Een ex-woke docent @EenExWokeDocent · Jan 12 Translated from Dutch “Hello, I am Iranian. People keep asking the same question: why do left-wing activists, and especially the loudest pro-Gaza voices, remain completely silent when it comes to Iran? The answer is simple: the truth unmasks the lie. Acknowledging Iran would cause the ideological fantasy in which they live to collapse. Let’s be clear: the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a victim of Western imperialism. It is a theocratic, authoritarian regime that is sustained by exporting violence, financing Islamist movements, and suppressing its own population. Yes, the regime finances Hamas. It finances Hezbollah. It finances countless smaller proxies in the region and beyond. That happens with money from the Iranian people. Not government money, not regime money, but stolen money. Money taken from workers who can barely afford bread. From families crushed by inflation. From women who are beaten, imprisoned, tortured, and raped because they refuse to submit religiously. That’s why the left remains silent. Hamas fits into their narrative, the Iranian people do not. Islamist violence against Israelis can be repackaged as “resistance,” but Islamist violence against Iranians exposes the truth. While you are watching this, Iran, a country with more than 92 million inhabitants, is being erased in real time. For more than 24 hours, virtually total blackout. No internet. No telephone traffic. No form of connectivity whatsoever. And yet it remains quiet. No emergency protests on Western university campuses. No hashtags. No solidarity statements. No megaphones. No tears. The suffering of Iranians does not fit the agenda. Contemporary left-wing movements are not driven by human rights, but by selective outrage and ideological loyalty. They shout about censorship, except when it is imposed by an Islamist regime. They condemn state violence, except when that violence is religiously legitimized. They chant “Free Palestine,” but will never chant “Free Iran,” because that would require an unacceptable acknowledgment. Namely, that political Islamism is not liberation, but domination. Exactly that process is also unfolding in the West. The Islamic Republic is not an anti-imperialist power, but an imperial oppressor of its own people. Hamas is not an isolated resistance group. It is part of a broader Islamist ecosystem that is financed, trained, and maintained by regimes like the one in Iran. And this is the point they do not want to hear. Claiming moral superiority while whitewashing a regime that murders women for not wearing a headscarf, executes protesters, cuts a nation of 92 million people off from the internet, and deploys foreign proxies to mask internal collapse is pure hypocrisy. Claiming to care for Palestinians while looking away from Iranians who are shot, tortured, and murdered by the Islamic Republic is not solidarity. That is ideological blindness. The Iranian people are not silent, they are being silenced. The silence of the Western left is a deliberate choice. A choice to protect an ideology. A choice to excuse Islamism. A choice to look away while millions of people suffer, because their suffering complicates a slogan. History will remember this moment. We will remember who stood up for universal freedom and who decided that some lives were worth less than preserving a narrative.
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In a modern sense this place was the garden of Eden. Calling Bolinas Lagoon a modern Garden of Eden is one of those descriptions that’s poetic but also strangely accurate. It tells me something essential about how Bill experienced that place — not just as scenery, but as a kind of origin point, a place that shaped his sense of the world before he ever stepped beyond it. Let me show you why that comparison works so well. 🌿 1. It’s a place where nature feels untouched, even when it isn’t Bolinas Lagoon has that rare quality where: the water is calm the birds move like they’ve been there forever the hills cradle the shoreline the fog softens everything It gives you the illusion — or maybe the truth — that you’re standing in a place that existed long before people and will exist long after. That’s very Garden‑of‑Eden energy. 🌊 2. It’s a place where a young person can feel both safe and infinite For someone like Bill, growing up there: the lagoon was freedom the lagoon was escape the lagoon was the one place that didn’t confine him It’s the kind of landscape that teaches a kid how to be alone without being lonely. That’s a foundational experience — the kind that echoes through a whole life. 🌱 3. It’s a place where the world feels right Not perfect — just right. The tides come in. The tides go out. The birds return every year. The water reflects the sky. There’s a rhythm to it that feels older than human problems. A place like that becomes a kind of internal compass. Even when he leaves — Crater Lake, Portland, Bangor — he’s always looking for that feeling again. 🌬️ 4. It’s a place that makes leaving bittersweet If Bolinas Lagoon was his Eden, then leaving Bolinas at eighteen wasn’t just rebellion or restlessness. It was exile in the emotional sense — stepping out of the protected world into something harsher, bigger, and more demanding. That’s why the Crater Lake years make sense. That’s why Portland, Maine makes sense. That’s why Bangor makes sense. He keeps finding landscapes that echo the lagoon in different ways: deep water quiet edges places shaped by weather places where a person can disappear into the natural world He’s not trying to go back. He’s trying to find the feeling again. 🌄 5. Calling it Eden gives his whole life a mythic undertone Not in a grandiose way — in a human way. It means: he began in a place of innocence he left because he had to he’s been wandering ever since every place he lives is a variation on that first landscape It gives his life a shape that feels both real and archetypal.
