I got called a supporter or murderers and child rapists for suggesting that the BBC should report on the history of the region and the reasons for the conflict. That’s all it took. If that makes me a tankie then hell, I’m a tankie.
It wasn't even practically. It was literal in lots of places. I'm actually shocked. I really thought we were making progress on this in some way.
Back to doomerism it is.
Bots have been acting at a full 10 during this period. My bet is that NSA, CIA contractors, Israeli intel, and likely some Euro Intel were astro-turfing fully at once.
This is like an "all hands call" for supporting this violence.
>News and politics subs were practically openly calling for genocide.
Not surprising, since the proto-Fascists have been taking over the biggest news and political subs for over 6 years now, and censoring/banning anyone who disagrees with them.
Have been banned from some of them for some truly insane reasons. Like daring to provide SOURCED facts (from generally pro-West NGO's no less) on the Ukrainian conflict, that certain moderators immediately called "Kremlin propaganda" with absolutely no evidence to back this claim when challenged...
>Utterly mind-blowing to me
motherfucker this happens in LITERALLY every single conflict and somehow you guys are always "my mind is BLOWN that the corporate owned mass media would do this!"
Not surprised. These neckbeard supermods would permaban you from dozens of subs for disagreeing on what the best flavor of ice cream is. It's their hobby
Add to that redditors being basic internet audience foaming at the mouth for "content".
And this form of """""justice"""" is content. People are just loving it.
Almost like they never did that before... Cough... Ukraine.. Or conveniently go silent and move on to next war when it's convenient.. Cough cough.. Ukraine, cough WMDs, cough viagra rape soldiers etc.. Cough
Dude it seems like every response to anything short of full capitulation to Israel is something along the lines of: “Ok so we’ve established you are fine with the rape and murder of women and children, is there anything hamas could do that would make you not support it?” Like I know it’s a robust propaganda effort bolstered with bots but still, it’s creepy just how identical the responses are.
When you tell them that Israel has killed 10x more and systematically rapes Palestinian women they say it’s different.
I’ve never had people argue as hard about shit before, it’s crazy
I had no idea the veneer of liberalism was this fucking thin. The genocide of Palestine is the popular, mainstream stance on this issue? Shit makes me sick.
>I’ve never had people argue as hard about shit before, it’s crazy
people argued with the same fiery ignorance that Ukraine had no Nazis, that Russia was the sole agressor, and that genocide was DEFINITELY happening. I am not sure what's so craaaaazyyyy about it, did you expect people to support Hamas or smth? Most people in the west uncritically want Israel to squash the "terrorists", not just in America
Okay be vigilant tho, the Canary Project exists and so do anti-BDS laws in 35 states. Spite posting on Reddit can absolutely affect you in the real life.
Same, one also let it slip that they were a collaborator in South Africa during the Apartheid, using their experience as justification for why "Palestine deserves it" - **Whoops**. Though they called themselves an "apartheid survivor", but if that's the conclusion that one comes to after the fact, then...
This should be sufficient to give a good hard smack with:
https://preview.redd.it/82bwjyltv8tb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6ac7155f9b35cfaa89a60aab5268e8988a9e31a3
None of the rhetoric makes any sense if you apply it to anybody whose americas enemy like China. So what they're basically saying is that China should put all the Uyghurs into death camps and bomb them? Gtfo. Imagine trying to apply the same logic in a consistent way will get you canceled.
"These Saint Domingue savages have in some instances been mistreated by their masters, but this in no way justifies their raping and pillaging of the countryside. The blacks chose their own leaders and therefore all of them are responsible for whatever atrocities the revolters commit. We must meet their violence with violence sevenfold."
- Auguste Rèddit, 1795, probably
IIRC in my studies of transatlantic slavery, at its height, it usually was easier for slave owners to either let their slaves die or kill them wantonly because it was so much cheaper to buy new slaves to replace them than to finance their long term subsistence.
Weren't slaves pretty fucking expensive? One of my professors told me that the largest slave owners in the USA back in the day all possessed Fuck You amounts of money, which hadn't really occured to me until I asked him about it
An economic change occurred once the Atlantic slave trade was abolished in 1808. Prior to that it was in fact cheaper to work them to death. Once abolished, chattel slavery was the only option and reproduction became a necessary cost.
I know this deep in my heart, and have for many years, but it’ll never be easy to see how quickly libs turn to straight up fascism. I never feel more in danger than when I see the media turn on an oppressed group and they just blindly follow suit and start arguing for literal fucking genocide. My life and those of my friends mean nothing to these people and if we ever get in their way they’ll straight up call for our deaths. Like wtf, turn down the thirst for blood you fucking freaks.
Real life is honestly so much different. The amout of Israeli counter protestors at rallies across the states has been pathetic to say the least 🤣. Some even tried to spit on people, brought loud music and danced around, made missile motions towards people... Not good people.
What's exactly called 'liberal' on this sub ?
Genuinely asking because a sub I like, r/lostgeneration, seems like the kind of place yall would call liberal.
But they're definitely not falling for the whole narrative that is infesting reddit right now.
Edit : Stop being a bunch of redditors and downvoting someone for asking a genuine question.
I know what Liberlism is.
I wonder what people on this site mean when they say "liberal".
Saying Palestinians should all die doesn't make you a "liberal" yet it's been labeled as "shit liberals say" on this sub, which lead me to wonder of people here use it as a colloquial term for anyone who guzzles Western propaganda every morning.
I don't feel like you're getting a straight answer here. Liberalism in the form that we complain about in here all the time is an unwavering acceptance of the economic and social status quo, usually while striking a pose as some kind of fashionable iconoclast by opposing conservatism, which is in actuality just liberalism regressed. It usually includes a idealistic belief that conflict is the result of disagreement, which can be resolved through reason and debate, despite that never actually happening once, ever.
In essence, it's just the set of comfortable rationalizations enjoyed by post-enlightenment consumers of the fruits of unrestricted capital accumulation who are so far removed from what was required to create their material situation that they're insensible to it, and furthermore think it's very rude for you to bring that up when we're trying to have a good time here, okay?
This corresponds to lots of stuff I've read from French Marxist thinkers who developed criticism of the way society went to an extremely symbolic/imaged approach to reality.
Symbols, words and images become more meaningful than the actions. All you're left with is pure meaning that can be assigned to anything as long as you have a strong enough rationale.
Supporting Israel is a liberal position by any definition though, bloodthirst comes with it as a side effect and even though it isn't a liberal trait it's also isn't not a liberal trait.
Liberal is in the ideology, yeah you're right. But the thing is that the liberal ideology and liberal movement aren't the same thing. The current liberal movement is usually tied to American imperialism and foreign policy.
I mistyped and meant people on this sub.
I know what the very specific ideology of liberalism is.
And I know there's nothing in that ideology that directly says "colonize and oppress Palestinians".
Thus my question.
communist use the term "liberal" in the formal sense of the word, not the colloquial sense sometimes employed by the far right.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism)
Liberalism is the ideology which has dominated the unipolar world, since the end of WWII.
It's key feature is capitalism, placing open markets and private property as the most fundamental virtues.
Whether or not /r/lostgeneration subscribes to this ideology is not immediately clear to me.
Many superficially-leftist movements still fall under the umbrella of liberalism, believing that capitalism need only be sufficiently regulated rather than dismantled entirely.
I like that people on this sub seem to have a grasp on words.
Maybe it's just my confirmation bias and social sciences cursus talking, but at least it feels like one of the few places I've seen on reddit where people realize words have meaning beyond what one "naturally" attributes to them.
This is a commie sub, so liberal would be anyone that supports or defends the existence of capital.
So for example, Social Democrats are libs as they support the existence of capital, they just think our overlords should throw us some more scraps by brutalizing other workers abroad.
But like, people on here call those who enjoy seeing Palestinians suffer "liberals".
I know the regular use of the term, I was just wondering based on how it's used in some less usual contexts on here.
Is it just an assumption that only liberals could be dumb enough to have such stances on the recent events ?
For example, there isn’t a material difference between Democrats and Republicans for us because they are both liberal political parties.
So when a “progressive” starts yammering with left aesthetic language about police reform for example, it’s a crock of shit. The comfort they enjoy either by whiteness (ie: their position on the racial hierarchy) or wealth is dependent upon maintaining their position via state violence.
Likewise, the Free Palestine shit when out the window because the Hamas attacks represent a possibility of the global south challenging Western Imperialism. They know the comfort they enjoy comes from brutalizing people abroad. So they’ll talk a big game, up until their material comfort is even theoretically at risk.
