from Linkerbaan@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 28 Mar 2024 13:08
https://lemmy.world/post/13640399
Video footage broadcast Wednesday by Al Jazeera shows Israeli soldiers gunning down two Palestinians on the coast of northern Gaza, even as one of them waves what appears to be a piece of white fabric. The video then shows Israeli soldiers burying the bodies with a bulldozer.
Richard Falk, former United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, toldAl Jazeera that the footage provides “vivid confirmation of continuing Israeli atrocities” and spotlights the “unambiguous character of Israeli atrocities that are being carried out on a daily basis.”
“The eyes and ears of the world have been assaulted in real-time by this form of genocidal behavior,” said Falk. “It is a shocking reality that there has been no adverse reaction from the liberal democracies in the West. It is a shameful moment.”
#world
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Video is in the article.
What seems to be a tank drives up at 0:55 and shoots at 1:08.
The Bulldozer crushes them into a pile of rubble at 1:27
And I wouldn’t be shocked at all to find out that that corpse laden rubbles are dumped into the sea to build the US’ stupid fucking dock.
I would like an explanation to the downvotes. We know that the US has been using rubbles of houses and structures to build their fucking dock.
twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1770927496113828194
Why is it a stupid fucking dock?
Maybe because stupid fucking Israel destroyed the already existing Gaza port and won’t let trucks in with aid? So it’s a stupid fucking waste because of stupid fucking Israel?
EU, UAE, UK all vowed to use the stupid fucking dock, so the rest of the world seems to think it’s a good solution to a VERY time sensitive problem.
***This post is to simply test the waters of whether Mr. Wildbus is a)anti-Biden no matter what, b)Pro-Israel no matter what, c)Elon Musk
Maybe it’s gonna take, what? Months to complete? Why can’t they just drive trucks with aid in ? Seems like they have no issues driving trucks in with building materials … It’s a diversion, and it fucking stupid. It’s taking people for idiots and it’s incredibly insulting to the people who are suffering.
There are so many issues with that plan, it’s insane people would defend it.
Maybe the EU and the UK let’s be real also all have been stalling on the issue at hand aren’t exactly the moral gauge we should be looking at.
And yeah, fuck Biden, fuck him for lying that he saw evidence of dead babies, fuck him for supporting Israel no matter what for decades now. Fuck that geriatric ass hat. And if you think I like Elon, let alone Israel, you’re also most as dumb as the dock itself.
newyorker.com/…/why-bidens-floating-pier-is-unlik…
theguardian.com/…/gaza-floating-port-aid-palestin…
reuters.com/…/us-says-building-gaza-port-take-lik…
Gaza never had a large port. Any port being destroyed has nothing to do with one needing to be constructed to directly offload aid from ships into Gaza. The only large port nearby is in Egypt, or further in Israel. Those end up with the same issue that were in right now of aid being prevented from entering by land, which yeah it sucks but doing something is better than just sitting around saying it sucks.
And the reason Gaza never had a port was because Israel has a naval blockade on the strip. They have always been kept dependent on what could be imported from Israel.
Very true, and not an argument against not building the port (not to say that’s what you meant) . If anything it’s an argument in favor of it.
Because it’s a technical solution for a problem that could be solved by a fucking phone call. The lack of food in Gaza is solely due to Israel blocking trucks at the border crossings. All Biden needs to do is call Netanyahu, tell him to let all the trucks in or he gets no more weapons, and the people in Gaza will stop starving within days. It’s not an infrastructure problem, it never was, and there’s no reason to spend months building a dock.
Not my proudest fap
Edit: OMG guys it’s a joke, I wouldn’t masturbate to islam/terrorists people
Sad troll is sad.
People understand it’s a joke. They also understand it’s an incredibly low quality one.
58 minutes to banned. I think that’s a Lemmy record.
