How do you feel about financing a genocide?
I didn't want to direct this question to Americans specifically because, at this point, other countries have shown support to Israel in one or the other way. If my country was financing this, I would be taking the streets. Shit, I'm right now in the hospital but all I can think about is protesting anyway just to feel I did something to stop this madness.
Are you doing something about this? Are you feeling unsettled? How do you feel about all this mess?
EDIT: So, buying Chinese stuff takes the USS Gerald Ford to Gaza’s coast. Also, TIL that that chocolate my cousin gave me when she was 20 and I was 5, (delicious stuff!) made me a slavist-ish. The fact remains, this genocide is being paid and supported by taxpayers money; of course, I was hoping that most of us didn’t pay taxes wishing for this. Thank you all for your responses, some of them were hard to swallow.
I mean, if you've purchased chocolate in the last century, you're supporting slavery by your logic. Same for many other commodities, but most people know about diamonds. You could be protesting your entire life, justifiably, about many things. Most people in the world cannot consume without inadvertently causing harm and suffering somewhere in the world. It's nice that you're now thinking about it though.
I believe you are taking my question out of context. I didn't start thinking about this just now. Ultimately, not every company owns representatives in the state. Yes, I believe we should be careful about what we consume and who's behind those products, but it needs to be in the power of the states to control the best practices to produce goods; it is not reasonable for an individual, for one citizen, to ask for this. It is different with our governments, we can and should demand for them to represent us with dignity. As individuals, we can demand accountability for their decisions taken in our names. Companies don't represent us, governments do.
Since you probably buy stuff made in China like everyone else, you tell us.
China meets the manufacturing needs for most of the world, it's economically not realistic to boycott them
That said, we still should boycott them, at least in principle.
In general I agree with you, but reality is also more nuanced. A blanket boycott can often harm the people you want to protect. A common question in the debate about Palestine and Uyghurstan and boycotts is what to do about companies that give equal opportunities to people from the targeted communities - i.e. companies that give jobs in the same terms to both Israelis and Palestinians or the Han Chinese and Uyghur people.
I have been boycotting them for best of my ability for the last 6 years.
I think problems usually include airplanes or using car where it is not clear what components is chinese made.
The one I got stuck with was a PS5 controller. I thought Sony electronics fully made in Japan to later find out they sourced things to china.
If you read the thread, or at least my responses, you would probably made a more conscious effort to answer my question.
Thank you for saying it better than I could have.
How did you feel insulted? I'm not saying any citizen is guilty of anything. I do not think so. But this is happening with their money. All I'm saying is representatives of these countries should know and follow whatever the people they govern thinks they should do. If you feel insulted, maybe, just maybe that's on you.
Leading question.
Edit: For an actual "answer", some people are in fact taking it to the streets. For your favorite country you can search for it and if you don't want to do that here's an article for the US. While you may argue that we should've expected this, at the time of financing all we know is that there was a first strike and people were angry. Now it's different, at least in my local circle.
Either way, this should not be a question for asklemmy. It should be in the politics community or something.
Loaded question.
rhetorical “question”
I feel that taking one side over the other without allowing for any nuance in that complicated clusterfuck over there is disingenuous. I feel very sorry for all civilians caught between the many murderous assholes in that region, but I can't fully support one group while completely condemning the other. Acting like it's a black and white issue is so very wrong and not helpful.
But our government did pick a side. So what is our obligation, then?
Let your delegate know that you wish for more nuance, that instead of supporting the state of Israel, that it'd be better to side with the civilians on all sides who are dying in this messed up conflict.
Which side is committing genocide? That’s the side to oppose in any fight.
Well put and i completely agree!
Not good. All I can do is vote. Until they take that away.
Do you feel represented by one of the political parties you may have in your country? Would they act in a general agreement with your own convictions?
I do not. Not one iota. That being said, I'm an American who's been around the world twice and speaks multiple languages. I consider myself reasonably left, but in this country I am extreme left. Our politicians are bought and paid for by lobbyists. The few who tend to be honest are either marginalized or silenced.