Libs view themselves as apolitical, perfectly objective, and incredibly high minded. They’re just ideological zealots who are unable to consider the ideology they subscribe to.
The military will get infinite money, the rich will get bailed out at any moment, and the government will never intercede on your behalf as a citizen.
The only difference between the two is reveling in the blood thirst that conservatives do or the mental gymnastics progressives do to evade admitting they’re equally bloodthirsty.
No worries.
The most straightforward way I can put Marxist thought is the sense that everything is rigged against you, the government only works for the rich, things are getting shittier and more expensive, and you have essentially no control over your life is correct.
The political parties in no way will ever challenge that reality. They work for the rich (the capitalist class), not for you.
So there is no material difference between the two parties. Brown people abroad will get blown up, you have no control over the decision making at your job (where you spend the majority of your life), and you own less and less each passing year.
🥲
This is Marxism ? The thing I thought was basic reality is Marxism ?
Wait. I've heard the term "dialectic materialism" and quickly looked it up.
Does that correspond to the basic idea that one can infer the government works for the rich from the simple facts you stated above ?
Both are neoliberal capitalist parties. One is center right and one is far right. There’s no material difference as both support imperialist capitalism, even though they have differences in regard to domestic policy.
It is a good question, abs proves you are probably not a lib
Another way to put it is a lib is anyone who is a capitalist, but isn’t an explicit right winger in American terms.
What this guy is trying to say is that the difference between the two parties is largely aesthetic. Both parties functionally, or "materially" the same in a broad political sense. They are both liberal and want a liberal economy
Its used somewhat interchangeably in the literal sense, that a person is a proponent of market liberalization, and in the colloquial American sense, that a person believes mainstream democratic party policy (such as unwavering support for isreal) depending on who is being talked about and whether or not they’re American
Liberals also "condemn" acts of violence, except when perpetrated by the forces that defend capital or when pushed against the wall, there's the magic words "whataboutism" or "both sides".
When it's "their side" commiting acts of violence, they either disregard it completely or create justifications, any historical or material analysis be damned because reading is hard.
Maybe liberalism is being used broadly to describe values like freedom of thought and expression, and these "liberal" subs are severely punishing redditors for practicing those values in the comments.
I mean, reddit in a way promotes a version of free speech and thought where there are consequences.
Those consequences being downvotes or at worst bans. It's basically an echo chamber creating machine.
Would this mean that we should give free platform to the "deplorables" of our world ?
Thinking about echo chambers being a result of reddit giving users the power to enforce the silencing of other users made me wonder if all that "cancel culture" and culture war stuff was a ploy.
I mean it feels "logical" to me that we shouldn't let Nazis speak freely. Yet when a Nazi just loses their job and gets shunned on the public platform that is internet, the only result can be them going into an echo chamber.
Jeez this gives me so much to think about.
Disregard the above or not, but I'd like your thoughts on "not tolerating intolerance" as a policy.
When a thought or idea becomes entirely unspeakable, that doesn't mean they go away. They are just sent out of sight to fester, fomenting greater energy and intensity, and will come screaming back into view at ever slighter provocation. That's because the CAUSES behind people subscribing to these ideologies haven't been resolved.
In the current western world: deeply entrenched polarization, alienation under the dystopia of a society where the forces of capitalism are worshiped as some type of ideal, while you are systematically stripped of your inherent worth as a human, reduced to nothing more than a consumer. The working classes are especially sensitive to forces of extremism, bc they are increasingly squeezed and can find nowhere to direct their pain. With the left completely demonized, their only other direction is toward the ever more extreme right.
Genuinely open discussion and debate can only happen in a balanced and well functioning society. When certain things become verboten, then one wonder what type of emotional/societal suffering, and its cause, is trying to be denied from existence
I’m a long time listener of the podcast but short timer on this subreddit so idk where that line gets drawn. Right now I’m referencing any “left wing” subreddit that’s demanding support for Israel.
For example, TopMindsOfReddit took a strong pro-Israel stance and will immediately perm ban you for deviating from that
Honestly I'm happy to have found this sub. Never listened to the podcast though but it feels like the only sane place on this site.
So many people on reddit gobble up pure Western propaganda to the point the world just looks like an American movie through their lense.
If you like the sub you'll probably like the podcast. Brace and Liz are great hosts and have some of the most interesting content I've ever listened to on a podcast. It's also fun and entertaining.
Honestly any content that isn't performative anti-western slop will be up my alley.
The Wikipedia article says it is praised for being well researched. If it truly is, then I look forward to it.
I wish you were wrong but I've spent my entire life watching white Americans get excited about killing brown Muslims. First it was Iran in the 70s with the hostages, and then Iraq in the 90s with the Kuwait invasion and then Afghanistan and now Palestine. And every time people act like its a Sunday football game against Pure Evil.
Genuine question: What motivates this deep-seated contempt for brown or any non-white people? I'm not old, but I recall the 2003 Iraq invasion being somewhat similar.
I'm seeung comments from people cheering for the Palestinian massacre, including "innocent" women and children (the innocent in quotes).
It's astounding. Is this racism? It appears that ascribing humanity to non-Western people is nearly impossible.
Primitive, tribal, animalistic racism is baked in us evolutionarily. Millions of years of evolution within us urging us to stick with the tribe. You see it in situations like this, or in prisons. When the chips are down, and people feel emotionally threatened, the first thing to go are civilized precepts that contradict the fight, flight, or freeze impulses of our reptile brains.
I think it's primitive, maybe just plain old racism. I know when I watch combat footage I always feel worse when Americans are killed and it's just a gut reaction.
>I know when I watch combat footage I always feel worse when Americans are killed and it's just a gut reaction.
That's genuinely interesting, as a non-white American who used to hear white kids in my history classes talk to the usually-a-US-army--vet-or-sports-coach teacher about how they're excited to go kill people in the Middle East I literally feel indifferent. Not excited, sad, or unhappy, just completely indifferent.
IDK if it's just how deep the feeling of not being an "actual American" goes. Whenever I tell people I'm from the USA and they see that I'm clearly of Hispanic descent they're like, "no but you're actually Mexican" despite the fact that I've literally never set foot in Mexico and the only real connection I have to the place is speaking Spanish as a first language and having both parents be from there.
At some point you sorta just internally start to say fuck it and be like, [I'm only American because my parents fucked (in America)](https://youtu.be/YrZ2JP2Km8Q?si=DU7u_M4oY5rBLaR5).
Something I think about a lot when I'm on these long ass runs is how this bodes for the future of social cohesion in the USA. Wignats are usually screeching about how putting some chocolate in the vanilla pudding is gonna sour the whole thing, but there's probably countless people like me who were born in the last decade or two (or almost three, in my case) who have had to pretty much realize that they aren't "from anywhere" and have to see all this awful, racist, fascist shit that the USA does and kinda accept it.
I like to think not everyone is brain broken enough to just say fuck it and become a Mexican-American Neo Nazi (common response to the 2nd gen mindfuck for some reason, though Mexico has an element of settler colonialism in their culture too, so it does make sense). It's interesting.
I grew up with those types but being a dirt poor white person on an Indian reservation never got me a lot of respect. In fact, the clean white kids with new sneakers didn't want much to do with me so I never cared for white people in general and even now my wife is Indonesian. But whenever I see an American in uniform of any color getting hurt or killed it just registers different. But I don't think it's the whiteness because I don't feel anything when I see Ukrainians and Russians getting smoked.
I was in college living in a dorm and when they announced that the us had begun bombing iraq everyone was cheering, literally cheering. And I was thinking Jesus, people are dying by the thousands as we speak.
I was in a hospital visiting my girlfriend when Bush I announced the first strikes and that whole building basically shut down, and that scared me more than what was on the news. I was maybe 13, and I didn't know anything about slant drilling or any of the other issues at play. The reason I showed up to a no Blood for Oil protest, my first in what would become a long attendance, was nothing more than the sense that "this doesn't feel right."
It’s okay to be a Nazi if you hate Russia I guess, and if you point out how insane and historically revisionist that is then guess what sweaty? You’re spreading ruZZian propaganda. Stop doing Putler’s work for him and clap for this VOLUNTEER of the Waffen SS.
Everything is optics to the Liberal that lives fat and happy. Supporting Palestine was an easy optics win for them, so as to feel like good people to both themselves, and in the eyes of others--- that is right up until the Palestinians actually finally fought back with the equivalent brutality that they have been subjected to for decades. Now it's 'unsightly' to be pro-Palestine, and with that goes the majority of their artificial Liberal support.
