Yes thank you for adding this!

UNRWA is the primary mechanism by which Gaza receives aid and runs its own institutions. It is a thorn in Israel’s side because they want control over all of that as well and are pissed that Gazans can direct resources where they want.

Nationalism and hard Nation-State borders are a consequence of capitalism, a social development involving tons of idiots. So yes and no.

???

Do you think the average US citizen can have the impact of Operation True Promise 2, let alone the entire state apparatus that carried it out?

Or do you mean that you are comparing Israel’s threat to US citizens vs. Iran’s?

Very confused.

I would recommend that anyone concerned with privacy either use a burner account or not answer these kinds of questions.

While statistically I’m sure there are many straight men here, doxxing and other forms of identification are enabled by combining different breadcrumbs of information.

Never again means never again for anyone.

Trying to lesser evil genocide makes you complicit.

Repeat after me: “I am against genocide and will not vote for genociders”.

We had a nice run where everyone was working together or are last tolerating each other, it was peaceful. But the US Russia and China are drifting further apart and becoming less reliant on each other, which sadly means it’s not going to be as peaceful going forward.

At which point was it “peaceful”? The US invaded 3 countries around then and bombed and couped many more. Millions were killed.

Also they are not going to tolerate each other as much China Russia already have their versions of Linux distorts just imagine there might be more differences in the future.

Yes this will eventually lead to forks due to the US forcing decoupling. It is a highly aggressive terrorist state.

Haha I appreciate the love you keep fighting that good fight too

I am not a Democrat. At this point I’m closer to Independent because both parties have gone off the rails over that last decade. However I understand the importance of this election and I understand how our system works. Voting 3rd party does nothing but pull votes from Democrats.

“I’m not a Democrat but the thing that makes me mad and insult you is that you take votes away from the Democrats”.

Sure, bud. Maybe you’re not registered as one but that isn’t meaningful regarding your political team sport logic.

It happens EVERY election. I’m sorry to burst your bubble but voting third party doesn’t give you the moral high ground. It just makes you an idiot because not only will your candidate not be elected but more often than not you enable Republicans to win elections based on how our voting system works.

You’re just repeating yourself instead of acknowledging all the stuff I wrote in my previous comment.

I would say you have to be the stupidest person on earth to vote 3rd party but I know that Magidiots exist.

Yep just big dum-dums that won’t support your genocider candidate. If only they were smart like you and supported 98% Hitler!

You do nothing but enable genocide by voting 3rd party. A Democrat loss in November GUARANTEES the genocide continues.

You know Dems are doing the genocide, right? And at the point where they have the most to fear from supporting it, they aren’t even pandering.

You’re the baddies, bud.

The Republican Party is the party of Israel and they would bend over backwards to give them whatever is necessary to bring back Jesus Christ

The Democratic Party is also the party of Israel.

It’s impressive that you’re calling people names while writing polemic that obviously applies to “your team”.

To be lies or even bad faith, I’d have to not actually believe what I wrote. And I very much believe what I wrote.

Given that you simply made up some bullshit, telling me that you actually really believe it would mean you have basically no grasp on reality. You can’t tell the difference between your imagination and what’s real, allegedly.

Personally, I think you do know the difference.

Do

A handful of somewhat misleadingly presented quotes from people selected through an unstated process. Literally no context for who most of them are. Many if the quotes have little to do with what you are talkjng about. And then a series of unsourced narratives about what people are thinking.

This is an incoherent read that follows a particular propaganda style but mostly comes across as incompetent.

they

“An informal canvasing in Gaza”.

This follows the same style but by a more competent writer. It is timed for the “honeymoon” period PR push for Harris.

now?

Democrats organized a letter from a handful of people, some of which were Pslestinian Americans. Amazing. The article does not even link the letter. Here is the link. Note that they included “Progressive Democrats” and “Community Leaders”. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with tokenizing PR strategies. If you look into the signatories, you will find an array of Democratic Party functionaries either working for the Party itself, an elected official of the party, or someone at the top of a Democratic Party - associated NGO. Far from a representation of community, this is the usual suspects in a PR push from party formations. They do this for all kinds of things.

