woodenghost

Yes, I think we need to make an important distinction here. The word "control" is used for two valid, but distinct things: Sometimes it's used to argue about moral responsibility. Sometimes it's about strategy in our struggle. Like if one side "controls" the other, are there nodes of control that can be exposed and targeted politically? I think in both cases, the word "control" simplifies the complex relationship, so I won't use it any more in this. But luckily it's not needed to answer either question.

About moral responsibility, I think it's really important to recognize, that powerful people in the US (politicians, generals, billionaires, etc.) are equally responsible for the genocide, just like the ones in Israel. Both can be morally responsible at the same time. The same goes for state institutions. Morally, the ones in the US do have the freedom to withdraw support and that would stop the genocide. It's not important for moral consideration, that they won't do that for material reasons. To face this moral truth is important for our propaganda and also a question of respect and solidarity for Palestinians.

The other question is about our strategy. Here, a materialist perspective is needed. From inside the imperial core, pushing for BDS is the obvious strategy, which targets Israel directly. But because of the "tangled web of connections", which you mentioned, there are also important sides of struggle in the US. And many center around trying to sever at least some of those connections: the ones between universities in the US and Israel for example. US firms with close ties to Israel are another. There are others and these sides of struggle can be understood as an extensions of BDS.

Politically targeting legislature, think tanks, members of congress with ties to Israel is another logical strategy. It's best to concentrate on few targets instead of spreading our efforts out. Like snipping one strang of a complicated knot at a time instead of trying to rip it all apart at once.

This strategy does not mean, that we believe a complete severance of the connections between the US and Israel is possible. It is not. Even, if Israel was magically destroyed tomorrow, the US would invent a new one. But similar to a labor struggle in which a single strike can't abolish capitalism, anti-imperialist actions can still gain wins, even if the whole of imperialism isn't abolished yet.

I found this on wikipedia:

Irène "was accidentally exposed to polonium when a sealed capsule of the element exploded on her laboratory bench in 1946". That was from her own work. She lived another ten years, then died from leukemia.

Ève lived to be 102 years old and died in her sleep in 2007.

Both actively supported peace and were anti fascists. Irène was a socialist, visited Moscow, befriended Soviet scientists and supported the Republic in the Spanish civil war.

So the article doesn't mention how word got out about who donated, right?

If I could upvote it more, I would <3

Yes. The contradictions of capitalism are only getting worse. Workers, care givers, nature, social institutions, racialized people and countries, all can only be exploited and expropriated so much. But capitalism demands more and more. So it will continue getting worse until successful revolutions. But you don't have to feel detached about it. You can try to understand it, tell others about it, look around for awesome people struggling against it, maybe even find ways to help them. I started reading Nancy Fraser's new book "Cannibal Capitalism" it's short, tries to be accessible and it explains how all those areas of struggle I mentioned above are connected.

Everything is political.

Palestinians actually have an exceptionally high rate of education. You're right, that the fascists what to destroy that.

Yeah. "Doverflowing with ideology"?

It's fitting to frame this in religious iconography, because protestant work ethic has permeated western societies. Now even in our down time we feel bad if we don't work to further some "life goals".

I wouldn't frame this in terms of inflation or deflation, because those are terms for prices. Prices change, but below them, there is the actual value. And it's true that capitalism has a "problem" (a structural contradiction) related to overaccumulation of value. More and more value tries to enter circulation as capital and generate profit, which then only adds to the mass of capital seeking profitable investment. This is an exponential process which can't possibly go on forever on a finite planet. Productivity going up doesn't help either. As Marx showed, it actually leads to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, as only human labor generates profit.

Besides wars, financialization and feeding bubbles, boundless consumption is one way to not solve the problem, but delay the crisis temporarily. And it's also true, that the 1% make up a large and increasing part of total consumption.

However, billionaires generally consume only a small part of their wealth and they also don't simply "hoard" it. Instead, they and their firms and companies are forced to reinvest or lose out to competition. So it's exactly the opposite to what that teacher said: their net effect is to accelerate circulation and fueling the problem of overaccumulation even more.

And that's not even the main way of how they do it. What's more, they are so invested in the whole system, that they have a heavy interest in using all their significant political power to keep even money that isn't theirs circulating faster and faster by deregulating financial and environmental regulations, privatizing state assets and services as well as promoting and funding imperialist wars which forcibly open foreign markets up to circulation.

So this idea, that billionaires are actually good for the economy has no basis in reality and is pure ideology, but where does it come from? It goes back to Mandevilles "The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits" (1714). At the time, it was used to justify the excesses of the aristocracy.

David Harvey refers to it and mentions, that even before overaccumulation, there is the structural problem of who's going to generate the demand to realize the surplus value stolen from the workers. The workers certainly can't buy the surplus product. The capitalists can't either, they need to reinvest. Rosa Luxemburg first pointed to the solution: colonialism. Capital constantly needs to expand violently and open up new markets. There is no way around it (except revolution of course). But this too can't go on forever on a finite planet.

This is probably a stupid question, but if your browser accepts cookies, wouldn't they simply track you through those regardless of account or VPN? Same with app data.

It works for shapes that are also pretty close to a sphere. It works for a soccer ball and for a D120. This is the first counter example found.