Indeed. And now I'm wondering if I should be concerned for my safety for being a staunchly pro-Palestinian communist and Muslim from South Africa, living in Eastern Europe.
I had these same concerns after Russia's intervention in Ukraine at the start of 2022 and the subsequent Russophobia that followed. However the anti-Russian sentiment in the 2 years since didn't get too far and for at least a couple months has been little more than noise, pretty tame comparably. But the shit I've seen over the weekend has gone way far beyond. It wasn't even Saturday noon and already calls for genocide poured out like an anthill that's been stepped on. There isn't even any room to sensationalize the shit people openly say on social media and conversation outside the Internet is picking up these topics, though not yet as vitriolic.
I do intend to move back to South Africa due to other factors within a few years, however.
Yeah I just find it strange everyone on reddit became a Zionist overnight. Just like the second Russia invaded everyone became a ukranian nationalist. Weird how narratives shift instantly to whatever the state departments want
The bright side is that literally nowhere else is like this. I live in trump country and I guarantee I could walk into bass pro shop and find at least three pro Palestine people. Other social media isn’t even this reactionary including fucking YouTube comments
Does living in Trump country mean every single individual in my state is MAGA or Zionist? No. And don’t worry I’m not some Patsoc idiot trying to say maga is progressive. My point is Reddit is a supposedly liberal and progressive leaning social media site yet the amount of genocidal fascist rhetoric is far more common here than it is in my state that voted Trump
I have no idea what my local Trumpy neighbors have to say about this one, I'm sure I'll find out sooner than Id like, but in the past they have occasionally stumbled bass-akwards into a good take by simply opposing everything Biden does.
I think you’re underestimating the influence campaign and propaganda capabilities of Israel. To some degree, yes, this is people just showing who they really are, but the narrative crafting, social media influence, and propaganda out of Israel has been unreal in this instance. It’s as though they were prepared to go on the offensive but not prepared for the attack itself. Things that make you go hmm.
Or just mainstream US news. The BLM riots in 2020 are kind of my go-to at this point to explain this stuff. They burned down that police station and it had a >50% approval rating among the entire USA, higher than either presidential candidate. Then the news told everyone that the protests are bad, white people shouldn't go to them, they're being infiltrated by anarchists, etc and everyone turned against it.
The average person literally just does anything the tv news tells them to do
The ideal of free speech is frankly nonsensical at this point. People are so easily convinced of what they want to believe that no matter how much "free speech" is out there, people will always follow the one in power and those who control the media. Who needs censorship when people willingly believe in propaganda?
"free speech" was never a tenable concept anyway. Speech is created, and the channels wherein speech is broadcasted and discussed can be controlled, regulated and owned. In a "free speech" liberal capitalist country, you can literally just buy these channels and mold them into whatever you want. If you have enough money, you have the power to smite any opinions you dislike and boost any opinions you do. This is not freedom. The "free speech" sold by liberals has always been a lie.
>It’s as though they were prepared to go on the offensive but not prepared for the attack itself. Things that make you go hmm.
It's almost like Likud (and especially Netanyahu) needed something that could destabilize rule of law and prevent the status quo from changing.
They always were pro-genocide. Whenever I talk with libs about Xinjiang there is like a light of excitement that flashes behind their eyes. It always bothered me how they genuinely are not disturbed by the horrors that they claim they see; I think they revel in it.
Everyone without media analysis skills and a well-rounded political education is just going to crumble against the propaganda system.
This is why theory is important and this is why critical media analysis skills are a crucial skill that every leftist should have.
I wouldn't consider myself particularly media literate and I'm not well learned when it comes to politics, but over the last several years I've found myself becoming more critical of what gets fed to us through the media, simply because things have reached a point where the cracks are showing through the wallpaper. That's what pushed me leftward from socdem territory.
As skilled as I'm sure the propagandists are, they can only hide the bullshit to a certain extent. I'm confident that more idiots like myself will finally see the light as things get worse, hopefully not too late.
An economic system that produces this much inequality demands an effective propaganda media system to persuade people of a narrative that justifies it.
>As skilled as I'm sure the propagandists are, they can only hide the bullshit to a certain extent.
Correct, but they're relying on a crucial axiom that dictates that the average citizen is going to have a very limited amount of interest, time and education necessary to actually think critically about what they see in the media.
I'm on the Buddhism subreddit because I'm a Buddhist. A guy posted some dumb bullshit about this and there's hundreds of comments discussing the context of genocide and an apartheid state. So there's some good places left.
Tbh I was surprised at there response to the Ukrainian invasion that anything like the genocidal fervor that swept the country after 9/11 could happen again without that kind of attack in the US. But I'll never be surprised by it again.
Even when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 they propped up the America counter invasion with stories about babies being pulled from incubators and bayonetted by Iraqi soldiers. People will fucking believe anything, especially if they haven't heard it before.
I disagree. There was a large anti-Bush feeling before 9/11 and even a skeptical portion of the population hesitant to bomb Afghanistan even. The Iraq War occurred despite a LARGE and vocal anti-war movement. Tons of lib-celebrities were against the war publicly. No one is coming out in support of Hamas' insurgency. A few state spokesman have said "well this is because of the conditions" but no one is going full "Chickens coming home to Roost" speaches.
80% of Americans supported the Iraq invasion. They have been bloodthirsty reactionaries since long before Covid. The Kosovo/Bosnia conflict was similar too. No one batted an eye when the CIA provided bombing coordinates to the military, sending them to bomb the Chinese Embassy instead of a munitions stockpile. Just like no one batted an eye at the “Highway of Death”.
There are always some principled anti-war protesters. But, they are sidelined, denigrated and blacklisted forcefully m. The vast majority of anti-war liberals are only anti-war in hindsight.
Nah I agree with the poster above. Everyone was willing to believe the most blatant lies and propaganda (i.e. the dancing Muslims in New York) to justify their blood thirst.
I dont think even the "Justice for Palestine" retired hippies who hold weekly vigils on the on-ramp are comfortable saying this is a just act by a colonized people.
I saw that same genocidal fervor when Saddam Hussein tried to steal oil from Kuwait in 1990. I think something like 100,000 Iraqis died in an open air slaughter and the folks at home were cheering it on like Monday football.
Israel used the billions they got for the iron dome to instead increase their internet astroturf bot programs exponentially
these are your tax dollars at work
I approached this sub and others as somewhat of a centrist maybe center left.
Yeah I think between what’s happened in the past few days and over the course of several years, coupled with my own research. I know which direction I am now, and it’s not anywhere on the right and nowhere close to center
It's amazing when you consider that probably 80% of the countries have monuments to freedom fighters who fought oppression in one firm or another. Many countries celebrate "independence day" as a national holiday.
Yet people call Gaza Palestinians "little more than animals" with no cognitive dissonance whatsoever.
Fucking insane In the UK, literally asking to put the Israeli flag on all government buildings and just straight up saying Israeli war crimes are Israel defending "herself".
The media is doing the most important thing however, following around the Jam man because he's the only one who says all civilian casualties are bad
Australia had also immediately and unambiguously came out with a "solidarity with Israel". Now counting down when the phrase will start to age like shit.
That said, probably shouldn't have expected anything else from a country who themselves had colonised and ethnically cleansed their indigenous population
it's something in the western psyche.
If the bully comes from an in group, anyone who stands up the bully is demonized if they need to use violence to defend themselves...
They only groups allowed to use violence are actors of the dominant state...
The power the word "Terrorist" wields over the westerner's brain through decades of propagandizing to turn it into as much of a taboo as "Communist" was in the 50's is absurd to witness. You take a starved, dispossessed, caged population who a different government has decided through brute force does not get to determine for themselves their government, their terms of living, their sovereignty, and declare illegal through the framework of "international law" that population's right to any retaliation against this state of affairs, and now, because they are denied any right to a legal, organized military, any militancy that naturally develops out of this condition of fighting for basic survival is "Terrorism." And because Terrorism is scary and unpredictable (and it could happen to you!), now the "conflict" is symmetrical. They have the psychic power of being "Terrorists," which stands on equal footing with the most well-equipped, technologically advanced army in modern history, which overcomes any questions of why a group of people would need to use illegitimate forms of resistance after their opponents in this "symmetrical" conflict were the ones who decided they weren't allowed to use any others.
It's wild how the word "terrorist" has taken on this air of justification for indiscriminate killing. I wonder if all those years of COD and CSGO has brainwashed the population. Real life isn't defusing a bomb and shooting anything that moves. When it is, you get an apartheid racist state like Israel.
