dawnglider

I think that can often be a problem in political structures, but I don't think this is the main issue. It might explain how their messaging is so terrible, but the republicans have clearly managed just fine and the average is almost exactly the same in both.

I think it's primarily that they see support for Israel as an absolute necessity because it would (1) be another massive loss of support and political funding, and (2) a very difficult pill to swallow. Admitting to having supported a horrible genocide in full conscience and trying to convince that they have now learned their way might still look like a steeper hill to climb than the time-tested tradition of genocide denial.

It'd be great if it was the main issue though, I think you're right in that at least they would have better messaging, unfortunately I don't think the actual policies would be much different. In Europe for example fascist parties tend to be pretty young 🤷‍♂️

Happy International Worker's Day. Every single leader of emancipatory movements in the history of labor rights would disagree with you, having fought and been very vocal against the different flavors of oppression in order to get the liberal concessions that you seem to cherish today. Hopefully if you participate, you might find some leftists celebrating in the crowd. Please don't get too angry at them for not defending genociders, I'm sure a lot of them ended up voting for Kamala anyway, but at least they got the confirmation that even opposing genocide is too great a hurdle for them.

I'm tired but I guess I'll still address some of the traits you identified:

Claiming to be leftists

I'm a leftist

Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left

Okay that doesn't sound like leftist behavior, you're totally right. I just hope you don't mean that "power possessed by the left" is the democratic party, but sure, that broadly sounds like liberals or feds.

Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates

There's a point to which you can push liberal concessions for damage control or for actually gaining some more concessions. I think criticizing voting is healthy since it's still playing the capitalist's game and a liberal "democracy" with almost no wiggle room anymore, but considering how little effort it takes to vote I'll always advocate to both play their game and also assume that nothing will come out of it without actual pressure.

I've mostly seen people advocate for withholding their vote in the favor of some concession (please don't do genocide), I've never seen someone say "don't vote and also don't do anything else", but I'm sure they exist, you find all kinds of confused people online.

Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party

Is genocide disqualifying for a political party or not? I'm asking you, specifically, if you think that a party that commits (funds, arms, protects, justifies, excuses, does constant propaganda for) a genocide in the face of their own atrocities, while actively silencing the voices within their own ranks that speak out, is worth defending? Again, I think the idea was to hopefully change the democratic party to the radical position of "anti genocide". That failure is on them, not the people who threatened not to vote for them.

Not highlighting that issue is frankly criminal.

Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”

Yeah that's leftism, that's always been leftism, but again I hope to god you don't mean that "leftist political power" here represents the democratic party, so I'm gonna assume you mean more broadly what they call "purity politics" and constant division in the left. I think it's fair to criticize people to the right of you, I'm to the right of anarchists and I welcome their criticism, even when I don't agree with it. If I spent my time shitting on them I think they would be completely legitimate in calling me out for someone with ulterior motives, or a reactionary shithead.

Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system

I want you to examine your own sentence just for a second. To disempower an attempt at legitimate engagement with the political system. Opposing genocide isn't used as a moral cudgel against whatever 10 steps removed version of power this is (and I'm not criticizing the way you put it, quite the opposite), it's used AGAINST GENOCIDE.

People are out in the streets and criticizing liberal complicity because we talk about GENOCIDE not some vague questionable US foreign policy.

Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism

So that's the democratic party, right? That's why I'm confused because leftists are out in the street, even the most liberal ones with their "fight oligarchy" campaign, while the democrats are still out defending genocide, doing filibusters without a cause, and generally trailing so far behind the average population that it's mind numbing. So I don't know what you mean when you say "leftists", because you seem to refer to two groups at the same time.

Anyway, voting goes both way, you can't pretend to vote in a vacuum for the lesser evil without recognizing that you empower them and their genocidal endeavors.

And I'll be a little more incisive: If you criticize a leftist of not caring about minorities (which I've seen a lot and is deeply ironic considering who did and didn't vote for the dems) you open yourself to be criticized for having proudly voted and called on everyone else to vote for a party that does genocide, and having attacked the ones that tried to actually make a difference in shifting their position or using that moment to show what their true colors are.

Trump is not serving the ends of American oligarchs. He’s serving the ends of Russian oligarchs.

He would honestly be dead if that was the case. He's in the white house celebrating how his friends made out like bandits out of the stock dips. Again, allegiances shift, it's a balancing game. He's serving oligarchs in general, the nationality barely matters these days, he's not supporting some Russian/Israeli/American local bourgeoisie, those are extinct. I don't know why you guys think nationality matters at all, they're allied to money. Imperialism is the current order, and modern capitalists are greater internationalists than your average commie.