It is like this is your first time learning about journalism and PR.

I think you are likely a shill for Donald Trump. I don’t assume it’s directly, as in I don’t assume you are being paid by the GOP or a super PAC, but wouldn’t be surprised if someone was paying you.

Ahahahahahaha

Hard to say.

Then by definition I am not a shill.

That you care about the genocide. I think you are using it as a wedge to try to divide and mute the Democrat vote.

I work against the genocide and have for over a year, doing organizing work. Folks like yourself have been excysing and normalizing genocide because your team is doing it.

So, wrong on all counts. Damn, did you know that words mean things and pulling things out of your as isn’t knowledge?

Not at all. That was the first thing I addressed: if Harris loses it will be so much worse in Gaza and elsewhere.

You did literally diwnplay the genocide, trying to say it is just one issue among many and that I’m being silly to make such a big deal out of it.

Begone, liar for genocide.

Obviously a huge genocide isn’t enough for you - you clearly want Every Palestinian to be killed or imprisoned when Trump is elected.

Please do your best to act in good faith and not lie about me.

And not just the ones in Gaza, if I were a Palestinian in the US, I’d be terrified of that madman winning, and I’d do everything I could to support Harris like my life depended on it (because it very well might)

No, that is what you, a non-Palestinian, believe you get to decide for Palestinians, people who have lost half or more of their family in the last year. The Palestinian diaspira, generally speaking, rejects Biden and Harris.

However, you have not answered my questions.

More generally you are trying to convince us that the genocide is the only important issue in the world, and that it’s somehow worth not supporting someone who is in all ways (not just all other) the far better of the two electable candidates.

Now you are downplaying the magnitude of genocide. Never again means never again for anyone, not just when it is politically convenient for you.

Welp, looks like you didn’t answer my questions. Maybe next time, right?

If I understand you correctly, then I very much agree, but I don’t see this happening very much.

It happens all the time on a per-organizer basis if you actively do it. The left is currently small but has the capacity to rapidly snowball if it is principled and follows good practices. When you recruit 10 people per year per organizer and 2 of them become organizers, etc etc. And these things will come in waves if you make yourself known and build capacity for onboarding. One year it’s 10 per organizer, the next it may be 50.

My organizations experienced rapid growth under Trump and in Winter-Spring 2024 due to us actively doing work.

On one side I see people saying “vote for the lesser of two evils, and then we can focus on changing the system/changing the democrat policies” without actually any clear idea how to do that.

Yes this is just a line, they don’t really man it. They can’t even say what their goal is most of the time. They just say “push left”, leaving it vague. And of course they’re really telling you to stop making demands when you have the most leverage, to then give up that leverage by pledging to be a guaranteed vote then make their demands when they have the least leverage and gave already proven that they will vote blue regardless.

This line is repeated constantly because it keeps empathetic voters contained and powerless while also gaining some votes for their monstrous candidate.

On the other side I see “don’t vote for either party, neither major party deserves to win” without any clear idea of how to give any realistic chance for a third party to win.

Why does the third party need to win? There are many other outcomes to shedding the false consciousness of lesser evil voting. At the moment, I am highlighting liberals normalizing genocide. One outcone is to recognize that this “democracy” is a genocidal sham and you need to work against its underlying forces. Another is to effectively boycott so as to demonstrate illegitimacy of who is elected, which has a long history. Another us to begin creating a voting bloc that doesn’t ounch itself in the face every 4 years and actually makes demands with a credible threat. That voting bloc would also eventually fail because again, this “democracy” is a sham, but those people can then be organized against the genocidal status quo.

Here again you are using bad faith tactics to dismiss the idea that people in favour of voting might have valid reasons to, instead presenting it as if these people think normalising genocide is a good thing. This is divisive and not constructive at all.

It is not bad faith, it is the truth. Treating genocide like a typical lesser evil you have to accept is normalizing it. It was, allegedly, a red line, and now liberals are falling over themselves to erase that line.

