breakable

this evening my partner started to read to me the article associated with wikipedia's picture of the day. some bug that lays its eggs strategically so that the newborn larvae can devour... i made him stop. it was making me really sad.

bug cruelty, sad books left unfinished, crying at songs and pictures and thoughts... what's going on with me? i'm not pregnant and i don't have pms. but i have been keeping up with the news coming from the middle east. it's affecting me deeply. physically. i'm a mess, emotionally. i'm not sleeping well, and it isn't just the baby's fault. my shoulder muscles are rock-hard and in pain. and i feel horribly guilty for complaining about these things; the people in gaza are dying.

white phosphorus, depleted uranium, cluster bombs. after years of systematic deprivation and degradation, interspersed with air attacks, israel is invading gaza on foot. hospitals, universities, and homes are becoming mass graves. i don't care if you support hamas or not, this isn't even remotely any way to treat a population.

the western world owes the jewish people a debt of guilt for their silence and complicity in the holocaust. we also owe such a debt to homosexuals, gypsies, people of colour, pacifists and the handicapped, and i don't see that being paid, but i digress. silence and inaction were, effectively, permission for millions of people to be rounded up and slaughtered. it was a wrong of inexpressable depth. but does this mean that the world needs to stand aside and allow aparthied, collective punishment and genocide to take place, as a way of making amends? i understand that north america's 'special relationship' with israel is about more than just the holocaust, but that's the seed from which it grew, from the little that i understand. but no matter what, nothing justifies our inaction. innocent people are being slaughtered while the western world sits on its hands. as usual.

i desperately wrack my brain for something, anything i can do. my mp is tired of hearing from me. everyone i know has been made aware. a protest has been attended. the situation goes around and around in my anxiety-ridden brain. i check the news obsessively. it all means nothing; i am powerless in the face of such a huge evil. it's fucking depressing.


for those who really want to know, read here and here.