***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[IATT]

 

[Frankie Blue]

Sydney stabbing live updates: Westfield Bondi Junction attack leaves seven dead, including attacker shot by police, and multiple people in critical condition

Police in Australia say multiple victims hospitalised in critical condition, including a baby, and they do not believe there is a second attacker

www.theguardian.com

Mass stabbing in Sydney, Australia. Multiple dead.

RIP to the victims. Damn.

 

[IATT]

 

[chao7]

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[elpablo21]

The dismantle talk is all a waste of time. We're not dismantling ****.

Ppl keep saying they're down to burn the system down every year I just wanna know what that even means

 

[elpablo21]

Cree still Tuff

 

[aepps20]

Ppl keep saying they're down to burn the system down every year I just wanna know what that even means

Doing a TikTok dance is what they mean

 

[gry60]

The untold story of Arab Jews — and their solidarity with Palestinians

Jews from the Arab and Muslim world had a radical vision for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

www.vox.com

You might expect, based on their history, that Mizrahi Jews would be associated with the Israeli left today. Yet that’s not the case: Many Mizrahim are now right-wing. In fact, it’s impossible to understand Israel’s lurch to the right and the rise of the hawkish Likud party without understanding the trajectory of the Mizrahim. So, what happened?

For starters, the experience of being kicked out of Arab countries post-1948 naturally soured many Jews’ feelings toward the Arab world. Plus, from the moment they arrived in Israel, the experience of discrimination taught Mizrahim that gaining social status was contingent on rejecting Arabness.

And what better way to reject it than to become the most nationalist and the most anti-Arab of all?

As Smadar Lavie, a Mizrahi anthropologist and author of Wrapped in the Flag of Israel, put it to me, “If your only choice is to wag your racial purity — you need to prove that you’re a good Jew, which means you’re a nationalist Jew — then that’s what you’ll do.”

But there was another factor at play. For the first three decades of Israel’s existence, it was ruled by the Labor Party, which was rooted in both socialism and Ashkenazi Zionism. In practice, that meant building up leftist institutions like the kibbutz — a kind of utopian agricultural commune that stretches back to Zionism’s early days — even while pushing Palestinians off their land and discriminating against Mizrahim (who were more likely to be hired as cheap laborers on a kibbutz than to gain membership in it).


This was the version of “leftism” that Mizrahim encountered. For many, continuing to support the Labor Party when it represented the Ashkenazi Zionists who oppressed them was an extremely unappealing prospect.

Meanwhile, the Israeli right, which favored an even more hardline approach toward the Palestinians, strategically used the left’s discrimination against Mizrahim to its own advantage. From the 1950s to the 1970s, it invested in courting Mizrahim by promising them concrete benefits and upward mobility.

 

[rexanglorum]

This is peak libertarianism. A guy who uses authoritarian crackdowns on protestors and who bows down to dollar hegemony, meets a guy whose main business ventures are based on gov’t contracts and whose secondary venture is a money losing app where he personally co-signs every white supremacist conspiracy theory under the sun.

 

[dmbrhs]

Small Penis Alert!

 

[IATT]

 

[rexanglorum]

When people predict stuff like this, I often think you need a more global perspective.


Nigeria has

a similar presidential system,
-WAY worse income inequality
- LESS social cohesion and more racial conflict,
-WAY worse corruption,
- worse police violence.
- more political corruption.


and I don't see any signs of it ending.

if a band of vicious criminals can sustain Nigeria as a political project,
im not sure what would make America "unsustainable"

All good points. From a 30,000 foot view, the US, as a polity, is in the most advantageous position in the world.

There is a crucial difference between the US and Nigeria and most countries in the recently politically decolonized nations on Earth, the US is an empire. Empires in decline often times turn on themselves because they never had to develop a civil society that can adroitly manage latent social conflicts. Without the political and economic outlet of empire, social conflict is inevitable as those latent social social conflicts can explode into more pointed conflict.

Now we’d probably agree, if Nigeria can persist in the face of adversity, the US probably will for quite some time.

I doubt we’ll have anything looking like a civil war. I could imagine a small number of highly dedicated conservatives, creating a very low intensity conflict with the government of the US but it would look far more like the UK and Ireland’s Time of Troubles rather than a bonafide civil war.

What concerns me far more will be alliances of capital and right wing vigilantes who will use violence to suppress successful non violent actions on the part of the broader left in the US. Be it GOTV drives, mutual aid to unhoused people or migrants, assisting birthing people in getting abortions, political protests, or unionization efforts and strikes, I’m imagining capital covertly arming groups of right wing thugs who will attack us and try to discourage future action.

I want the left to have the muscle to fight them off. IMO that’s a far cry from relishing an apocalyptic grand confrontation as is indeed the case with many anti voting keyboard warriors out there.

So will the US collapse in the next few years, no way. Will American civil society become more civil, stable, and democratic in the coming years? Also, and sadly, no way.

 

[IATT]

 

[05fordgt]

Sununu has ZERO spine! What a sorry sack of ****!

 

[aepps20]

This is why I will continue to say that there is only one choice this election. Biden is it. The other side will close ranks around Trump and we have to do the same for Biden. They don’t care.

 

[shogun]

Was driving home earlier and this dodge had a back window sticker that said “pro-america, anti-biden”.

 

[Dhizzle]

As most already believe; We’re in a complete mess. And it won’t stop w just DJT. Will carry w beavis and butthead and his cronies. Just the beginning like the Kardashians were in ‘05

 

[gry60]

Dearborn's mayor and Arab American leaders condemn controversial chants at protest

A controversial protest held by Al Quds Committee Detroit was held April 5 outside the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn.

www.freep.com

 

[biggie62]

Dearborn's mayor and Arab American leaders condemn controversial chants at protest

A controversial protest held by Al Quds Committee Detroit was held April 5 outside the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn.

www.freep.com

I mean if you’re going to chat that then you should just revoke your citizenship and move somewhere else.

It’s one thing to be frustrated with the system but it’s a whole other to literally chant death to America. You’re no better than the maga cult at that point.

 

[gry60]

I mean if you’re going to chat that then you should just revoke your citizenship and move somewhere else.

It’s one thing to be frustrated with the system but it’s a whole other to literally chant death to America. You’re no better than the maga cult at that point.

The pro-palestinian folks who are physically out there marching must be very careful about the kind of events they attend and which actors in Gaza/the WB benefit from their support. They can choose to be naive about their bedfellows, but only they will be surprised when they get mistaken for islamist sympathizers. They're doing themselves a disservice by ignoring the complexities of this conflict.

 

[1995]

Goodness gracious the dedicated thread for the Israel/Palestine conflict is a mess

 

[Nike Jordan]

Goodness gracious the dedicated thread for the Israel/Palestine conflict is a mess

"Biden is useless."

"Also: Biden wants to start World War III."

 

[RustyShackleford]

I gave up on that thread early

Whenever I take a peak in there, and see some of the dudes actively posting, I don't even have to read the posts to know it is a **** show

 

[yobyellav]

Just shows they have zero principles.