This revelation probably makes you uncomfortable, but it is not false or unfair. You can see it throughout this thread. They try to avoid the topic at first, then speak euphemistically. Try asking them to say this: “I am against genocide and will never vote for a genocider”. Can you say that?

Yes I know how quickly controversial discourse can go downhill

“Controversial” my ass, I said they were panicking and racist. So much for “good faith”, eh? Don’t whitewash my framings and pretend it is what we are talking about.

but to be that seems all the more reason to not allow our arguments to disintegrate, even if the other sides are.

You are being so vague that I can’t even tell what you are recommending. This topic is something you brought up, trying to both sides communication, and what I am telling you is that there is a verifiable imbalance.

I definitely agree, I think all widespread “truths” should stand up to scrutiny, but my point is about the way this is done. Challenging a truth/point of view should mean approaching the logical base of that view, and presenting an alternative with reasons why the alternative is better.

Incorrect. That is fine for internal strategy discussions among people that agree with one another. It is absolutely terrible media and discursive strategy.

There is not a logical base for most political views. That is usually a rationalization for more basic feelings, like status, security, whether you are a good person, whether the bad people are getting what they deserve.

But so often I see people ignoring the logical base of the other side’s viewpoint, and instead creating straw-men to attack instead, or simply just dismissing the other side entirely through one tactic or another.

Because it isn’t about the logical base. I can present concrete facts and demonstrate pure logical contradiction in another person’s arguments and they will simply deflect. Their ego gets in the way, an ego taught to them by a society where having an opinion is important for status and self-worth and every disagreement is about destroying the other side. They will lie, deflect, insult, say racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic things. Having revealed that they have no logical base and are just Himmler Lite, any pretense that you are just going after logic and debate will undermine you and become a trolling session for them.

These are not the people you are trying to reach anyways. It is the audience at the borderline that need that, “oh shit my side is racist and I reject that” kind of push. Again, not about a logical base.

To be clear, this is done by all sides, I see many people dismissing the argument to vote as simply being “supportive of genocide” (which is obviously riduculous)

It is not ridiculous you are literally voting for someone doing a genocide and telling other people to do the same. Despite your complaints you have not addressed the clear basis for this claim and are doing that thing right now: deflecting through dismissal built entirely on sentiment, not any logical basis. I should not need to explain to you that “I am voting for a genocider and so should you” is a pro-genocide stance. But your discomfort in your complicity, the threat to you feeling like a good person, means you need to start dissembling.

while people dismissing the argument to vote third party as being “stupid/ignorant” or other things to that effect, which is also obviously false.

The people dismissing that are repeating canards handed to them by their faction of the political class. They are only needed insofar as the person returns to feeling like they are good and smart for voting for a genocider. You can watch them fall apart in real time when you try to discuss their alleged “logical base”, like discusing game theory and electoral strategy. They were not actually convinced to vote that way because of simplistic half-understood electoral math, they were convinced by allegiance to a political program that aligns with their idea of being a good person. And as bourgeous morality goes, they will then start making personal moralizung arguments, and then they must be reminded they are voting for a genocider.

Then we come full circle and they fall apart. Repeat ad nauseum.

Like you say, we are all products of our societies with different values, but the vast majority of people are reasonably smart and have good intentions.

Not true. Intentions are not inherently good when the society that crafted them is racist, genocidal, misigynist, etc. Being the product of conditions means the dominant intention can be oppressive and violent. With education they could acquire good intentions. If raised in a less oppresser society, they could have good intentions. But you don’t get to whitewash the bad intentions of those shoring up violence and oppression, including genocide. Those are not good intentions, they ar self-serving corrosive behaviors learned from their social circles.

And dismissing people is not a good way of “calling them out”, it only causes further division and makes them even less likely to be receptive to your ideas.

100% incorrect, certainly when it comes to media and fronts, which is more like how social media operates. The most effective means of agitation is direct callouts, particularly when it comes to reactionary positions that need to be made socially unacceptable.

