On November 5, I will vote against genocide
"What I have seen in Palestine has convinced me not to vote for Kamala Harris for the sake of the Palestinian and American people."
I'm posting this because this was written by someone who's been there on the ground and I do like how he ties it to how he plans on voting.
Not so! Matthew Miller wants you to know he is very concerned about the safety and lives of journalists:
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ratio like that before, jfc
Israel has killed more journalists in Gaza in one year (170) than all the journalists killed in WW2 (67) and the Vietnam War (68) combined.
Seeing shifts in polling on Thurs-Fri.
It really does seem like the momentum has shifted in Kamala’s favor. While I do think it’s still basically a coin flip, I’ve gone from slightly favoring Trump to slightly favoring Kamala in the last couple days.
And if Kamala ends up winning and you’re feeling a bummed about it, just remember that we cannot “punish” the Democratic Party. If they do lose Michigan due to Gaza and losing Michigan causes them to lose it all, that will not change their policies and attitude towards Palestinians one iota. They will not have a come-to-Jesus moment and decide they need to change course. The genocide in Gaza is America’s genocide, subcontracted out to the Israelis. The current uniparty policy of fascism and imperial domination of Western Asia will continue unabated regardless of who is president. We have to find alternate routes and do what we can to support the Resistance, in whom the only hope for liberation rests.
Yes, I’m trying to figure what reason Iran’s leadership may have for talking this way if they didn’t plan on backing it up with action, and I can’t think of any. Even if they wanted to speak in a way that kept pressure on the US and Israel to stop the genocide but didn’t commit them to action, different words and softer language could have been chosen (I’m admittedly relying on US subtitles but I’m not sure that matters).
Regardless, stay safe comrade.
Based on what you’ve told us about decision-makers in China, I wonder if even they are able to see how the US moves their own pieces across the board (moves like you describe above). And if Chinese decision-makers struggle to see the whole picture, then I highly doubt decision-makers in other countries like Nigeria, Brazil, Vietnam, etc can see it, too.
I really don’t like to assume irrationality or that people don’t act on broadly available information… but I don’t think I have any other explanation. In sports, when a team comes up with a new style of offense, it may take a few seasons for opposing defenses to adjust, but eventually they do. That doesn’t seem to be happening when it comes to the geopolitical maneuvers of the United States.
I don’t mean to sound like an idealist, but if all this is true then I feel like the only solution to eventually checkmate Western hegemony is for the nations of the periphery to develop a proper understanding the situation as it is, and developing the right tools to counter. Specifically, Marxism is the truly the only toolset that I think can both identify these issues and come up with solutions. I would feel uncomfortable saying the CPC needs more Marxists and Marxist analysis since I’m a westerner who is very ignorant of how “Marxist” the CPC is; except that this seems to broadly be an analysis of the situation that you share. But even broader than that, I wonder if there is a role for rigorous Marxists, who’ve been equipped with the right tools (i.e. they’ve read volume 3) to go to the capitalists nations of the periphery and to try to advise them on the situation. Again, this is somewhat idealistic but I think Marxist analysis can show decision-makers in the periphery how they are getting screwed and what they might be able to do about it without even doing a full socialist conversion of their economy. Or at least, what the periphery needs to do collectively since one nation trying to stand up by itself against western hegemony is likely to get crushed.
Not that anyone buys the “rules based order” thing… but this is about as big of a violation of the UN’s peacekeeping mission as you can get. To use your position as a neutral peacekeeper to clandestinely assist one side in a conflict is honestly evil.
“Can you imagine a world where America never existed?”
Yep. Zionist settler colonialism began over 20 years before the Holocaust, and on the eve of WWII it was in full swing.
The media just assumes Americans are too lazy to bother to listen to what was actually said. Trump is 1,000% correct here and in no way is this some sort of “threat” to Liz Cheney. War hawks like her and John Bolton love to bray for war but it’s not them who are taking bullets.
Just to add, the idea that western countries do not subsidize their exports is laughable. I don’t doubt that in many sectors, western governments - both now and in the past - have subsidized their industries to far greater degree than China ever has with theirs.
Right I mean, I am a westerner who “supports” Hamas. I put an Al-Qassam Brigades wallpaper on my computer. Recognizing that our support can’t do anything isn’t a criticism, it’s just a factual statement of the situation we are in at the moment. I think the fact that some governments are coming down hard on this “support” shows how nervous they are about these sentiments “breaching containment”.
“Supporting” Hamas / Al-Qassam Brigades (or Hezbollah, or the PFLP, etc) is functionally meaningless in Europe and North America. You can’t send them weapons or money (god I wish). You can’t go there and fight with them. You can’t send them food. Your words of “support” can’t actually do anything (saying this as someone who is 110% supportive of those groups mentioned above). We have no way of affecting the outcome. Saying you support Hamas right now is like saying you support the Jacobites at Culloden. It doesn’t actually do anything.
