We all know the hypocrisies of the pro- Israel stances, I’m not going into specific arguments but it’s just everywhere. Normal people seem to have bought in even quicker than they did with supporting Ukraine. it’s awful. Free Palestine.
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For those of you who were around for it - this is how it felt to be a leftist or even just a sane person during 9/11, right? Just watching everyone around you and in the media become consumed with psychotic bloodlust?
This is exactly how I’ve been describing this moment. I haven’t been so lost in the world since that time. It feels like you can’t even begin to dig through the hate and propaganda. Everyone around you is acting morally superior for wanting blood. People you thought were a little more level headed are just consumed.
It’s deeply upsetting to be watching this play out again. It feels like living inside a trainwreck and you don’t know how to help anything because it’s already happening with so much momentum.
It also leaves you feeling deeply vulnerable. Like any day the world could pick you as a target, and everyone around you would cheer on as the world devoured you.
I’ve thought so much on post 9/11, especially the run up to the Iraq War. I hoped I’d never feel this way again, but here we are.
Take care of yourselves. Dunno what else to say.
History never ends, eventually I believe and hope that people will look back at us in wonder of our stupidity, and the few of the few of us that get to be remembered in history will be finally recognised as beyond their time, just like we think of the Greek philosophers today.
Take care and keep a glimpse of hope, it’s all we’ve got
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I have seen more pro-Palestinian and anti-apartheid stuff than I thought I would. Obviously not from the usual shitheads like at the WSJ or NYT but just in online comments around spaces. Obviously the western news narrative is pro-apartheid so that part is very usual. The side commentary is not.
yeah it’s a tossup when it comes to liberals, and young people especially (i go to uni) seem to be mostly leaning pro-palestine. also, my older relatives/friends of relatives were both-sidesing it (seeing a lot of that), but i was actually able to convince them otherwise by explaining the situation more deeply
also i went to the instagrams of a few celebrities that made pro-israel posts and their last non-disabled comment sections were all spammed to the brim with free palestine stuff lmao
It was way worse than this. Like, many times worse. All the bloodlust but also blended with performative patriotism.
Yes BUT the friends I marched with then are now #standingwithisrael
Nah shit was waaaaaaaaaaaay fucking worse with Iraq and Afghanistan openly calling people removed and open islamophobia and racism against arabs was perfectly acceptable, even commonplace in average conversation with basically any american. It was all over tv, it was everywhere. Things are definitely different now… Instead they’re controlling people by tapping into performative morality and performative outrage as social signals people adhere to and all dance along like good little puppets.
pretty much
pretty much but at least back then there still seemed to be a thriving leftist anti-imperialist mindset among the people that sadly seems to have been lost since the crushing of the OWS protests.
lol no there was even less of a left then than now lol no contest
post-9/11 america was absolutely worse
how do you figure? it feels like everyone who gave a shit back then are now either chuds, dead, or were spooked
I’m still here babe, just a deeply mentally ill hermit in montana
Imagine now, except the farthest left content on the entire internet is The Young Turks and 93% of everyone around you supports Bush and you don’t even have a bunch of online weirdos to commiserate with
There was an online communist left back then but it was comprised entirely of very elderly Trotskyites running newsletters with 2 subscribers or very odd academics who ran IRC chat rooms with struggle sessions lasting for literal years
I remember as a youngster stumbling into one of their forums in like 2003 and getting banned in my first post because I asked if someone could summarize Bordiga
banned in my first post because I asked if someone could summarize Bordiga
Fair reaction.
Yes, i remember the freedom fries… the yellow ribbons… The Jeep commercial…
…and Im proud to be an American, where at least i know im free! And i wont forget the men who died to give that right to me!..
And the eagle will fly man, it’s gonna be hell When you hear mother freedom start ringin’ her bell And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you Brought to you courtesy of the red white and blue
The top song in the country was about how if you messed with America we’d bomb you so bad you’d think the sky was falling.
