I like this part, well worded:

“What is being banned are expressions of solidarity and support for Palestinians as they are trying to resist ethnic cleansing and genocide,” Mayssoun Sukarieh, a senior lecturer with the Department of International Development at King’s College London, told The Intercept. “Symbols are always created by resistance, and there will be resistance as long as there is colonialism and occupation.”

I replayed it too many times and now I'm thinking about how they're all a bunch of awkward people who poop the same as everyone else, wearing suits and backed up by armed forces to give them titles. Some of them are also terrible people like israel's head international criminal, there is that too, which I guess just goes back to how banal evil can be.

From the standpoint of being a settler and the like, I'd think it's only an issue if you are coming into some other country and expecting their culture to change for you, rather than expecting to adapt to what their culture is, especially if the expected change revolves around western imperialist norms.

To the point of abandoning those who can't, I think there is no single "correct" answer and you kind of have to judge based on your situation. For example, some things for a person with our kind of ideology to consider: Are you doing it for safety? For individual material convenience, with no intention of contributing to the revolutionary processes of the country you move to? In other words, do you intend to do what you can to contribute to community and to the struggle elsewhere, or is it more a tiredness and exhaustion with fighting and a desire to escape from it, similar in spirit to retreating into a fantasy world to avoid problems in RL life? The anti-imperialist struggle reaches across the whole world, so there's no real escaping it. But people can have various good reasons for wanting to move, whether it's going somewhere that actually accepts them or is safe for them or is something they can contribute to meaningfully that they can't figure out how to do where they are. The imperial core does need people who know what they're doing to fight back from within, to help protect regular folks caught up in it and especially the most marginalized groups, but it's also a worldwide struggle, so there will always be stuff you can do somewhere, if you look for it. And for some people, it might turn out they're more effective elsewhere than they are in the imperial core. Or they might be able to learn things from communists abroad that they can later bring back. Doesn't necessarily have to be seen as a commitment for life.

(Mind you, I'm not asking you to answer these questions here and I know at least one point you already addressed in OP, just posing them as stuff for people to think about.)

Fair enough. And you're good, I appreciate the discussion on it in fact, I'm just challenging the general mindset in play that I see. Mean nothing personal by it. Part of my train of thought here is, if liberals actually do have a legitimate point, they need to back it up with a how - not just vague waving at intent. Especially considering that stated intent stands for just about nothing with US politicians; their donors, along with the existing levers of imperialism, seem to be the defining factor there, rather than what they say.

If it actually is the worst case scenario Dems are scaring about then Americans need to learn to fight.

This is a great point and one I don't think gets enough attention in general. One way in which it comes up for me is: what exactly are dems planning to do if Kamala wins on paper, but Trump challenges the results and rabble rouses people against them? Are they actually willing to send cops and military, if necessary, to put him behind bars, knowing that could enrage his fanatical base further? Why haven't they put him behind bars long before now, for denying the results once before, or for any number of offenses?

We are supposed to believe a guy like that is simultaneously a huge threat to "democracy" and will be... stopped via voting. With what institutions, I don't know. They could have invented any number of reasons to throw the book at him years ago. They could have cracked down on the kind of people they claim are such a threat. Instead, they're sitting on their hands as if authority is derived only from a ballot box. They want us to believe "democracy is at stake," but are unwilling to act like it is and will even rush to condemn any attempt on the guy's life.

It makes no sense if Trump is a real, existential threat to the current system. On the other hand, it makes a kind of sense if the power brokers don't view him as one and only view him as a different flavor of it, who can be controlled like any other president.

The mental gymnastics some people will do to justify sociopathy. Money only means anything because of organized force that says it does. Markets have no power without that. These pontificating purveyors of psychopathy would have their positions punctured in an instant without police to back up their pricing.

I guess I'm not sure I understand how exactly he is the accelerationist candidate in the first place. On a vibes level, I get why people think that. But logistically, what can he do that is substantially different from what the dems are already doing. Rabble rousing up racists is about all I can think of off the top of my head, but he's already doing that while not being in office, isn't he? Anything on a legislative level, he'll have advocacy groups fighting him and presumably the dems will at least put in some effort to fight him on stuff, to sell the continued cycle that they need to get him out, rah rah rah, like they did the last time he was in office (unless I am wrong and they didn't even try to fight him for real the last time?).

I suppose he could have an administration that deregulates more stuff or something? But then people are going to blame him nonstop any time a piece of infrastructure fails or a "natural" disaster (hypercharged by climate change) happens.

Maybe I'm underestimating how much the prez can do alone, idk. Just seems like a lot of what gets talked about w/ regards to him "being worse" is based on the perception that he wants to be worse and not based on what he can logistically do while in office.

“But within the context of our broken electoral college system, we know that voting a third party is ultimately inadvertently supporting Trump,” she said.