My vote counts for nothing. I will still vote in earnest.
This is why I started to support rank choice voting like they have in many countries in Europe. It's not perfect but a nice step forward from what we have.
I'm assuming you meant ranked choice, but the mental image of your typo is quite entertaining.
Don't they have tank choice in places like Russia, North Korea, Iran? Thanks for pointing that out and your welcome for the laugh.
I’ll take a T-38 please
Agreed. Ranked choice is one of the few ways to vote with your conscience.
Contact counts for way more than voting.
Contact your representative, they don't know who voted for them, they do know about the people who care enough to call though.
I’m an anarchist with no political representation. My country (US) has never been in agreement with my convictions. I don’t expect it to in my lifetime, but I am disappointed it isn’t even headed in a non-authoritarian direction.
Well this shows that not everything about the US is bad.
I’m Libertarian and there are candidates that seem way more up my alley than the Big Two, but it never gets much traction.
Also while I think our foreign involvement should be minimal, I don’t think unceremoniously dropping those connections is wise. I think if the State Dept were following my orders, it could take about 50 years to get to the level of foreign interference I think we should be doing.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Keep posting of that's all you can do right now.
Great quote you made me think of.
The truth hurts, but silence kills. -Mark Twain
I love genocide. I just wish there was some way I could actually vote for it. Instead I'm stuck voting for the closest option which does none of what I want but fortunately both sides support Israel killing Muslims in mass.
I'll put this here because people are dumb as hell /s
DISGUSTING.
Prime minister of my country supports Israel because “they’re allowed to defend themselves”.
What is happening now, has nothing to do with defending themselves, it’s their mission to genocide. I cannot believe the entire world is fine with it. Western but also Arabian countries unfortunately.
In my opinion, “justice” does not exist. It never did. Because it seems the law doesn’t apply to Presidents and a country that purely stands for genocide.
It's never just been the US - Israel doesn't just have a whole bunch of enablers... said enablers also back the very idea of a modern-day Israel.
France, the UK, Germany, Australia, Apartheid-era South Africa all played their part in helping with all this - I guess the fact that it's all countries with histories that are deeply entwined with white supremacism, antisemitism and colonialism is purely coincidence, eh?
My country has been voting to condemn Israel's treatment of Palestine in the UN until 2022 but they will probably vote the same now. As far as I know my country doesn't support Israel monetarily either so I'm pretty happy.
Also please remember that Europe purchased nearly the entirety of products produced by slaves in the Americas.
If there were no European market there would have been little incentive for American slavery.
I guess the slave free northern states also purchased their fair share, but nothing compared to Europe.
It's almost like capitalism fosters slavery, weird 🤔
Actually no. Capitalism is based on free markets and slaves aren’t involved in the market freely. If the market includes people in chains who haven’t consented to be involved, it’s not a free market.
Tell me you know nothing about economics without saying, "I know nothing of economics".
But... the invisible hand...!
What is this “invisible hand” thing people keep referring to?
It's a term used by one of the big economic thinkers associated with capitalism, or a version of it. It basically means the markets 'correct' themselves, merely by existing. It can be summed up as the collective actions of consumers and sellers setting prices for products/goods/services, rather than those same things being dictated by fiat.
Actually, no, different people use the word "capitalism" to mean different and sometimes incompatible things.
But only right-libertarians use it to mean "a free market in which all people's individual rights are always respected"; which is why when right-libertarians say something about "capitalism" absolutely everyone else gets weirded out.
For a contrary example, in my usage, "capitalism" emphasizes the role of finance capital (roughly: shareholders) in choosing which economic activities will get funding; and secondarily the tendency of governments to support established financial interests. "Capitalism" in this sense didn't exist prior to the development of privately financed colonial projects; it was the difference between Spanish colonialism (funded by the monarchy; see e.g. Columbus) and Dutch and English colonialism (funded by private investors through state-created corporations; see the various East and West India Companies).
In my view, many people say "capitalism" where they really mean something like "scarcity" or "greed" or "status competition", all of which existed long before historical capitalism. Merchants have jacked up prices in response to scarcity long before there were capital markets; and people in many historical non-capitalist societies still competed on the basis of wealth and prosperity.
Well wikipedia also defines it based on free markets.
If you don’t think that’s a valid definition of capitalism you ought to argue your point over there.
You can mean whatever you want when you say capitalism. I use the definition where free markets are a characteristic.
There really was a major change in trade and fortune with the advent of capital investment at a particular point in history, beginning in northern Europe and especially in the investment markets of Amsterdam and London. This is what a lot of people mean by "capitalism", and if you want to understand the things they say, it will help you if you don't pretend they mean something else.
If I had to name one defining property of "capitalism", it would be that an investor can trade shares in a venture managed by someone else, without thereby taking on either management responsibility or financial liability for the downsides of that venture. This was the financial innovation that made Northern European colonialism possible, and it is maintained to the present day in the form of stock markets.
Capital-ism is about making capital (money from investors) available to ventures (businesses; startups; colonial voyages). It doesn't necessarily mean free speech or even free trade. It means freedom for capital, not necessarily for you.
Oh yeah, and you know the justification for indigenous peoples being granted their land back because their ancestors used to live there, and they were removed?
That's the exact same situation for Israel. The Jews used to live in Israel until they were kicked out.
Let that complicate your morality.
Did no one live on that land before the Jews? How about we just get rid of countries, borders and religious claims to lands? How about as transient beings crossing through reality at a pace that barely even registers on the geologic timeline, we just give up this whole idea of possessing everything for that short blip of existence?
Or, you know, lets not and just keep wasting this precious little time we have playing land murder roulette.
The ancestors of the Jews first settled there. It was then the Romans and the Muslims that did the oppression and genocide.
I'm not sure why you think a geologic time scale matters here. These are human issues that only exist on human time scales.
Your abolishment of boundaries and countries is also a very simplistic world view. You assume that there are no bad actors, but there always will be.
Without countries there would be no government. Without government, you can't stop the strong from obliterating the weak.
According to the bible, the jews took the land (with the help of orbital strikes from “God”) from other people who lived there.
There were certainly people there before them just as there were people after. I find that viewing things on a larger scale than we live on helps us appreciate that the world does not belong or yield to us. It was there before we walked it and it will be here after were gone, so the flawed view that any one people has a right or claim is to me personally laughable. It was viewed similarly by those indigenous people you spoke of.
Countries don't stop bad actors and they don't protect the weak. They protect the interests of the ruling class and provide means of control. In this very situation it would appear that nothing is stopping the obliteration of Gaza. Boundaries, countries, walls and the like are just means to segregate and divide. It could be racially, economically, religiously. Whatever you like. As long as we keep propping up these institutions we will never get any closer to peace and unity on those human scales you're so concerned with.
Governance doesn't need to be tied to borders or countries just as hierarchies don't need to be organized vertically.
When did the Muslim-world commit genocide against Jewish people? The medieval Muslim-world was a safe haven for Jewish communities - as opposed to Christendom... you know - the place where antisemitism originates from?
I'd say that fetishizing lines drawn on a map is a pretty simplistic thing in itself.
So your solution is to allow the strong a government so that they can obliterate the weak even more easily?
What the fuck is wrong with you people?
Why am I actually responding to a comment that is saying muslims don't want to exterminate Jews.
Sure the liberal ones don't, but wtf?
Let me guess... you're a product of the US education system?
You don't have the foggiest idea of the history you are feigning expertise in here, do you?
What "liberals," Clyde? The only Palestinian "liberals" you will find are the corrupt lapdog racketeers "managing" the West Bank at the behest of Israel. If Hamas takes them out, very few Palestinians will lose any sleep over it... and rightly so.