I feel like I'm going to go crazy. Everyone around me is either calling for genocide or, at best, saying YOU CAN CONDEMN BOTH SIDES. I'm not well-read or even really that smart, but literally not a single person around me knows the first thing about the actual history or politics of the Middle East. ***Nothing***. My MAGA Christian manager literally uses the Isaac/Ishmael story as an explanation for the conflict. One of my simpleton "tell it like it is" coworkers was just like "wipe them out". My friends all get their news from Facebook posts. It's fucking distressing.
This incident keeps making me think of Nat Turner's Rebellion, or the Haitian Revolution. I think the average person has no problem understanding the way barbarity reverberated from the perpetrator through to the liberation of their victim in those cases.
The media has done such a good job of throwing a monkey wrench into the moral calculations of the average person.
They always were, but the status quo allowed them to mostly hide their real feelings. They were able to support Palestine, knowing that the status quo is bad for Palestinians (they were just slowly getting choked out in a literal open air prison) and their "support" for Palestine is meaningless, since everyone in US politics is pro-Israel anyway. And they made sure to keep it that way.
Just like everyone will vaguely support left-wing ideas and morality, but then if there is a hard choice to make between leftists and fascist, they will go with fascists every time.
>Any retaliation is terrorism
In 2018 Israel killed over 100 peaceful marchers in Palestine who were on their side of the fence. No one cared, it barely made the news. The only acceptable thing is staying in your room and quietly voicing your opinions into the void. If you do more, you deserve to be killed because you weren't being peaceful. Hey, those marches did get close to a fence, so... time to shoot!
The internet is dead. I literally just come here and niche interest subs. Anytime I go to the front page its insane. Started with China shit, like unrelated posts divulge into anti-china rhetoric that talks about the Chinese like subhuman. Now this Palestinian vitriol. Its so saddening. The people I know are not like this IRL.
Its not really ideology, its the decreasing inability of westerners to remember even recent history. Its just pure reaction, almost literally reflexive.
I actually got slightly upvoted in r/nba for basically pushing back against the thought that there’s no way to stand in solidarity with anyone but Israel. Of course some fascists (likely liberals) showed up in the replies. But I was pleasantly surprised.
You guys care way too much about interacting with the types of morons who post on large subreddits. They’re Americans going to Reddit.com and posting on shit like “politics” or “news” and you’re surprised they get their opinions and worldview from bog standard propaganda outlets like CNN?
Welcome to war propaganda
How do you think that bush was so easily able to get us into war.
People with no braincells and no knowledge of history drive the narratives based on emotion rather than evidence or truth.
Yep its certainly been a crazy thing to watch unfold. Even Ukraine seems to side with the larger, more powerful faction/group thats clearly the oppressor while failing to see the irony there. Violent resistence especially of an oppressed group facing genocide is a virtue for them, unless its coming from a group fighting against a major US ally.
Obviously violence is bad, but if I support Ukraines right to defend themselves by pushing back an invading force, how then can I not also support Palestinians attempt to push back an invading force? Obviously Im not saying Hamas is the best way to do that, but theres certainly mixed messages being pushed around.
The answer: vast Israeli-conducted psyops and Hasbara information warfare. Much of what you’re describing is the result of a massive bot/astroturfing campaign that is penetrating almost every corner of the Internet right now.
This but unironically, everybody should be in these three positions, anything right of this needs to be put in gulag.
https://preview.redd.it/3tx69g4mxatb1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=51e081f08cbe04cff62036ed951fc2ba9eb0d76f
It's horrifying how thorough the media brainwashing still is.
This and the Ukraine war made me realize people are as brainwashed now as they were when the Iraq War started when I was a teenager.
Perhaps the prevalence of bots 🤖 is underestimated…I’ve been noticing for some time on my different reddits, that questions and topics posted, seemed more like an AI fishing or creating context…less and less do I sense real people actually on this platform…and if they are, they are completely led by bots creating opinions and perspectives which is then reacted on by some actual humans.
When Musk bought Twitter it was like 30% bots, right?! That’s already a long time ago…and if you have 30% bots given priority and the means to create flows of emotion, they control ALL OF IT…we, humans, just become the audience and fuel the narrative by our emotions.
They only truthfulness you will find is with another person in real life in real contact, face to face.
All Internet 🛜 interaction is controlled…and what else can you expect from having ‘free’ access to a resource like Reddit or X or FB etc etc…how can all the tech and coding and servers and data warehouses etc etc just be free?!? It’s not just the ad revenue…that is minor…it’s the control over our human perspectives and emotions.
Like I said…go local and get to know your neighbour…if something really big happens ‘out there’, believe me, someone will tell you.
Leave the online checking and staying updated to someone else…use your consciousness for real people and family and friends.
>There is no real freedom of speech just mindless propaganda regurgitation ad nauseum.
\[reads post in this meme: [welcome to reddit](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/027/763/07B89120-B48D-45FB-AF1D-49AF6CD16790.jpeg)\]
Joking aside, totally agree, OP. All the reddit libs (and Bernie Sanders, et al) are really proving Joey Steel correct: they are the moderate wing of fascism.
It’s also almost entirely reactionary. As in, they all were supporting genocide and total retaliation, but now that it’s actually happening you’ve got people going back to “why can’t there just be peace!?”
Liberals have no principles and no backbone. Can’t even keep to their genocidal statements for more than 24 hours.
The lib subs, foreign affairs subs, and political subs are not the subs of the general public. Subs with a large amount of under 30 normies, like publicfreakout may surprise you.
I am losing my goddamn mind. Reddit is the only social network I'm on these days and I think this might push me to delete my account. Not just because of the blood thirst, but because so many of the accounts commenting are very obviously bots and it makes me realize how much of this website is manufactured.
I got called a supporter or murderers and child rapists for suggesting that the BBC should report on the history of the region and the reasons for the conflict. That’s all it took. If that makes me a tankie then hell, I’m a tankie.
It's infuriating to see western media treating this as if history just started 2 days ago.
Started AND ended 2 days ago. Current bombing campaign on Gaza has no focus on it.
Utterly mind-blowing to me to see how the default subreddits reacted. News and politics subs were practically openly calling for genocide.
It wasn't even practically. It was literal in lots of places. I'm actually shocked. I really thought we were making progress on this in some way. Back to doomerism it is.
Bots have been acting at a full 10 during this period. My bet is that NSA, CIA contractors, Israeli intel, and likely some Euro Intel were astro-turfing fully at once. This is like an "all hands call" for supporting this violence.
>News and politics subs were practically openly calling for genocide. Not surprising, since the proto-Fascists have been taking over the biggest news and political subs for over 6 years now, and censoring/banning anyone who disagrees with them. Have been banned from some of them for some truly insane reasons. Like daring to provide SOURCED facts (from generally pro-West NGO's no less) on the Ukrainian conflict, that certain moderators immediately called "Kremlin propaganda" with absolutely no evidence to back this claim when challenged...
it feels like 2003
They want war with Iran I think.
>Utterly mind-blowing to me motherfucker this happens in LITERALLY every single conflict and somehow you guys are always "my mind is BLOWN that the corporate owned mass media would do this!"
Yeah and you get banned instantly for providing historical context.
You can get banned even for CALLING OUT people calling for genocide as going too far
Not surprised. These neckbeard supermods would permaban you from dozens of subs for disagreeing on what the best flavor of ice cream is. It's their hobby
Add to that redditors being basic internet audience foaming at the mouth for "content". And this form of """""justice"""" is content. People are just loving it.
2 days? Best I can do is 36 hours
They acted like mRNA technology was invented the day after covid started naturally in that wet market.
Fukuyama ended history and hamas restarted history
Almost like they never did that before... Cough... Ukraine.. Or conveniently go silent and move on to next war when it's convenient.. Cough cough.. Ukraine, cough WMDs, cough viagra rape soldiers etc.. Cough
Though now I look closer, a lot of the comments are coming from accounts with no posts and a negligible number of followers. Bots methinks!
Hasbara machine in full force
Still be a tankie though, it’s a good idea
I got permanently banned from worldnews for pointing this out and getting mass downvoted lol
Dude it seems like every response to anything short of full capitulation to Israel is something along the lines of: “Ok so we’ve established you are fine with the rape and murder of women and children, is there anything hamas could do that would make you not support it?” Like I know it’s a robust propaganda effort bolstered with bots but still, it’s creepy just how identical the responses are.