And that’s not including the line in the same song “well put a boot in your ass it’s the american way”
I wonder if the taliban appreciate how fully they did destroy at least the culture and soul of America on 9-11.
Then that dip shit spent the rest of his career trying to posture as a liberal
I mean that was absolutely the liberal foreign policy positions at the time so that makes sense.
Also look up the music video of his dumb ass riding around in a humvee wearing neos glasses from the matrix.
🤢🤮
9/11 had more popular Islamophobic support. It was almost universal and it frightened me to be surrounded by it. I had to keep very quiet because I knew no one that openly opposed the bloodlust, including the desire to invade countries that had nothing to do with it.
9/11 also turned the nascent “New Atheist” movement into just another reactionary front. The so-called “Horsemen” that were leading personalities (with maybe one exception) were all aboard the war train.
Yeah basically. And the most likely outcome IMO is Israel has it’s own war on terror jr. and it goes just as well for everyone involved.
Curious to hear others responses as well.
Maybe it’s because I was a kid back then but this feels similar only worse
i don’t know exactly when it was but i remember reading in probably an AP wire story that “curveball” wasn’t reliable and having some understanding that iraq didn’t have shit to do with 9/11.
the support for invasion of iraq,the paranoid racism, and the expansion of the police state all seem worse in hindsight because i was largely sheltered from all of it.
Yeah it probably was worse then but this still feels weirder in the sense that back then it was just the normal flag perverts humping the
Now we’ve got all this flag cuck kink shit where the flag perverts are waving the Israeli and Ukrainian flags and it’s kinda scary in a different way
It was overall worse. The fact that you could have pro-Palestinian protests right now without people getting killed means it’s already better. If you had an anti-Afghanistan invasion protest right at 2001 when the invasion happened, so literally 22 years ago from this date, your entire group of protestors would’ve 100% been lynched on the spot by an angry mob.
It was that bad.
Wait, it was that bad? Give me an example of such lynching?
There wasn’t any lynchings because they weren’t any antiwar protests in 2001-10 period. Anti-war protests only started to happen when the US invaded Iraq. Compared that with right now where you just had pro-Palestinian protests at NYC. The political climate is completely different.
There wasn’t any lynchings because they weren’t any antiwar protests in 2001-10 period. Anti-war protests only started to happen when the US invaded Iraq.
What you said breaks my brain … can you please correct and elaborate your points again because even if what you said was true, anti-war protests coud’ve started in the mid 2000s, according to your logic, after the invasion of Iraq, and the explain to me how the political climates before and now is completely different anyhow?
No, I mean October 2001, which was when Afghanistan was invaded. I didn’t mean 2001-2010. There weren’t antiwar protests in October 2001. Antiwar protests only started becoming a thing after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. So, it took around a year and a half after 9/11 before you were allowed to have antiwar protests.
Oh, sorry for confusing myself… the only closest feel to that which I feel of Afghanistan and later Iraq, is what I feel now with Russo-Ukrainian War and the revival of Palestine’s struggle
Yes this is the most bloodthirsty I’ve seen liberals for killing innocent Muslims since 9-11.
what’s shocking to me is how utterly bloodthirsty they are - basically advocating for the wholesale murder of all Gazan inhabitants. what the fuck? what happened?
was there some sort of manchurian candidate-style trigger phrase that turned all of these people into genocide lovers overnight?
they saw a pretty white girl get killed by the brown hordes, it shuts down all their higher brain functions and sets off the monkey signals that make them want to kill
Protecting white women from real or imagined violence by
the other is and always has been a key element of white supremacism and often of fascism generally.they saw a pretty white girl get killed by the brown hordes
Before 9/11, about 90% of Fox News’ airtime was “missing wealthy young white woman” stories.
They did it after 9/11 too! I remember my shithead roommate always had it on and there was nonstop Natalie Holloway coverage for years.
