The issue at hand is that the term "war" implies a level of symmetry that simply is not present, and that is why these outlets are using it. It softens Israel's role by minimizing the reality that Gaza is an open-air prison and completely cut off from any means to a protect or defend itself, let alone wage an effective resistance or in any way justify the force being used.
In a conflict where the casualties and oppression are so heavily weighted on one side, the term "war" completely warps this reality. It implies that both sides have equivalent responsibility for the war starting, equivalent pressure and means to end the war, and thus the outside world can only wait for the conflict to reach natural conclusion. The reality here is that this "natural conclusion" is the complete annihilation of Gaza and the subjugation of any person living there who isn't outright murdered, and that the outside world could easily prevent that conclusion if it was not so heavily invested in actively helping the aggressor.
All the pressure here is on people who have nowhere else to go and will be annihilated if the outside world fails to pull back the aggressor. That is not war, just as a trained dog mauling a caged man with his limbs bound behind him is not self defense just because that man theoretically should have the same rights as the dog's trainers. The intentions and consequences at play are not at all even in the way that term implies.
No, it's actually pretty lukewarm to anyone who has been able to engage with critiques of liberalism without jumping into defense mode these past few years.
Have you done any kind of investigation to confirm this? Cause as somebody that is organizing in the real world I can say that you are making some really big assumptions that seem to be based in a very specific population, if they are based in reality at all, which does not begin to account for the 2/3rds of folks in this country that, for whatever reason, whether or not you agree with their values or recognize the validity of their tactics or whatever, did not cast their vote for Trump.
None of what you're saying has proved to be true in my experience. Not everyone is as online as you are. You cannot allow internet narratives to make you so apathetic that you defeat yourself before you've even started.
America isn't special or exceptional. What we are doing has been done before. What Trump is doing has been done before. History has given us a roadmap for how to move forward. Yes it has to be fluid, yes it's going to look different in each and every locale, yes some groups and tactics are going to struggle more than others to find their footing, but the movement is making steady progress and gets stronger with each person that struggles alongside us. Minneapolis has just accomplished the largest general strike in 80 years, in subzero temperatures, literally as you're sitting around in the comfort of your desk chair talking about how what they're doing is impossible and too online to happen in the real world.
I'm so sick of this keyboard defeatism. It's like watching a football fan talk like they know more about how the game should/can be played than the coach and players on the field. If you aren't on the ground struggling with us, if you aren't plugged into any of the orgs making this progress possible, please kindly do not speculate as if you know your head from your ass when it comes to the state of US organizing.
When 3.5 percent of a population goes beyond protest to engage in peaceful civil disobedience and noncooperation, these actions disrupt the system and force governmental change.
I don't think no kings has done anything of the sort. They get a lot of bodies in the same place but to my knowledge they don't push for anything beyond that.
Community. Walkable neigborhoods. Culture. Access to high quality (prepared) food. Treatment of chronic illnesses. Free time to do things that make one feel happy and fulfilled.
Drugs only make it easier to cope with a world that makes these inaccessible to the average person. They individualize and pathologize a burden that would otherwise have to be addressed systemically by the ruling class that hopes to have a functional and passive working class.
edit: ... I realized something, looked it up, and wouldn't you know it; here in the US, good old Reagan closed down the psychiatric hospitals less than a decade before Prozac hit the market (antidepressants existed before that; since the 1950s; but were mainly only marketed to doctors who would prescribe them to women with ""housewife syndrome"" for the purposes of domestic labor). That's not to say that psychiatric hospitals are any less of a band-aid solution, I just think it's rather telling that they were closed at a time that folks with clinical depression (and probably other illnesses) could simply be given a pill and put back to work.
Why would I "back up" something that is not in dispute? You are more than capable of doing independent verification if you feel doubtful of any of my claims.
In fact I would suggest you verify even information you largely agree with, or at least have a reasonable level of confidence that it won't be totally invalidated by a simple internet search when you repeat it. That's the standard I and a good number of us here hold ourselves to, which is why folks that don't do that tend to have quite an adversarial experience when they find themselves in your place.
You realize you can type "china homeownership rate" into any search engine and find a wealth of information? Even from outlets that are generally deeply biased against China. It's a pretty strong consensus.
Waiting for information to come to you is only going to expose you to narratives that someone has a vested interest in putting in front of you. Someone that's trained and paid to pander to you is going to do it a lot better than a regular well-meaning person that belongs to your class and shares your material interests.
Why? Do you have evidence that suggests otherwise? Is there a particular reason you're so adamant that China's system must be worse than the commodified system we have in the west?
Knowing nothing about this outlet this seems more like wish casting than satire tbh. It's just not absurd enough to be joking, other than the idea that top ICE officials would be worried about consequences.
Their comment was removed but if they're referring to the tiny boxes I think they are (known as coffin homes), that's actually in Hong Kong which is notably still very capitalist.
lmfao a western-backed "freedom index" is not a substitution for media literacy, nor does it excuse you from providing literally any material evidence to support your argument.
Also, do you want to explain why Israel is ranked at 112; 50 places above Venezuela and Palestine; and why Saudi fuckin Arabia is right there between VZ and PA? Seems to me like this "freedom index" doesn't correlate very well with democracy or human rights, much less evidence-based journalism or state transparency.
The issue at hand is that the term "war" implies a level of symmetry that simply is not present, and that is why these outlets are using it. It softens Israel's role by minimizing the reality that Gaza is an open-air prison and completely cut off from any means to a protect or defend itself, let alone wage an effective resistance or in any way justify the force being used.
