One thing that struck me about this book is the constant thread about how carefully keeping a neutral stance will lose you favor with everyone; no one will respect you. I think it’s a good application for the political parties in the US today. How many people cant bring themselves to vote democratic because the Democratic Party is so apathetic? I agree with democratic social policies a lot more frequently than not, but Harris’ stance ok gaza (too afraid to rock the boat and lose political support) almost had me not support her in the 2024 election. It’s a good example of capitalist thought: justice will be put aside for power. And this is why so many are content to look away for the risk of losing their comfortable lives. God forbid they lose their job when children are being murdered. There was a line about this that struck me: "…it is not some corporation’s increasing capacity for better that drives the extractive world, but everyone else’s increasing tolerance for worse.” People will water down their morals more and more to maintain their comfortable status. Maybe at the beginning of the genocide the killings and the 12 year olds being tried in military courts would have shocked them, but now they don’t even bat an eye because they’re grown a tolerance. And what’s even worse? “Anything to avoid contending with the possibility that all this killing wasn’t the result of a system abused, but a system functioning exactly as intended.” Our country was built in the oppression of others. Why are we shocked that this is who our nation is? The real question is, how can Americans still delude themselves into believing they’re the good guys?

I want to end with this quote: “The idea that walking away is childish and unproductive is predicated on the inability to imagine anything but a walking away from, never a walking away toward—never that there might exist another destination.” what is our vision, our goal, for this? Are we waking toward a better more just future? Or will we just be the few who walked away and are forgotten? I’m choosing to believe that “one day everyone will have always been against this” and some good will come of this even if it is just the hypocrites calling this out to save face. But maybe, maybe, they’ll die out, and our children will remember, and we’ll become a more just, and more honorable people, who don’t strip away the humanity of an entire group of people to justify killing. Maybe. Maybe we will do better. Edit: typo