General Politics Three: But what is left/right?

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t is tho, because it is tho. Maybe do a tour? You can start in Riyadh in finish in Tel Aviv. Lmk how it goes, and which one doesn't oppress half the people within its territorial control. Then let me know whose the most politically free and progressive with its other half.
How does giving money to Tel Aviv in any way affect the people living in Riyadh?
 
How does giving money to Tel Aviv in any way affect the people living in Riyadh?
Area man locally famous for economical insight unable to draw a link between "internationally-recognised illegal occupation" and negative outcomes. And apparently this is compatible with US politics and . . . chauvinism?

Like we've stepped from white saviour complex in the West (racial perception) to chauvinism in the West (gender role expectations) to . . . Saudi Arabia? :D

"Look folks here's somewhere else that is bad on specific metrics. Please ignore Israel being bad on other metrics - those aren't important."
 
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It is tho, because it is tho. Maybe do a tour? You can start in Riyadh in finish in Tel Aviv. Lmk how it goes, and which one doesn't oppress half the people within its territorial control. Then let me know whose the most politically free and progressive with its other half.

If your country supports queer people, except the brown queer people whom we murder

Supports universal suffrage except the brown voters whom we disenfranchise and murder

Extends broad civil liberties and property rights except the brown people for whom we suspend civil liberties and whose property we expropriate arbitrarily

Promotes religious tolerance except the brown worshippers whom we harass and murder, and whose places of worship we vandalize

Offers high quality healthcare except the brown people whose hospitals we bomb

Support freedom of speech and the press except for the people who speak out in favor of the brown people, whom we murder and whose families we also murder

Like no, at that point you don’t get to call yourself anything like a progressive democracy. You lose. The only thing for it is to dissolve the country and start over. Nothing good can ever come from a country whose very and exclusive basis for existence is expropriation of land and resources from an othered brown people for the enrichment of your own “divinely chosen people”

No lgbt person would ever actually want to live in a Palestinian state (or any islamist nation) or seriously thinks they'd have more freedom and safety there than in Israel. This is not to necessarily condone all of Israel's military actions but as a place to live, a Palestinian state vs Israel? It's not even a question.

there are vast swathes of my own country where I would not chance holding hands with my partner for fear of what might happen to us if we were to do so. In fact there are several states now where simply going to the bathroom would land me in jail. Yet when I suggest that such a restriction on my civil liberties should warrant military intervention I am accused of being overdramatic.

Why is it such concern over the safety of queer people only ever seems to be raised when I, a queer person, speak out in defense of an oppressed group whose population includes queer people who are being murdered right now, not by that oppressed group, but rather, by the “progressive” oppressors who claim to support queer people?
 
If your country supports queer people, except the brown queer people whom we murder

Supports universal suffrage except the brown voters whom we disenfranchise and murder

Extends broad civil liberties and property rights except the brown people for whom we suspend civil liberties and whose property we expropriate arbitrarily

Promotes religious tolerance except the brown worshippers whom we harass and murder, and whose places of worship we vandalize

Offers high quality healthcare except the brown people whose hospitals we bomb

Support freedom of speech and the press except for the people who speak out in favor of the brown people, whom we murder and whose families we also murder

Like no, at that point you don’t get to call yourself anything like a progressive democracy. You lose. The only thing for it is to dissolve the country and start over. Nothing good can ever come from a country whose very and exclusive basis for existence is expropriation of land and resources from an othered brown people for the enrichment of your own “divinely chosen people”
Ok so you and the people who like this post are calling for the destruction of Israel. Great. And what replaces it? Say all the Israelis are gone. Cool, no more oppression in the middle east and totally more democracy.

Or maybe there's a better order which countries should be restarted?
 
I'm enormously amused by you only pretending to care about the issue of suicide when it can be used to attack liberals or cities, or to defend the unequal apportionment of power in the US Constitution. If you actually gave a crap about suicide among veterans then you'd want to do something about handguns, but you've already said you consider essentially any number of deaths an acceptable price for gun rights so who exactly are you trying to kid?
When I expressed vulnerability, I was called "glib." Then I realized vulnerability is absolutely the wrong thing to show a lot, here.

You see despair and would remove the final escape. You actively approve, most often among the exact same people we're pretending to care about now, of governmental efforts to make these people miserable. Sometimes expressed as its own end goal in your frustration(a consistently applied stance(remarkable), which is why I bring it up). The total argument is nothing short of perverse.
 
Ok so you and the people who like this post are calling for the destruction of Israel. Great. And what replaces it? Say all the Israelis are gone. Cool, no more oppression in the middle east and totally more democracy.
More oppression but less interesting oppression like in Africa, doesn't quite get the juices flowing, it's like a movie that's too complicated, wait who's the bad guy, who am I supposed to hate?
 
I sometimes wonder if it's some sort of right wing psy-op.
I'm going to speak to the trend(that I think you're referencing and just roll with it as a premise) and not to the poster.