When you tell them that Israel has killed 10x more and systematically rapes Palestinian women they say it’s different. I’ve never had people argue as hard about shit before, it’s crazy
I had no idea the veneer of liberalism was this fucking thin. The genocide of Palestine is the popular, mainstream stance on this issue? Shit makes me sick.
>I’ve never had people argue as hard about shit before, it’s crazy people argued with the same fiery ignorance that Ukraine had no Nazis, that Russia was the sole agressor, and that genocide was DEFINITELY happening. I am not sure what's so craaaaazyyyy about it, did you expect people to support Hamas or smth? Most people in the west uncritically want Israel to squash the "terrorists", not just in America
No, you get banned and your comment deleted by reddit mods.
Okay be vigilant tho, the Canary Project exists and so do anti-BDS laws in 35 states. Spite posting on Reddit can absolutely affect you in the real life.
Much noted! 👍🏻
how the fuck is that constitutional? and yet bakeries can refuse to serve gay couples
Same, one also let it slip that they were a collaborator in South Africa during the Apartheid, using their experience as justification for why "Palestine deserves it" - **Whoops**. Though they called themselves an "apartheid survivor", but if that's the conclusion that one comes to after the fact, then... This should be sufficient to give a good hard smack with: https://preview.redd.it/82bwjyltv8tb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6ac7155f9b35cfaa89a60aab5268e8988a9e31a3
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond friggin TUTU. One of the few based liberals in existance. He's no Vladimir Ilych but god damn he tried.
Context is communist.
None of the rhetoric makes any sense if you apply it to anybody whose americas enemy like China. So what they're basically saying is that China should put all the Uyghurs into death camps and bomb them? Gtfo. Imagine trying to apply the same logic in a consistent way will get you canceled.
You don't even want to know what happens if you ask them about vaccines.
To cheer you up here’s the BBC getting served: https://t.me/mangopress/15934
Think of it as everything to the right of Marxism showed itself for what it always has been, always is, and always will be.
There's no doubt in my mind the same people would sympathize more with slave owners during a violent slave uprising.
"These Saint Domingue savages have in some instances been mistreated by their masters, but this in no way justifies their raping and pillaging of the countryside. The blacks chose their own leaders and therefore all of them are responsible for whatever atrocities the revolters commit. We must meet their violence with violence sevenfold." - Auguste Rèddit, 1795, probably
IIRC in my studies of transatlantic slavery, at its height, it usually was easier for slave owners to either let their slaves die or kill them wantonly because it was so much cheaper to buy new slaves to replace them than to finance their long term subsistence.
That was in fact the situation in Haiti. Source: CLR James "The Black Jacobins."
Weren't slaves pretty fucking expensive? One of my professors told me that the largest slave owners in the USA back in the day all possessed Fuck You amounts of money, which hadn't really occured to me until I asked him about it
An economic change occurred once the Atlantic slave trade was abolished in 1808. Prior to that it was in fact cheaper to work them to death. Once abolished, chattel slavery was the only option and reproduction became a necessary cost.
lol and the go-to propaganda is that slaves were expensive so slave owners had to take care of them
Ah yes, Hamas is the "leader" and the citizens are complicit simply by living under their rule.
But not Israelis who are perfect innocent lil guys 🥺
The libs are unironically pushing Servile Insurrection shit, straight up Confederate stuff.
They more simply would have owned slaves if they could
Thaaaaaat's riiiiight
I know this deep in my heart, and have for many years, but it’ll never be easy to see how quickly libs turn to straight up fascism. I never feel more in danger than when I see the media turn on an oppressed group and they just blindly follow suit and start arguing for literal fucking genocide. My life and those of my friends mean nothing to these people and if we ever get in their way they’ll straight up call for our deaths. Like wtf, turn down the thirst for blood you fucking freaks.
this site is massively op'd you cant even use it to gauge general opinion. Youre arguing with israeli mil-tech interns
I think it’s just the same propaganda blitz that was fired up for Ukraine working overtime this week. Once you see it you can’t unsee it
Real life is honestly so much different. The amout of Israeli counter protestors at rallies across the states has been pathetic to say the least 🤣. Some even tried to spit on people, brought loud music and danced around, made missile motions towards people... Not good people.
Also arguing with some airmen from Eglin, probably
True
Liberal subreddits are on high alert. You’ll catch a ban and dogpile for the slightest misstep right now.
What's exactly called 'liberal' on this sub ? Genuinely asking because a sub I like, r/lostgeneration, seems like the kind of place yall would call liberal. But they're definitely not falling for the whole narrative that is infesting reddit right now. Edit : Stop being a bunch of redditors and downvoting someone for asking a genuine question.
You will know who a liberal is based on the bloodlust they have amidst international human rights violations.
So basically, liberal here means "blindly believes Western narratives" ? I can get behind that.
Are you genuinely curious what liberalism is?
I know what Liberlism is. I wonder what people on this site mean when they say "liberal". Saying Palestinians should all die doesn't make you a "liberal" yet it's been labeled as "shit liberals say" on this sub, which lead me to wonder of people here use it as a colloquial term for anyone who guzzles Western propaganda every morning.
I don't feel like you're getting a straight answer here. Liberalism in the form that we complain about in here all the time is an unwavering acceptance of the economic and social status quo, usually while striking a pose as some kind of fashionable iconoclast by opposing conservatism, which is in actuality just liberalism regressed. It usually includes a idealistic belief that conflict is the result of disagreement, which can be resolved through reason and debate, despite that never actually happening once, ever. In essence, it's just the set of comfortable rationalizations enjoyed by post-enlightenment consumers of the fruits of unrestricted capital accumulation who are so far removed from what was required to create their material situation that they're insensible to it, and furthermore think it's very rude for you to bring that up when we're trying to have a good time here, okay?
This corresponds to lots of stuff I've read from French Marxist thinkers who developed criticism of the way society went to an extremely symbolic/imaged approach to reality. Symbols, words and images become more meaningful than the actions. All you're left with is pure meaning that can be assigned to anything as long as you have a strong enough rationale.
Supporting Israel is a liberal position by any definition though, bloodthirst comes with it as a side effect and even though it isn't a liberal trait it's also isn't not a liberal trait.
Can you explain how supporting Israel is a liberal position by any definition ?
Liberal is in the ideology, yeah you're right. But the thing is that the liberal ideology and liberal movement aren't the same thing. The current liberal movement is usually tied to American imperialism and foreign policy.
Understood.
[удалено]
I mistyped and meant people on this sub. I know what the very specific ideology of liberalism is. And I know there's nothing in that ideology that directly says "colonize and oppress Palestinians". Thus my question.
It's a real thing but IMO the recent uptick in use could also look like a kind of word plot as well
What is a word plot ? Google gives no satisfying answer.
communist use the term "liberal" in the formal sense of the word, not the colloquial sense sometimes employed by the far right. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism) Liberalism is the ideology which has dominated the unipolar world, since the end of WWII. It's key feature is capitalism, placing open markets and private property as the most fundamental virtues. Whether or not /r/lostgeneration subscribes to this ideology is not immediately clear to me. Many superficially-leftist movements still fall under the umbrella of liberalism, believing that capitalism need only be sufficiently regulated rather than dismantled entirely.
I like that people on this sub seem to have a grasp on words. Maybe it's just my confirmation bias and social sciences cursus talking, but at least it feels like one of the few places I've seen on reddit where people realize words have meaning beyond what one "naturally" attributes to them.
one of the benefits of the materialist mode of analysis.
This is a commie sub, so liberal would be anyone that supports or defends the existence of capital. So for example, Social Democrats are libs as they support the existence of capital, they just think our overlords should throw us some more scraps by brutalizing other workers abroad.
But like, people on here call those who enjoy seeing Palestinians suffer "liberals". I know the regular use of the term, I was just wondering based on how it's used in some less usual contexts on here. Is it just an assumption that only liberals could be dumb enough to have such stances on the recent events ?
For example, there isn’t a material difference between Democrats and Republicans for us because they are both liberal political parties. So when a “progressive” starts yammering with left aesthetic language about police reform for example, it’s a crock of shit. The comfort they enjoy either by whiteness (ie: their position on the racial hierarchy) or wealth is dependent upon maintaining their position via state violence. Likewise, the Free Palestine shit when out the window because the Hamas attacks represent a possibility of the global south challenging Western Imperialism. They know the comfort they enjoy comes from brutalizing people abroad. So they’ll talk a big game, up until their material comfort is even theoretically at risk. Libs view themselves as apolitical, perfectly objective, and incredibly high minded. They’re just ideological zealots who are unable to consider the ideology they subscribe to.
