Im Normal About Luffy I Promise

Garp, Fascism, and Parental Failure

Garp is truly one of the most interesting One Piece characters for me because of the extent to which his dogged, relentless devotion to a fascist system–and the supposed "order" it promises to uphold in the face of anarchy or rebellion–perseveres no matter how many times it fails him and his son and his grandsons. He's fully aware of the deep-seated corruption and atrocity, and feels some kind of moral obligation to bend its rules to protect the innocent (as we can see with his attempts to protect Rouge and Ace), but when faced with widespread femicide and infanticide, genocide, slavery and endless examples of egregious cruelty, he is unable to comprehend the notion that the system is indefensible, or that the only moral choice he can possibly make when faced with that level of atrocity is to leave and resist it. His son recognizing the inherent, inexcusable failures of the World Government and its armed enforcers–literally quitting the force to start a revolution– changes nothing. The order to slaughter pregnant people and infants at Baterilla can't convince him otherwise. The countless instances of bribery, the tolerance of atrocity from state-sanctioned privateers, everything about the history of the Valley of the Gods are all things he's aware of, and takes issue with, but never comes to the conclusion that he cannot affect positive change within a system designed for oppression. The public execution of his grandson–a prime example of the marine's fundamentally irrational, arrogant, vindictive cruelty clearly bound to blow up in all of their faces even before their Pyrrhic victory at the summit war–makes him waver, but even when confronted with this obvious, indefensible injustice against a child he raised and rescued by people seeking to murder him on live TV and desecrate his corpse as a show of power, he cannot bring himself to act against it in any meaningful way no matter how much it hurts him to leave his grandson to die. If he can't veto it, he'll stay Vice Admiral and suffer through Ace being sacrificed on the altar of fascist state control, and functionally leave Luffy for dead in the process while he's at it. He fails every single person he wanted to love–Ace, Luffy, and almost certainly Dragon–and allows himself to be reluctantly complicit in countless crimes against humanity again and again and again because he's so deeply steeped in this notion of preservation of order through state control that he convinces himself that even this disgusting, atrocious, fundamentally flawed and untenable excuse for a government is better than abolition, better than revolution, or just the act of expecting accountability or literally anything better from the systems that issue false promises to protect you. Dadan beating the living shit out of him and calling him a failure as a grandfather, as a self proclaimed defender of the people, is one of the most important scenes in the Postwar Arc because a lesser series might frame Garp as a tragic, helpless figure suffering more than anyone else due to conflict of love and duty, but One Piece refuses to whitewash his actions/inaction or allow the grief and suffering caused by systems he's complicit in to take precedence over its real victims: the D brothers.

There's so much I could say about statism and anarchism and the ways people have internalized the supposed necessity of state violence to the extent they can't oppose that violence even when it ruins them or their loved ones, but that horrible indoctrination and its devastating consequences for both him and his family are what makes Garp so fascinating to watch and so thematically/politically important to One Piece as a whole.

"The world should have protected you, but you have been asked to protect it. What an honor. What an injustice." - NADDPOD, Bahumia campaign ep. 97 (x)

GAZA NEEDS YOU. DON'T LOOK AWAY. YOU CAN SAVE LIVES. Below are some VETTED campaigns to support the people who have been experiencing an active genocide for almost a full year. DONATE DONATE DONATE. If you cannot, share widely.

(June 1)

Help Iyad and his family (@iyadsobhei) - Iyad is an elderly man who has been living in dire conditions with deteriorating health; he needs to evacuate with his wife and eight children. This fundraiser currently has NO FUNDS.

Help evacuate Hani's family (@skatehani) - A dear friend, and a Palestinian skater trying to evacuate 10 members of his family; he has lost his father to injustice. Less than halfway to his goal.

Help Husam and his family (@husamthaher) - Husam desperately needs to save himself, his wife, and 3 young children.

Ahmd needs urgent evacuation (@ahmd-iyd) - Ahmd has lost his livelihood to this genocide, and needs funds to help his family evacuate and rebuild their life.

Help Mahmoud Abu Hamam and his family (@ma7moudgaza) - A college student who desperately needs to evacuate to Egypt.

Help Iman’s family find safety (@imaneyad) - Iman has a family of 7 who need to find safety.