The person receiving the callout will get defensive, but they do that anyways regardless of how you frame the problem in what they are saying. But now they get to coast by and pretend to be in the right and the audience will also miss this. Over time, that defensiveness can and does lead to change, where many go and do some research and come back in a few months as if they had always held a different position. Online, they might just make a new account. I’ve seen users bullied for their transphobia do this repeatedly, they got less transphobic over time but were still recognizably the same user.

If, on the other hand, someone is already sympathetic and not oppositional, they will let you know this early on. The main thing they will do is commiserate and ask questions. These are the people you can gently correct as they are not just trying to reaffirm their biases - such as to the white race and whose suffering they care about - and status as a good person by retaining them.

If you cannot see the reasons for someone’s beliefs (even if you strongly disagree with those reasons) then you stand very little chance of changing their mind.

Buddy I have recruited more people than you’ve ever talked to online.

Bourgeois democracy has always been like this. It presents itself as representative of the people while using a massive array of capitalist-controlled apparatuses to call the shots. Media, jobs, capital strikes, education materials, think tanks, threats to the government. Their first line of defense is “democratic” institutions with enough structure and hurdles to prevent popular will from directly having influence. And, of course, vigilantes and organized right wing thugs when the former don’t work.

No, it is because liberals were agitated under Trump and were told to care about women, black people, abortion rights, etc, and mobilize to spaces where they could be recruited for political education. Under Biden, they feel a sense of normalcy and have returned to supporting the equally violent status quo.

She said 500 people were deported

Okay one last note: she estimated 500 Jews were deported in a single deportation. You can go ahead and read the book that you have no read and that I have if you want the privilege of asserting otherwise.

Such proud, unapologetic, arrogant lying.

Okay but really, last reply. Have a nice life. Hope you find a way to stop huffing your own farts.

Ukraine had a national identity before Lenin, tho.

It was suppressed and the language was dying out in written form.

Although the dude is/was ahead of it’s time. And the social idealism that follows looks pretty neat. Sadly he quickly died and another fella came to power. Usually when people bash USSR they bash Stalin’s regime. It’s far from socialist ideals. You shouldn’t mix it up and just nitpick what you like.

It was Stalin’s USSR that transformed from a quasi-feudal backwater into a superpower that defeated the Nazis. It did so following Marxist-Leninist principals, which is to say, the development of Marxism based on the Bolsheviks’ contributions - they seized the reins of capital and directed them to develop productive forces at a lightning pace and in a way that is never an option for imperialized countries. They ended famines, electrified the country, built rail at a scale that horrified and surprised the Nazi invasers, who remarked that little of it was on their mapsnfrom just a few years ago. And it did this under sanctions and attempted isolation by the major powers, the European capitalist forces that capitulated to the fascists, refused pacts with the USSR to build an alliance against the fascists, as they hoped they would turn east and deal with their red problem.

You should educate yourself about the USSR.

If people are subjugated and still remain under democratic rule, they can still be under repression, due to voting majority.

This can happen without voting as well and it is not inherently good or bad, relative to circumstances. We oppress murderers in one form or another. The impetus for thatbis understandable. Some have oppressed ethnic minorities for land grabs. That is not acceptable. Revolution requires oppression, you have to undo the order against which you are revolting. It does not immediately disappear just because you seized the army or run the newspapers.

It’s the same reason why Israel fears giving the vote access to palestinians.

Israel oppresses Palestinians because it seeks to steal their land and they know that Palestinians will oppose them in this. Israel is not an example of “tyranny of the majority” and it is not democratic. It is an ethnic supremaxist settler colonial apartheid state and should be destroyed as such.

You can try to follow Nazi fascism idea of fascism by following history notebooks. But it will get us nowhere.

That will get you the whole way. You must read history to understand this historical reference. No shortcuts!

Since for example Lithuania had a president which was with dictatorial levels of power during the time. He was not aligned with Nazi Germany. What kind of word would you use to describe the rule? There are reasons why fascism is defined like it is.