Especially after 9/11!
See Jessica Lynch and Bush’s “Ashley’s Story” campaign in 2004
she’s confirmed to be alive
Shani Louk or whatever? Inconsequential to me, I’m not apologizing for the terror but funny if Zionists get caught lyin’ (again)
This is such an effective propaganda trick, it strikes people right where they’re most vulnerable, in their hearts, by showing someone you could fall in love with killed in a war that naturally takes lives and commits attrocities in both sides. We all have simple monkey brains at the end of the day, and that can be very easily exploited by those with power.
Reminds me of when 9/11 happened and suddenly the hogs (and libs tbh) were all calling for saddams head and to “glass the place” like their trigger phrase went off.
bush had a 93% approval rating
Worth keeping in mind that;
1.) People who post online are already deeply weird freaks
2.) There are a lot of Zionists out there. Like not relative to the world population or anything, but Zionists have a very developed online propaganda system. Both individuals working alone or coordinating to push Zionist views, and official operations by the Israeli government and possibly allied governments. The use of sock-puppets has been documented in the past, and I’m sure they’re making extensive use of bots these days to magnify and amplify their apparent numbers. It’s a normal part of 21st century information warfare and you can see it at work by nationalists from most countries.
It’s because most Palestine residents are brown while more Israeli residents are white. Simple racism.
Literally just white supremacy. Good God we need a thousand GULAGs to deal with this shit.
The trigger was just that it’s white people killing brown people so it’s back to business as normal.
It sounds simplisitic but the support for ukraine was literally because somebody was doing what we always do, but to white people.
This is par for the course.
I haven’t been this angry in a long time. the US is just as responsible for this as Israel is. Gaza is being eviscerated, completely leveled with the full support of the US and its allies - a resounding thumbs up to genocide and whatever crimes against humanity Israel wants to commit. there’s not even a half-hearted “Israel needs to show restraint and only target military targets”. they’re leveling apartment buildings, hospitals, everything in sight and everyone’s cool with it. all Biden has to say is his full support for Israel, Bernie and Fetterman the same, AOC is calling rallies for Palestine anti-semitic.
I feel really disgusted and ashamed to live in this country.
AOC is calling rallies for Palestine anti-semitic.
I heard in a Zionist group chat that a rally in Sydney had people chanting “gas the Jews”.
That’s obviously not okay if true. Can anyone confirm if it happened?
I dunno what’s going on in Sydney, she was talking about the NYC rally which was just peaceful and normal as far as I saw
Ngl but I feel any large anti-zionist rally will likely see many Neo Nazi chuds gleefully come to fuck up shit
The dehumanization of Arabs generally and Palestinian’s specifically has been ongoing for decades. A lot of westerners are very much primed for this.
9/11 was a weird time to be hitting my teenage years
Ah yeah. When everyone wanted blood and didn’t care whose it was.
I live in a reform Jewish hotspot. There is unironic usage of the term “kill em all” being bandied about
Me and my sister are genuinely afraid to speak out about it because I seriously think I might get assaulted over it
Discretion is often the better part of valor. It’s not cowardice to avoid a fight you know you can’t win. If you can identify other sympathetic people, though, it might be worth building ties with them with a view to making more open resistance tenable in the future. Some people will be emboldened just knowing they’re not alone.
But that said, please do what you can to stay safe.
I’ve agitated to my close friends and about half of them are at least open to hearing my perspectives on it. Mainly the half that isn’t Jewish, to be honest. It’s always an uphill battle and I made to feel as if I am living in an entirely different world when I talk to my parents about this shit.
