Ok. hug
ToastedPlanet
joined 2 years ago
Yes, a major goal of our discussions in general is to help people reading the discussion. Ideally that would be pro-democracy conclusions. It's reasonable to assume we won't change bad faith actors minds in the short term. Studies have shown people reject new information that contradicts their beliefs. That's why we are in an information race. The initial opinion people form between now and the election is the opinion they are going to have on election day. But I do think anything is possible in the long term. We just need to get there with our democracy.
Accelerationism can only ensure the US gets to fascism faster. Getting to fascism faster doesn't destabilize the resulting christo-fascist regime. A fascist government will not just make it harder to make the US and the world a better place. Once the fascists take power they will actively work to make sure it is a worst place. A christo-fascist United States will actively harm everyone living in its sphere of influence and do nothing to put a check on other authoritarian dictatorships' spheres of influence.
Republicans winning elections sets us back decades. In this current election, our democracy is at stake. Neoliberalism has been pushing us in this direction for decades. We need a socialist political revolution to fix this. We need to keep our democracy long enough to perform a political revolution to change things for the better.
Lemmy is inundated with accelerationist rhetoric. When I was still on Reddit, I saw plenty of conservatives. The most striking thing I've noticed from arguing with people on both Reddit and Lemmy is the similarity between accelerationist rhetoric and conservative rhetoric. Both accelerationists and conservatives assert the US has never been a democracy and that the US system cannot be fixed. Both of these assertions are contradicted by US history. This is not to say that these are the same group of people. What these false assertions highlight is that neither group values democracy.
These next months leading to the election are essential, as that as when people are going to start checking in to the current election cycle. Progressives cannot afford to be silent leading up to the election. Democracy, even one as flawed as ours with its undermining of majority rule, is our most effective vehicle for progressive change that we have.
People who do not value our democracy are going to troll, sea lion, and generally act in bad faith. The common internet adage, don't feed the trolls, is not going to help us. People will act in bad faith in a vacuum. They know they need to spread their message the farthest and the fastest to see their ideology realized in this election. Progressives need to spread our message further and faster than them if our political revolution is to succeed. Progressives do not need to interact with every internet troll they encounter. But progressives must find ways to be vocal which sometimes involves engaging with bad faith actors.
No, an even 'ironically' darker time. The 90's and the unpronounceable 00's.
“The painful truth is that the project to which liberal Zionists like myself have devoted ourselves for decades – a state for Palestinians separated from a state for Jews – has failed,” Peter Beinart wrote in 2020. “It is time for liberal Zionists to abandon the goal of Jewish–Palestinian separation and embrace the goal of Jewish–Palestinian equality.”
https://jewishcurrents.org/yavne-a-jewish-case-for-equality-in-israel-palestine
After reading this guy's article it would be nice to see his current views given all that's happened since 2020. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was basing his views on the political reality in Israel at the time. It seems unfortunate that the Guardian felt the need to use an article from four years ago to assert what should be done now with the current political reality in Israel in 2024.
In his article from 2020, he seems to have come to the conclusion that a multi-ethnic/multi-racial/multi-cultural/secular nation state is how Palestinians and Jews would be safe. I would say this is true about any ethnic, racial, cultural, or religious group. Societies that include and protect the rights of all the people that live there is essential for the safety of all the people who live there. This is not in any way a zionist idea.
An inclusive, multi-ethnic state for Palestinians and Jews already living there should have been the goal from the beginning as opposed to an ethno-state for Jews. And colonization by foreign Jews should not have happened. In theory, the modern day Palestine and Israel could be one inclusive state or two separate inclusive states. The reason that we need two states right now, is that Israel is currently controlled by a far-right, fascist government. The current fascist government isn't going to accept the current nation state of Israel being dissolved into a joint Palestinian-Israeli state.
In the absence of the ability to control Israel's existence or actions, the UN needs to give Palestine full membership now. To make that happen, the US needs to stop waiting for Israel agree to allow Palestine to exist. The US needs to recognize Palestine's current borders and stop using its veto to block the UN resolution. Israel is not negotiating in good faith right now and they will not do so as long as the government is controlled by fascists. The alternative is to allow the continued annexation of Gaza and the West Bank. Once annexation of a country is complete it becomes much easier for fascists to corral the out-group into death camps. At which point, only military intervention could help the Palestinians.
If people in Israel are motivated by the idea for a new joint Palestinian-Israeli state then by all means, encourage them to vote out the fascists in favor of candidates that will pursue this new nation state. However, I think the Palestinians deserve a solution now, that does not depend on Israelis wanting to dissolve their current nation state. Especially when Israelis voted in the current fascist government since he wrote his article and zionists still seem fixated on the notion that they need an ethno-state to be safe. Even as Israel is making all Jews less safe by committing genocide against the Palestinians. I think Palestinians gaining full control of their territory now, would not be a detriment to the creation of a joint state later. Palestinians shouldn't have to wait for Israelis to embrace a joint state in order to enjoy human rights.
It happened to me because we were discussing the Nazi's views on racial hierarchy in sophomore honors history class and I'm ethnically Jewish. It was a surreal experience.
You did indeed add a supernatural element, you claimed that Marx claimed Material Conditions force ideas, when that isn’t true nor his argument. Base and superstructure, after all.
No, not force, naturally lead to. It is logical for the oppressed to want to overthrow their oppressor.
We are discussing Imperialism, to ignore Imperialism is to ignore Marxism.
I'm ignoring both of those things because they are not relevant to the discussion. Only the specifics of the flaw in Marxism we are discussing and domestic policy implications of imperialism are relevant. Your argument is effectively trying to justify the veracity of the Bible with Bible verses. Your argument is self referencing. I addressed the rest of this paragraph in the other comment chain, except the last line.
Neoliberalism is a side effect of Imperialism.
Neoliberalism is a political invention. You'll notice the UK adopted it as well, a year earlier than the US. Even though the UK's actual empire had collapsed at that point. Imperialism had nothing to do with it. Conservatives needed a new ideology to combat progressives movements that were taking hold in those countries. So they came up with neoliberalism.
the American Proletariat is also the benefactor of American Imperialism
This is the part I addressed in the other comment chain again, but here you go. Any benefit they experience is quickly extracted from them. The owner class always wins in the end. The boom and bust cycle is the gradual extraction of wealth. With each bust more American families lose the ability to participate meaningfully in the economy. Where as the owner class is always there to benefit from the next boom.
It is not Ad Hominem to point out over and over that you misrepresented Marx and Marxism. I showed you where and why you misrepresented Marx and you call it Ad Hominem.
This is an ad hominem attack in a nut shell. Your argument is directed at me. The veracity of my argument doesn't depend on me.
If you do not wish to engage with Marxism that’s fine, but don’t try to pretend you understand it enough to discredit it, that’s all I ask.
Ad hominem. Again. What I am doing to refute your argument is trivial. Anyone can do this. I highly recommend you try a different approach.
You don’t have to take reading recommendations from me, you can find them elsewhere and decide for yourself if they contradict your current understanding.
I'll take recommendations, but Marxist and anarchist theory in general is not relevant to this discussion.
I recommend a descriptive approach to definitions as opposed to a prescriptive approach. I think that would resolve a lot of the discourse we are having. I have explained what I mean in my argument. Your argument centers on this false idea that definitions can limit what a person thinks and believes. But definitions are only as useful as they help us communicate.
Social democracy. Trying to tell me what I believe with an arbitrary system of rigid definitions is both ineffective and easily refuted argument.
I implore you to address you argument at my argument. Your reliance on directing your argument at me is not effective. I am not the subject of debate. Nor is over complicating a simple issue.
I am not adding a supernatural element. Just that the essential claim is that people will rise up against their oppressors. And specifically that this uprising would be economic in nature and that it would achieve socialist ends. This has happened throughout history. There have been socialist revolutions. I am arguing the people are not going to rise up in a socialist revolution on their own in modern day America. Neoliberalism is actively working against that outcome while at the same time allowing fascism to take root. People who know pro-democracy and socialist ideas have to spread them and fast. The ideas will not spread themselves. Neoliberalism leads to fascism. To achieve a different outcome is to work against people's natural inclination to internalize their societies flaws as values and then implement those values into worse systems. People work with the tools they have been given. We have to give them better tools. Then they can have those tools implemented via democracy.
We are not discussing imperialism. The hundreds of millions of civilians in America aren't oppressing anyone. The US governments actions in the rest of the world are not relevant to the specific topic of Americans forming a political revolution or any revolution at home. The domestic policy is what is relevant. US military spending of course decreases available funding to social programs, but the specific actions of the military are not relevant to this discussion. While wealth was introduced to America via imperialism the boom and bust cycle of capitalism is inevitably extracting that wealth from the working class. The conditions are there but we see a populist christo-fascist movement instead of a socialist movement.
You are deeply misinformed on what Marxism is and isn’t, and as such none of your points on Marxism hold any water.
Again ad hominem. Refuting this line of reasoning is trivial.
I can offer recommendations for reading, if you wish, but if nothing else I ask that you refrain from continuing to confidently misrepresent Marxism, as that only adds confusion.
Your argument is introducing confusion where there need not be any.
You do not speak for me. I am social democrat. We need the market economy of capitalism. We just don't need share holders or private business owners.
People hold these views. The fact he's trolling doesn't exclude him from holding some or all of them. Whether he holds these views or not isn't relevant to understanding these views. Here are some reasons why a conservative man would hold these views.
These threaten his religious sensibilities:
These threaten traditional roles for women, which he needs to deny women access to public life and define his own masculinity:
These threaten his masculinity because he associates them with men:
These threaten the dependence that he thinks women should have on him and all the other reasons apply to these as well: