I genuinely do not know who the bad guys are. S lot of my leftist friends are against Israel, but from what I know Israel was attacked and is responding and trying to get their hostages back.
Enlighten me. Am I wrong? Why am I wrong?
And dumb it down for me, because apparently I’m an idiot.
By that logic every single fight has been between bad guys. Abolitionists vs. slavers? Sorry buddy, they both killed noncombatants, they’re both just bad guys. Nazis doing genocide vs. partisabs? Sorry buddy, they’re both just bad guys.
There are no perfect fights, perfect armies, perfect struggles for liberation. You will have to accept what it takes to fight oppression or force yourself to a mealy-mouthed sidelines from which you declare everyone that isn’t passive is always a villain.
I think I generally agree with your viewpoint here. This seems to be separate from the original conversation, and more about whether or not war is sometimes necessary, and if it is then you’ve got to step back and look at the larger picture and realize there’s going to be a lot of pain on both sides, the good side and the bad side. I think it’s ok to empathize with that, but probably not ok to say that fighting is never necessary. The same people will then go on to say it’s ok to physically assault modern day Nazis.
I wouldn’t mind punching a Nazi personally. But I also realize war sometimes is necessary, and that it will be a painful process.
Hell yeah normalize punching Nazis. Of course do so when you won’t lose the fight.
Oppressed people are not generally warmongers. They are not whipped up into a frenzy of domination like Americans, Germans, or Nazis. Instead, they fight because they must either flee or resist, and they opt to resist.
One example is that for all the hand-wringing about Hamas, Israel is clearly far more bloodthirsty and accepting of civilian deaths, given how much they target children and hospitals. All the tut-tutting of Hamas comes from pro-Israeli propaganda that hopes the audience will forget these things and instead think about how much more “pure” the resistance should allegedly be. It is directed at those who reside in countries materially abettibg the occupation and genocide so that they do not demand better.
Not necessarily. If that were the case, then peaceful civil rights movements wouldn’t be effective. We can point to things like women’s right to vote to indicate that isn’t the case though. While they’re not as dramatic, peaceful reform movements have a reasonably high success rate, contrasted against all the uprisings and revolts which have been mercilessly crushed throughout history.
Your entire logic is that a side that kills a noncombatant it is bad. This simplistic logic would, necessarily, lead to the absurdities I listed.
Re: the Civil rights movements, they were not, overall, peaceful. There has been a whitewashing of them due to the (decades later) popularity of Dr. King and his compatriots, but the civil right movement spanned decades and included violent resistance.
They have nearly always failed and have instead been used to demonstrate the necessity of armed resistance. You’ll note that Dr. King was killed when he focused on what he viewed as the more encompassing injustice of poverty imposed on black people by capitalism.
Well, yes, killing a noncombatant is bad, no question about it. There are other ways to accomplish the goal, from peaceful ways to simply killing actual combatants instead. I know you’re more of a revolutionary, so that kinda undermines your whole thing, but oh well.
Sure, but things like the riots, particularly around race, contributed to a great deal of backlash, and were not exactly the cause of things like the Civil Rights Act. In fact, I’d challenge you to provide historical cases of a leader caving to that sort of violence while they still had their military and police forces to protect them.
Yes, martyrdom is common, assassination is unquestionably a thing that happens in history. If you’re saying his assassination was some conspiracy to preserve capitalism I’d like to see some actual evidence of that, though, from a respected historian.
Almost always fails, though? It’s relatively rarely attempted in any seriousness, but let’s see… Vietnam War, Women’s Suffrage, Civil Rights Act, Prohibition, and that’s just examples from my country. And yes, I know, they were not all exclusively perfectly peaceful. Majority peaceful, though, I don’t think you can logically just unilaterally declare all the positive results were due to the violent aspects, that makes no sense unless you can provide some evidence.
I think there are plenty of “noncombatants” that can be killed without it being bad. How about concentration camp guards? Or the wardens? How about a President guilty of war crimes and genocide? What about the person that shuts off the water supply to a vulnerable population, killing thousands? I will shed no tears for those people if those they oppressed rise up against them with decisive violence.
Or for one more controversial: what level of violence is acceptable against settlers? Their comfort and security on stolen land is the material basis for the settler project. Making them unsafe undermines this more thoroughly than most other violence. Several groups of native Americans recognized this while their people were genocided and it did have the intended impact right up until the genocidal US government deployed overwhelming forces. When the oppressor seeks genocide, what should really be off-limits? Why the tut-tutting of the oppressed when they face such inhumanity and existential threats?
If there is a peaceful way, the Palestinians have already tried it. They tried it in a very obvious way just a few years ago with the Great March of Return. Did it work? What did Israel do in response? What impact did this have on the freedom fighters in the resistance?
Why are you trying to dictate the terms of others’ freedom when they face genocide and occupation? Does your country materially support the occupation? Focus on disrupting that instead.
Generally speaking it is a bad idea for liberals to guess what socialists want or think. I have yet to meet one that has guessed correctly with any consistency.
First, peaceful marches got very similar backlash. Dr. King was criticized with the exact same milquetoast, “we agree with his ideas but not his methods” treatment by liberals and he was majority unpopular among white people for his entire life.
Second, violent actions, as defined by critics, formed the basis for much of the civil rights fight and forwarded it. The seizure and destruction of property, the vigilante justice against lynchers, the hounding of segregationist bosses, and riots were all highly influential. Thr best-organized groups carried rifles. Dr. King has been appropriated by liberals, particularly white liberals, in order to tell an ahistorical story about the importance of nonviooent resistance, that liberty can have its cake and eat it too, to be free of the blrmish of violence while securing its goals. Of course, they tend to stop telling the story when King began to focus on capitalism and its use of structural marginalization to induce poverty on black people and was killed shortly after. Nobody can seriously argue that the civil rights movement simply succeeded, no one can go to the black ghettos and say this with a straight face. It was mollified with partial legalization reforms while the major engine of oppression chugged right along, ensuring continued racialized poverty, policing, and society at large.
Every revolution and, most closely ties to the topic of this post, the victory of the ANC guerillas over the apartheid South African government.
It is well-known that black civil rights leaders were frequently assassinated and that the FBI led the charge in harassing and threatening them and certainly did not stop at Dr. King. Fred Hampton is a well-known example. Though government employees were hardly the only ones killing and they often worked with civilian assets or simply sat back and let white supremacists do the job. The interest of the state in doing so was to undermine the civil rights movement itself and to wrap it up in its red scare tactics, both in the service of capitalism, namely racialized capitalism. Though it is not only the state with such interests - businesses, particularly those owned by racist whites, have every incentive to support these violences, and had often been the sponsors of lynchings.
Re: Dr. King specifically, his family has always maintained that he was killed in a conspiratorial manner. There is doubt about this narrative, but it is useful to follow the logic and constellation of government infiltrators of King’s organization and connections to organized crime. But even withiut that, the original confession of the officially accused and convicted was by someone looking to get paid a racist bounty that had been placed on King’s head.
Was ended primarily by the Vietnamese, namely by North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. The US domestic side, which was not entirely nonviolent, just limited the capacity to wage war and was dramatically secondary.
Notoriously involved violence.
Already discussed. Incomplete and not separable from violent struggle.
Which part of it? Teatotalers were often violent leading up to it and the period of prohibition was characterized by violent organized crime. Prohibition was itself ended mostly because capitalists wanted to make money legally again and to crowd out the mob. The primary sponsors of repealing prohibition were the Rockefelllers and du Pont brothers, including various “grassroots” organizations. The whole thingis hardly a peaceful people’s campaign against an oppressor.
A concentration camp guard is a combatant. They are armed and keeping you there with violence, right? Responding with violence to violence is pretty widely regarded as acceptable, outside of pacifist movements. Your more controversial question is what we’re really talking about. I think your focus on the “material basis” for their actions is where this goes wrong, as it ignores their ideology, their psychology. This is why such resistance movements fail, humans are not fundamentally logical. Even a total undermining of their peace and security simply draws that overwhelming response you mentioned, as we are seeing evidence of right now. While the nonviolent methods were not working very well, they were working better than this. What works is what’s most important, that’s why I’m dictating right and wrong to others quest for freedom. Even a full cutoff of all foreign weapons to Israel would not resolve the famine.
Any actual sourcing for this primacy of violence in peaceful protest movements or King’s assassination being to preserve capitalism? It seems to me you are simply trying to give all the credit to the few, while ignoring the contributions of the many, because it suits you.
“Every revolution” sure is convenient, when 99% fail. The ANC did not “defeat” South Africa, it was international pressure that ended Apartheid.
On the note of government surveillance and oppression of the civil rights movement, I agree.
Regarding Vietnam, the US could have kept fighting far longer if there was will for it. The reason there was not will for it was domestic opposition.
Again, you’re simply giving all the credit to the violent while ignoring the hard work of the masses in these movements. This is disingenuous.
Kibbutzim near Gaza are armed occupation groups set up for the long term. Violence against those in kibbutzim are the only credible accusations of violence against “civilians” on Oct 7. Is an open air prison guard less of one when they live nearby? What if they don’t go in the prison but instead are there to shoot you if you break out? What if they knowingly live on your stolen land while you live in a ghetto?
That’s a lot of unjustified generalizations when we are talking about something specific.