Someone in my class literally just approached me unprompted and said “Did you hear about the pro-Hamas protest on campus? Insane. I was at the counter-protest, were you there?” and I was just like
Like yeah, a liberal arts college in the states clearly has—I don’t fucking know—a Wahhabist wing. Known factor. They used to show up every time there was an ISIS bombing to dance on rooftop—you know absurd that sounds, right? Are you fucking kidding me? You can’t be legitimately falling for this in its entirety
Never believe that they don’t know the absurdity of their statements
pro-Hamas protest
Uh huh yeah I’m sure it was really a pro-Hamas protest and not a Palestinian liberation protest.
Fuck these people.
my partner who is in trade school right now was suprised to overhear a conversation where some guy was like “i used to support israel but…” and then had a bunch of good, pro-palestine takes. everyone there generally agreed with him. sure it’s anecdotal but really makes me wonder how much of this is pure astroturfing and manufactured consent. also today my co-worker also felt me out a bit and then had good takes of his own about the situation.
Israel puts a huge effort into astroturfing, like really massive, and most major social media in the US either has former CIA/State Dept. goons in management or just directly work with the feds. I think internet takes on this are probably massively manipulated.
I think there’s a lot of astroturf. I scrolled down on one of the
threads and saw a lot comments written like they’re replies. Either reddit’s broken, or a bot fucked up and posted threads to the top level, or people with strong feelings about Israel don’t know how to reply to comments on reddit.https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/174kae0/more_than_100_bodies_found_in_israeli_kibbutz/
Comments by tibbles1, LeftLeftRightRight, jiaxingseng, notaredditer13 and probably many others are written like replies and quote comments that I can’t find. Although there are a lot of deleted comments.
on the topic of Reddit:
“I know what it’s like to live under censorship,” [Ashooh] said. “My internal check, when I’m arguing for a restrictive policy on the site, is Do I sound like an Arab government? If so, maybe I should scale it back.” On the other hand, she said, “people hide behind the notion that there’s a bright line between ideology and action, but some ideologies are inherently more violent than others.”
- Jessica Ashooh, director of policy at Reddit.
Check out that list of credits. The Atlantic Council corroborates it: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/expert/jessica-ashooh/
People in trade school probably aren’t in the turbo-lib bubble so their brains are still less than 50% worm
I’m so deeply convinced that there’s no hope whatsoever for the west until they experience deep and total humiliation and decades of poverty. Only then can they even start to grow a soul.
deep and total humiliation and decades of poverty
the ones who deserve poverty will remain in comfort and luxury and the ones already in poverty will die
it’s nothing about individuals or “deserving” or anything moralistic. I mean that the west is fundamentally incapable of being progressive or class conscious or ending their imperialism until forced to and broken in mind and spirit. Like revolution is literally impossible until this pre-condition is met.
Remains to be seen how much material conditions have to deteriorate before anything happens, if ever. in and of itself sufficient humiliation + sufficient poverty ≠ revolution
america definitely deserves a century of humiliation but any revolutionary movement won’t be born here, best we can hope for is a weak/collapsed usa allowing something to develop in the global south
You’re right. Lenin listed three prequsities for revolution in State and Revolution. There needs to be widespread economic instability, widespread distrust in typical establishment authority, and an already organized leftist movement that has a coordinated vanguard party. Simply having humiliation and poverty without the third thing gives rise to warlords, fascists, cults, etc
The ruling class also has to have the inability to govern as they used to. The problem is that Israel is staying on the course with operating with more precision and repression to maintain their status quo.
sufficient humiliation + sufficient poverty ≠ revolution
Sufficient humiliation is necessary but not sufficient. Arrogant chauvinist leftoids sure as shit ain’t doing a revolution with the people of the world until they have their worldview turned upsidedown.
“A symptom of every real revolution” - “a rapid tenfold and even hundredfold increase in the number of representatives of the toiling and oppressed masses—who have hitherto been apathetic” - Lenin
In the meantime:
“the task of the party of the proletariat in the capitalist countries to educate the workers and build up strength through a long period of legal struggle, and thus prepare for the final overthrow of capitalism” - Mao
I used to think this was. Now I realize that it takes one generation to forget. See also: Baby Boomers. Their parents and grandparents saved the world, they ran it into the ground.