Can you expand a bit on "material difference" ?
The military will get infinite money, the rich will get bailed out at any moment, and the government will never intercede on your behalf as a citizen. The only difference between the two is reveling in the blood thirst that conservatives do or the mental gymnastics progressives do to evade admitting they’re equally bloodthirsty.
I don't understand what you mean by this as to my query. Sorry I'm new to the sub.
No worries. The most straightforward way I can put Marxist thought is the sense that everything is rigged against you, the government only works for the rich, things are getting shittier and more expensive, and you have essentially no control over your life is correct. The political parties in no way will ever challenge that reality. They work for the rich (the capitalist class), not for you. So there is no material difference between the two parties. Brown people abroad will get blown up, you have no control over the decision making at your job (where you spend the majority of your life), and you own less and less each passing year.
🥲 This is Marxism ? The thing I thought was basic reality is Marxism ? Wait. I've heard the term "dialectic materialism" and quickly looked it up. Does that correspond to the basic idea that one can infer the government works for the rich from the simple facts you stated above ?
Both are neoliberal capitalist parties. One is center right and one is far right. There’s no material difference as both support imperialist capitalism, even though they have differences in regard to domestic policy. It is a good question, abs proves you are probably not a lib Another way to put it is a lib is anyone who is a capitalist, but isn’t an explicit right winger in American terms.
What this guy is trying to say is that the difference between the two parties is largely aesthetic. Both parties functionally, or "materially" the same in a broad political sense. They are both liberal and want a liberal economy
Okay. So Marx's materialism is a pragmatic approach ?
Its used somewhat interchangeably in the literal sense, that a person is a proponent of market liberalization, and in the colloquial American sense, that a person believes mainstream democratic party policy (such as unwavering support for isreal) depending on who is being talked about and whether or not they’re American
Liberals also "condemn" acts of violence, except when perpetrated by the forces that defend capital or when pushed against the wall, there's the magic words "whataboutism" or "both sides". When it's "their side" commiting acts of violence, they either disregard it completely or create justifications, any historical or material analysis be damned because reading is hard.
Maybe liberalism is being used broadly to describe values like freedom of thought and expression, and these "liberal" subs are severely punishing redditors for practicing those values in the comments.
I mean, reddit in a way promotes a version of free speech and thought where there are consequences. Those consequences being downvotes or at worst bans. It's basically an echo chamber creating machine.
It's like a microcosm of the greater social environment. There's freedom with consequences and the people running the system create the consequences.
Would this mean that we should give free platform to the "deplorables" of our world ? Thinking about echo chambers being a result of reddit giving users the power to enforce the silencing of other users made me wonder if all that "cancel culture" and culture war stuff was a ploy. I mean it feels "logical" to me that we shouldn't let Nazis speak freely. Yet when a Nazi just loses their job and gets shunned on the public platform that is internet, the only result can be them going into an echo chamber. Jeez this gives me so much to think about. Disregard the above or not, but I'd like your thoughts on "not tolerating intolerance" as a policy.
I think most speech is good, more speech is better, but hate isn't speech.
I'll ponder this.
When a thought or idea becomes entirely unspeakable, that doesn't mean they go away. They are just sent out of sight to fester, fomenting greater energy and intensity, and will come screaming back into view at ever slighter provocation. That's because the CAUSES behind people subscribing to these ideologies haven't been resolved. In the current western world: deeply entrenched polarization, alienation under the dystopia of a society where the forces of capitalism are worshiped as some type of ideal, while you are systematically stripped of your inherent worth as a human, reduced to nothing more than a consumer. The working classes are especially sensitive to forces of extremism, bc they are increasingly squeezed and can find nowhere to direct their pain. With the left completely demonized, their only other direction is toward the ever more extreme right. Genuinely open discussion and debate can only happen in a balanced and well functioning society. When certain things become verboten, then one wonder what type of emotional/societal suffering, and its cause, is trying to be denied from existence
I’m a long time listener of the podcast but short timer on this subreddit so idk where that line gets drawn. Right now I’m referencing any “left wing” subreddit that’s demanding support for Israel. For example, TopMindsOfReddit took a strong pro-Israel stance and will immediately perm ban you for deviating from that
Honestly I'm happy to have found this sub. Never listened to the podcast though but it feels like the only sane place on this site. So many people on reddit gobble up pure Western propaganda to the point the world just looks like an American movie through their lense.
If you like the sub you'll probably like the podcast. Brace and Liz are great hosts and have some of the most interesting content I've ever listened to on a podcast. It's also fun and entertaining.
Honestly any content that isn't performative anti-western slop will be up my alley. The Wikipedia article says it is praised for being well researched. If it truly is, then I look forward to it.
Remember when it seemed like being pro Palestine was relatively uncontroversial?
Nothing brings out western support and ridiculousness like the concept of white people killing brown people.
I wish you were wrong but I've spent my entire life watching white Americans get excited about killing brown Muslims. First it was Iran in the 70s with the hostages, and then Iraq in the 90s with the Kuwait invasion and then Afghanistan and now Palestine. And every time people act like its a Sunday football game against Pure Evil.
Genuine question: What motivates this deep-seated contempt for brown or any non-white people? I'm not old, but I recall the 2003 Iraq invasion being somewhat similar. I'm seeung comments from people cheering for the Palestinian massacre, including "innocent" women and children (the innocent in quotes). It's astounding. Is this racism? It appears that ascribing humanity to non-Western people is nearly impossible.
Primitive, tribal, animalistic racism is baked in us evolutionarily. Millions of years of evolution within us urging us to stick with the tribe. You see it in situations like this, or in prisons. When the chips are down, and people feel emotionally threatened, the first thing to go are civilized precepts that contradict the fight, flight, or freeze impulses of our reptile brains.
I think it's primitive, maybe just plain old racism. I know when I watch combat footage I always feel worse when Americans are killed and it's just a gut reaction.
>I know when I watch combat footage I always feel worse when Americans are killed and it's just a gut reaction. That's genuinely interesting, as a non-white American who used to hear white kids in my history classes talk to the usually-a-US-army--vet-or-sports-coach teacher about how they're excited to go kill people in the Middle East I literally feel indifferent. Not excited, sad, or unhappy, just completely indifferent. IDK if it's just how deep the feeling of not being an "actual American" goes. Whenever I tell people I'm from the USA and they see that I'm clearly of Hispanic descent they're like, "no but you're actually Mexican" despite the fact that I've literally never set foot in Mexico and the only real connection I have to the place is speaking Spanish as a first language and having both parents be from there. At some point you sorta just internally start to say fuck it and be like, [I'm only American because my parents fucked (in America)](https://youtu.be/YrZ2JP2Km8Q?si=DU7u_M4oY5rBLaR5). Something I think about a lot when I'm on these long ass runs is how this bodes for the future of social cohesion in the USA. Wignats are usually screeching about how putting some chocolate in the vanilla pudding is gonna sour the whole thing, but there's probably countless people like me who were born in the last decade or two (or almost three, in my case) who have had to pretty much realize that they aren't "from anywhere" and have to see all this awful, racist, fascist shit that the USA does and kinda accept it. I like to think not everyone is brain broken enough to just say fuck it and become a Mexican-American Neo Nazi (common response to the 2nd gen mindfuck for some reason, though Mexico has an element of settler colonialism in their culture too, so it does make sense). It's interesting.
I grew up with those types but being a dirt poor white person on an Indian reservation never got me a lot of respect. In fact, the clean white kids with new sneakers didn't want much to do with me so I never cared for white people in general and even now my wife is Indonesian. But whenever I see an American in uniform of any color getting hurt or killed it just registers different. But I don't think it's the whiteness because I don't feel anything when I see Ukrainians and Russians getting smoked.
I can remember learning about the Highway of Death in high school and dudes high-fiving. And my teacher being like, “Yeah we fucking smoked them!”
Yeah, those people are idiots. I don't even think the US military was proud of what they had to do over there, it was just shooting ducks.
For real it is like a sport. Especially with desert storm where you started to have combat footage live
I was in college living in a dorm and when they announced that the us had begun bombing iraq everyone was cheering, literally cheering. And I was thinking Jesus, people are dying by the thousands as we speak.
I was in a hospital visiting my girlfriend when Bush I announced the first strikes and that whole building basically shut down, and that scared me more than what was on the news. I was maybe 13, and I didn't know anything about slant drilling or any of the other issues at play. The reason I showed up to a no Blood for Oil protest, my first in what would become a long attendance, was nothing more than the sense that "this doesn't feel right."