Deuteronomy 20:16-18
דְּבָרִים
I didn't express an opinion. I said that morality is complex.
But I’ve never seen any calls for indigenous people to get their land back.
A simple Google search will show that not only are there calls, it's actually happened.
The indigenous fight for returned land and even bones of ancestors kept by museums still goes on. Look for the #landback hashtag as well as #mmiw.
I don't mean to derail the conversation, but it pains me to say that Europeans have been financing the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh by buying Azerbaijani oil with almost no repercussion.
The only thing I'm dissatisfied with is their free hand with bombing civilians along with military targets. I can understand that Israel is angry, and rightfully so, but they fancy themselves a western country, being better than terrorist Hamas. They can't let their anger take control. Bombing civilians undermines their legitimatecy, I think they should try and be as surgical as possible, like they did in previous rounds of fighting. Other than that, I fully support their desire to root out Hamas. Though conquering Gaza only has any merit to it if they decide to stay and govern it themselves, otherwise Hamas would just rise up again.
Are you satisfied about they having a nuclear arsenal after this? It's not a rhetorical question, I'm actually interested in your thoughts about this.
I don't know, what does it matter? They don't even acknowledge it, nevermind about using it. The only instance in which they might use their nukes is the Samson Option, which looks like something any country would do.
It matters because it changes all logics in a war. In this case, I think it matters because you described them as angry, bombing civilians along with military targets. If they don't differentiate one of the other, the only thing stopping them from nuking the Gaza stripe is probably the inconvenience of being too close.
Ah, I see. No, they're not that stupid. Even if nuking Gaza didn't affect them because of proximity, they wouldn't. They rely on American help too much, and struggle as they do with international forces. Nuking Gaza would leave them ostricized and heavily sanctioned, if not invaded.
Or nuked
Looking at the geopolitics and many sides of the conflict, wouldn't other better and bigger groups join in if it comes close to the annihilation of Hamas?
Looking at Hezbollah and Iran, joining in as a minimum.
This would start making the war closer to WWIII.
Anyone with more information or confidence want to correct or add detail?
This attack will energize the populations of a lot of middle-eastern regimes that have been playing footsie with Israel over the last few decades - so yeah... both in the long and short term things are looking shaky for Israel. Would it lead to WW3? Unlikely... even if Israel's geopolitical reach and importance is curbed by this, the US already has another thug regime in the area that can do it's dirty work for it - Saudi Arabia.
If I took to the streets over this, I would make protestors look bad because I have no experience, no social skills, no support network, and I'm a terrible rhetorician, especially when I am angry. Additionally, my family is fast to call the cops and has promised me that they would cooperate with the police if I ever got on their radar, so my presence would be a security culture issue.
Well, I have chosen not to work for companies that participate in such genocides, which is not a completely vacuous statement because they have sent me recruitment emails to design their fucking missiles! But frankly, I am fighting my own battles right now. I am desperately trying to find work. I am constantly fighting insurers to pay for the few times I ever muster up the courage to use my insurance. I am fighting my own goddamn family who will throw me to the fucking wolves if I can't afford the rent. I am fighting the urge to walk off into the woods and fucking die of embarrassment at having accomplished so little at my age.
So no, I'm not really doing anything. I'll cop to that. I've copped to worse, and at least for now I can live with being a hypocrite. Sorry if that's unsatisfactory.
I fucking HATE America, I fucking HATE world governments, and this just adds to the list of reasons why. Unsettled doesn't even begin to cover it.
My biggest complaint is that Ukraine has to be very careful about this or they would lose their support. Israel goes all out on this and the west can't give them sorry fast enough.
Call your congressperson and senators. They might not listen to just you but the more people call the more their positions can be moved.
Thom Tillis' laughed in my face when I called about net neutrality. I think the Israel/Hamas conflict would be the same.
My old congressman wrote me a letter back with telecom industry talking points when I did the same. I wrote him a reply stating as much and told him he should be ashamed for either not understanding or ignoring the full scope of the issue. I’m glad I have a congressperson who is actually pretty decent now that I moved.
