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I don't think it is a small issue, collective guilt is the concept that justifies dropping bombs on homes where children live because of the horrific attack car
by whatshisface 3y ago
I don't think it is a small issue, collective guilt is the concept that justifies dropping bombs on homes where children live because of the horrific attack carried out by a government that stopped holding elections before they were born, that justified said attack being carried out against whoever the gunmen running out of the cage could find unprotected, and that justified the logic of every antisemitic conspiracy theory ever devised (which disagree on the "facts" but universally assume that there's a connection between allegations of distant events and Jewish people the reader might actually meet). It justifies the association of criticism for Israel with antisemitism being used to manufacture consent in the US, (through the implication that collective guilt is such an obvious principle that anyone who criticizes Israeli foreign policy must extend the blame to everyone supportive of their recognized religion, and consequently must be silenced before they express that which they are thus calculated to believe) and it is why hate groups have picked up the story and are trying to run with it, which is ideal for the enemies of the peace movement because the impression that belief in the existence of collective guilt is an immutable and universal fact in American culture (it isn't, nobody feels guilty over the disasters of the past 50 years; rather everyone imagines themselves part of the peace protests) makes it appear to people associated with Israel that denial is a matter of serious self-interest. I don't know of any other way to resist such an abstract bordering on philosophic evil but to annoy everyone with essays like this, yes, even at such a time... a time as we are living through and people no different from me will not.