• azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    A whole lotta people did stand up to the guys with guns. Sometimes they took up their own guns. Sometimes they smuggled a bit of bread away for a Jewish neighbor, or they adopted a kid as their own. Factory workers purposefully worked as lazily as plausibly deniable. People spied for the allies and hid food away from the occupiers.

    Everyone of these actions carried personal risk or cost, to varying degrees. Many paid for it with their lives, but so many more lives were saved by the Resistance and the many forms it took.

    Ronald L. Haeberle was “just doing his job” as a war photographer in Vietnam churning out propaganda, with a constant and real threat on his life from his hierarchy. He was by all accounts a softspoken man who didn’t seek trouble. Until in 1969 he turned over tens of harrowing pictures from the My Lai Massacre to reporters, genuinely helping change public perception and precipitate US capitulation.

    Helping a humanitarian cause thousands of kilometers away is harder, but plenty of humanitarian organizations provide real help on the ground in Gaza and are seeking donations right now. So instead of falling for cynicism, consider donating to one.