The Soviets saved the world, the Greatest Generation came in late and took credit for it.
Sure but we conveniently forgot that communists saved us once.
Wrong: they HOPE that it will remain that way. These are the sort of people who tank billion dollar companies because they have always had and can’t fathom not having everything.
They won’t grow a soul, but maybe their children will
Climate change will make sure westerners will suffer plenty don’t worry.
This is one of the major things that, paradoxically enough, give me hope.
Climate change can’t and won’t stop until we fix our fucked up societies first. Maybe that existential pressure forces us to. On the other hand, it could also lead to fascism and unseen before misery. I hope people wake up before it’s too late.
Only after all of Africa and much of Asia is uninhabitable.
“The Palestinians are willing to kill civilians, so that gives us a right to kill them all.”
Never will it be questioned whether this means the same thing about the Israelis. They fundamentally do not consider the Palestinian to be people. All the dead children in Gaza do not matter to them at all.
Also that was probably said by an American who’s government killed a million innocent civilians in the middle east during one of many colonial wars.
you see, when ukraine is full of nazis its OK because sometimes there are good nazis, but when you’re pro-palestine you are a nazi which is always bad, because there’s no such thing as a good nazi
I am very smart because I can hold these contradictions both in my brain and not have it melt into a puddle
Israel armed those Nazis in Ukraine too
yeah i dont know any poc personally supporting Israel and all the mayos ive explained things to, quickly give tentative support to Palestine. To be fair ive never had a productive conversation with a jewish person who wasnt already a communist, but maybe thats just not in my wheelhouse (i dont do well with people making purely emotional arguments, i just kinda shut down especially when people just start crying or spewing insults) , plus im trying to take a break from talking politics to white people but people keep reaching out to me to ask questions. its exhausting and feels pointless, but ive convinced/ further educated like 4 people this week.
To be fair ive never had a productive conversation with a jewish person who wasnt already a communist
I feel like I’ve met maybe one Jewish person IRL who wasn’t pro Palestinian liberation. Even the Israeli dude I worked with wanted to vote out Netanyahu and work towards two states, which is admittedly liberal but like, a massive improvement over the status quo.
Me too, I’ve only ever known one Jewish family that was plainly Zionist, all the others (families and individuals) were either not really discussing the issue or fervently pro-Palestine.
I’m a Jew who knows lots of Jews, we either don’t discuss Israel or are pro-Palestine. I’ve only met one Jew who is pro-Israel. She coincidentally has like an entire media/nonprofit career lined up for her basically. For some people at least all you need to do is sell your soul and the fame and money will flow.
thats very cool! i wish i had similar experiences. tbf i do live in a very conservative place. maybe its just not my conversation to have, or maybe im bad at it idk, its almost always devolved into crying or insults or just shutting down the conversation. edit: to be clear i just say things like " no, i dont think Israel should exist, it should be Palestine" and then people freak out! I really dont know how to water it down more. most Jewish people I know are communist/ anarchist though, very based group of people generally, just not at my school or work.
If you say “it should just be palestine,” normies have been taught to interprets that as “I support ethnic cleansing of Jews.”
ok, got it! ill keep working on my approach
It’s an uphill fight and a dangerous one, too.
I’ve rarely seen people around me this bloodthirsty before now, not since 9/11 anyway.
yeah ive been threatened for my beliefs in the past, but this is the first time i think someone may actually try to kill me for them if i say it to the wrong person. never gonna be silenced though, death is better than silence. stay safe.
You too.
Keep those bodycams charged
honestly i should have been had a dash cam.
I really should be adding a qualifier of “White Americans” more often when I make generalizations about “Americans” loving genocide, being ignorant about the world, holding their own uninformed opinions to be gospel truth, etc.