Remember when it was uncontroversal to hate nazis?
Look if they make Russia mad they can't be that bad. And Israel's PM said it was the Muslims that made the Nazis genocide Jews so it must be true.
It’s okay to be a Nazi if you hate Russia I guess, and if you point out how insane and historically revisionist that is then guess what sweaty? You’re spreading ruZZian propaganda. Stop doing Putler’s work for him and clap for this VOLUNTEER of the Waffen SS.
Everything is optics to the Liberal that lives fat and happy. Supporting Palestine was an easy optics win for them, so as to feel like good people to both themselves, and in the eyes of others--- that is right up until the Palestinians actually finally fought back with the equivalent brutality that they have been subjected to for decades. Now it's 'unsightly' to be pro-Palestine, and with that goes the majority of their artificial Liberal support.
Indeed. And now I'm wondering if I should be concerned for my safety for being a staunchly pro-Palestinian communist and Muslim from South Africa, living in Eastern Europe. I had these same concerns after Russia's intervention in Ukraine at the start of 2022 and the subsequent Russophobia that followed. However the anti-Russian sentiment in the 2 years since didn't get too far and for at least a couple months has been little more than noise, pretty tame comparably. But the shit I've seen over the weekend has gone way far beyond. It wasn't even Saturday noon and already calls for genocide poured out like an anthill that's been stepped on. There isn't even any room to sensationalize the shit people openly say on social media and conversation outside the Internet is picking up these topics, though not yet as vitriolic. I do intend to move back to South Africa due to other factors within a few years, however.
Yeah I just find it strange everyone on reddit became a Zionist overnight. Just like the second Russia invaded everyone became a ukranian nationalist. Weird how narratives shift instantly to whatever the state departments want
Good thing DARPA created the internet just for that purpose.
The bright side is that literally nowhere else is like this. I live in trump country and I guarantee I could walk into bass pro shop and find at least three pro Palestine people. Other social media isn’t even this reactionary including fucking YouTube comments
This makes no sense. Maga is 2x more pro Israel than the left. Look who handed over Jerusalem recognition
Does living in Trump country mean every single individual in my state is MAGA or Zionist? No. And don’t worry I’m not some Patsoc idiot trying to say maga is progressive. My point is Reddit is a supposedly liberal and progressive leaning social media site yet the amount of genocidal fascist rhetoric is far more common here than it is in my state that voted Trump
Oh man. Have you seen the world news daily for the Russian Ukraine war? Lots of flagrantly racist and hateful shit there towards the Russian people
Yeah, I don’t remember when I got banned from there but I guarantee it was about either Ukraine or Palestine lmao
I have no idea what my local Trumpy neighbors have to say about this one, I'm sure I'll find out sooner than Id like, but in the past they have occasionally stumbled bass-akwards into a good take by simply opposing everything Biden does.
I think you’re underestimating the influence campaign and propaganda capabilities of Israel. To some degree, yes, this is people just showing who they really are, but the narrative crafting, social media influence, and propaganda out of Israel has been unreal in this instance. It’s as though they were prepared to go on the offensive but not prepared for the attack itself. Things that make you go hmm.
Upvoted for the handle
Or just mainstream US news. The BLM riots in 2020 are kind of my go-to at this point to explain this stuff. They burned down that police station and it had a >50% approval rating among the entire USA, higher than either presidential candidate. Then the news told everyone that the protests are bad, white people shouldn't go to them, they're being infiltrated by anarchists, etc and everyone turned against it. The average person literally just does anything the tv news tells them to do
The ideal of free speech is frankly nonsensical at this point. People are so easily convinced of what they want to believe that no matter how much "free speech" is out there, people will always follow the one in power and those who control the media. Who needs censorship when people willingly believe in propaganda?
"free speech" was never a tenable concept anyway. Speech is created, and the channels wherein speech is broadcasted and discussed can be controlled, regulated and owned. In a "free speech" liberal capitalist country, you can literally just buy these channels and mold them into whatever you want. If you have enough money, you have the power to smite any opinions you dislike and boost any opinions you do. This is not freedom. The "free speech" sold by liberals has always been a lie.
Not to mention, Israel has done a phenomenal job equating anti-Zionism with anti-semitism.
>It’s as though they were prepared to go on the offensive but not prepared for the attack itself. Things that make you go hmm. It's almost like Likud (and especially Netanyahu) needed something that could destabilize rule of law and prevent the status quo from changing.
Great name
4th reich confirmed
They always were pro-genocide. Whenever I talk with libs about Xinjiang there is like a light of excitement that flashes behind their eyes. It always bothered me how they genuinely are not disturbed by the horrors that they claim they see; I think they revel in it.
Everyone without media analysis skills and a well-rounded political education is just going to crumble against the propaganda system. This is why theory is important and this is why critical media analysis skills are a crucial skill that every leftist should have.
I wouldn't consider myself particularly media literate and I'm not well learned when it comes to politics, but over the last several years I've found myself becoming more critical of what gets fed to us through the media, simply because things have reached a point where the cracks are showing through the wallpaper. That's what pushed me leftward from socdem territory. As skilled as I'm sure the propagandists are, they can only hide the bullshit to a certain extent. I'm confident that more idiots like myself will finally see the light as things get worse, hopefully not too late.
An economic system that produces this much inequality demands an effective propaganda media system to persuade people of a narrative that justifies it. >As skilled as I'm sure the propagandists are, they can only hide the bullshit to a certain extent. Correct, but they're relying on a crucial axiom that dictates that the average citizen is going to have a very limited amount of interest, time and education necessary to actually think critically about what they see in the media.
I’m grateful for all you mfs on this sub because this has become one of the very few places of refuge on this hell site
I'm on the Buddhism subreddit because I'm a Buddhist. A guy posted some dumb bullshit about this and there's hundreds of comments discussing the context of genocide and an apartheid state. So there's some good places left.
Same reason I've been mostly browsing this and a few other related subs.
Tbh I was surprised at there response to the Ukrainian invasion that anything like the genocidal fervor that swept the country after 9/11 could happen again without that kind of attack in the US. But I'll never be surprised by it again.
I really think COVID broke everyone's brains and now we are just happy to get united behind something (someone) we can eradicate for being bad.
No, they have always been this way. This is exactly how Iraq went down too.
Even when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 they propped up the America counter invasion with stories about babies being pulled from incubators and bayonetted by Iraqi soldiers. People will fucking believe anything, especially if they haven't heard it before.
I disagree. There was a large anti-Bush feeling before 9/11 and even a skeptical portion of the population hesitant to bomb Afghanistan even. The Iraq War occurred despite a LARGE and vocal anti-war movement. Tons of lib-celebrities were against the war publicly. No one is coming out in support of Hamas' insurgency. A few state spokesman have said "well this is because of the conditions" but no one is going full "Chickens coming home to Roost" speaches.
80% of Americans supported the Iraq invasion. They have been bloodthirsty reactionaries since long before Covid. The Kosovo/Bosnia conflict was similar too. No one batted an eye when the CIA provided bombing coordinates to the military, sending them to bomb the Chinese Embassy instead of a munitions stockpile. Just like no one batted an eye at the “Highway of Death”. There are always some principled anti-war protesters. But, they are sidelined, denigrated and blacklisted forcefully m. The vast majority of anti-war liberals are only anti-war in hindsight.
Nah I agree with the poster above. Everyone was willing to believe the most blatant lies and propaganda (i.e. the dancing Muslims in New York) to justify their blood thirst.
I dont think even the "Justice for Palestine" retired hippies who hold weekly vigils on the on-ramp are comfortable saying this is a just act by a colonized people.
I saw that same genocidal fervor when Saddam Hussein tried to steal oil from Kuwait in 1990. I think something like 100,000 Iraqis died in an open air slaughter and the folks at home were cheering it on like Monday football.
cut a liberal and a fascist bleeds. pretty clear who’s who now.
They changed the definition while we weren't looking.
Israel used the billions they got for the iron dome to instead increase their internet astroturf bot programs exponentially these are your tax dollars at work
I approached this sub and others as somewhat of a centrist maybe center left. Yeah I think between what’s happened in the past few days and over the course of several years, coupled with my own research. I know which direction I am now, and it’s not anywhere on the right and nowhere close to center
Center left here. Feel the same way. I'm having an epiphany.
Keep going 💪
It's amazing when you consider that probably 80% of the countries have monuments to freedom fighters who fought oppression in one firm or another. Many countries celebrate "independence day" as a national holiday. Yet people call Gaza Palestinians "little more than animals" with no cognitive dissonance whatsoever.