And Israel is now likely the weakest it has ever been while the world has awoken to their crimes. A slow genocide is not better than a fast one, but actions one that draws the genocider into an existential crisis have strategic value.
You are being vague again. Working well for what? What is the goal? What outcomes are on the table? Nonviolent methods achieved one thing: a recognition that they could not achieve their intended purpose of inciting international support for their cause and that the Zionist entity will not even tolerate peaceful marches, so militarized resistance is necessary. I would bet you did jack shit in response to the Great March of Return, whereas this at least has your attention.
Yes it would because the blockade would collapse and so would the ability to target aid workers.
I have provided enough information for a curious person to inform themselves. I can’t make you curious and I cannot read for you, nor will I be doing errands for you in that regard. You can thank me for giving you this information when you have clearly never made any attempts to learn this topic and continue to be resistant to self-education before sharing your opinions, which are really just the things you see on children’s programming.
A statistic you pulled from your ass that does not address the fact that I accurately answered your question. Just a deflection. Do you see why I am not taking time to help you with reading materials? You are not acting in good faith.
Absolutely incorrect. Boycotts and sanctions helped but it was resistance like the ANC that led the charge and, for example, created the boycott movements in the first place. Rather than acknowledge basic facts you are now just making things up and asserting them to be true. It was black south Africans and their white allies engaging in direct action that brought the country to its knees and agitated for all of this. White South Africa was dependent on black South Afrucan labor.
Because the imperialist war crybabies weren’t winning and came home to get sympathy for their PTSD and war crimes. Vietnam set itself up for long-term guerilla warfare that they knew could outlast Americans’ willpower. It is frankly disgusting to give Americans credit for the Vietnamese kicking their shit in. Give credit where credit is due and stop feeding this implicit racism that non-white resistance groups didn’t achieve what they did.
Giving all credit to, say, the people successfully waging guerilla warfare to tire out their occupiers? In a war? Yes of course I will give them virtually all of the credit, as they did nearly all of the work to efficaciously achieve their desired ends.
You are simply incorrect in your understanding of history and believe in fairy takes that you refuse to question, even when presented with the obvious. You are not in a position to be correctly humble and actually learn this history, presumably because you just want to keep dictating the terms of others’ freedom and wringing your hands like Dr. King’s White moderate.
This is an interesting accusation given your dithering and deflection around clear cut examples.
That’s absurd. Many of the residents of these kibbutz were pro-Palestinian activists doing charity and solidarity work with pro-Palestinian organizations, especially around Gaza.
Calling my criticism of your materialism statement “an unjustified generalization” is amusing, but you’re the one that brought up material causes.
Does Israel look weak to you? Tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and settlers ready to move into Gaza is weak? Does Netanyahu look like he’s failing? This is just idiocy to defend your ideology, no matter how much it appears to fail. Gaza was still there, Apartheid certainly, but it was there. It’s not there anymore. That’s not a generalization, it’s a mammoth strategic blunder by hamas.
You think a blockade and targetting aid workers requires advanced munitions? This is ludicrous. It could be done with bullets, cheap drones. This is just wishful thinking.
You haven’t provided any sources, and its on the person making the claim to support their arguments. “Do your own research” is not a legitimate defense, which is basically what you’re trying to say.
Very conveniently omitting that the ANC was crushed and Mandela was imprisoned. Sure, there was some martyrdom there that inspired a broader global resistance, but it’s that global resistance that got the results. Sorry if this runs counter to your ideology, though, but it’s not “Absolutely incorrect.” Your faith in your ideology is not the sole arbiter of factuality in the world.
Sorry for disgusting you, but the world is a complicated place. Not to say that the VC does not deserve credit for an effective guerilla campaign, but without widespread American resistance to the war, it would have certainly continued. You may like to simplify things down to winners and losers when convenient for you, but its just messier than that. The whys are important, and effective fighting by the VC is not the sole “why”.
Yeeeaah, I’m not the one living in a fairy tale just because I look at all the causes for something, rather than simply focusing in on the ones that make me feel the best. If I am so incorrect, you are more than welcome to source your arguments, though I think we both know your sources are probably all political in nature instead of rigorously historic examinations of all the available evidence.
It isn’t absurd, it is the fundamental truth of how these places operate. They are militarized and on stolen land, populated by ex-IDF soldiers. A handful may participate in charities, but few do any real work to liberate Palestine, they believe in the basics of their ethnosupremacist project.
I have actually met such people. I know very well that you have not, armchair critic.
There was nothing to it. It was a vague unjustified generalization. It’s difficult to even know what you really meant. You’re really just talking to yourself with these things, moving away from the concrete - such as material causes - to whatever it is you thought you were communicating.