I guess you could say… he didn’t last very long
(his deleted comment was:
spoiler
*“not my proudest fap”
With a “joke” like that, the ban was 100% deserved
Not that shocking, really. Liberalism would be self-determination everywhere, not the west protecting the world and instituting its own values. If someone somewhere else wants to operate under a different set of values where human life is not considered important, a liberal does not go over there and fix them.
Liberalism is not inherently “good”, it’s inherently hands-off. Like the Swiss. This is partly why its become somewhat out-dated as an ideology post-WW2. Expecting someone who believes in liberty to control the fates of lands and peoples not their own is misunderstanding it though. That’s not liberty, it’s the spreading exertion of power and influence–the opposite of liberty.
Liberty doesn’t defend anything except itself. This is the root of US isolationism tendencies, and why hating the UN is so common here.
But then you can’t call the US a liberal democracy in any way as they aren’t hands-off at all. Time and time again they meddle in other countries’ business to exert influence and power and to advance their interests.
Israel itself was created by the West as Palestine was a British colony before and the US has since given more support to Israel than they would usually grant an ally. The continuous protection (political and militaristic) makes Israel almost a vassal state of the US. This is the real reason why “liberal democracies” have not reacted much (yet, hopefully).
This “vassal state” nonsense is a common meme, but that’s about it. If it really was one, they’d listen to us.
And agreed, which is why I said that post-WW2, liberalism has been growing out-dated. It doesn’t make much sense in a world of global communications, trade and warfare, so some evolution was, and continues to be, required. Otherwise it risks exchanging military imperialism for economic imperialism, where instead of conquering other lands you simply profit off of their people and resources.
The problem with that is in perception, ie: the US sees Israel as a vassal state but Israel sees themselves in an “equal” partnership. Therefore why would they feel they had to obey America?
I don’t think the US sees them as a vassal state. Otherwise they probably would’ve been doing quite a bit of fighting for us in Afghanistan and Vietnam.
What is so hard to understand about the relationship known as “alliance”, and how it means you are “allies”? Seems much more accurate than all this vassal state propaganda.
You think the US supports Israel despite their engagement in genocide simply on principle? You think there’s no material benefit to the US?
There is nothing about Liberalism that excludes this practice as anything but an inevitability.
Inevitability? Not so sure about that, though the steps necessary to combat it could be construed as a departure from liberalism. Specific laws to prevent it, basically.
If you agree that liberalism does nothing to prevent the accumulation of power, how does liberalism not inevitably lead to economic imperialism? Honest question.
It really just seems like liberalism is being used here as a way to white-wash what is by most measures an extremely broken system.
With lawmaking. Our problem is that companies have acquired an outsized degree of power, including over the election system itself. The solution would be to break them, as we have done in the past. Certain behaviors need to be prohibited for the good of the country.
No system is immune to descent into tyranny of some form or another. Its enforcement mechanisms to prevent that need to be used appropriately though.
I’m happy that you see this, but I wish you could see how that accumulation happens. A system that doesn’t have a way of addressing or acknowledging power differentials begotten by the accumulation of capital is bound to lead to that inevitability. And that doesn’t even address the GEOPOLITICAL problems we started with. How the fuck does liberalism address the gigantic power differential of the United States against literally every other country on the planet?
Liberalism assumes that individuals entering into agreement are on equal footing. It ignores the coercive conditions of capital (between individuals and between nation states) and preaches ‘self-determination’.
Geopolitical power disparities will exist for as long as different value sets and systems exist. I don’t think it would be wise to even attempt to do away with them. Do remember, the sole purposes of the state from antiquity onward was to offer security against organized violence. Something must do so.
Regarding the fix for the domestic issues, again, that’s the breakup of concentrated capital. We had similar issues in the 19th century, and you can look at the reforms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to see how we addressed them. We can do so again, and probably should pretty soon here.
It’s not that I’m unaware of the challenges we face, or inherent weaknesses of our system. My position is that it is difficult to solve them without simply becoming vulnerable to a different form of tyranny. It takes many forms, yes? With the oldest simply being people coming to kill you and take your stuff, as the Gazans and Ukrainians, among others, are currently experiencing.