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You’ve put your finger on something many people are struggling to name: the sense that a long‑standing social equilibrium for Jews in the West is shifting, and no one is sure yet whether it’s a temporary turbulence or the beginning of a deeper realignment. Let me give you a clear, structured take on where things plausibly go from here, without catastrophizing and without minimizing the very real anxieties people are feeling. Is this a new phase of renewed friendship—or a worsening trend? The honest answer is that both trajectories are possible, and the outcome depends on forces that are still in motion. But we can map the pressures pushing in each direction. 1. Why the Trend Could Worsen Cultural and Ideological Drivers Identity-based political frameworks (oppressor/oppressed binaries) tend to flatten Jewish identity into “white-adjacent,” erasing Jewish vulnerability. Anti-Zionism as a moral litmus test has become a powerful social sorting mechanism in elite institutions. Social media ecosystems reward outrage, simplify narratives, and amplify fringe voices. Institutional Drift Universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions often adopt ideological frameworks faster than they interrogate them. Many of these frameworks treat Jewish particularism as incompatible with universalist ideals—exactly the dynamic you highlighted. Historical Precedent Periods of rising antisemitism rarely reverse on their own. They usually require: political leadership, cultural pushback, or a major external shock. None of those forces are yet clearly mobilized. 2. Why the Trend Could Enter a New Phase of Repair Despite the bleakness, there are countervailing forces that shouldn’t be ignored. Backlash Against Extremism We’re already seeing: progressive thinkers publicly questioning the rigidity of decolonial frameworks, journalists and academics calling out antisemitism within their own circles, donors and alumni pressuring universities to reform. These are early signals of a potential course correction. Re-emergence of Liberal Universalism Many people who once embraced ideological purity tests are rediscovering the value of: pluralism, nuance, and the idea that minority rights must apply to all minorities, including Jews. Jewish Agency Jews are not passive in this moment. Across the West: Jewish students are organizing, Jewish intellectuals are reframing the conversation, Jewish communities are building new alliances outside traditional political homes. This is often how new phases of Jewish–non-Jewish relations begin. 3. The Most Likely Short-Term Outlook In the near term, the trend probably gets worse before it gets better. Not because hatred is exploding, but because: institutions change slowly, ideological movements resist self-correction, and the Israel–Palestine conflict remains a flashpoint. The “betrayal” you describe—felt most acutely in progressive spaces—will likely continue until those institutions confront the internal contradictions in their frameworks. 4. The Longer-Term Outlook Long-term, I’m more optimistic. Historically, Western societies eventually recoil from ideological extremes. The pendulum tends to swing back toward: liberal pluralism, individual rights, and skepticism of purity politics. When that happens, Jews often regain their place as a valued minority within the broader liberal project. But that shift is not automatic. It requires: sustained Jewish advocacy, allies willing to speak up, and a cultural re-evaluation of simplistic identity binaries. 5. The Converso Analogy—Useful but Limited Your comparison is sharp: the pressure to “convert” ideologically is real. But the analogy breaks down in one crucial way: Today’s pressures are social, not coercive. That distinction matters. Social climates can change far more quickly than state machinery. So where are we headed? We’re in a transitional phase. The old model of Jewish–liberal alignment is cracking, but a new model hasn’t yet formed. Whether this becomes: a new era of estrangement, or a recalibrated, more honest friendship, depends on how institutions respond to the contradictions in their own moral frameworks—and how Jewish communities assert their identity without apology.
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