I'm going to guess it's two inputs simultaneously. Everything is so captured and regulated that people can't do a lot of things for themselves(you can't even decide to click your seatbelt, your betters have decided that for you, ya r*****). So they don't learn what they can do in their community. So then they go and watch global news, which they can do nothing about. Then they play a lot of video games and smoke a lot of weed, where you get to constantly hallucinate that you are God. Or at least that you can change the entire narrative of choose-your-own-adventure stories. When you can't. You're just a shmuck, and your hands are probably more useful than your tongue.
 
Say all the Israelis are gone. Cool, no more oppression in the middle east and totally more democracy.
You persist with this bizarre notion that the existence of Israel in any way contributes to progressivism and democracy outside of it in the region. What's next, should we set up more settler-colonial states elsewhere in the world to act as a beacon of light to guide the unwashed unprogressive undemocratic savages?

I've heard this song before...
 
You persist with this bizarre notion that the existence of Israel in any way contributes to progressivism and democracy outside of it in the region. What's next, should we set up more settler-colonial states elsewhere in the world to act as a beacon of light to guide the unwashed unprogressive undemocratic savages?

I've heard this song before...
Time doesn't go backward, so no.

But if we're destroying countries for being horrible, surely there's a less disordered order.
 
For example, I think California would do great as its own country. In some perfect world we should be. In a perfecter world, there aren't countries. That's stupid. I remember being a child hearing there was a president and thinking, WTH s**** is this? However, in the current world, we want a strong and politically-militarily unified United States, and really Western Hemisphere, and really Western Hemisphere and Europe, until someone out-goods us and can set the example.
 
I'm going to speak to the trend(that I think you're referencing and just roll with it as a premise) and not to the poster.

I'm going to guess it's two inputs simultaneously. Everything is so captured and regulated that people can't do a lot of things for themselves. So they don't learn what they can do in their community. So then they go and watch global news, which they can do nothing about. Then they play a lot of video games and smoke a lot of weed, where you get to constantly hallucinate that you are God. Or at least that you can change the entire narrative of choose-your-own-adventure stories. When you can't. You're just a shmuck, and your hands are probably more useful than your tongue.
I agree about the local disconnection, helplessness & rage & finding groups to take it out on, pretty much what they also accuse 'the other side' of doing

Dunno about the weed & god bit, I think weed makes me more tolerate & pro-social (altho it messes w my sleep so it's a rare treat for me)
 
No one's asking the US to destroy Israel, just to stop propping it up.
Screenshot 2024-05-16 at 1.58.18 PM.png
 
Or maybe there's a better order which countries should be restarted?

Yeah, ultimately Israel is just a symptom of a disease that comes from Europe and lately from North America, so this is valid. The tinpot dictators in the Middle East are, ironically, symptoms of the same disease. You mentioned Riyadh? The House of Saud got to its present position by cultivating relationships first with the British and then with the US, the basic design of which is oil for security guarantees. It suits the imperial powers to have client monarchies or dictatorships, which are far easier to control than messy pluralist systems (let alone actual democracies) since you only need to bribe one guy to effectively control an autocracy's politics.

And yeah, like, zooming in to the political dynamics of the region itself, it's quite clear that Israel's existence is a massive boon to reactionary Islamism and to genocidal antisemitism there. All those autocrats use Israel to justify their own rule, even as they quite cynically partner with Israel against the (as they see it) even greater threat of the Islamic Republic, yet another dictatorship whose legitimacy is based primarily on using the West and Israel as foils.

Anyway tl;dr if we want to "fix" the Middle East by destroying countries, the one to start with is the US, not Israel.
 
Yeah, ultimately Israel is just a symptom of a disease that comes from Europe and lately from North America, so this is valid. The tinpot dictators in the Middle East are, ironically, symptoms of the same disease. You mentioned Riyadh? The House of Saud got to its present position by cultivating relationships first with the British and then with the US, the basic design of which is oil for security guarantees. It suits the imperial powers to have client monarchies or dictatorships, which are far easier to control than messy pluralist systems (let alone actual democracies) since you only need to bribe one guy to effectively control an autocracy's politics.

And yeah, like, zooming in to the political dynamics of the region itself, it's quite clear that Israel's existence is a massive boon to reactionary Islamism and to genocidal antisemitism there. All those autocrats use Israel to justify their own rule, even as they quite cynically partner with Israel against the (as they see it) even greater threat of the Islamic Republic, yet another dictatorship whose legitimacy is based primarily on using the West and Israel as foils.
It's almost like when Crezth criticized the discussion of criticizing the electoral college was wrong all along. And we can trace the conversation, as you replied with "I agree.... [Israel]" which got us here.
 
Moderator Action: This is not an Israeli war thread. Pay attention folks.
 
Oh ok Boneyduck only that we're saying the USA bears responsibility for Israel and "someone" should dissolve it.

Like if the USA stopped supporting Israel it would dissolve itself. Wat.
 
I agree about the local disconnection, helplessness & rage & finding groups to take it out on, pretty much what they also accuse 'the other side' of doing

Dunno about the weed & god bit, I think weed makes me more tolerate & pro-social (altho it messes w my sleep so it's a rare treat for me)
It's everyone. It's one of the better applications of both sides.
 
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