So you don’t see a problem or otherwise don’t see a solution for economic imperialism…? I’m confused by this statement. Liberalism offers only voluntary exchange as a guiding principle, am I right in assuming you’re OK with economic imperialism?
Ok… so do you have a problem with social democracies as opposed to liberal democracies? Anarcho syndicalism? What makes liberalism preferable to a democratic system that’s socially oriented instead of individually oriented?
To an extent, yes, I am okay with some economic imperialism. I would support laws that would restrict companies from working in overseas areas where slave wages are permitted, things like that. I do not see it as an all-or-nothing proposition though, it’s not yes/no, black/white.
I’m not advocating for liberalism, I haven’t been whatsoever. If you go back to my original comment, I was simply critiquing a statement of someone’s misunderstanding of it. I’m personally more left than that. I just support accuracy, not blind, wrong-headed criticism and hot takes. Just because someone may share my position does not give them license to spread misunderstanding. Misinformation is never okay, no matter the position, side or belief.
I do not support anarchism in any of its forms, however, I don’t think it can adequately maintain the military-industrial complex that modern warfare requires. Until warfare is a thing of the past, I don’t think it would be wise.
You misunderstand. Economic imperialism isn’t simply companies working overseas, it’s a nationstate wielding it’s economic advantage to establish market dominance over other countries. To my knowledge this is not a domestic policy issue but an international/Geopolitical issue. How would you go about breaking up a country that’s gotten too big? In this regard (and In regard to your first comment), liberalism is absolutely not “hands-off” or neutral, at best it’s ambivalent, but that sure as he’ll doesn’t mean it’s “hands-off”. You’re correcting an alleged misunderstanding with your own.
As for anarchism or social democracies or even communism, I’m not sure you really understand the terminologies. Anarchism doesn’t preclude a military, I’m not sure why you’d think that unless you took Anarchism to mean literally no governance at all. I don’t want to assume you haven’t, but I’d really recommend reading some lit on socialist economic structures, or even just some Locke and Rousseau to understand liberalism a bit better.
I was describing a single law I would support that would weaken economic imperialism. I was not saying that the law I proposed somehow solved it or anything, and that actually contradicts where I said I supported some. And please explain the difference between ambivalence/neutrality and hands-off.
A proper military-industrial complex requires a huge degree of coordination and stability across multiple independent sectors over many years. Only a large state is capable of managing the entire thing over the long periods of time necessary. An aircraft carrier battlefleet is a simply massive undertaking, requiring the efforts of millions of people over decades.
Sure. In this context, ‘ambivalence’ means having an internal inconsistency, whereas a true-neutral system would give no preference for a particular relationship. I mean it as liberalism claiming to support voluntary engagement and mutual consent in relations, but is ambivalent (i.e. internally inconsistent) about the relative power/influence between ‘consenting’ parties, to the extent that one party may not have any choice but to enter into a contract. Even though liberalism depends on the concept of mutual agreement, it has no answer to one party having outsized leverage against another, especially since its alleged benefit is mutual consent as a system of self-regulation.
It is the difference between ‘social contracts’ as a neutral observation of power dynamics generally, and ‘liberalism’ as an idealistic system of self governance.
Maybe if you take the US military as a standard, but even the founders envisioned a military comprised of independent militias. Besides, anarchosyndicalism traditionally acknowledges the need for a centralized government to ensure mutual security, even if they have strong feelings against a standing military the size of the current US one (with which I agree).
Anyway, I only posed that question to gauge your understanding of liberalism, since it seemed as if you understood it as something like “democracy”. I wanted to see what you thought the difference between liberal democracy and social democracy was. I haven’t been convinced you understand
Ah, that’s a fair distinction I suppose. That’s why I think we need more laws to limit how our companies are able to engage with less developed partners.
Even the British and French militaries have carriers, but all are large states. So long as the institution can coordinate the long-term strategic cooperation necessary to bring the pieces together, then I have nothing against it. It serves its primary purpose in this case.
