re: #128 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

“Since 5:45, we have been returning fire!”

Yes and no?

One of the most fucked things that recurs in colonialism is how often normal people are encouraged to go places that are dangerous because they believe they’re safe because of colonization…that they can go be farmers in Africa and that the natives simply aren’t a factor because they’ve been told (via racism) that the natives don’t matter and (via nationalism) that they will be protected and (via capitalism) that the opportunity is worth the risk.

It’s not as simple as a false flag: it’s setting up a vicious win/win scenario. Settlers peacefully seize land, or if they meet resistance then the military can intervene and the same land is seized by force. Either way the center of empire actually benefits the most.

It’s how you hide that you’re doing the same shit Genghis Khan did underneath layers of moralizing and scientific positivism.

This is why I’m a bit…whithering…about the idea of “innocence” as part of the moral calculation. It’s a kind of narrativization that picks and chooses who deserves sympathy on one hand, but also who’s suffering merits disproportionate revenge on the other…and there’s always a thumb on the scale. Once you put people into collective guilt, outside of “innocent”…you can just do worse and worse things to them.