The thought of being remembered for something so bland and boring is weirdly scary to me. Maybe Felix was on to something when he talked about how settler-colonialism hollows out your soul and kills any culture, creativity or national identity you might've otherwise had. 
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It's the dunk tank.
This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.
Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.
Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.
Rule 3: No sectarianism.
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Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again
As people are accurately diagnosing Israeli society as demonic and without redemptive qualities, and as they rightly wish harm on this settler, I can't help but think about how mad people here got when I said I don't care about the suffering of Americans.
Can someone explain the difference? Because it seems to me it's the classic cop/soldier distinction you see among RadLibs: they can imagine themselves being harassed and harmed by cops (in which case it's ACAB city) but are far more likely to be or know soldiers than suffer harm at their hands, so suddenly a situation that merited slogans and denunciations seconds ago deserves nuance.
People--again, rightly--point out that there are no innocent Israelis and that settlers are inherently combatants. Why doesn't this apply to the far more more murderous United States? Its foundation is even more explicitly genocidal, it has killed orders of magnitude more people, and all of its atrocities receive widespread support.
So why is the treatment so different? Is it because Israelis are faceless nobodies on the other side of the Earth, and you and everyone you care about are Americans? Is it because your state has been unimaginably more successful at its campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing, so unlike Israelis, you don't have to think about the fact that you're a settler and thus create ideological justifications for your existence?
To be clear: I'm not saying that people here don't hate the US. People here hate the US, but they hate Israelis. Why are Israelis painted as monsters complicit in their government's actions while Americans are poor little victims whomst bear no responsibility for the most murderous state on Earth?
If this doesn't apply to you: great! The next time someone tearfully says that no one should listen to me because I'm a big old meanie head toward history's most perfect angels, Americans, please join me in thinking about how much everyone hates Israelis both individually and collectively (and again: they should! This is not a defense of Israelis) and roll your eyes.
"Ten degrees to the left of center in the best of times; ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally."
Edit: to be clear, I'm talking about Euro-Americans. The material base of American society is the exploitation of everyone on Earth for the benefit of Europeans. The bottom strata of American society are almost entirely racialized, and non-white people generally experience drastically different circumstances than the parasitic European majority.
dont you know that American are innocent little beans who were lied to in history class. can you believe it? in fact people on hexbear will claim that americans are "the most propagandized people on earth" and that everything is determinant already anyway and that humans have no choice and that morality and actions dont matter EXCEPT if you JUDGE someone for believing bigoted things YOU (the minority) are the bad guy and a bad leftist who is ruining any chances for communism to be real. im not over exaggerating takes like this have gotten 30+ upvotes, people have compared a poor person stealing bread to eat as the same as a white man choosing to be racist.
It ties into another subject I refuse to shut up about: Left-Communism, "Orthodox Marxism", Euro-Communism, and every other strain of anti-revolutionary, do-nothing jerkoff "Marxist" thought comes out of Europe. Is this because European propaganda is just so superior (no doubt due to their superior European genetics and civilization), or is it because the entire world is enslaved for the benefit of Europeans, and thus even the "Communists" Europe produces are, for the most part, parasites? I think the answer is obvious enough.
The primary contradiction in the world is between the European and everyone else on Earth, not between the European worker and his European boss fighting over the spoils of global exploitation.
Scratches down in notebook
Racism is a biological imperative to white men, similar to consumption of calories for humans.
Hereβs the thing, with very few exceptions every Israeli made the active decision to serve in the military. The punishments are minimal enough Iβd consider working retail a worse fate.
Not every American serves in the military.
Sure. Maybe I picked the wrong example since this is a soldier, but I've seen this sentiment commonly applied to all Israeli society. And where do you draw the line? Most Americans end up supporting the mass slaughter of foreigners until they start seeing those sad little coffins with their sad little flags on the news, or until decades later when everyone has accepted that it was horrific and indefensible, and everyone pretends that they opposed it from the beginning.
And when push comes to shove and Americans have to choose between a world of equally distributed wealth where they have to do the real, unpleasant work that makes society possible (instead of four hours of meetings and four hours of emails), and one where a Fascist vanguard kills anyone that tries to change the status quo, I have absolutely zero doubt which choice they'll make.
according to the map that's been posted here a few times, americans would see a slight increase on average with a global redistribution of wealth.
we also work way more than is necessary for maintaining society, and the whole bullshit jobs thing means a lot of office drones would prefer to do something else that isn't alienating if they still had their needs met.
Yes all Israeli society.
Right away I think this is a strawmen, most people on hexbear don't believe the second part and when this point is made, well are you ideologically consistent or not? Is propaganda actually real and capitalists control everything or Americans are literally voting for every dumb shit their imperialist masters decide to do? Are we even talking about the same people that can't even point to most countries on a map? Even if most Americans decide to be "against" [insert current US sponsored genocide/war here] would that actualy change anything at all? Since when is the US actualy influenced by public opinion?
The core here is reponsibility is not the same as guilt. You can be an accomplice, you can even accept and refuse to do anything to prevent something, But take that to the logical conclusion e.g every American that doesn't kill a cop on sight is responsible for the next time a pig kills an innocent person. Everyone that doesn't immidiately murders everyone who works in the MIC is literaly reponsible the for the next drone strike?
Yes that is a joke but the point is American "responsibility" should always be viewed from the context of class analysis imo, it is the only way to be ideologicaly consistent.
The second point is that you're already contradicting yourself here when you say you don't want nuance but then you're forced to clarify you're talking about Euro(white) Americans. That is nuance because POC identify as "American" just as white people, however we decide to pass judgement on this choice it is still a fact and it will only become a more fundamental fact as time becomes and American society becomes even more diverse.
Also I shouldn't have to tell you this, but nobody here unironicaly asking for genocide of anyone, even white Americans. Even doomers like me I think the worst outcome would be a WW3 scenario where the victorious army marches onto Washington and changes everything through sheer force, at that point if you're still fighting for "America" you're are the enemy and deserve to die, before that point, don't mistake the discourse in a vacuum here for actual meaningful political theory.
Also final point, if you go down the hate ladder so much what becomes the real difference between you and some 4chan loser that decides to do a mass shooting in a school or mall? Americans are all "guilty" right? What is the real difference when the outcome is the same? Not saying that is what you're proposing but what does "not care about the suffering" actualy means in practice isn't so simple.
Because the vast majority of the people here are americans, snf they dont want to get got. Except me. I legit want all us white americans to get genocided* and the land returned to the native peoples
*in minecraft
Yes this inckudes myself and literally all of my loved ones and friends, kill us all completely unironically*
*in fortnite 50v50 mode, that mode was always fun
I'm ready to put my neck through the lunette if the billionaires go first
I just kinda want whites to die
Nah youre right. But then again, I always agreed with your hatred for Americans. I feel it in my soul.
Mass shooters here would be based if they didnt overwhelmngly target minorities and instead went after fellow whites
If a guy went postal on a police station I'd get shirts made tbh
But then you'd have a wh*te on your shirt, thats like, cringe
Can't Corner the Dorner shirts.
You have to always push against Americans because even the most leftist Americans still hold some reactionary viewpoints somewhere inside.
I say this as the aforementioned "Euro-American" aka a white dude in the US.
Usually it's something to do with China, USSR, Iran, Islamic countries in general, or, recently, defense for Israel/kneejerk hatred towards Palestinians.
And as far as a more Marxist or material analysis of why Americans are the way we are (and I say we because none of us can escape all of this. We can try, but it's not possible to fully escape it. I cannot pretend that I am special or different and doing so would be pointless anyway):
Our material conditions in the US are objectively better than a lot of the world and certainly the global south which the US exploits in various ways. One of the more nefarious but never talked about, outside of niche leftist-type communities, is IMF loans and other financial tools of control.
Now, how do you explain to Americans who are relatively, within the US, poor but who are, in a global perspective, 'not bad off' that they should give a shred of a shit about atrocities committed by the US military? Well, to be super frank, you kinda can't. People have to change their entire fucking mindset and view of the world in order to see that the capitalists of our country collude with other capitalists and use financial and military strength to subjugate the world to enrich themselves.
Since Americans all collectively benefit to some degree from this exploitation, and everyone sort of knows this or can easily learn it, there's no material incentive to demand change to what we like to call euphemistically... "Foreign policy." "Muslims being tortured and murdered? Sounds bad, BUT what's his stance on healthcare for all Americans?" And just like that poof any chance at giving a shit has been dismissed without people even realizing that they've done so.
Try suggesting to about 80% or more Americans that the US military is OBJECTIVELY the most evil, murderous, terroristic force on earth and ever in world history and you'll get a SEA of "but China!" "The Nazis!" "The Soviets!!!"
Americans partly don't know, partly don't want to know, partly know and don't care, partly know and (my favorite) think it's good and benefits them either by making them "safer" (from whom? Who knows. The Russian-Chinese-Islamic terrorists or whatever) or in a material way. As if the US developing bombs and planes, wasting all those resources in the efforts, and then killing via sanctions or directly people abroad in order to extract resources really, actually benefits them. Not that it would be a justification anyway, but it's also just not really true. Most of the stolen wealth from other countries just goes straight to the top 1% or whatever of capitalists.
And as far as being a purely evil organization, the euphemistically-named (lots of euphemisms) US department of defense (when was the last defense done? Never. It wasn't even the DoD for WWII) along with the CIA, FBI, DEA, etc. as a fucking policy spent the last 80 or so years opposing actual democracies (socialist states) worldwide via terrorism, threat of annihilation, mass murders, rapes, hostage taking, leveling of all industrial centers, etc. to include literally everything a person can imagine. The US has sanctioned, approved, and done it all, including up until today.
I don't think Americans are beyond hope or whatever or that we (or Israelis) should all be killed. I know that's the meme and shit, but speaking for real, no. However, I will say, we (generally) cannot be trusted by the global south/third world to ever be good faith partners in peace or economic solidarity. Not as things currently are and likely will remain to be. I know that will hurt many Americans' feelings, but sometimes shit sucks and your country sucks so much fucking shit that you have a stink on you so bad that it can't be ignored. Americans tend to have this weird perspective that we by default get to be involved in everything. That we're the center of everything. Well, that's kinda true, but only for the evil shit mostly. Anything bad that has happened in the last century you can draw a fuckload of lines directly back to the US and good things like socialist projects worldwide are completely devoid of American influence. That's reason alone for me to say "clearly Americans need to just stay the fuuuuck away." And I don't think many people around the world are gonna be out there crying "no no let the Americans speak!" Another thing Americans don't know is that the world fucking hates us. Maybe not Americans, but definitely the US state.
The hardest but most important political stance any American MUST hold is basically: the US military and all of its adjacent and related entities (CIA, etc.) must be opposed from within, crippled as much as possible, ground to a halt, dismantled and destroyed.
That is the first and most important step to ending untold worldwide suffering which includes, ironically, inside the US. I don't like to spend much time dwelling on it, but martial states like the US (and Israel) suffer from that mindset at home too. We are mentally sick people. It's easy for us to judge Israelis since we are not Israeli (most of us anyway). But that's how the world also sees Americans! Maybe we're not so far gone down the specific little fascist rabbit hole that Israel went down, but we're every bit as islamophobic, racist, entitled, and just fucking annoying as Israelis. Of course the biggest obvious difference is Israel is a small country and limited by such in what it can do militarily. The US is very large and has no such limits. What Israel can and does do to Gaza and the West Bank the US can and has done to nations thousands of miles away.
Not much else to say. America is a fascist land of reactionary tendencies. If you're American and want that to end then you must oppose the US military and whatever that entails. You must purge from your mind of the idea of innocent US soldiers. If you find that hard to do, then just say nothing. It's better than screaming at those in oppressed nations (by the US military) how gross they are or whatever for celebrating deaths of US soldiers. You do not ever need to side with the imperialist or its dogs. The US military is fully voluntary. Everyone there chose, ultimately, to be there. People will argue whatever material reasons, but at the end of the day, the same as the IDF or the German Whermacht, a choice WAS made.
To your point, I joked the other day to a friend that a future president who doled out any kind of welfare state or god forbid land reform would be crowned king of America the next day and any following military action would see 99% support.
what does "not bad off" mean here? i'm absolutely miserable despite my privilege and the people who are "worse off" than me aren't killing themselves en masse, so you know, maybe trading relative poverty for absolute poverty and not living here would increase my quality of life?
Not really. It goes to everyone's who's a labor aristocrat or above, at least. You couldn't have a world where every person had the quality of life of a lot of Americans (including myself).
I don't know exactly what lifestyle you live or are thinking about, but there's absolutely no reason the entire world can't have all of their basic needs met and could do so with much less labor being done than now. It's not a resources limitation. The reason it seems otherwise, if it even does (I don't see it this way, but I think maybe I used to), is because we don't consider all the extreme inherent waste under capitalism. With a centrally planned, world wide distribution of resources and a common understanding of what we "need" there's nothing stopping humanity from everyone working a dignified amount of hours that leaves time for leisure but also having everything we need as far as shared, massive apartment complexes for living, community cafeterias where food is provided for everyone, and of course there's no reason "luxury" commodities can't exist either within reason.
Will the "upper crust" Americans see a reduction in their current QoL which essentially just translates to wasting a fuck load of resources? Sure. Probably. To me that sounds like a good thing though.
Regardless, the idea of convincing current day Americans to stop having this mindset that they HAVE to have a detached single family home or HAVE to have a personal vehicle or HAVE to be able to order Chinese fastfood, pizza, and ice cream to their detached family home at 3am seems impossible. Things will have to sort of "naturally" (climate change?) keep getting worse and worse and worse until people have no choice. And it'll take educated leaders at the right times and in the right places to force things in an equitable direction.
It's not inconceivable that this vision never comes to pass. People like their treats and are more than willing (we see day after day especially recently) to ignore or even cheer on suffering elsewhere if they get that treat. But just because it isn't happening and may never happen doesn't mean it's not possible. I just don't think that's true. I don't want to be reductive, but when I hear that type of argument my first thought is "maybe we're envisioning much different lifestyles" or "this person is advocating anarcho-primitivism!" That's sort of a joke, I think it's usually the former, but I do see some humorous "back to monkey" takes out there done in earnest.
Our posts basically agree.
Yes there will be a reduction in quality of life for basically every American labor aristocrat. There might be things to offset that like less mental stress of expenses like health insurance or taxes or whatever, or more efficient use of resources, but at the end of the day those people would have a lot less disposable income to spend on random stuff because being able to buy random stuff is not sustainable.
The idea that socialism is so much better and more efficient that it will magically solve most resource constraints and other issues the world has right now is the same kind of magical thinking where people assume technology like solar panels or electric cars are going to solve climate change. It's never that simple (I think we agree).
I would also extend this out to most of the Anglosphere, and I think some comrades would also extend it to most of Europe as well. We're injected with brainworms from the moment we're born in the west and it takes years, decades even, to fully deworm ourselves, Unconditional support for dunking on anglos who say dumb things here, this is the ideal place to get called out on it.
Death to the Great Satan.
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