In a conflict where the casualties and oppression are so heavily weighted on one side, the term "war" completely warps this reality. It implies that both sides have equivalent responsibility for the war starting, equivalent pressure and means to end the war, and thus the outside world can only wait for the conflict to reach natural conclusion. The reality here is that this "natural conclusion" is the complete annihilation of Gaza and the subjugation of any person living there who isn't outright murdered, and that the outside world could easily prevent that conclusion if it was not so heavily invested in actively helping the aggressor.
All the pressure here is on people who have nowhere else to go and will be annihilated if the outside world fails to pull back the aggressor. That is not war, just as a trained dog mauling a caged man with his limbs bound behind him is not self defense just because that man theoretically should have the same rights as the dog's trainers. The intentions and consequences at play are not at all even in the way that term implies.
The crumbs they leave to the proletariat
No, it's actually pretty lukewarm to anyone who has been able to engage with critiques of liberalism without jumping into defense mode these past few years.
Have you done any kind of investigation to confirm this? Cause as somebody that is organizing in the real world I can say that you are making some really big assumptions that seem to be based in a very specific population, if they are based in reality at all, which does not begin to account for the 2/3rds of folks in this country that, for whatever reason, whether or not you agree with their values or recognize the validity of their tactics or whatever, did not cast their vote for Trump.
None of what you're saying has proved to be true in my experience. Not everyone is as online as you are. You cannot allow internet narratives to make you so apathetic that you defeat yourself before you've even started.
America isn't special or exceptional. What we are doing has been done before. What Trump is doing has been done before. History has given us a roadmap for how to move forward. Yes it has to be fluid, yes it's going to look different in each and every locale, yes some groups and tactics are going to struggle more than others to find their footing, but the movement is making steady progress and gets stronger with each person that struggles alongside us. Minneapolis has just accomplished the largest general strike in 80 years, in subzero temperatures, literally as you're sitting around in the comfort of your desk chair talking about how what they're doing is impossible and too online to happen in the real world.
I'm so sick of this keyboard defeatism. It's like watching a football fan talk like they know more about how the game should/can be played than the coach and players on the field. If you aren't on the ground struggling with us, if you aren't plugged into any of the orgs making this progress possible, please kindly do not speculate as if you know your head from your ass when it comes to the state of US organizing.
Not exactly.
I don't think no kings has done anything of the sort. They get a lot of bodies in the same place but to my knowledge they don't push for anything beyond that.
I have them tagged as "comrade" so it balances out
"Homicide by cop" is a new one
You also make it costly to the hotels as the non-ICE patrons find somewhere to sleep that isn't hosting ICE agents and having noise demos as a result.
To be a bit more constructive, these might be the words you were looking for?
Community. Walkable neigborhoods. Culture. Access to high quality (prepared) food. Treatment of chronic illnesses. Free time to do things that make one feel happy and fulfilled.
Drugs only make it easier to cope with a world that makes these inaccessible to the average person. They individualize and pathologize a burden that would otherwise have to be addressed systemically by the ruling class that hopes to have a functional and passive working class.
edit: ... I realized something, looked it up, and wouldn't you know it; here in the US, good old Reagan closed down the psychiatric hospitals less than a decade before Prozac hit the market (antidepressants existed before that; since the 1950s; but were mainly only marketed to doctors who would prescribe them to women with ""housewife syndrome"" for the purposes of domestic labor). That's not to say that psychiatric hospitals are any less of a band-aid solution, I just think it's rather telling that they were closed at a time that folks with clinical depression (and probably other illnesses) could simply be given a pill and put back to work.
Why would I "back up" something that is not in dispute? You are more than capable of doing independent verification if you feel doubtful of any of my claims.
In fact I would suggest you verify even information you largely agree with, or at least have a reasonable level of confidence that it won't be totally invalidated by a simple internet search when you repeat it. That's the standard I and a good number of us here hold ourselves to, which is why folks that don't do that tend to have quite an adversarial experience when they find themselves in your place.
You realize you can type "china homeownership rate" into any search engine and find a wealth of information? Even from outlets that are generally deeply biased against China. It's a pretty strong consensus.
Waiting for information to come to you is only going to expose you to narratives that someone has a vested interest in putting in front of you. Someone that's trained and paid to pander to you is going to do it a lot better than a regular well-meaning person that belongs to your class and shares your material interests.
Why? Do you have evidence that suggests otherwise? Is there a particular reason you're so adamant that China's system must be worse than the commodified system we have in the west?
Knowing nothing about this outlet this seems more like wish casting than satire tbh. It's just not absurd enough to be joking, other than the idea that top ICE officials would be worried about consequences.
ICE aren't police
Their comment was removed but if they're referring to the tiny boxes I think they are (known as coffin homes), that's actually in Hong Kong which is notably still very capitalist.
Uh if the 90% overall homeownership rate isn't "backing it up" I want to know how you define "better"
lmfao a western-backed "freedom index" is not a substitution for media literacy, nor does it excuse you from providing literally any material evidence to support your argument.
Also, do you want to explain why Israel is ranked at 112; 50 places above Venezuela and Palestine; and why Saudi fuckin Arabia is right there between VZ and PA? Seems to me like this "freedom index" doesn't correlate very well with democracy or human rights, much less evidence-based journalism or state transparency.
Thanks for letting me know <3
I had a stroke reading this