The fact that as a Black communist trapped in the imperial core once by poverty, twice by a generation mired in "non-violence" rhetoric typically spouted by Black Capital misleaders, and thrice by chronic, lifelong mental disorder, even the mere act of 'finding joy' is enough to potentially get the settler regime's property enforcement called to turn me into a chalk outline if I do it outside the walls of my own house. My fate is either to be at the hands of a cop, a neo-klansman, or an intersection of the two; and no one will avenge me. A couple electrons through a fibre tube at best.
I've known this since I was six, and I contemplate self-erasure every goddamn day. "What's your excuse", please fuck out of here with that.
The irony of this take is the person criticising the doomer does about as much praxis as the doomer. Bullying a hypothetical person to feel powerful on the internet, baby behaviour.
So there are many who aren't seeking out "joy and hope" because getting out of that pit is extremely difficult especially when you have bombs falling around you killing your relatives.
well yeah but if you're a Palestinian living in Gaza then you're surrounded by people who are fighting on the same side as you. for most western leftists the exact opposite is true
My excuse for what? Major depressive disorder? Neurodivergence? Feeling completely unmoored and alone on a world which punishes me for being both of those things?
I wanted to add this. Sad Chads aren't just mopey every second. It's not some gotcha if you're seen smiling. No one's trying to keep their unhappiness streak like it would mean something.
In Gaza when the playing is finished and the thought of your old bed in a house filled with love comes to you while you're sleeping rough alone in the rubble, there's no camera to capture your sorrow.
This is the kind of black and white thinking that's just chomping at the bit for secretarian nonsense. Trying to be sufficiently happy is a sad place to put yourself.
What do we mean by "doomer," here? Because the so-called optimists I meet are the ones who actually act like "better things aren't possible." The people I know who claim to be happy may as well be saying "Fuck you, I got mine," since they seem to be the least likely to give a shit about the world's problems. Whereas absolute pessimism and relentless negativity are perfectly sober ways of looking at the world, as long as they don't lead to resignation and inactivity.
A while back I was quoting Eugene Debs or something and saying we should judge a society by how we treat the worst-off, etc. And my interlocutor thought this was too pessimistic, so they ended the conversation by saying, "Well, I've had a good life."
Finding joy in the middle of sorrow has nothing to do with optimism and hope. They can coincide, but they don’t automatically cause one or the other.
When you’re stuck in a basement for weeks while the surface is being bombed, one simply has to past time to not lose sanity. And that may be in the form of games, songs, stories, etc. That’s not to say Palestinians don’t have hope, but it’s silly to see videos of children laughing and playing under occupation or in a bunker and automatically think “wow she’s happy!” That’s some “child sells lemonade to pay for mom’s kidney surgery” type of heartwarming story.
I was convinced that hightech occupation was unbeatable, at least without similarly hightech resistance.
It turns out it was all a paper tiger. I should have known, I work with industrial robots and those hightech pieces of junk need me to baby them all day so they don't shit themselves. I will never underestimate the power of organized guerilla resistance again.