I’m very critical of Evangelical Christianity but even there White Evangelical Christianity and Black Evangelical Christianity are almost like two different religions in many ways.
most black people opposed the war in Iraq from the start!! and vietnam!!!
made me think of this
Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?
No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would put my prestige in jeopardy and could cause me to lose millions of dollars which should accrue to me as the champion.
But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is right here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality…
If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. But I either have to obey the laws of the land or the laws of Allah. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail. We’ve been in jail for four hundred years.
—Muhammad Ali
i love him so much. although i also like the fictionalized quote as well, very succinct. how do we not have a Muhammad Ali emote?
We need a word we can throw around that stands generally for white, cis-het, global north, middle class wealth, etc. attitudes. WASP is close.
Call em crackers
Another great option!
Though as a yt myself it might come off a little sus.
80% of Reddit is more or less a CIA controlled psyop now with mods going full mask off in support of fascism. Just got banned from r/news for telling off someone who was in support of Israel destroying Palestine because and I quote “whenever they’re sent as refugees anywhere they destroy the country they got to so deserve what they get”, anyway told them to enjoy shining their Hitler youth badge for their next rally.
-edit: oh and also someone just replied to my other comment on Israeli settler colonialism and it was legit just a complete
“well actually sweety how dare you think Israel is filled with white settlers, it’s a very diverse oppressive state conducting a genocide!”. Really wish I could ask them what the fuck happened to all the Ethiopian Jewish women that immigrated in and got sterilized and how they feel about that.told them to enjoy shining their Hitler youth badge for their next rally.
They’re probably being applauded by the Canadian Parliament at this very moment.
I’ve gone full doomer on North America (minus Mexico) and Europe. The wave of Nazi apologia followed immediately by the wave of support for an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, is too much for me.
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It angers me that when this is over, either way it ends, none of these assholes now demonizing us will ever even apologize for being on the wrong side of history, let alone be held accountable for it. Pointing out that they supported Israel or both-sidesed Palestinian liberation will have the same exact impact as pointing out Iraq War supporters has now, which is fucking nothing. They’ll get to walk it off and move onto the next invented reality, and we’ll get to see it happen all over again.
The best possible outcome is a bunch of desk jockeys joining the IDF or some foreign mercenary legion and getting obliterated by a 16 year old wearing slides with an RPG.
I think a lot of is rooted in American idea of colonialism, “Manifest Destiny”, general Ann Rand style brain poisoning.
They see indigenous people as sub-human who aren’t using the land they occupy properly. As such they believe its their right to take it from them cause they aren’t “doing it right”. Its our right to take from those we see as lesser. We have been doing in Africa and South America and much of Asia for decades. The American people see pretty much every non-western European nation as barbarians in the rhetorical sense. Uncultured savages who need to be either need to be broken or buried.
If some other people have what we want and they don’t look some dude from the state of Maine we feel totally okay using every T-800 we have in our vast armory. Also no amount of capital vacuumed up for working people or the blood of the youth is too much to get it.
I also don’t think people understand that Israel is client state, I also don’t think most people don’t understand what client state even is. Ukraine is my go-to example. Every single coin and bullet we have was sent to them no questions asked, and we will do the same thing to Israel. We will give them War Machine power-suits to destroy residential buildings and parks indiscriminately.
I really don’t think people understand foreign policy at all. Nor understand that America is an empire and doing empire shit is bad. Pretty much every comfortable in the US is a warhawk the moment they understand its brown people or “The Reds”.
This is one of those weeks when the internet is almost completely unusable.
I have a heavily curated internet experience in order to avoid being exposed to dogshit takes from Western liberals. Which means that large portions of the internet were already unusable for me. Tbh this is a great week to touch grass, if you can
I only go online for hexbear, and it’s been great.
More people should try it
Many such cases!
need a tired hexbear looking at their phone emoji
(sorry this was funnier in my head)
i self-harm by reading reddit threads on palestine now. shit sucks man
