The discourse on terrorism is generally devoid of historical perspectives (‘terrorists are pure evil’ is one popular trope) and lacks any positionality because, it is assumed, terrorists simply live outside of morality and social norms. But such ahistorical and essentialist attitudes came to haunt this discourse when a former terrorist, Nelson Mandela, became a Nobel Peace Prize winner, or, more recently, when Osama bin Laden, a former American ally, ‘turned’ terrorist. The discourse on terrorism also does not account for state terrorism, whereby state institutions such as the army or police inflict violence on civilian populations, as was the case in Nicaragua and Chechnya (and by the US via the Contras). This last point is particularly missing from the discourse on the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. All attacks on Israelis, whether inside the 1967 border or outside, whether targeting soldiers or civilians, are dubbed terrorist attacks. But dropping a one-ton bomb from an Israeli airplane on a five-story Palestinian house, in which a militant may be present, knowing full well that dozens of civilians will be killed, is hardly ever described in Western media as terrorism.
I love the phrase “they get along like a house on fire”. It’s perfect. You and me have perfect chemistry and it’s setting off the carbon monoxide detectors. People are calling emergency services to get us to stop being so chummy. Someone died
My plan to create a perfectly flat and level Kansas by moving 5,501 cubic miles of earth from west to east. It’s the ideal Kansas. Still some details to work out about rivers, roads, etc. Watch out for the 900-foot cliff bisecting Kansas City.
this is honestly the best post on the entire fucking internet
It’s always “revenge won’t give you back what you lost” and “murder is wrong” and never how was the bloody violent revenge the bloody violent revenge looked fun was it fun