Lithuania’s president was a racist, antisemitic anticommunist liberal nationalists that dabbled a bit with fascists. Liberals have had all of the qualities of fascists over time and done the same kinds of deeds on a much greater scale. This is why you have to read history. If you just go by simple modern definitions, they will tell you that liberals are all about personal freedoms and equality. They will neglect to mention that liberals were the most brutal and racist colonizers and ethnic supremacists and misogynists and that this might pose a problem for their definition. They become an infinite No True Scotsman, defined in a way that means they never committed any crimes and it may be that, per their logic, no liberal has ever truly existed.

Fascists are really just a form of reactionary liberals that emerged out of inter-imperialist struggle after World War I. The fallout of WWI led to various nationalist and separatist movements in Europe as well as attempts to claim imperialist power. In particular, fascism rose most strongly in those places where conditions were degrading and communists were organizing for revolution. Fascists presented a triangulating position. They criticized the problems of capitalism by coopting socialist phrases but sought, in reallobersl simply organize capitalism into a nationalist form that had ambitions for Imperialism of their own. They built on the “fallen nation that must return to glory”, a sentiment that could only resonate among people living in a country losing its status and among degrading conditions. They offered scapegoats playing on old forms of racism. Antisemitism, anti-Roma, Anti-Russian, many more. And most importantly, they opposed the communists, which is why they were so well-funded by capitalists and found friends among liberals. Fascists found their most committed and prominent recruits from the petty bourgeoisie and their sons, an inherently liberal base.

And dude, you can’t be racist against a country.

I think you did not mean it to be racist. But Russian is also an ethnicity and Russophobia is at a peak in Western countries and they are reviving their age-old racist talking points. Tell me if any of these old school racist talking points seem familiar: they’re just throwing masses of soldiers at the wall hoping to win, they are uncivilized/barbarous, they are not European, they are inherently untrustworthy, they are ugly, and their lives are just plain worth less.

You and I operate with completely different definitions. I doubt we’ll come to a conclusion. Would love to discuss it next to a beer, since it’s fascinating to find these so wildly difderent ideas. How do you even get to a point where you know so much but manage to draw completely different conclusions.

It is because communists live in the same world as everyone else and describe it in nearly the same way as liberals, but emphasize knowledge of history, political theory, and real-world organizing experiments. In contrast, liberalism is hegemonic ideology that offers narratives that, despite being false or misleading, go largely unchallenged. In a disagreement, someone drawing from hegemonic liberalism only needs to pluck an idea from a massive vat of talking points they have been bombarded with since birth. A communist needs to become fairly familiar with the topic, as they must criticize it and defend their talking points against hegemonic liberal ideas. They have to read the sourcec materials and understand why, say, Robert Conquest was an absolute hack when it came to certain topics because a liberal will unknowingly repeat one of his lies as “common knowledge”.

Ukrainians aren’t russian.

Many people in Ukraine are ethnically Russian. Ethnically Russian people have faced reoression in Ukraine since Euromaidan, particularly those in the separatist Donbas areas. Those there under the Kyiv regime face(d) cultural oppression. Those in separatists controlled areas face(d) artillery shelling.

Their language is different.

Many Ukrainians speak Russian as a first language, their everyday spoken language, and their language at work. Most people in Ukraine do not speak Ukrainian in that capacity. Ukrainian is more of a way for people from different backgrounds to communicate with one another.

Since Euromaidan, Ukrainian nationalists have been imposing Ukrainization on their people, suppressing other languages in schools, offices, and public life.

Their culture is drastically different.

Ethnic Russians in Ukraine have both cultures. Averaged out, Ukrainian and Russian cultures are very similar. Russians have an affinity fot the Kievan Rus, like an origin story nostalgia, and tie many of their practices to those of Ukraine.

Damn even regions inside Ukraine could count as different cultures.

There is certainly cultural diversity in Ukraine, yes. Some is represented by ethnic Ukrainians, some by Poles, some by ethnic Russians, and some by various diasporas.