Help Mahmoud's family evacuate (@mahmoud0qassas) - Mahmoud and his family need to get to Egypt. His brother in law needs medical attention ASAP.

Support Ruba and Amal's family's urgent evacuation (@rubashaban @amalshabn) - Ruba and Amal's family are lacking the basic necessities of life; they have an elderly father who desperately needs to be evacuated for medical care.

Help Omar evacuate (@omarsobhi) - Omar is a 20 year old Palestinian student who wants to save himself and his family from this genocide.

Support Fahmi and his family (@fahmiakkila) - Fahmi's life has been turned completely upside down, and he now finds himself responsible to save his parents, sisters, & brothers - 7 members.

Save a displaced Gazan Family (@ranibra) - Rania is married with five children, her husband needs medical care. She is now responsible to save her children. Help them evacuate.

Save little Yusuf and his family (@ahmednabubake) - Yusuf is in an intensive care unit fighting for his life in Gaza; he needs urgent evacuation alongside his family.

Save a family trapped in Gaza (@mohamedalanqer) - Mohammed Alanqar and his family are living in fear, urgently needing financial assistance to escape to a safer environment.

Help Gazan children survive (@aymanayyad81) - Fadi Ayyad, an 18-year-old from Gaza seeks the funds to help his family survive these gruesome conditions.

Save Tawfik and his family (@tawfikwaleef) - Tawfik is an engineer from Gaza who urgently needs to escape Gaza with his family.

Help Tahseen and his family (@tahseenmush) - Tahseen and his family are from northern Gaza and need urgent help to survive this genocide.

Don't ignore this list—your support is URGENTLY needed. Each fundraiser here is an opportunity to help, and it has been made easy for you to find these fundraisers. You can easily save lives. Pick at least one to support. Once again, your donation can save lives. If you can't donate, please share these campaigns.

FIND MORE CAMPAIGNS HERE

إذا انت من غزة و بدك إضافتك إلى القائمة التالية - اضغط هنا

There's an open pit in the middle of our office plan that drops down into a bunch of very sharp spikes that kill you instantly. This is bad. People keep falling in there and dying. Someone put a sign up, the other day, all bright yellow so you can't miss it, that says "Beware!!! Spikes!!!"

The office immediately split into two factions over it. One says that if anyone falls in the spike pit it's their own fault for being so stupid and not watching where they're walking, so we should remove the sign. The other says that the sign is an insult, there shouldn't be a spike pit in our office at all, and having the sign up like that is just normalising the existence of the spike pit, so we should remove the sign.

We ended up removing the sign. Probably for the better. Still... for a while there it looked like it might have worked...

Thanks urban dictionary

TW: Pedophilia

Teenagers are rarely taught the reason why they can't consent to sex with adults.

And that's because teaching them that would completely unravel our coercion-based society.

It can be difficult to explain in detail the exact reason and all the specifics in a way that they will understand. But the simplest way to phrase it is that in some cases, even when someone agrees to something and even when they appear enthusiastic about it, there's too much of a power imbalance that it's no different than forcing them. Also, having power and being abusive doesn't require a conscious expectation to be obeyed.

Imagine a world in which every teenager understood that and was easily able to call out anyone who tried to convince them otherwise.

They'd know that there's no such thing as an employee consenting to working for a poverty wage, working in unsafe conditions, working long hours, or working without taking breaks. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to paying a bank overdraft fee. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to student loan debt. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to medical bills. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to generating profit for banks or landlords in order to have a place to live and being evicted or foreclosed when you lose your source of income. They'd know that there's no such thing as consenting to a police search. They'd know that there's no such thing as a child who's okay with their parents spanking them. They'd know that being dependent on someone does not mean that you can never criticize them. They'd know that if it's considered abusive to simply play along when someone obeys, then it has to be much more abusive to actively expect to be obeyed, which many adults do to them.

And people who benefit from a society based on coercion masquerading as freedom wouldn't like that.

So instead, teenagers are taught something dismissive. They're taught that what they want doesn't matter. They're taught that they're too young to know what love is. They're taught "it's the law". They're taught things that are insulting to their intelligence, which they'll naturally rebel against.

YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME