Here's one dimension of the patriarchy, that Western feminists are rather silent on.

That part involving brown people, on their own land.

https://mondoweiss.net/2026/07/how-israel-has-used-sexualized-violence-as-a-weapon-of-settler-colonialism-from-1948-to-today/

How Israel has used sexualized violence as a weapon of settler colonialism from 1948 to today

An extensive new Palestinian Feminist Collective report traces Israeli sexual violence against Palestinians from the 1948 Nakba to Gaza today, showing it isn't incidental abuse but a deliberate tool of ethnic cleansing and control.

By Nada Elia and Noura Erakat  July 21, 2026 

Gendered violence is an inherent tool of settler colonialism and is not unique to Israel. Here in the United States, another settler colonial state, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement has highlighted the impunity surrounding the sexual assault of indigenous women on reservations where overlapping US and native criminal jurisdictions have made indigenous women particularly vulnerable to sexual assault. That it remains a significantly under-resourced and unaddressed crisis is not an accident.

Similarly, Zionist ideology, as a nation-making enterprise, necessitates the dispossession of Palestinian land and, ultimately, Palestinian elimination through juridical negation — denying their right to self determination, forced removal, containment, and/or destruction.  Sexual violence is central to that effort as it both advances ethnic cleansing ambitions and shatters the social cohesion of those Palestinians who remain.

Why? Because it's about destroying an entire culture and community of people, and that includes everyone (children, women, and men), and that's a reality that the West is incapable of acknowledging; let alone taking responsibility. 

A reminder that the rich and powerful will never really ever stop their destruction of the planet on their own.

They will either have to be stopped by the people of the planet, or they'll be stopped when the planet is no longer inhabitable for said people.

And, it makes me wonder 1) when they'll try again to foil a resistance to their actions and, 2) how long can people remain vigilant and ever alert.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/regime-change-mission-foiled-yemens-ansarallah-uncover-saudi-mossad-cia-espionage-network-to-decapitate-resistance-leaders/291061/

Regime Change Mission Foiled: Yemen’s Ansarallah Uncover Saudi-Mossad-CIA Espionage Network to Decapitate Resistance Leaders

On days like this ...

... I remind myself that in any hierarchical situation, there'll always be those who end up on top. And, often times, it's because they use their knowledge as a weapon, and that the hierarchy allows - or even encourages - them to do so. All of this is in pursuit of profit - not 'growth' as some like to say.

Knowing this, I'm learning to let a lot go in that I try to not take things directed at me personally; even if that's what's intended.

I have too many things in life that 1) Give me joy, and 2) I actively am pursuing. I'm not going to let things that happen in that hierarchy affect me, because I'm choosing to not allow myself to get drawn in further. I only get involved if I have a professional responsibility to do so, and leave it at that.

An image that really says everything about us as a species, and why we're on a path to extinction.

From here -> https://consortiumnews.com/2026/07/17/ensuring-israels-genocides/

One of days where I hate growing old.

Getting old is something no one can avoid.

But seeing yourself one day, then 20 years go by and seeing yourself again, that's different. 

That's what sucks, at times.

Of course, it's genetics, Life choices, blah, blah, blah.

And it's better than death.

Who has a 'right to exist, depends a lot on the who.

Especially if that 'who' is actually a 'what', and not actually a sapient person.

Case in point -> https://mondoweiss.net/2026/07/no-israel-does-not-have-a-right-to-exist-quite-the-contrary-actually/

Israel’s record is clear. It was founded on the breach of two peremptory (jus cogens) norms: the right to self-determination of the people of the land, and the rule on the non-acquisition of territory by force, as well as on the two highest crimes in international law: genocide and aggression.   

Since then, it has refused the return of refugees and their compensation, and has continuously expanded its unlawful evictions, land theft, and colonization. 

The United Nations and every major international human rights organization have concluded that the Israeli regime is guilty of apartheid and racial segregation, unlawful occupation, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. 

The regime is now on trial for genocide at the ICJ, charges that the Court has found plausible enough to issue a series of preliminary orders (all of which the regime has ignored). 

And the same Court has found the regime guilty of unlawful occupation, the forced denial of self-determination, the unlawful acquisition of territory by force, war crimes, apartheid, and racial segregation. 