The fact that governments are taking actions like this shows they really do see not just the words but the thoughts and sentiments of the people (especially young people, not because they are young but because of their general opinions) as a threat. Controlling the narrative is critical. It used to be they could control the news media easily, but social media is so much harder for them to keep a lid on. Of course they’re mostly successful at it, but even if they do have functional control over Facebook, Twitter et al it’s not as tight as the control they have over traditional media. Actions like the one here are how they plan on controlling the narrative, along with banning platforms that don’t hand over censorship control to western governments.
Glad to hear, thank you for checking in!
The following analysis could not be more vibes-based. My socio and geo-political knowledge of West Asia is limited. But I just have this… gut feeling, this hunch… that when the final story of Palestinian liberation is told, Iraq will play a decisive role (after the Palestinians themselves, of course). Is that a completely off-base hunch?
Edit: the US election thing, it’s literally a coin flip right now. Most of the swing state polls are within the margin of error. I do think rhe Puerto Rico thing will give Pennslyvania to Harris but I also think Trump will win Michigan because of Harris’ support of genocide. But neither of those are by themselves decisive for either candidate.
UN report accuses Israel of ‘deliberate war crimes’ against Gaza’s healthcare system
Navi Pillay, a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, says an independent investigation found Israel is carrying out a “concerted policy” to destroy Gaza’s health system.
“This is just not reporting what we see on social media, but a very carefully fact-checked account of the destruction of hospitals, the deliberate targeting of doctors,” Pillay told Al Jazeera.
“It’s also the first United Nations report that … drew the conclusion there is the deliberate targeting of healthcare workers, the healthcare system in itself – which is a crime, a war crime.”
Israel makes it difficult to probe its deadly attacks by denying entry to independent investigators, Pillay added.
The report, delivered on Wednesday, concluded: “Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on the Strip, committing war crimes and a crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.”
Just more undeniable evidence of war crimes and genocide that the US will do their “it doesn’t look like anything to me” bit.
She’ll distance herself from a single comment from Biden about Trump supporters but not distance herself from Biden’s genocide in Gaza, got it.
My back went out just thinking about lifting that TV to move it around.
I was gonna suggest Celtic when I saw the title of this post and saw you had already done so. By far the most pro-Palestine soccer team in the UK and probably the most left wing club in general, too. Liverpool is up there too if you want to stay in England.
…and for that, she has been heavily slandered for months now for being “anti-semitic”. To the point that the US ambassador to the UN is pulling this sort of stunt. It’s worth remembering this woman is a democrat and she was selected by the Biden-Harris admin to represent the US. I honestly cannot imagine that Trump’s ambassador would say even one word different.
The replies, at least, are encouraging. That’s a solid ratio, too.
Probably not the right time to post this (when most Americans are asleep) but w/e
I don’t have any cash app or Venmo accounts, but I can give you like 5 Order of Lenin emojis.
(fyi this is the new badass logo for the Al-Qassam Brigades)
Of course, I knew Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism (really, those two concepts are inseparable and feed each other) were very prevalent in American society going back a long time, with it really ratcheting up after 9/11. But ever since the Zionist entity’s terrorist pager attack last month, the sheer depth, pervasiveness, and how it’s just out there in the open and considered perfectly acceptable has genuinely surprised me. It seems to have started with that attack and subsequent events have only reinforced it.
White Americans just seem to delight whenever they think the Arab/Islamic “terrorists” are attacked. They do not care about who the “terrorists” actually are or how many people suffer. It’s not worth interrogating what the “terrorists” are fighting for or who was harmed because to the white folks, the Muslim/Arab people don’t matter. They’ve been dehumanized to the point where their lives are considered worthless.
To give an example, there is a person in my life who I’m about to cut out (should have a long time ago) who texted me something to the effect of “that pager thing was crazy, but looks like they got a lot of terrorists”. I tried to keep my cool and explain how normal people like doctors and ambulance drivers were hurt and killed too, because lots of people use those pagers. Dude literally just used a shrug emoji in response, because I guess those people aren’t worth giving a care about.
Everything I’ve seen especially in recent weeks really shows how bad it is. Brown people in Western Asia don’t matter because they have a different religion and they are “prone to violence” and they aren’t as “developed” as us. I feel like this is really where the support for Israel comes from. Not from ideas of Israel fulfilling apocalyptic prophesy, but just because white Americans can turn on the TV and see people in Israel who look like them, who have a religion that is semi-compatible with theirs, and who live in a society that seems to be very “Western” fighting off the “savage Islamists”. It plays into their already primed-for-racism-and-chauvinism” brains.
While I don’t think American media is the source of racism and Islamophobia, I do think the last 20+ years of movies, shows, and games has really fueled the fire. I think (hope?) in the future people will look back on this period of “corn-fed white bearded operators killing all the Muslim terrorists” media in the way we look at minstrel shows now.
Reading through the replies to this and others, just incredible how many people ingest narratives about “terrorism” and how myths about Oct 7 still persist (or persist because people want them to be true).
You know, my plan when Bernie eventually dies, was to not exactly celebrate; but more to reflect that, yeah even though he ended up being a liberal Zionist piece of shit I respect the fact that he started something that got many of us on the pipeline.
But fuck that, now I will be doing crab dances when he dies and piss on his grave.