For the split. It happened quite recently. I do recommend talking to people why they split and what was the common ideas on the streets back then from people who lived there.

Speaking of Ukraine, polls consistently showed that the generations that were adults at the time preferred to stay as part of unuon with Russia, I.e. “be in the USSR but with reforms”. Those same people said it was better to live in the USSR than after it fell. Such a story is fairly typical of most post-Soviet states with the exception of the Baltics, who are a whole host of things, but the main one is their astonishing level of racism.

There were massive forced mixing in of Russians in those countries.

That sounds like a racist framing to me.

Those people are usually the ones that still find as “it was better back then”.

Central Asians also had this opinion. It is really basically everywhere except the Baltics and Czechia.

These are numbers from the actual books

I already told you that Sana esrimated 500 from a single deportation. You have not read Sana’s works.

I will not be replying further. You are welcome for the book recommendations. I wonder if you will read them.

I think assuming that people are completely accepting of what the administration is doing, even when they try to voice their opinions in polls, is in bad faith.

Polls happen because paid pollsters call people and do surveys, then compile the results and format it into something consumable for research, entertainment, or propaganda purposes. Polls are not a reflection of what people care about, they reflect what a few hundred or thousand people answered some questions on a Tuesday.

Polls do not tell you what anyone really cares about, because anyone can say they care 4 out of 5 stars even though they won’t leave their house to do anything for anyone else over a 3 year period.

To get people to care, you have to educate them and provide them with a pathway to build power. That is actually the opposite of what these self-appointed genocide salesmen are doing, where the lesson they teach is, “suck it up and vote for the genocider, you are stuck with what was chosen for us”.

They use the same line every time, just with different issues of the day. It is a focus-group-tested way to convince people that otherwise have a conscience that it is okay to check that little box for that sociopath and hey, “why not tell others to do the same? And maybe even start saying they are wrong and bad for not pushing the sociopath as well. And sure, the whole party is full of such people and they only really listen to capital, but also this is your chance to have a voice.”

They simply don’t feel they have the option to not vote.

So you should tell them that they don’t have to vote for any genocide, just like me.

In any other democratic system I genuinely think a third party (greens?) would have a good chance to win this election, but the two party system is so entrenched (at the minimum in the minds of voters), that to not vote is seen as the functional equivalent of voting for the other side.

Uh-huh. Still shouldn’t vote for genocide, let alone tell other people to. It is bad to normalize genocide. Do I need to tell you this? Did you not already know?

I’m not in the US so my opinion doesn’t really matter

I disagree. You are free to develop and share any informed position about any country. And sharing informed opinions is helpful.

but I do think that political discourse would be much more productive if people would stop talking past each other and dismissing the motivations/logic of the opposing side.

That would be nice but it is not exactly a balanced equation on that front; all it takes is for one “side” to be racist and panicking for it to all go off the rails. Such as what is happening right now. Every other reply to my “don’t support genocide” schtick is someone simply making things up and guessing and avoiding what was said. This is because the people who reply are the ones who get the most defensive about their personal morality being questioned, i.e. someone did not accept their support for a genocidal candidate and how dare someone do that to them.

Unfortunately this is literally the only way to agitate. You have to unseat and challenge with a truth that disagrees with the prevailing wisdom. The people that reply will act like absolute pieces of shit at first, but there will also be an audience where some of them go, “huh, that is a good point” and there will be others that start out defensive but then digest and read and move in a better direction.

Finally, you cannot understand societal behaviors without looking at the realities of motivations and tendencies. We are not all independent agents with tabula rasa brains, we are a product of our societies, and yes sometimes those societies are racist and teach you to devalue the lives of, say, black people and brown people and people overseas. And if you cannot recognize that and call that out, you will have a false understanding of how to tackle injustice.

I don’t think I’m better than the books you cited.

You obviously prize your guesswork and imagination over the historical work you were provided. You are repeatedly announcing, with certainty, how correct you are based on a screenshot of a review of several books, in contradiction of what the book I cited will tell you.

Like I said, I can’t force you to read. You are welcome for the book recommendations.