It's such twisted reasoning to say that voting your conscience is actually a vote for someone terrible. I understand the reasoning they're aiming for, but twisting people's attempts to have morality against them is sick shit that has consequences. It's how you get people excusing depraved stuff under the guise of "strategy" and sleeping well at night about it. Tactics must have a clear moral core of direction behind them. Without that, there is no inherent value in them. Which brings me to...

Zeidan says she believes Trump will "exacerbate" the genocide, annex the occupied West Bank and punish pro-Palestinian protesters in the US.

Student protesters have already suffered under Biden. What resources is Trump going to use to "exacerbate" the genocide? To "annex" the West Bank? I'm sure it would really make his popularity go up for him to send US troops over there to get 🔻 . Biden is already funding israel freely without any real condemnation or constraint.

Do these people have claims grounded in analysis of real existing logistics for how any of this is supposed to occur or just vibes?

It's an interesting thought. But going for "simplest explanation" reasoning, I would say based on the fact alone that israel is known to aggressively, constantly lie, that would suggest they're more likely to be doing any lying/misleading statements here. If we consider israel as being something like Narcissistic Personality Disorder in state colony form, that kind of person never wants to admit weakness or fault, no matter what; a narcissist's actions differ from a more plainly cunning malignant psychopath in that protecting their image can be deemed more important than protecting themself materially. (Mind you, I'm not saying this situation is reducible to psychological archetypes - just drawing the comparison to try to help explain how pathological lying to the point of damaging their own goals could make a kind of sense to them as behavior, even if it seems irrational and reckless to us.)

I don't love my own analogy here (anything too "individual psychology" focused is a bit iffy to me), but trying to get at the mindset of superiority that seems to be a significant part of what israel is and how it acts.

Isn't it not even true, on top of how ridiculous it sounds coming from them? Like I got the impression from stuff I read in passing that Iran targeted military infrastructure (which makes far more sense tactically anyway, if you aren't genocidal monsters who want to kill as many civilians as possible).

It's great stuff. I cried the first time I watched it and I'm rarely the crying type (there's a visual version as well, but got predictably hit with age restriction).

I have no illusion that macklemore is a communist but man, he deserves credit especially considering his size to lend his platform to a message like this is quite amazing. This song really touched me.

I will say on this point, he is accurately using terms like colonizer and capitalism in this and the original Hind's Hall. Which already puts him ahead of western "leftists" who care about domestic issues, but are unwilling to speak against imperialism. I don't know where he's at exactly, in his politics, but he could be on track to be communist, even if he isn't now. And his emphasis on support for the children of Gaza is very much in the spirit of communism.

Is there someone who knows more about how this stuff is measured, in terms of danger? The CNN article links to Rockdale FB statement as a source and that statement talks of the supposed "average of" measured levels being below "action level" but it doesn't explain how that actually relates to what is safe for a person to inhale. And there's a person in the comments of that same post saying they still see a plume with a video of it. 🫠

This kind of "flipping it" exercise can be useful in general. One area where it comes up for me is with efforts to learn French. Some years back, when I was sort of starting to become more class conscious, but still ignorant on the level of imperialism and colonization, I was putting in some effort to learn French and had more motive to do so on the idea that they were some kind of example of the working class fighting back, historically. As I developed a more nuanced view of France, especially along with its history of colonialism, my motivation went down some.

But when I have a thought like that, sometimes I sort of stop myself and go like, "Hang on, so are you saying it's bad that you know how to speak English? And are familiar with the more general aspects of US culture?" "Oh well, I know the nuances of US culture, blah blah blah, it's different." "Okay, so French culture isn't nuanced? French people don't have differing views on all of this too?" "Well..."

It might be like a form of conditioned/socialized "fundamental attribution error", but on a nationwide scale:

a cognitive attribution bias in which observers underemphasize situational and environmental factors for the behavior of an actor while overemphasizing dispositional or personality factors. In other words, observers tend to overattribute the behaviors of others to their personality (e.g., he is late because he's selfish) and underattribute them to the situation or context (e.g., he is late because he got stuck in traffic).

And I think dialectics can help break us out of this thinking by putting emphasis on the conditions that contribute to people's behavior and contribute to the systems that develop.

I was watching it and I realized, it has the same energy as those "seed faith" rich televangelists in the US. Just making stuff up on the spot, while trying to make it sound like they're revealing something profound.

Tbh, while I think this is a funny meme that uses a good format, I'm not a fan of the generational rhetoric in either direction. I will focus on the US because that seems to be where a lot of the generational rhetoric is centered on: From what I can find on dates, Fred Hampton would be considered boomer age range, if he was still alive today. Assata Shakur, still living, is another. I'm sure one can find many more who fought for better and got imprisoned or murdered by the state, or are still actively free and fighting even if they don't have a lot of visibility.