Context: Twain wrote a satirical piece in 1905 written from the perspective of King Leopold II. The satire here is that Twain's Leopold is defending his actions in the Congo Free State. The whole thing is great and I encourage everyone to give it read as a biting critique of colonialism. But in this section, Leopold is blaming the Kodak company for exposing the horrors (instead of blaming himself for the horrors). I think the connection to Gaza is self-evident:
>[Studies some photographs of mutilated negroes—throws them down. Sighs] The kodak has been a sore calamity to us. The most powerful enemy that has confronted us, indeed. In the early years we had no trouble in getting the press to “expose” the tales of the mutilations as slanders, lies, inventions of busy-body American missionaries and exasperated foreigners who had found the “open door” of the Berlin-Congo charter closed against them when they innocently went out there to trade; and by the press’s help we got the Christian nations everywhere to turn an irritated and unbelieving ear to those tales and say hard things about the tellers of them. Yes, all things went harmoniously and pleasantly in those good days, and I was looked up to as the benefactor of a down-trodden and friendless people. Then all of a sudden came the crash! That is to say, the incorruptible kodak—and all the harmony went to hell! The only witness I have encountered in my long experience that I couldn’t bribe. Every Yankee missionary and every interrupted trader sent home and got one; and now—oh, well, the pictures get sneaked around everywhere, in spite of all we can do to ferret them out and suppress them. Ten thousand pulpits and ten thousand presses are saying the good word for me all the time and placidly and convincingly denying the mutilations. Then that trivial little kodak, that a child can carry in its pocket, gets up, uttering never a word, and knocks them dumb!
With the anniversary of Oct 7 coming up, I suspect it will be a topic for some friends of mine. Due to some work I’ve done on them over the past year, I think they might actually be amenable to learning more about Palestine and everything that’s happened in the last 100+ years.
Problem is, these people really have no idea what’s going on or what happened. I don’t know if they could find Palestine on a map. They literally haven’t moved beyond “Jews and Arabs have an ancient grudge and this is just the continuation of that.
What are some basic - and I mean basic videos I could send to them. I think 1948 Creation & Catastrophe is amazing but its scope is a bit narrow. There’s also that many-hour video Hasan did with historian Zach Foster that’s very good but it’s more about debunking hasbara.
All proceeds to UNRWA USA. Donate Here: https://www.unrwausa.org/ Video Edited by: Omar Alali Subtitles by: Omar Alali, Amer Zahr and Charles Boonsu HIND'S HALL 2 (feat. Anees, MC Abdul, Amer Zahr) Performed by: Macklemore Anees MC Abdul Amer Zahr Piano: Josh Rawlings Strings: Andrew Joslyn Bas...
CW: suffering people
I know we have quite a few !ukkk comrades here… so years ago, I learned about canal boats. The whole things seems really cool and cozy to me. However, I also get the impression that it’s generally considered very boring. Have you gone on a canal boat trip before? Did you enjoy it?
It’s amazing to me that libs have deified this woman, like she has proven to be the very model of smart leadership. That she was the most qualified, deserving person to ever run for president. A quick recap of how she got where she did.
She is famous for being married to Bill Clinton. That’s it, that’s her origin story. Married to a president. Just hitched her wagon to the right person. She tried to make a name for herself by making healthcare her issue, but she got criticized pretty hard in the media because spouses of the president are supposed to make some uncontroversial issue their cause (probably some degree of sexism there but then again I’m sure most people don’t want to hear from Kamala’s dopey ass husband).
From there she was able to leverage her fame to be anointed to one of NY’s senate seats. It wasn’t a challenging contest, the Clinton connections in the party is what got her the spot.
But senators don’t have to actually lead or do things, they just vote. So that’s all she did until she ran for president in 2008 and ate shit. She got to be SoS because Obama probably didn’t feel he had any choice. This was Clinton’s first job with real responsibility, and she fucked it royally (Libya was the big one but there were others I’m sure). Then she lost another election because who could know that swing states are important to win, and had been wandering around that woods in her neighborhood ever since. Except when she surfaces in order to go on TV and suggest that anyone who spreds “Russian disinformation” should be locked up.
This is not a person who has proven to be competent at anytjing. I firmly believe that no American president or presidential candidate from the last few decades who make it past like, local village leadership in the CPC. That’s a system where you actually do have to prove your capability and get things done.
I hope a thousand years from now, when people talk about the fall of the American empire like we talk about Rome, when they get to the chapter on incompetent leadership I do hope that Hillary Clinton gets a mention.
November 21 marked the 28th anniversary of the signing of the U.S.-brokered Dayton Agreement, which brought an end to the proxy war in Bosnia after three years and eight months.
The Popular Front that just got elected isn’t quite Neo-Trotskyite, but still.
Tbh the direction that we seem to be headed w/r/t homelessness in the US actually seems worse than the sanctuaries in 2024 Stark Trek San Francisco.
Washington is purposefully dragging out negotiations to enable Israel’s pursuit of its genocidal goals.
Belen Fernandez consistently has very good anti-imperialist takes.