I would describe a liberal democracy differing from a social democracy in the direction and degree of investment. Liberalism, as I said earlier, is philosophically hands-off. Ambivalent or neutral work fine as descriptors imo as well. You could say uncaring, if you liked. I do not really see the social contracts and mutual consent as envisioned by the people that wrote about it as being particularly real, in the minds of the people. And since they democratically control what happens, those don’t really end up existing.
Social democracy is focused more on equity for the populace. It does take those concepts more seriously.
Fair enough.
I’ll stand by my earlier assertion, that liberalism is anything but neutral, perhaps not in the way that you understand it as being hands off.
In practice, liberal states end up being self-serving (as liberalism encourages), and since capital is allowed to accumulate, the state apparatus ends up being used in pursuit of capital interests. Even if ‘hands off’ is accurate when it comes to domestic economic policy (it is usually anything but), at the Geopolitical level that power dynamic is amplified.
Which is why people argue Israel is a vassel state: Israel’s strategic function (to the US’s economic interests) is to project power in the oil-rich middle east. It’s why the US puts up with and runs cover for them even as they are objectively the aggressors in a lopsided conflict. Any other ally in any other conflict would have been given the boot at this point. They’ve clearly overshot defense and are squarely in genocide at this point. The US has every excuse to end that alliance, but they don’t because they have financial interests through them.
The petroleum resources of the Middle East haven’t been needed for a decade now, that understanding that held true for half a century has simply become out-of-date. All that remains is the commonalities, ethnically diverse democracies with a long tradition of cooperation. Which may soon come to an end, finally, though that would really infuriate our evangelical wing, which is a significant fraction of our entire population. I completely disagree that “any other ally would’ve gotten the boot”. Look at Turkey’s history with their eastern minorities. I’m sure I could think of more examples as well. Can you name a time we’ve ever, in our entire history, “booted” an ally for atrocities?
Self-serving I’ll grant, I think that’s somewhat inherent to liberalism as a concept. Liberty itself. Recall, my original comment noted a certain “liberty to oppress”. We do not seriously challenge China over the oppression of their Muslims, we never seriously challenged the genocide in Rawanda, we didn’t even seriously challenge South African apartheid without significant prodding. It’s not liberty for everyone, it’s liberty for those strong enough to seize it. People seem to want to project some sort of “goodness” onto the USA, and honestly, I don’t think a typical middle-American wants that. As a democracy, if half of us don’t want that, then… what? Recall, we would have let the world fall in WW2, had Pearl Harbor never happened.
This is why I don’t strongly argue with people that claim liberalism naturally leans right, incidentally, I think it does. It has more in common, in American practice especially, with fascism than anything more leftist. This is one of the things that makes us so vulnerable to falling into actual full-blown fascism, as existed in the mid-20th century. The nastiest kind, that conquers land with the intention of keeping it, and exterminates people that get in the way.
Make no mistake, we are an extremely violent people, culturally. Look no further than our mass-media. It’s up to us to reform our system in healthier ways, as our founders intended, before it’s too late. Because when I say hands-off, it’s hands-off our most animalistic natures sometimes, and lead poisoning on top of that. Political theorists really don’t seem to get that, that many of us pine for the darkest days of our history.
This is why it’s so incomprehensible and stupid, imo, that someone could seriously think something inherent in our liberal democracy stands against genocide. It doesn’t, to the point that we could do some ourselves in the coming decades, after leaving NATO and aligning with Russia instead.
Maybe I wasn’t clear; those allies are only allies because of what they provide us, and what Israel provides us is control and influence over the middle east. They represent our interests in exchange for us propping them up as a regional power (e.g. a VASSEL state). Sometimes barons form their own alliances and rebel, but they are still barons in the first instance.
They would get the boot if their behavior is in misalignment with the US’s interest, but coincidentally, genocide is not incomparable with what interests we have in the region. It’s just a bit ‘inconvenient’ to our brand.