I really don't see the need to try to see some dark unilateral control, when it's across the board the exact same thing we've identified for literal centuries: The shifting alliances of powers whose interests are aligned.

The sad irony of conspiracy theorists is that it's not paranoia (alone) that leads them into those rabbit holes, it's naivety. They think that there are dark forces that hijacked their otherwise fine institutions, but refuse to recognize that those institutions were never meant to serve them in the first place. Trump and his entourage aren't a cancer on a previously healthy organ, they are a healthy part of a parasite.

No, but they helped get him elected

Sure, I mean people made the argument with Russia too for his first term. I still think it's absolutely insane to conclude that Russia controls western governments.

Any argument that the genocide in Palestine didn’t impact our election is not being honest

Of course, and I never made that argument. I can't give an educated estimate, but folks more knowledgeable than me on US sentiment and voting habits say that this one issue could have massively shifted the election. You could probably even made a case that the democrats would have been a better ally to Israel in the grand scheme of things.

First, that’s a manipulative way of stating something

That's me being charitable and making the assumption that at least you recognize they should face a court of justice. Again, the argument starts at genocide denial here, I'm working with what I got.

However, in the context of Israel and their genocide against Palestinians, they’re very nearly interchangeable

This very confusion is often used to try to extrapolate something that I think is very reasonable, the dismantlement of the state of Israel, into something that is not, like the removal of all jews from the area, or the implicit support of their counter-genocide (which is an old fascist theory that's very popular in my country, the great replacement).

I do believe that the 3rd reich had the right to exist. However, I don’t believe that they had the right to murder 6M+ Jews, Romani, LGBTQ+ people, and political dissidents, or to start a war of aggression.

I'm trying to assume your good faith, but you're very conveniently talking about a state before it did any of those acts. Again if I'm being very charitable and assume you talk about the genesis of those states in the context of Israel being a colonial project, then no, of course Israel as a freshly conceived settler colonial state built on ethnic cleansing had no right to exist. But that only highlights the fact that Israel has never been justified, even if that's not the point I was making.

But should the state of Russia be entirely wiped out?

Like you said, It doesn't really matter because it's not the subject. But yes, Russia wants to destroy the state of Ukraine. Russia however is not an apartheid ethnostate built and run on constant ethnic cleansing and genocide. You could argue that in court if you wanted, but as despicable and bloody as Russia is today, it's not built on an inherently inhumane ideology.

How so? He lit. said that he thinks Palestinians should have the right to self-determination, and that he didn’t support Israel’s genocide.

This is why you misinterpreted my initial question, I didn't catch it. He never said Israel is committing a genocide. You assume he did because he said he didn't support genocide, I only asked the question because I know full well he wouldn't answer. You seem to agree that Israel is currently committing a genocide, and I think you might not have been as exposed to liberal zionism as some of us. He will never admit to that, because he understands as well as I do that this is the greatest sin of states, and you don't come back from it. If you think a state should survive a prolonged, livestreamed, unapologetic genocide, I urge you to reconsider your position.

I think that a true 2-state solution is the only realistic option

I disagree because it's untenable. The Israeli state will refuse the presence of UN peacekeepers (the 3 of them that we have). If that was a possibility we could entertain it, but I don't see another option other than UN administrative control, as has happened in the past in similar cases (Germany, Japan, Somalia, Kosovo, Timor-Leste). The two state solution was defended for decades with similar arguments as yours, but the reality is that an ethnostate is not something that we can ever let happen, and Israel continued existence is truly the perfect example of it.

There had always been very strong opposition both Jewish and not (and way before the formation of Israel) to the creation of a Jewish ethnostate, even in the context of continued Jewish persecution. For fairly nefarious reasons, this was done anyway. I think we're far enough now into the genocide that this idea should be permanently put to rest and left as one of many dark stains in our history. There's a very long list of emancipations throughout history, and how oppressed people dealt with their aggressors. The idea that this would be any different in Palestine, especially if it's done properly, is nothing more than good old fashioned racism, painting Arabs as monsters.

This process certainly isn't one I'd dare to outline exhaustively, but it would at the very least include the expulsion of settlers from the West Bank, reparations (I would personally consider it unthinkable if the US took on less responsibility than the sum they poured into arming this genocide), the rebuilding of the Gaza strip and of course an international trial of those responsible for this genocide. This might seem like a lofty ideal, but anything else is just defeatism and waiting for the last Palestinian to die or be expelled.

AIPAC: We control Western governments.