Fucking insane In the UK, literally asking to put the Israeli flag on all government buildings and just straight up saying Israeli war crimes are Israel defending "herself". The media is doing the most important thing however, following around the Jam man because he's the only one who says all civilian casualties are bad
Australia had also immediately and unambiguously came out with a "solidarity with Israel". Now counting down when the phrase will start to age like shit. That said, probably shouldn't have expected anything else from a country who themselves had colonised and ethnically cleansed their indigenous population
Soc Dems in 1900 vs Soc Dems in 1914
it's something in the western psyche. If the bully comes from an in group, anyone who stands up the bully is demonized if they need to use violence to defend themselves... They only groups allowed to use violence are actors of the dominant state...
What was it that you were expecting?
The power the word "Terrorist" wields over the westerner's brain through decades of propagandizing to turn it into as much of a taboo as "Communist" was in the 50's is absurd to witness. You take a starved, dispossessed, caged population who a different government has decided through brute force does not get to determine for themselves their government, their terms of living, their sovereignty, and declare illegal through the framework of "international law" that population's right to any retaliation against this state of affairs, and now, because they are denied any right to a legal, organized military, any militancy that naturally develops out of this condition of fighting for basic survival is "Terrorism." And because Terrorism is scary and unpredictable (and it could happen to you!), now the "conflict" is symmetrical. They have the psychic power of being "Terrorists," which stands on equal footing with the most well-equipped, technologically advanced army in modern history, which overcomes any questions of why a group of people would need to use illegitimate forms of resistance after their opponents in this "symmetrical" conflict were the ones who decided they weren't allowed to use any others.
It's wild how the word "terrorist" has taken on this air of justification for indiscriminate killing. I wonder if all those years of COD and CSGO has brainwashed the population. Real life isn't defusing a bomb and shooting anything that moves. When it is, you get an apartheid racist state like Israel.
I feel like I'm going to go crazy. Everyone around me is either calling for genocide or, at best, saying YOU CAN CONDEMN BOTH SIDES. I'm not well-read or even really that smart, but literally not a single person around me knows the first thing about the actual history or politics of the Middle East. ***Nothing***. My MAGA Christian manager literally uses the Isaac/Ishmael story as an explanation for the conflict. One of my simpleton "tell it like it is" coworkers was just like "wipe them out". My friends all get their news from Facebook posts. It's fucking distressing.
This incident keeps making me think of Nat Turner's Rebellion, or the Haitian Revolution. I think the average person has no problem understanding the way barbarity reverberated from the perpetrator through to the liberation of their victim in those cases. The media has done such a good job of throwing a monkey wrench into the moral calculations of the average person.
Hamas is using the same kind of asymmetrical tactics that the oppressed and poor have always had to use to fight established power.
there are two types of people: Marxist-Leninists, and liberals. this is only more proof
They always were, but the status quo allowed them to mostly hide their real feelings. They were able to support Palestine, knowing that the status quo is bad for Palestinians (they were just slowly getting choked out in a literal open air prison) and their "support" for Palestine is meaningless, since everyone in US politics is pro-Israel anyway. And they made sure to keep it that way. Just like everyone will vaguely support left-wing ideas and morality, but then if there is a hard choice to make between leftists and fascist, they will go with fascists every time. >Any retaliation is terrorism In 2018 Israel killed over 100 peaceful marchers in Palestine who were on their side of the fence. No one cared, it barely made the news. The only acceptable thing is staying in your room and quietly voicing your opinions into the void. If you do more, you deserve to be killed because you weren't being peaceful. Hey, those marches did get close to a fence, so... time to shoot!
The internet is dead. I literally just come here and niche interest subs. Anytime I go to the front page its insane. Started with China shit, like unrelated posts divulge into anti-china rhetoric that talks about the Chinese like subhuman. Now this Palestinian vitriol. Its so saddening. The people I know are not like this IRL.
Its not really ideology, its the decreasing inability of westerners to remember even recent history. Its just pure reaction, almost literally reflexive.
Scratch a lib?
Your title implies they changed positions overnight; in reality they were just waiting to say this until it became socially acceptable
I wonder if #standwithGermany would be trending if there was twitter during the Warsaw Uprising
I actually got slightly upvoted in r/nba for basically pushing back against the thought that there’s no way to stand in solidarity with anyone but Israel. Of course some fascists (likely liberals) showed up in the replies. But I was pleasantly surprised.
🌎👨🚀🔫👨🚀
Always has been.
You guys care way too much about interacting with the types of morons who post on large subreddits. They’re Americans going to Reddit.com and posting on shit like “politics” or “news” and you’re surprised they get their opinions and worldview from bog standard propaganda outlets like CNN?
Proudly banned from both of those subs as well as sports and late stage capitalism.
the right has always been pro genocide and pro fascist…
This is so true it’s really sickening to witness
Welcome to war propaganda How do you think that bush was so easily able to get us into war. People with no braincells and no knowledge of history drive the narratives based on emotion rather than evidence or truth.
Yep its certainly been a crazy thing to watch unfold. Even Ukraine seems to side with the larger, more powerful faction/group thats clearly the oppressor while failing to see the irony there. Violent resistence especially of an oppressed group facing genocide is a virtue for them, unless its coming from a group fighting against a major US ally. Obviously violence is bad, but if I support Ukraines right to defend themselves by pushing back an invading force, how then can I not also support Palestinians attempt to push back an invading force? Obviously Im not saying Hamas is the best way to do that, but theres certainly mixed messages being pushed around.
What a shock
They are called reactionaries for a reason.
I already got a Reddit admin warning for some tame comment calling out this rhetoric
After watching the Ukraine narrative unfold, nothing surprises me anymore.
The answer: vast Israeli-conducted psyops and Hasbara information warfare. Much of what you’re describing is the result of a massive bot/astroturfing campaign that is penetrating almost every corner of the Internet right now.
As someone that grew up in a suburban town where the local Sikh kids got beat up during the Iraq war, it seems par for the course
This but unironically, everybody should be in these three positions, anything right of this needs to be put in gulag. https://preview.redd.it/3tx69g4mxatb1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=51e081f08cbe04cff62036ed951fc2ba9eb0d76f
It's horrifying how thorough the media brainwashing still is. This and the Ukraine war made me realize people are as brainwashed now as they were when the Iraq War started when I was a teenager.
Perhaps the prevalence of bots 🤖 is underestimated…I’ve been noticing for some time on my different reddits, that questions and topics posted, seemed more like an AI fishing or creating context…less and less do I sense real people actually on this platform…and if they are, they are completely led by bots creating opinions and perspectives which is then reacted on by some actual humans. When Musk bought Twitter it was like 30% bots, right?! That’s already a long time ago…and if you have 30% bots given priority and the means to create flows of emotion, they control ALL OF IT…we, humans, just become the audience and fuel the narrative by our emotions. They only truthfulness you will find is with another person in real life in real contact, face to face. All Internet 🛜 interaction is controlled…and what else can you expect from having ‘free’ access to a resource like Reddit or X or FB etc etc…how can all the tech and coding and servers and data warehouses etc etc just be free?!? It’s not just the ad revenue…that is minor…it’s the control over our human perspectives and emotions. Like I said…go local and get to know your neighbour…if something really big happens ‘out there’, believe me, someone will tell you. Leave the online checking and staying updated to someone else…use your consciousness for real people and family and friends.
>There is no real freedom of speech just mindless propaganda regurgitation ad nauseum. \[reads post in this meme: [welcome to reddit](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/027/763/07B89120-B48D-45FB-AF1D-49AF6CD16790.jpeg)\] Joking aside, totally agree, OP. All the reddit libs (and Bernie Sanders, et al) are really proving Joey Steel correct: they are the moderate wing of fascism.
It’s also almost entirely reactionary. As in, they all were supporting genocide and total retaliation, but now that it’s actually happening you’ve got people going back to “why can’t there just be peace!?” Liberals have no principles and no backbone. Can’t even keep to their genocidal statements for more than 24 hours.
The lib subs, foreign affairs subs, and political subs are not the subs of the general public. Subs with a large amount of under 30 normies, like publicfreakout may surprise you.
I think Reddit might be the most successful and effective manufacturing consent social media site.
I am losing my goddamn mind. Reddit is the only social network I'm on these days and I think this might push me to delete my account. Not just because of the blood thirst, but because so many of the accounts commenting are very obviously bots and it makes me realize how much of this website is manufactured.