Yes. Israel itself is very weak. It is only its sponsor that is strong and that props it up.
Yes, a campaign that targets masses of civilians for death from afar with bombs dropped by fighter jets is indeed exactly what a weak group does. It is telling that in actual ground combat, they wilt. They do not have any real staying power outside of this. Just like the Nazis, they crumble when their sense of invincibility is undermined. Israel’s economy is currently in shambles, is scrambling to import displaced Palestinian labor, and they are lashing out trying to provoke a wider war that will draw in more direct participation from Western countries. They have made very little progress in Lebanon, again relying more on civilian bombing campaigns than any actual fighting, as they consistently lose against guerillas. The axis of resistance is larger than it has been in decades and has made gains that were inconceivable before. The US and Israel cannot even contain Yemen’s solidarity against genocide-complicit shipping.
I am not so wrapped up in a particular leader, that is a liberal false understanding of how political power works and usually comes in the form of thinking Netanyahu is somehow uniquely evil, when he is fairly average for an Israeli.
Notice how you have changed the topic from Israel’s (alleged lack of) weakness to the destruction of Gaza, implicitly conflating the two. You can, apparently, only measure a liberation fight by the numbers of dead, or perhaps, like a Nazi or Boer or imperialist American soldier, by a death ratio, though your thoughts are so muddled you cannot just directly state them. And yet, all of them were defeated. Knowing nothing about the strategic basis of armed resistance against a genocidal occupier, you fail to see what the path to victory must look like. And you certainly don’t help with it, instead tut-tutting in favor of a relative passivity and a clean victimhood.
You imagine yourself aware of the strategizing despite knowing nothing about it, lmao. Please understand, again, that your imagination and reactionary idealism is not the same as understanding or fact.
For Israelis? Yes. They can’t do anything without complete air dominance. Do you know literally anything at all about war?
They will lose if they attempt a ground assault (bullets) and their cheap drones must be sourced from groups that would prevent their import. They also require an apparatus that is functional rather than one that has seen the workers that can operate and maintain them abandon the place in waves.
I am not your teacher, unless you want to pay me. This idea that you are simply owed hand-picked sources that you clearly have zero curiosity about and will not read is stupid and there is no rule that I must provide them for you. You can be a big ol’ adult and become curious and humble on your own, I cannot do it for you.
Mandela was imprisoned by the ANC was not crushed. The ANC continued its guerilla campaign and grew, becoming a powerful electoral party as well.
Incidentally, liberals such as yourself were tut-tutting Mandela as a terrorist during this time. If you actually read history out of curiosity rather than making things up and Googling for the first thing that sort-of confirms your bias, you might become an actually helpful person instead of feeding into this reactionary bigotry against armed resistance movements.
Again you are simply making things up counter to the basic facts of the major and sustained direct action campaigns carried out by South Africans. You do not know anything about this topic. Please stop lying about it.
It is not that complicated, but you do have to actually take the time to learn about something before pretending you can have an opinion about it. That is the “complexity” that liberals hide behind, it is just a laziness and a desire to prop up their preconceived notions that were fed to them as propaganda, often as children. You must be willing to sit down and read or shut that mouth and stop typing on that keyboard, otherwise you will be correctly recognized as someone that plays with fairy tales and seems to even believe them!
I’ve already addressed this. You can respond to what I said or quietly disengage, having nothing to say in response.
As I said, Vietnamese fighting is the primary “why”, as is obvious to anyone that studies this topic in any way. And I didn’t say only the VC, did I? It is a typical ignorant Western confusion to think that the Viet Cong were the only Vietnamese national liberation fighters.
You don’t look at the causes at all. You simply repeat the standard milquetoast propaganda line and make things up when convenient. And those milquetoast lines, as I mentioned, are implicitly racist. They are a chauvinistic view premised on not actually trying to learn anything about imperialist and racist aggression and saying, “well they stopped because they wanted to” and not because they were forced by circumstances imposed by the national liberation fighters and their constellation of movements taking direct action. I am certain you don’t even know about what direct actions were taken, despite this false pretense of looking for “all causes”, as you only ever look at one cause: whatever excuse was made by the imperialists themselves for their loss, which makes them feel like the victors and good fighters in their own way rather than the same people that would have supported the oppression, tacitly, tut-tutting the resistance fighters. Like, say, yourself.
You would have to demonstrate some level of curiosity and humility rather than using this request as a rhetorical cudgel to excuse your own ignorance and fibbing.
I can be glad that the Union won the U.S. Civil War and and ended slavery yet still consider it to be war crimes that they deliberately attacked civilians as part of Sherman’s March; no logic had been violated there.
According to OP’s logic that makes The Union bad guys, end of thought.