Which is why it is not ‘neutral’, it quite consciously gives advantage to hierarchical structures outside the state.
It seems your definition of neutrality requires action and enforcement, while my definition requires inaction. Is there another distinction? Otherwise this is pointless semantics.
Yes, military alliances need to provide benefit for both parties. We have sufficient influence in the Middle East, though, with bases throughout Iraq and Syria, and other longstanding allies in the region like the Saudis and Kuwaitis. I know you believe this vassal state nonsense, but you don’t have much evidence or strong reasoning to stand on here. Also note, that as a nuclear power, Israel would continue to exist after US withdrawal.
As an aside, do you concede that we no longer need the oil from the region? That’s a key point. Our main hydrocarbon trading partner is Canada, now.
It’s not a semantic disagreement, it’s a metaphysical one. A fundamental principle of philosophy is that no system is truly neutral, ALL systems advantage certain outcomes. Claiming a system as neutral is as ideological as claiming something as ‘natural’. But rather than doubling down on my own perspective, I’ll let William James put the debate to rest:
If you agree that liberalism advantages external power structures and enables the consolidation thereof then there remains no disagreement between us.
A claim I never made. The geopolitical significance of the middle east is its large oil deposits, as well as its geographical proximity to major trade routes. Whether we source our own oil from there is immaterial to the point I was making.
I think you’ve illuminated a fundamental weakness of metaphysical debate. But regardless, as I recall we don’t require the word neutral, we’ve come up with at least four that I’m personally fine with. Use whichever you like.
Yes, I agreed with that several comments ago. Liberalism distributes power among many institutions, from religious, to capital, to community, to state, etc. It allows these to perform actions that it will not perform. You could certainly call that advantage.
In what way is it immaterial whether we source our oil from there or not? Seems to be the very crux of the matter to me.
because our interest in the region isn’t for oil for ourselves, it’s influence over all the nations in the region, and that entire region revolves around the power that oil grants those countries.
Uh huh. I think you’re just drifting into conspiracy theory land now. Regardless, our large amount of aid to Egypt give us significant influence over the Suez, and our multitude of other alliances and bases gives plenty of power for that, if it actually was the goal. We could lose any three and still have massive power projection through the region.
Lol a third of the world’s oil is produced in the middle east, and most of it is moved across boarders through pipelines and by sea.
I don’t think it’s conspiratorial to say that is extremely valuable, even if it’s only marginally less-so after the shale revolution. Hell, the entire current phase of conflict in the red sea was because Yemeni Houthies, (a relatively tiny military power) were targeting trade routes.
Whatever you want to believe I guess, I’m pretty bored with whatever this is.
Yes it’s absolutely valuable. Just not to us. The trade routes you’ve mentioned are far more so, since that impacts the global economy. We’d be a poor global military superpower if we had a plethora of bases everywhere except one of the most concentrated shipping regions on the whole planet.
Just so long as you recognize that perhaps Israel has no special military significance anymore, and hasn’t for over a decade now. It’s more religious than geopolitical at this point. Very different from how things were 50 years ago.
fucking LMAO. They’re a western-aligned nuclear superpower with the 4th strongest military in the region, behind 2 other (far, FAR bigger) western-aligned countries. That, and they occupy a large stretch of the Mediterranean sea in front of a nexus of oil pipelines and trade ports.
You do you though.
But none of that is unique. We have nukes that can touch every corner of the globe. We have a much larger military than them. We have Egypt and Turkey on either side of them.
I’m sorry for challenging your pre-existing perceptions, but history kept moving.
it doesn’t matter if “we” have nukes, it matters that the power occupying that strategic position has it. The US isn’t going to launch nukes if Iran marches into Israel, but Iran isn’t going to march into Israel so long as they have them themselves. You said it yourself: it is a vulnerable position for global trade. The US stands to loose the most, and all our opposition to gain the most, by a disruption there.
I don’t even know why you’re still harping on this, it seems pretty unimportant even by your own apparent worldview.