The best way to counter generational rhetoric, in my view, is not to flip it back on the ones who say millennials/z/alpha/etc. are bad, but to counter the whole premise of saying that one generation is causing problems and another isn't. We know that's not true. It's a minority of people orchestrating most of the damage, across generations. That's not to say there isn't any damage being done by people beyond that range, but, for example, it's not some protesters showing up for Palestine or some dentist who barely reads the news who is bombing kids in Palestine, it's the US federal government and military apparatus in partnership with israel. Some people are more complicit than they should be, but the ones actually organizing the terror and pulling the trigger are not the majority.

And the Nazis learned from the US and Jim Crow laws. And the US no doubt learned from British colonialism. Change the entity name, the colonial monster is still the same.

Bad ideology when person whose aesthetic I don't like happily reads to kids. Good ideology when person whose aesthetic I do like waves to crowd. I am strongman, hear me roar, pound chest. Me like chest pound aesthetic, make brain feel good. Me tough guy, tougher than those weirdos who use bright colors in things. Me only like sepia tone or grayscale, must look aged and old like socrates. New things bad, old good, but only if old comes from right color scheme and quote vibes. This how product work, color and packing I like taste better, so must be same with ideology, right?

I don't know how I got here as satire, exactly, but I am tired...

Meanwhile how israel actually feels about Lebanon: https://x.com/BTnewsroom/status/1839771677519163565 (tweets by BreakThrough News, using quotes from top israel figures)

Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to destroy all of Lebanon since October.

Here are just a few examples:

"There is no difference between Hezbollah and Lebanon. Lebanon will be annihilated. It will cease to exist."

— Yoav Kisch, Israel's Minister of Education

"Beirut must burn. I'm not saying this because I am a war monger"

— Yoaz Hendel, Former minister, media person, Lt. Col. (Res.)

“For the deaths of little children, [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah should pay with his head,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich tweeted,” asserting that it was “time for action” and that “Lebanon as a whole has to pay the price.”

"Every person in Lebanon can take the map, the aerial photograph of Gaza, place it on an aerial photograph of Beirut, and ask themselves if this is what they want to happen there.”

— Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defense Minister

"The time has come for the price to be paid in military targets and Lebanese infrastructure, of which Hezbollah is a part."

— Benny Gantz, Retired MK Lt. General & Minister without portfolio

“Lebanon is a dysfunctional state incapable of enforcing UN resolution 1701 which forbids presence of Hezbollah in South Lebanon… So Israel has no option but to evacuate villages in South Lebanon and establish a buffer zone there.”

—Amichai Chikli, Israel Minister of Diaspora

Where have we heard this talking point before? Oh right, every single time israel mass murders civilians, they claim it was a military target and that the military target is terrorists. Before it was Hamas, Hamas, Hamas, now it's Hezbollah, Hezbollah, Hezbollah.

it eats at me when I have to see the results of the “unjust peace” (not that what’s going on in the world or even within the cores can be remotely described as “peace”) and live in it, particularly with the Sinophobic sword of Damocles hanging over my head (ethnic Chinese myself), or with literal industrial genocide going on and the west goosestepping towards WW3 and open fascism.

I can't pretend to understand the part about being ethnically Chinese in the imperial core, as I definitely qualify as "white" myself, but the part about "unjust peace" resonates with me in some way. I don't know if my mind is going to quite the same places, but there's something about the normalcy of things in the US that def eats at me. One expression of this where I notice it is, of all places, dating apps. I don't know what it is about it, but seeing profile after profile that has all this individualistic language about a personal lifestyle, while perhaps the most documented-in-real-time and widely publicized genocide in history is being funded and enabled by the US, is such a disorienting feeling. There's the odd profile here and there that mentions it, maybe some of it's my locale, but it's like overall, this juxtaposition of liberal individualism against the realities of what is happening in the world. Like the implied assumption is that the current system works and will keep working and everybody will sort of get to do their own thing if they try hard enough for it, and it's like, are many of these people putting on a face but don't believe the system is going to last, or are they sleepwalking through it in a political education sense of things.

And I'll be honest, I don't think I'm doing the best I could be doing in my own case, with regards to these things. I might be doing the best I can manage right now, but I can probably work to do better going forward. And I think that's part of the disorienting feeling for me too. Like having one feet in and one foot out. But I can never unsee everything I've seen and I can't ever feel normal going back what it felt like before I was more aware of what's going on in the world beyond the imperialist bubble of propaganda. And the fact that I can't means it's all the harder to relate to a lot of people. So I can put on a face and do the individualist lifestyle dance to a point, but sometimes it feels like putting on a brave face for a kid. I know that would probably sound demeaning to people and places it applies to, but it's the best analogy I can think of at the moment. It's like this thing of pretending things are normal when they aren't because it's too upsetting to others if you don't at least try to, to a degree. That doesn't mean I never bring up the issues I care about, but it's like, trying to find the right balance of being able to meet people where they are at in order to have any chance of moving the needle and taking a principled stand. That is hard, when the default position for so many in the US is confident spew that contains various levels of barely-contained vile; and I'm not even talking about people who are openly fascist or whatever. More just the stomach-turning nature of liberalism.