And the International Criminal Court has indicted the regime’s leaders for crimes against humanity. 

For the full eighty years of its existence, the Israeli regime has held the distinction of being in breach of the highest number of UN resolutions and ICJ decisions of any country on the planet. 

Today, the regime is unlawfully occupying Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, attacking Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, and beyond, and perpetrating genocide in Palestine. 

It has carried out assassinations across the region and has admitted to (indeed, bragged about) transnational terrorist attacks with booby-trapped pagers in Lebanon

Judged against the imperatives of international law, Israel is, in the strictest sense of the term, a rogue regime, illegitimate in its founding, and devoid of all legitimacy in its conduct ever since. 

To declare that such a regime has a “right to exist” is an affront to generations of its victims, to international law, and to human decency itself. And the threat that it poses extends far beyond Palestine. 

The Israeli regime is driven by a deeply racist and fundamentally violent ideology. It is armed with advanced technologies of surveillance and death, holds powerful conventional weaponry, and possesses stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. 

It has declared policies mandating the mass murder of civilians (the Dahiya Doctrine), the killing of its own citizens (the Hannibal Directive), and the potential nuclear destruction of the world (the Samson Option). 

Its spies are active in countries around the globe, and its proxies are actively engaged in corrupting governments and institutions across the West. 

Does such a regime have a “right to exist?” No. 

In fact, dismantling such a regime and its replacement with a free Palestine with equal rights for all is not only a legal requirement, but also an existential imperative for all of humanity. 

Is the US Empire's rich and powerful afraid of one man?

Apparently so, given the lengths went to here -

https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/14/under-israeli-pressure-us-seizes-max-blumenthals-devices-on-return-from-tehran-reporting-trip/

P.S. Max Blumenthal is a fucking hero in a day and age of cowards.

A site that will bring you to tears - if you are human.

https://archivegenocide.com/

If it doesn't, I'd say you're either a narcissist, a sociopath, a psychopath, or some combination.

WARNING: Once seen, you can't pretend you didn't see it.

Please try and convince me none of this is settler-colonialism, racism, and genocide all at its best.

https://mondoweiss.net/2026/07/weekly-briefing-hamas-dissolved-its-government-in-gaza-and-israeli-settlers-eye-west-bank-expansion/

You wouldn't succeed because you'd have to lie, obfuscate, dox, or simply deny reality.

Some day I'll have to finish that post.

This one that I started earlier - 

https://vultcult.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-trials-and-tribulations-of-being-in.html

https://vultcult.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-trials-and-tribulations-of-being-in_30.html

But it's days like this where I feel like nothing I do seems to go as planned.

I didn't want to work, and yet I did this weekend.

I wanted to get some music done this weekend, and I didn't.

Focusing on earning a paycheck pisses people off, and yet not focusing on earning a paycheck is a surefire way to be homeless. Doesn't matter evidently to people here.

I'll be shit on whether I work or not because to them, I'm just a living paycheck who should get it done during regular hours apparently. Never mind that should something happen to me, or my employment, we'd be homeless just like those under the bridge near our house.

But anyways, it's a reminder that I need to go back and finish Part 3.

But not tonight - I still have to work later, and be up tomorrow early to avoid traffic to get to that office to continue working (try saying that 10 times fast).

I wonder if I'll ever get Social Security?

I'm not that far away anymore. Yet this isn't very encouraging.

https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/11/democracy-inequality-and-social-security/

Why exactly was one man a threat to the US Empire?

Yes he was black.

Yes it was the late 1960's.

But was really going on?

In case you missed it - the so-called "The Anti-Defamation League" was NEVER a civil-rights organization.

Quite the opposite in many respects.

They have always been - at minimum - shills for US Empire.

https://mondoweiss.net/2026/07/a-new-important-book-shows-why-the-adl-has-never-been-a-civil-rights-organization/

Reminder - in capitalism, labor and unions are frowned upon by employers.

The reason is simple - unions are the only effective defense against exploitation by employers in capitalism.

https://breakthroughnews.org/2026/07/08/protests-erupt-after-us-pharma-company-fires-900-employees-in-indias-keralam-state/

tests 

Like my late father said, if companies actually knew how to treat people, there's be no need for unions.

Great article from MintPressNews on the connection between Zionism, and propaganda.

Here's a hint - they're interchangeable, in that they are connected at the hip these days.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-israeli-spy-behind-pragerus-plan-to-rewrite-american-education-to-indoctrinate-children/291039/

This unconditional support is unsurprising, given who actually runs the company. PragerU CEO Marissa Streit is, after all, an Israeli spy. On her eighteenth birthday, Streit joined Unit 8200, the Israeli Defense Force’s spying agency. In interviews, she has admitted that she was an officer in the controversial unit, and stated that she uses the tactics and techniques honed by Israeli spying agency on the American people. “Coming back here to the United States with the gifts that Israel had given me during my military training, I felt compelled to employ them here in my nation of the United States,” she explained.

Exactly what her role as a Unit 8200 officer remains a mystery. Streit has said of her time there that, “We were tasked with looking at problems that the intelligence community might be missing.” Given that her service coincides with the Second Palestinian Intifada, however, one can speculate that suppressing domestic resistance to occupation was among her tasks.

A book worth checking out.

Metabolic Rifts: Capitalism’s Assault on the Earth System

Quote of the day -

Bita Iuliano and Olivia DiNucci

We must not allow ourselves to grow desensitized to the reality of what our tax dollars could be funding instead of the spread of surveillance,  destruction, and devastation. And we must make it clear that we will never mistake the roar of engines overhead for the promise of peace, whether that is abroad or here.

Every dollar spent on one of these performative fighter jet overpasses is a dollar stolen from our communities. The budget is a clear reflection of what the country values, and right now, our budget says we value genocide, destruction, and the theater of war over the substance of peace and the actual betterment of our communities, our country.

The America and Freedom 250 celebrations ask us to reflect on what our nation stands for, a nation started by genocide, carried out by slavery, fueled by exploitation, and exposing how militarism, racism, and fascism are on full display. Why do we spend trillions to destroy and destabilize the world, while spending pennies on investments to make our own communities actually safe?

This has to be a sign of something.

https://mondoweiss.net/2026/07/uaw-becomes-the-first-major-u-s-union-to-vote-to-divest-from-israel-bonds/

UAW becomes the first major U.S. union to vote to divest from Israel Bonds

UAW delegates voted to divest the union’s reported $400,000 in Israel Bonds, making it the first major U.S. union to do so. Organizers say it’s a victory for international solidarity and a sign of the working class's growing rejection of Israel.

“Merciless Indian Savages” - a reminder of what's in the 'Declaration of Independence'.

https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/06/the-anti-indigenous-slur-in-the-declaration-of-independence-speaks-volumes/

Why not just say that racism (namely white supremacy) and religious superiority go hand-in-hand with the hierarchical nature of capitalism?

I bring it up because neither words (racism, capitalism) are anywhere to be found in the article.

If i needed a reminder that propaganda serves to demonize, divide people, and keep them at each other ...

... a system that keeps the rich and powerful in control, look no further than mass media in this country.

Specifically the American movie industry aka 'Hollywood'.

When it comes to the black man specifically, the beast, the ghost, and crazy one, and the predator are all useful tropes to keep him down.

New term learned today - Lehava.

From here -> https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/01/israel-is-an-apartheid-state-and-its-weird-marriage-laws-show-us-how/

There are even groups like Lehava – Israel’s version of the Ku Klux Klan – that go around beating up Palestinians caught anywhere near the Jewish neighbourhoods of Jerusalem and terrorising any young Jewish women suspected of being romantically involved with a Palestinian. Lehava hold noisy and disruptive protests to shame the odd Jewish woman who converts and marries a Palestinian citizen.

All of this happens with a quiet wink from the authorities. The current police minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, has long been a patron of the fascist, Jewish supremacist thugs of Lehava.

Breaching capitalism’s digital fortress.

I think this extends not just to the 'Left' per se, but really for all people essentially.

https://breakthroughnews.org/2026/07/01/the-left-and-breaching-capitalisms-digital-fortress/

We are called upon to take possession of the tools of our age, since just as Marx and Engels transformed the economic and philosophical sciences of their time from tools that justified the existing order into a theoretical and practical weapon in the hands of the working class, the left today is called upon to be an active and programming force in this arena. We must move from the position of the “passive user” subject to the terms of capitalist platforms, to the position of the “alternative producer” who puts forward a technology that is communal, open, and liberated.