If Israel wasn’t there, the US strategic position in the Middle East would not change. It would not be noticeably weaker in any way.
As I said before, I’m a stickler for accuracy. I’m not the only one that keeps discussing it, at any rate. And this vassal state meme irritates me. It’s just vidya game meme bullshit, and when challenged, all you folks that like it seem to have is the most nebulous answers that are half-wrong.
edit: Actually, if Israel wasn’t there, our strategic position in the Middle East would get stronger. Israel is weakening us by making us so vulnerable to legitimate criticism.
If it were true that Israel means nothing to our strategic objectives, and that our continued alliance weakens us to criticism, then why the fuck would the US continue to support them? Israel offers them influence over the region, otherwise there’s no point in supporting their genocide. I would be seriously concerned if the US continued to support them if they didn’t have strategic interests through them. I’d love for you to venture a guess as to why you think the US continues supporting Israel, if you think that we’d actually be better off if we didn’t have them as an ally.
Make it make sense. You’re certainly not a stickler for internal consistency, that’s for sure.
I don’t know, I think I’ve been quite consistent throughout.
Asides the reasons I already gave you, that you seem to have suddenly forgotten, of both being ethnically diverse democracies with a long tradition of mutual support, there’s actually a much bigger reason:
The US has a vast number of global military alliances. Not just NATO, but also independent alliances with countries like Morocco, and larger bloc alliances, like the Rio Pact with most of South America. In many ways, we under-write global security, a concept sometimes referred to as Pax Americana. That entire system gets put on shakier ground if we suddenly turn around and betray our obligations to any one of those countries in the midst of a war. However we may see it from our own perspectives over here, Israel is very much fighting a war, a nearly total war even. Since we have promised our support, it would take quite a bit to force us to backtrack on that.
Additionally, it’s important to remember the US has no history of dropping an ally just for war crimes, and to the contrary, continued to support Turkey despite their own ethnic cleansing of their Kurds, which are actually another US ally entirely. So, the stuff certainly gets complicated sometimes.
Also, don’t forget the wishes of the American people. Until more recently, most supported the Israelis. They have particularly strong support on the religious right, so that’s another, probably more minor consideration.
So, three reasons, yes? Tradition, is one. Maintaining a reputation for honoring global security commitments, is two, and the biggest. Domestic politics is three.
Against those, all you seem to have is some mistaken assumption that the US drops allies for war crimes. Which is just nonsense. We sometimes commit war crimes, I assume you were aware of that.
That’s not a reason to do anything, it’s simply a reason not to think about it
Those commitments mean nothing if they are indifferent to abuses, that goes both ways.
Try again. US support for israel’s military action in Gaza is at 36%. If this was real, it’d be an explanation as to why we stopped support.
Because they have material benefits to our interests.
Just because you personally do not think a reason is important, like say, global security guarantees, does not mean Biden’s State Dept doesn’t. And their opinion matters far more than yours. Similar with our history of cooperation.
Your 36% is from recently. You’ll note it was not at that level a few months ago. You may also have noticed that Biden’s support of Israel has been steadily declining, we have recently stopped protecting them in the UN Security Council, for instance.
You can’t describe their material benefits to our interests in any way I haven’t already refuted. Position? Unnecessary when they are surrounded by our bases. Military contribution? Minor. Were there others? I forget.
I’m beginning to get the impression you’re just petulantly arguing at this point. You haven’t said anything about Turkey’s history with Kurds, or our long history of supporting other war criminals.
Before we low-key split from Pakistan, they had a similar symbiotic/parasitic relation as the US does with Israel. Seen as a good ally/possible partner diplomatically and with military utility for bases and CENTCOM power projection. And though Pakistan was never really ‘on side’ for a couple of reasons, they kept themselves under the radar and out of our ire - until we found Taliban militants regularly getting refuge and medical care over the Afghan-Pak border, and capped off with discovering Bin Laden in Pakistan.
Israel is hardly a ‘vassal’ or even protectorate. The US has significant leverage, but Israel has remained cordial with Russia and China even if that means snubbing the US - Israel refused to export anti-ship and cruise missiles to Ukraine, in deference to Chinese and Russian interests. Israel has options now to split from the US (painful as it may be) unlike in the 60/70s when the Soviets were funneling weapons to Egypt and Syria, and Israel required US support.
All that to say, Israel can (and may yet) tell the US to kick rocks again, and I don’t think the west is ready for the reality of what enforcing a ceasefire/no-fly zone would mean.
It is absolutely not ‘hands-off’, it just denies the existence of externalized power structures inherent in capital and neo-colonialism and uses them to exert influence instead of (or in addition to, rather) the old imperialist tools of direct violence. It hides behind the rhetoric of self-determination while exerting its corrupting influence through capital and soft-power.
Liberalism is a delusion of neutrality and a scourge to liberty everywhere.
No, that’s just communist ideology trying to demonize everything that isn’t itself.
Actual liberty does not inherently guarantee freedom from all oppression, as that would be an institution from a higher authority. It gives a certain liberty to oppress, which is why it so often exists hand-in-hand with capitalism. To do otherwise would require some form of authority to prevent oppression, which contradicts the core idea.
This is another facet of the post-WW2 reasons it has become somewhat out-dated. Also, note, I’m talking about the core of the ideology, not its history of implementation by flawed men. Similar to how I would not try to criticize Marxist ideology by looking at everyone who has claimed to be a communist.
It’s not an ideological statement to observe that liberalism abdicates the power of state governance to economic and capitalistic structures, nor is it ideological to observe that economic structures can -and do- wield just as much coercive power over individuals, states, and institutions as any state structure can.
However, asserting that “liberalism is inherently hands-off” is an ideological statement, because it pretends as if market and capital systems and structures are somehow outside of its responsibility even though those structures are central to its functioning as conceived by Locke and Hobbes.
To pretend as if the US’s economic power is some kind of aberration of ‘true liberalism’ is just absurd, though not surprising because I doubt Hobbes or Locke could have imagined the scale of influence and domination a liberal democracy like the United States now enjoys.
Partial abdication, I’ll grant that. What is ideological is to assume that something else exhibiting coercive power is some inherent negative. Liberalism specifically does not want a full monopoly on coercive power to be in the hands of any single system or institution. Instead it spreads it out.
That you see that as some negative or flaw is simply representative of your own position. Many institutions wielding coercive power is not inherently dangerous, just perhaps inefficient.
But it does nothing to prevent it from accumulating, and does even less to prevent a state from accumulating too much power. A sovereign state that is dependent on the economic support of another that is 50+ times its size is no more free from tyranny than one living under the imperialist occupation of a monarch.
I don’t see anything negative about spreading power into as many hands as possible, but I’m not delusional enough to believe liberalism can achieve that if it ignores the inherent power in capital.
Liberalism was foundational to transitioning away from monarchical power, but was simply ill-equipped (possibly intentionally so) to anticipate the inevitable failures caused by ignoring/denying the existence of power exercised through capital and the accumulation thereof.
I can agree with that.
Good read, thanks guys.
Did you really say exhibiting coercive power isn’t inherently negative? I’d say in both imperialism and Neocolonialism it certainly is as it’s used to exploit the global south population and resources at their expense.
No, I said: What is ideological is to assume that something else exhibiting coercive power is some inherent negative.
It can certainly be considered negative. Considering it so is ideological, however.
I don’t see how exhibiting coercive power can be considered positive or neutral, especially in the context of imperialism or neocolonialism
That’s fine. My point is that other ideologies would disagree. Fascism, for instance, is an ideology where coercive power is considered positive.
Is your point that dehumanization is necessary for coercive power to be considered a positive? If so I agree.
I don’t understand how you consider institutions that wield coercive power to not be inherently dangerous. Seems like they certainly are for the people getting coerced.
