Daeron the Daring

I will pop a bottle of champagne when Iran will finally get its own illegal weapons of mass destruction so that fascist western pariah states like the US and Israel and all their fucking orientalist-pilled supporters will finally not be able to behave like an everlasting full-time literal death cult at the expense of brown people. The demonizing of these people will not stop but maybe, just maybe the needle moves a bit at the expense of all these forces of pure fucking evil.

There's realistically not another explanation to this. The problem with the Democrats in particular is that even at this point, after running a campaign that relied heavily on capitulating to right-wing framing and policies, they find no issue with their taken stances. The overall majority of dems here are completely in parallel with the struggle the majority of americans face on a socioeconomic level, and struggle to think outside the boundaries of social issues. Meanwhile people who are being chewed out by the system at an ever larger rate find the only party which promises "radical" solutions on the right, and even then not in leftist socioeconomic policies, like you definitely would in Europe. But that's to be expected, because the Democratic Party doesn't want to be a leftist party in part or whole. The Democratic Party simply will not ever let another person with the caliber of what Bernie was be as seriously considered a candidate for presidency as he was. They will work against it fervently, because that's what they are supposed to do. This video gives, I think, one of the most important aspects of why that's the case:

Because that's not true. Both sides promised the people closed borders/migration controls, and one didn't call them fascists.

Well it sure as hell will not become a textbook example on how to run a campaign.

Whadya mean? King Bernie will still be around, mentally sound, and my king will finally have to him handed the crown he always deserved.

I mean yes, to put it into a phrase, one could say: "I don't like how immigrants come into my country and as a consequence my boss is threathening me to work my finger to the bone and more hours or I'll be replaced by an immigrant for half my wage." But at that point, should you really take this up with the government letting in immigrants? This is what I meant to say.

@Manhole I wrote to you a lenghty answer, but sadly by the time I got around to send the reply, the topic was closed, and frankly I'm devastated. In short, yes, there are certain local parts of certain industries that do no benefit from immigration, but apart from this having little effect on the national level, the issue already stems from the collaborate efforts of capital and the government (influenced by capital) always working towards an equilibrium at which rate unemployment is the most profitable. Because, let's be honest, a certain level of unemplyment is always better for big money than a labor shortage or rampant unemplyment. Corporations will always work towards this equilibrium, but independent of immigration, because there's realistically not a number of immigrants that could realistically show up tomorrow on the american border and the economy would find itself unable to distribute this hypothetical amount of laborforce. But it does not want to, because unemployment corners people into enrolling into job markets they would otherwise not, for an amount of money they would not, unless there was competition even for the worst ones. As a consequence of this, yes, they are in favor of immigration, and they will use it to their advantage to their best knowledge, but this really is not an issue one should take up with the immigrant.

There isn't a single valid grievance attached to the issue of immigration. In my opinion, a lot of it comes from a clash of realities: Some people don't want to tolerate others that are different from them. If these people are distinguishable by race, ethnicity, religious or political beliefs or material backgrounds, people will find a problem with that, out of ignorance or hate. Because they are distinguishable, people will be more keen to believe they are in some ways different. Edit: Add to this the effect of associating yourself to a nation or national values. People particularly concerned about their own may find it threatening that some new arrivals may challenge the nature of a culture's outlooks, in any of the previously presented ways. The conservative movement heavily leans into conserving cultural identities in the form they were in at their national awakening, for example. That's definitely a very important factor for conservatives in european countries.

Left wing policies have never failed to deliver and will continue to keep countries like mine, for example, on their last leg, when everything is free game in times of asuterity and privatisation but the education and healthcare system. And the socially conservative people support it, because these are remnants of the communist era and every generation, before or after it, to this day, has a positive experience with it.