They are coping, trying to project their own power when they see very clearly that they're on the brink. I don't remember AIPAC saying that outright in english, but I wouldn't exactly put it past those psychos either.

Enlightened Liberals: “no this is a strategic partnership”

I'm neither enlightened nor a liberal, but this is broadly a strategic partnership (in defense of the empire). Liberals still believe that an apartheid ethnostate is a completely acceptable thing, and that they should just kill a little bit less children. When exactly did the US need to convinced to lay waste to the middle-east for their own profit? If Israel sounds like a perfect unsinkable aircraft carrier in the area, it's because that's exactly what it is, and the kind of things they have never shied away from.

I don't deny that they most likely have dirt on some politician, Israeli intelligence is on record trying to pull the grossest shameless stunts, and of course they try their hardest to impact policies abroad, they're not even trying to hide it. But saying "they control western government" as if the entire western world is a collection of Israeli puppet states is legitimately insane. The US military budget alone eclipses their whole GDP.

What Israel is currently doing is speedrunning the reputation of the entire Western world into the ground

We can do that ourselves tyvm, Israel isn't responsible for Trump remarkable attempts at destroying the US economy, USD, and the entirety of their softpower. Israel has decided to completely overextend in a way where western governments, despite their ardent zionism, haven't been able to reign in antizionist sentiment. But do you think that Israelis mind controlled Trump into destroying their lifeline and tariffing their own fucking selves? Everyone knows that Israel is only held afloat by the uninterrupted stream of weaponry from the US, and that's a ~~sacrifice~~ profit the military-industrial complex is willing to make.

You cannot in any way explain to me how this is a strategically sound plan

No I cannot, it's a fascist state eating itself, many such examples. They are desperate, and they're very clearly running straight into a wall. I'd like you, however, to explain to me how this is a strategically sound plan even IF you assume their total supposed control of western governments when they inevitably crash and burn, as they've been working overtime towards. It's not sound. They're not sound. It's a fascist ethnostate.

• Actual conspiracies and manipulation (leading to probably most imperial wars of the 20th century till today)
• A justified distrust in the government, who people identify readily as not defending their interests in the slightest
• Conspiracy theories straight up cooked up by states to misdirect, or propagated heavily from media that are either state aligned or conveniently left unsanctioned
• The manufacturing of a climate of anti-science (in the US specifically)

Are the main reasons I can identify for why it's become such a norm. When things like MK Ultra, Cointelpro, Operation Gladio...etc are all declassified, the bar gets puts pretty fucking high for what states are willing and able to do.

Israel doesn't control western governments, it's just a very valuable tool of the US, for which they are ready to make a lot of concessions. Western governments in turn are broadly servile to the US. I'm not sure how you expect a small broadly hated state like Israel to control the whole west. Lobby and intelligence can get you far, but not that far.

I can't say that I'm surprised, but kudos to them for running this! To be honest 0 out of 584 sales is still impressive.

My biasphobic brain can't help but wonder if the radio button defaulted to the "Made in Asia" position though 🙃

And for added pedantry, unless I'm mistaken this isn't A/B testing 😁

You are confused and mix up country and state. Germany didn't disappear magically after WW2. Do you believe the third reich had a right to exist? International law (as lacking as you might think it is) has prescriptions against that. Israel has been in constant and repeated breach of said law, including but not limited to the Rome Statute and Genocide convention, generally seen as the worst possible offense a state could ever commit. They've done nothing but ignore UN Sec Council resolutions.

Using the fact that the US has committed similar atrocities, including this one which they are the main sponsor of, completely unabated is really not the argument you want to make. Also sorry but it's hilarious to take Trump's tariffs as an example of something so horrible it would justify the dissolution of the state, consider it's the US we're talking about.

Ukraine's invasion by Russia is illegal, immoral and indefensible and yet is still not even comparable to those atrocities. Russia has faced countless sanctions for their actions, from banks cut off from SWIFT, frozen assets, banned export of petrol and gas, wide international bans on tons of goods, military equipment, and many other sanctions around shipping and transport. To my knowledge, Israel hasn't received any single coordinated material sanction for their innumerable crimes. I'm assuming you meant "does that mean that Russia has no right to exist", because otherwise this makes even less sense.

Hamas is but the latest governance of a people who have tried to defend themselves from said continued crimes. But this is just my meaningless opinion as some random guy on the internet, a court should be the judge of whether or not their actions should be sanctioned in the context of the atrocities they faced alongside their oppressor. You're trying to defend the point of a genocide denier, but hopefully you'll agree with me on that, right?

Is Israel committing a genocide?