You keep trying to put words in my mouth. All I was saying is that all of this is ideological in nature. Because someone was trying to say it wasn’t.
What is or isn’t dangerous, the importance of humanity, the role of institutions, this is all ideology.
I was trying to understand what you’re saying when you say
Because the danger of coercion to the people being coerced is very real for any ideology. I agree that whether wielding coercive power is seen as a positive or a negative depends on ideology.
Hm. Valid question. In my view all forms of influence are fundamentally coercive at a certain level. I perhaps misspoke when I said they’re not inherently dangerous though. Instead that danger gets spread out in a way where diverging interests and goals are meant to help keep that in check, in the liberal ideology. This is merely mitigation though, it does not actually diffuse the danger.
The classic hands off approach of sending israel weapons and money to commit Genocide with.
Sometimes, yes. Genocide prevention is not the job of military alliances, unfortunately. If it was, there’d be far less organized killing in the world.
That’s so smart and realpolitik wow.
The contracts state that if a party commits war crimes America isn’t allowed to deliver them weapons so you’re also dead wrong.
Yes, in more recent years that was made law, and we should start to abide by it.
But it’s not “smart” and “realpolitik” to simply acknowledge what a military alliance is. That’s just agreement of basic definitions. Depending on who we have in office, our tolerance for war crimes and following laws changes dramatically.
“The law is not relevant if it’s not convenient”
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/b3148e02-9351-4d88-a32b-a9b67a01cc21.jpeg">
how dare you be so critical of Biden
Is this sarcasm? I’m neurodivergent and can’t tell
They’re one of those people that magically appear only when there’s some news about Biden they can shit all over. Check their comment history if you have any doubts.
For the record, I’m neurodivergent as well, I’ve just had a lot of experience with these people. It gets easy to spot them after a while.
Yes it was. So many people come out of the wood work to say we can’t be at all critical about how Biden has handled this
…Biden doesn’t want to support the genocide of Palestinians, he is just forced to given the fact that if he looks weak to independent voters from not unconditionally backing Israel’s genocide of Palestinians than he is going to lose the election. Do you honestly think he would be supporting a genocide if it wasn’t a smart political strategy?
<img alt="" src="https://sopuli.xyz/pictrs/image/33494db8-f4d4-460c-84c5-15b4a1f41aea.webp">
news.gallup.com/…/majority-disapprove-israeli-act…
…
…
Ok fine so maybe even independents think what Israel is doing is awful in Gaza, but can’t you people be patient and wait until the dust settles after the election, and after all the Palestinians are dead and removed from their land? We can have a discussion about whether the Palestinian genocide was right or wrong then! Stop sabotaging Biden in the meantime, he is trying real hard to swoon those independent voters and they clearly are rabid supporters of the IDF committing genocide which is definitely a fact I didn’t contradict a second ago!
/s <------
4 hours and not a single right-center douchebag has come out of the woods. Maybe they’re catching on that their rhetoric isn’t working and Biden is going to flat out lose the country because of his genocidal friends.
They probably should’ve released the hostages sooner.
“Your authoritarian rulers kidnapped some of our people so now we get to kill innocent people with impunity” is a super shitty take
You mean the ones they’ve been caught shooting? Maybe the hostages are just a shitty excuse so morons like you say dumb shit like that.
Can you point out the hostages these two men had in the video?
Oh, look, another one parroting of the Nazi propaganda that an entire people are responsible for and hence can be killed as reprisal for the acts of a few amongst them.
Whilst conflating Palestinians with Hamas is merelly pure racist “logic”, using that to justify mass murder of Palestinians is Nazi-level cruel violent racism.
Death to Israel and their supporters
They can save on bullets, by lining them up and shooting them through the head, before they fall in their graves.
I’ve read about that from somewhere in history; can’t exactly remember wer war schuldig, I mean, who was guilty of it…
I wonder how long until they start building gas chambers for Palestinians
So nothing new. Israel still going on about with its genocide.