This election in particular wasn't lost on social issues. There isn't a single one where the GOP doesn't outflank its own voter base to its right. A lot of socially conservative people, who at the same time are heavily in support of the extension of social security nets on a countrywide level end up supporting the Republicans because they at least promise something they want, which is socially conservative legislation, all the while the left is indistinguishable from the Republican position on economic policies (outside of promising this and that that's either hard to understand or too simple to explain anything) and realising the material struggles of the average person. I guess Trump was a populist and props to the Democrats for not promising stuff they will never follow trough with, but should be their baseline principles. You might be in a lucky situation where cutting such people off the line has no effects on your social life, be it family or friends, but that's once again, not the kind of privilege most people have, even less so on the peripheries of the West or outside of that, nor might they want to, because separation of groups leads to hostility. Politics is an important part of our lives and that's precisely why talking with the people who disagree with us is important. For me personally, it helped. What people desire significantly more than a nationwide abortion ban or stopping trangenders from entering sports and bathrooms is the elevation of their own material conditions for the sake of them and the ones they care about. These people will take action with eyes on those principles first, and they might not preceive their actions as you do. What this election taugh us is that concentration camps for brown people with rainbows above them are still concentration camps, and people will not care to look if you decorate your chest or arm with a swastika (yes these are intentional overexaggerations) if their basic needs aren't met or are preceived to be in serious danger. The Democrats are far from being the ideal candidates for solving the issues the majority of the nation faces. If they don't even have the capability to call out the GOP on their bullshit lies, they're either utterly incompetent for the job or not too dissimilar from them. I don't think there's a third option.

A factor of 0, realistically.

The results of a bad presidency crowned with a bad election campaign. It's hard to fight the anti-establishment sentiment when you have nothing to show for but capitulating to the framing the worst republican candidate of the century (so far) runs with. The Republican Party will always be better at bigoted framing. This notion I see being put forward here as well that the majority of the country wanted this is complete bullshit, and the Democratic Party believing the same lost an election on trying to appeal to republicans and leaving democrat voters humiliated and expected to vote out of devotion. The Republican position overall is the minority on abortion, immigration, other social issues, foreign policy and social security, and that will continue to be the case. I personally tought this elections' outcome will not matter all that much, domestically or otherwise, but this fumble is historical and its echoes will be not that insignificant.

Interesting how Israel doesn't have the tools to support right-wing factions and parties in Europe, yet Hungary with Fidesz in control, a country almost identical in population and smaller in terms of economic might is regularly pointed out as the fifth column to the liberal utopia the EU is. Of course that is in part thanks to the role it can play inside the EU (that used to be more the case a few years ago), but a lot of it comes parallel or explicitly despite of it. They can donate money to Le Pen's campaign, they politically centralise the diaspora in neighbouring countries, they leverage their position in Putin's lap against the EU, they are obscenely racist towards immigrants and outside of that, in particular against jews. Orbán's frienship with Netanyahu might lead us to believe that's not the case, but the pig doesn't miss a chance to gloss over and justify the country's interwar and wartime period, going as far as praising our leaders that had an active role in the Holocaust and openly called themselves antisemites and jews an illness of our society (during Germany's Weimar period, for the record). Let's not even touch on George Soros' portrayal in hungarian media, but I guess thank you Israel for selling allegedly the best spyware in the world to these thugs? Israel finds leverage in the purpose it serves: A bastion to western interest in an unstable region.

My line of thinking was to quote the full sentence, lest you'll feel taken out of context. Since I elaborated on what I believe is imagined, I didn't think anybody would misunderstand me. I certainly didn't mean to imply generalisation, I believe there's a heavy divide on the topic I talked about, with numerous people voicing their concern both about the outcome of any resolution (but more specifically a one-state one) for the jews and also these concerns being dismissed without looking into it by the ones that find this to not be likely or a justification for continued violence in the same fashion it did as of now, including you in my quotation. In that sense, I am pointed at, but not specifically or individually, but as a group holding the views I do too. The problem with this, as I tried to express, is that it's not true, but we disagree, and that makes us think (in this specific case you and the people who share this view) we never even adressed these concerns in ourselves in the first place, which is what I believe to be the imaginary concern.

I didn't take it as such? What gave you the idea? My response was aimed at the notion that those who favor a one-state solution don't hear out those with concerns regarding the violence it might cause. I guess the quote was too long? I didn't want to take anything out of context.

This frustration with the other side is simply fabricated, imagined. Nobody ever said there shouldn't be action taken to stop retaliationary actions to happen in a process of resolution. What people with this belief are hurt over is that we continue to arrive at a different conclusion, and we will be accused of an inconsiderate opinion until we change our opinions and agree with those who value a jewish life or right over that of a palestinian. I support any action taken that aims to create a process that results in better conditions for those in need of elevation of theirs in contrast to what it was before October 7 and doesn't destroy the material conditions of those previously not in need of it in whole or any significant part. This means that I don't support a resolution that systematically aims at destroying the societal and material conditions of jews they have a right to (an ethnostate is certainly not one). Supporting the genocide/ethnic cleansing of jews would equate to supporting the Nakba/the creation of Israel because of the previous injustices suffered (Holocaust/apartheid). I find the idea that inadequate justice served on a societal level is better (which I believe what a two-state solution would be, regardless of the conditions israeli arab citizens may endure afterwards) than adequate measures taken potentially at the cost of jewish lives, far smaller in number than what pre-October 7 conditions required of palestinians in terms of lives, to be straightforward racism, because it tells that one of us is worth more (regardless of character) than one of theirs, something that has been baked into Israel since its inception, even though non-citizen palestinians (living under Israeli administration) have been a subject of Israel just as much as any citizen with full rights. The idea that Israel is not responsible for palestinians or would stop being responsible upon a two-state solution resolution being realised is ignoring the injustice this does not resolve and doesn't aim to either. Supporting a one-state solution doesn't necesarilly mean you would sabotage a two-state one (if you had the ability), it simply means that you don't think the latter serves full or adequate justice which leaves problems unresolved. The idea that palestinians shouldn't have the right to return to Israel proper after a two-state solution is utter hipocricy, and if they could, there would be no meaningful reason to not form a single state.

The statement is poorly worded, sure. If I'm the one responding to it though, I wouldn't want to step over the message it tries to deliver with such hastiness. A point was tried to be made, and that point has been made multiple times and in much better ways on this forum already and I find it quite surprising that anybody reading these threads cannot come to such a simple conclusion. A lot of justifiable and unjustifiable resentment is created by the actions Israel takes, and they would not exist had Israel not been established where it got, the way it got. It makes people reach conclusions that are antisemitic at a far greater rate in Palestine, Israel and the rest of the World. Yes, this is true for Hamas too. No, it does not justify criticism that takes an antisemitic form, but social conditioning is a bitch, and it does not care about such things. Both sides, upon taking the actions they take (and I mean the bad ones specifically), for the most part, are very conscius about the reactions it will receive. You grow up in a society that has very good reasons to hate the country that goes by the name Israel, and when there's no action taken by the people surrounding you nor by the system to educate you, rather it's the opposite, as a consequence of injustices you suffer individually and as a group, spanning over generations, you will reach the wrong conclusions, or right ones for wrong reasons. Circle of violence, anybody? As someone who believes to have been socially conditioned (along with the whole generation I grew up with) to look unvaforably, resent or outright hate the people living next door for no reason other than their ethnic background and/or the langauage they speak and the religion they practice (which is just another christian denomination, FYI), I find it ridiculous that people would expect such a thing not to happen in such high tension regions. I have never been told to take actions I have taken that I recognize to have been blatantly racist. All I needed was the objective shared history of 'us' and 'them', the couple microagressions I have experienced (both as an individual and a group), and for all the kids my age to act like that, along with no small number of adults. As a hungarian in Romania, I got no reason to wonder why 90% of us votes for Fidesz or even more to the right of that on hungarian elections. The education system, the centralised political representation, the continued struggle narrative we come to fabricate upon learning the experiences of our parents and grandparents, who got a stronger taste of it, it's so easy to come to the conclusion that we are fighting a war of sorts to any imagined end. It might come as a surprise to you that some of us don't use such a narrative. Good and bad guys are defined by a set of their actions. Victims, OTOH, are not. If they're victims, they're victims.

Too bad. I was genuienly interested in your (potentially?) anarcho-monarchist take.

What is socialism? What is democratic socialism? Please enlighten me.

Neither of these were socialist? By these standards you can also call the Democratic Party a socialist one. Also, do you purposefully miss the point of my comment?

Do you find genuine positives about arguing such nonsensical ideas? There is always something you can say, and there will always be something I can say back. For example, I could start talking in lenghts about how the Soviet Union meant to unite its occupied Germany with the western side and create a non-aligned neutral state, I could also talk about the backlash the state of Israel received from jewish socialist intelligentsia and general supporters upon learning and experiencing the realities of what it took to create Israel and how it began to operate. I could also enlighten you about the general tendencies of the socialist movements in their alignment, which was in fact overwhelmingly Soviet-aligned, and moved on a single path in the immediate aftermath on a global scale, let alone in the european stage. How in the hell would it be constructive of me to say a single example that we could argue about but never ever agree? Israel happened because the Allies wanted it to happened, and happened where they wanted it to happen. There wasn't a serious discussion about Israel happening or not, or happening anywhere else but in Palestine, you know that already. There isn't a single thing that justifies its birth, not the Holocaust, not the general support it received from the gang of the Great Powers, a rather notorius group of powers I might add. Their good deeds begin and end with fighting the Nazis for most of them. What we find plausible is irrelevant at the end of the day, because things happened this way for good reasons. I mean, the reasons were bad but strong.

That changes nothing about the fact that every allied power was heavily in favor of this and that it didn't start as a Soviet proposition. They have nothing less or more to do with it happening than the Soviet Union, because they all unilaterally sought to support the newly established Czechoslovakia and Poland in resolving what they called their "german problem". And moreso, in the aftermath of the war, there were entrenched struggles to where the borders of the two spheres would be drawn, with both the Soviets and the allies trying to support and establish governments sympathetic to them. You significantly downplay the popularity of socialism among both the jewish intelligentsia and working class, as well as in other western nations, but also ignore the unpopularity of socialism in some eastern countries. Altough there was a formal agreement that had its own implications, there has never not been a struggle starting Day 1 of the aftermath to stop the other side from gaining influence on the opposing side or to extend said influence outside the previously bartered lines, with the soviets arming the already existing socialist movements and the allies the former nazis and fascists. Another bold claim to make. Jewish people did have a connection to the land, which is why they suffered trough Imperial Russian rule for so long in such high numbers, for example. Moreso, I know this thanks to proximity, in the hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, after the 1867 compromise, the ever hungarian government, since it sought to turn its regions with hungarian minorities into ones with hungarian majority, exercised a policy towards its already existing large jewish population that was one of the most liberal one in Europe. Any other european country similar to this found in Western Europe had significantly smaller jewish population both in numbers and proportion. For jewish people to gain hungarian citizenship, they did not have to abandon jewish faith. Altough it's obviously a form of opression, it was very liberal at the time, so much so that the jewish population already living there pursued this route almost in its entirety, but Hungary also saw massive levels of jewish immigration from other parts of the Dual Monarchy and the Russian Empire, all the while zionism was notably unpopular in this period for the region. Quite the contrast to the interwar and wartime policies of Hungary. A good part of the reason why zionism was attractive to jews was a lack of alternatives provided, but this is one among many. It would be stupid of us to expect that Britain and the USA would abandon what they've been cooking in Palestine for a morally more righteous resolution (if you consider it such a thing), which is why they never did, not because they particularly cared whatever the jews might want, which was very much varying. If I was you, I'd not look to find justification for what happened in Palestine among the jewish population anyway. I sure as hell hope you don't think what germans tought justified what they ultimately did. Had Israel been established in Europe, you'd find the idea that they should've and would've relocated to a muslim neighbourhood in the desert a mockery.

That's a bold claim to make in light of the fact that the allies, completely separate from this issue, orchestrated the forced displacement of german civilians in the millions after WW2, in numbers significantly more than the amount of jewish people were left after the Holocaust, from regions with german presence and majority dating as far back as the 13th century, and did not slow down even when the pace taken proved to be too fast and resulted in massive levels of perishment. Israel happened where it happened because certain powers wanted to happen where it ultimately did, and there certainly was enough space for them or a will to make some if needed.

The meaning of my response was to show that you are defending and justifying ethnic cleansing and a movement that continued to boast about its colonial nature until the word colonial started to become a bad word, and was also established decades before the Holocaust, just like the signed approval of some of the Great Powers on the matter. It posed as the solution because the Great Powers could allow it to happen, not because it was the right thing to do, or the best they could've done. And the reason they allowed it to happen did not change from what it was before the Holocaust. If I tell you any examples, which would be an easy thing to do, we could argue about unimportant things instead. Upon someone's comment saying "One great option is to stop the genocide.", you said "Ok, if Hamas steps down after what they did." I'm suddenly not able to figure out how to make the quote, since its on page 9, but you can find it, You, personally, and openly, adress the situation as a genocide and the very next thing you do is attaching a string to ending it. Do you really think there's a justification to not end it? A year ago you were outraged that people would even assume it would turn out this way (and yes, I remember it, because I was involved in those talks and engaged in talks with you specifically) and that they dare think of such a thing so soon, today you are defending its continuation. No red lines exist for you on this path. You really think I'm ashamed of my views? I'll be as open as I possibly can, and answer even more than what you asked, to hopefully leave no possible questions unanswered. Do I think Israel deserves to be a state? No (you can stop here if you want to), in its current form, regardless of government, specifically because there's no real possibility of a government that would be willing to stop the genocide and end apartheid. In the current legal framework, the possibility of adequate justice served to palestinians is practically impossible. This does not mean I'm not in support of a regime change for a better one, I just think it's ultimately no solution whatsoever, apart from being out of reach. I do not believe nationstates have a right to exist in such forms. Do I think jewish people have a right to self-determination? Yes. Like everybody. I do think jewish people are conditioned to think this can exclusively exist in a jewish state, but I disagree. Jewish people are not special in any positive or negative way from anybody else, and there are many well-functioning multinational countries, and countless ones that don't need to constantly shoot and blow up each other to coexist. Would have I supported the creation of Israel after the Holocaust? No, because I wouldn't do it today. The Holocaust, like everything else, doesn't qualify as justification to do what was necesarry to establish Israel. Do I think Israel is a democracy? No. Do I think the zionist movement is a colonial one? Yes. People who call themselves zionists, in my opinion, are calling themselves colonialists, either out of belief in its righteousness or ignorance/lack of knowlegde to the full extent of what it means. Do I think jewish people are indigenous to Israel/Palestine, and they had the right to take the land on this basis or any other? No and no. I don't think my nation has a right to carve out its own country where our ancestors lived two millenia ago, and I wouldn't think otherwise if I was persecuted in a similar fashion jewish people were during the Holocaust. Do I think jews need to be/should be deported and not allowed back in Israel/Palestine? No. This one too I wouldn't have supported after the Holocaust, nor would have I supported it after the Nakba either, altough it's pointless to point this out because there's not, and there will not be a point when I think coexistence is not possible and violence is a better alternative. What is my solution? I believe in a one-state solution (you may have picked it up by now), with a country of binational (or multinational) foundations encompassing everything that is inside the borders of Palestine and Israel, with universal suffrage for every person regardless of gender, sex, religion, ethnicity or national identity, without any need for ethnic displacement on any level, including the jewish settlers of the West Bank, and with adequate measures taken to expand the right to return to every palestinian that wishes to do so. No, I do no care if in the process of this jewish people become a minority inside the border of such a country. The previously privileged often preceive sudden equality to be opression, and no doubt this would be no different, but it's just a perception, and even the foreseeable hardships in such scenario shrink in light of how it's been before Oct. 7 and what seems to become the future of the region. Do you hate me now? Let me guess, I'm utopian, delulu. Or prehaps an antisemite?

I guess that should've been a good sign not to colonize the neigbourhood of your mortal enemy No.1. I mean, I would say what I said with seriousness if I were able to play along with your fantasies and would conduct myself in the same fashion zionists would if they were on the other side of this conflict. Brother, on the path you have chosen, there will never be a point when you will be told (by anybody, including your consciousness) to stop defending the actions Israel takes, and you are living proof of that. One year into it, and you went from being outraged at the idea of a genocide being conducted to defending the concept of it while it occurs, with several obstacles on the way here that should've taught you a lesson upon tackling them. There isn't a country on this globe that exists for you or anyone else, and there has never been in the history of humanity, including that of jewish people, when liberation/emancipation of people wasn't earned from their country/governing body as opposed to with the help of it. You are a slave and a vessel to a colonial project that uses a sentiment of yours that's dear to you, nationalism and everything t ecompasses around jewish identity, to capture your willingness and that of everybody dear to you to participate in this movement that gives yours nothing but a chance to sacrifice yourself for nothing besides enriching the rich. What reason you have not hate such a monstrosity?