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?

You’re a zionist. I frankly take offense on the behalf of all leftists to have someone like you pretend to represent our world view. You’re not a leftist, you’re a genocide supporting reactionary. The irony of you talking about “preying on the weak” and punching left in your psychoanalyzing drivel is clear as day. All you can do is punch left, because everyone here is left of you.

Also funny that you would mention your own personal parasocial feud with a streamer when everyone else is trying to have an adult discussion about politics, while maintaining that a broad century old worldwide movement is a “fandom”.

I don’t write this to mock anyone. I write it because I want us to do better, recognize our differences and hopefully come to a fair conclusion. And Idk, I still believe we can. Ape together strong 💖

I’ve always defended that aswell, and I guess I’ve chosen my communities well enough to never see outright hatred towards anarchists within the ML circles I’m a part of. Not gonna argue that it’s not the case when it comes to talking about liberals, there is a lot of frustration and resentment, but I think the current state of the world and the historical treatment of commies/anarchists alike justifies that.

There’s disagreements of course (regarding the nature of authority and some historical events), and some unserious jokes, but the news sources, podcasts, online discussion that I consume often feature anarchists in a completely non-adversarial way. There’s quite a few anarchists who I defer to first when it comes to current and historical analysis. I’ve recently discovered Greg Stoker on an ML podcast for example. He is a US army veteran turned anarchist, has great insights into US military and foreign policies and is someone I’ve listened to a lot ever since.

I do see a lot of hate aimed at Marxism-Leninism, but I choose to ignore it. I’m responding to this post because I think it is genuine. Marxism (dialectical materialism) has been the most valuable tool for me to make sense of the world, but the main drive that makes me desperately need to understand the world and try my best to move in the right direction is anti-imperialism.

It’s not the need for an identity, dogmatism to fit in, or because I think it’s “cool” (which would be delusional, even among leftist spaces). If there’s one reason it’s all the horrors I’ve seen and read about that keep me up at night. There’s psychos in all our movements, and you won’t see me stand for people defending the invasion of Ukraine for example (I’m not sure what’s going on in those folks’ heads to be honest, but it’s definitely not theory). While I can’t take seriously a lot of the accusations commonly thrown at Marxism-Leninism, I at least understand the fear and unease behind authority as a whole.

My informed belief is that this fear is manufactured in big part as a way to prevent oppressed people from seizing power (directing very real oppression towards “human nature” or the nature of authority), and this is something that has sunk its teeth so deeply in us that I can’t seem to find a TV show or movie these days that doesn’t feature the “false prophet that ended up being worse than the oppressor” trope.

Regardless, I’ve seen countless grounded, empathetic discussions between different leftists currents that didn’t resort to name calling and willful mischaracterizations, so I second you entirely on this point comrade, I’d love to see more of that ❤️

I imagine that if they had better options available rn they’d do it, the job market ain’t looking too good. Anyway not looking to argue, just thought it was a funny thing to say

Did you just suggest this guy should become unemployed to increase the wages? 😭 Also unemployment decreases wages, labor is perpetually a buyer’s market

I don’t know, thinking more about it, I frankly don’t understand both why on earth you would feel responsible for this, and why do you think that this would ultimately be a lesser harm. It really sounds to me like you are not putting anyone at risk and ALSO that this change of license wouldn’t actually help anyone.

I even understand the argument that copyleft might be detrimental to some projects because of big for-profits contributions, but this reads like a cop-out “for free”. I would understand a change of license to protect your own ass (without advocating for others to do the same), but this is saying “I don’t do copyleft because someone, somewhere, might be hurt by an abusive corporation or state for reasons vaguely related to my choice of license”.

By this logic, knowing that your project benefits the interests of those who jailed innocent workers, shouldn’t you just take your project offline altogether? Aren’t you worried that you’re actually taking agency away from both those workers AND from people trying to offer an alternative to those clearly evil corporations?

I’m sorry it’s not even your decision that’s driving me a bit nuts, it’s your work and you license it however the fuck you want, it’s the logic behind it.

I think the notion of “choice” or “fault” here is a little questionable, I understand your argument broadly (that’s what I tried to do in the last paragraph), so maybe it’s mostly just a language issue (I don’t think saying it is your “fault” or “choice” really means the same thing as saying that it’s “up to you”).

But I believe you’re contradicting yourself when you say that you both have to act and get out of situation such as abuse (not be defeatist) and but also learn to be fine with the situation (which reads like admitting defeat to me). I think this confusion between an actionable scenario (you can change things around you) and a non-actionable scenario (you can only change your outlook) is at the core of it.

Regardless I agree that self-pity is an absolute poison, but I’d tend to believe the way you put it is perhaps more controversial (because of what it implies or leaves out) than the point itself. Choosing not to suffer can also be a form of defeatism.

I fear we might not be worth it yet 🙏

I don’t know what this says cuz I don’t speak the language but I see Waldmeister Götterspeise, so I assume it’s saying (accurately) that this is the second biggest chemical breakthrough of the 20th century?

Purely as a thought experiment, this is mostly just vacuous logic. Sure, you can kill yourself, or kill everything you love or hate, or make sacrifices that are probably infinitely greater than the suffering itself (you could choose to stop caring about human suffering, most would much rather suffer than do that).

In practice however this is even worse than vacuous, it’s just wrong and insane. You can’t choose to not be schizophrenic, physical and psychological pain aren’t two neatly distinct categories, saying it’s “a choice” is just drawing a completely arbitrary border on where choice starts, and no shit people get angry at you because unless you heavily qualify this kind of statement further, anyone would think you’re doing the purest form of bootstrap victim blaming argument possible. Anyone would think of that one time they suffered the most in their lives and you’re saying “you chose that, that’s on you”.

If I try to be as charitable as I possibly can, I would assume this is an attempt at criticizing self-pity, highlighting that we are often our biggest obstacles to healing and that will plays a greater part in our agency than we recognize. I’d agree with all of that, but that’s being really charitable, I don’t think your statement makes that case at all.