidal crimes of Western ruling class against weak in Palestine — with such impunity, in such an open manner, defying any sense of morality, with such brazenness, for so long. Few Western states (Ireland & rest), who while not even doing bare minimum, are now trying to pretend they did not support Entity, while they aided Entity for a long time & haven't yet severed all connections with Entity.
Western propaganda pipelines i.e Media, Academia, "Journalists", Thinktanks, NGOs, etc have lost so much credibility defending & carrying water for Genocidal Entity, deceiving, lying, gaslighting so openly, for so long, a good chunk of peasant population not only stopped taking them seriously, rather started defaulting to following position:
If they say X is the truth, then its likely X is not the truth.
Ruling class is used to relying upon its collaborators in the propaganda pipeline to build credibility for them for so long, they assumed they will be able to change & control the narrative around Luigi's alleged actions, but unfortunately Western propaganda pipelines lost good chunk of control (they have not lost fully, but loss is not insignificant either), the peasants who support his actions are not insignificant % of population. Their size is bigger than many minority groups in Empire & the people who would support his actions will only grow, once the trial starts.
Tho Luigi's actions are unrelated to Palestine, the psychological change Empire's ruling class brought amongst peasants with its actions in Palestine, Empire's ruling class (+ rest of Western ruling classes too) have shown how illegitimate they are to everyone. Now, sizable % of the peasant population doesn't think their ruling classes have much legitimacy & violent tactics are as much legitimate as non-violent tactics, when ruling class's crimes are massive. This % is still not majority, not even a big %, but its larger than zero — unlike how it used to be before Palestinian genocide.
@palestine @lebanon @iran @israel @syria #israel #palestine #gaza #lebanon #iran #syria #anarchy #anarchism #uspol #law #lawfedi
Dec 24, 2024, 07:29 AM
Interesting question I hadn't thought of before.
I wonder if the relationship is a bit different though. OP suggests the population is inured to violence having seen their govt dish it out so brazenly. That would be terrifying if true. I hope the people will not simply mimic the absolute worse aspects of the government.
But maybe there is something to the relationship. Over the past 1+ year, righteous resistance using force and violence has been quite legitimized among those who might have previously held a vague ideological passivism before. It's a less and less tenable position to hold as all other alternatives are totally exhausted. For the Palestinian people. But if its acceptable for them, then for who else?
Not sure about the rest of the world, but in the USA, a huge chunk of our "modern folklore" is about the "good guy with a gun that fights the bad guys/evil system."
And I know I'm missusing the term "folklore" by applying it to the stories we consume in our entertainment media of movies, TV shows, novels, comic books, music.
Rambo, Commando, Shooter, Mission Impossible, John Wick, Red Dawn, Falling Down, The Punisher, etc. etc. are all about the lone person or group of peope who are hyper competent in both violence and being about to throw off the indoctinization that keeps the rest of us from defending ourselves from the injustices that are carried out against us (or others) by those who can game the system or just the system itself.
Everybody's had a fantasy about quiting a job in an epic way that violates the norms of polite society, tons of people have fantasized about responding to being assulted or bullied in a violent way and "winning" or at least taking their assailant down with them in a blaze of glory.
I'm not convinced by Flawed's argument that more and more eyes on the genocide in Palenstine have suddenly changed the minds of us USA'ins when it comes to "violence against our oppressors." The thoughts were always there on an individual level but to this day they are rarely acted on, we'll fantasize about a thing we have no intention of actually doing, we'll wrote stories about it, we'll make an entire genre of movies about it but we aren't out there engaging in armed struggle as a society.
I like it, but I'm also unsure the impact on the "general public." The venn diagram overlap of people unbothered or pleased with the CEO's killing is certainly comprised of people who correctly relate that action to actions of self defense by oppressed persons on one side, but the other I think is people who have direct experience of oppression at the hands of the US healthcare system but have not yet made the connection to other modes of oppression inflicted on their behalf by their government. For whatever of the myriad reasons they're just not making that connection. IMO this latter group far outnumbers the former. Imagine asking random people on the street heir opinion on whether Palestinian violence is justified, vs whether the CEO's killing is justified. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic but I think you'd see a big discrepancy, not in the least because of the dehumanizing propaganda campaign against Palestinians in which most of them have been raised.