Similar to all other wars, shitty but numb to human greed, at times.
Best when brought up organically, but steering toward it may also happen.
Teaching/learning and talking to as many people about it IRL, while also trying and failing on the interwebs.
Germany is bound to support them no matter what. I understand why but there should be some conditions. It’s a sensitive subject here.
Beyond that I don’t really understand this conflict enough to have an objective opinion.
I fell like most people have very little idea whats going on. The conflict is extremely complicated.
It really isn't. It's just pro-Israeli propaganda pretending it's complicated.
I didn't listen to what Scholz said. But it's probably easy to show support in a fight against a terror organization.
I don't think it is "no matter what". I think there are quite some conditions. But you don't say that to a nation that is supposed to be a friend. You pledge allegiance to friends. But being a dependable friend doesn't extend to literally everything, no matter what.
And Germany is -in my opinion- more obliged to support people. Not necessarily their nation.
I'm not sure I think Israel is engaged in genocide - although I'm deeply unhappy with some of their military approaches.
Hamas, on the other hand, is unashamedly aiming at genocide. Their started aim is the death of all Jews and they are frequently heard chanting "from the river to the sea".
Defeated and hopeless mostly. Almost the same as I felt funding the war in the middle east after looking at the casualties and reading testimonies from US soldiers. It's long weighed heavily on me that half of every dollar I'm required to pay to the government is used to kill people who have nothing to do with me, especially as someone whose worked since he was 16. The war in the middle east was met with the largest protests in US history at the time and nothing changed. We then elected a democrat who was given a noble peace prize, he kept the war going and killed many civilians with drone strikes. I don't even own a house and the rate at which my savings are stacking up, there's not much I can even afford to do. Welcome to the machine.
If you were in power in Israel, and care for its citizens, what would your steps be as reaction to what happened? Please imagine both short and long term consequences.
If the Israeli government cared about the people it (supposedly) represents it wouldn't be turning them into violent colonialist goons to do the west's bidding in the middle-east, would it?
You might just as well ask how to fix the Apartheid-regime without upsetting white people or fix the Nazi regime without discomforting Nazis.
Stop being an apartheid state. Seriously that is what I would do, every day.
An ongoing genocide or a genocide in hindset? And what kind? It would largely depend. Often when we give people money and they happen to use that money to pay for misdeeds, some people come back and accuse us of financing that misdeed. On the contrary, in any situation on Earth at any time, we have to be prepared for any given situation to have unconforming parts and pieces. In this situation, it's not like the government gives us a contract that says "here, sign this to show you agree to what we're going to use your taxpayer money for". If they did, I wouldn't sign, because my ethics as a relationship anarchist extend to politics, but they're not playing by relationship anarchist rules, so I become something to squeeze money out of without explanation, and it becomes less understandable how any burden is at play, especially when people start pressuring us to conform and cheat the system so-to-speak. We can try our best though.
At any stage of this process are we being given a choice? There's the main problem to me. I agree with you that, at some point, we just should try our best. I believe this should include reclaiming some power back to the people.
All the evidence so far tells me that nobody is serious about stopping the violence. The only way the violence will end in this region is if the entire region is turned into a sheet of glass.
My only interest in the region is ensuring that the violence continues, until such time as an option other than "glass them all" presents itself.
Why is that your interest in the region?
Because once we normalize ending violence with nuclear weapons, the whole fucking world burns.
Weird
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/protestors-block-downtown-seattle-streets-amid-middle-east-war/QHUUZH3QQNBL7IB7I7UPY6EKZM/
I get your point: by engaging in this social, economical and political system we are all complicit in the crimes perpetrated in Gaza. But moralism alone won’t actually get you far. The problem isn’t our collective lack of morals, it’s a lack of power.
Case in point: I live in the Netherlands, and a lot of people I know actually do feel deeply uncomfortable by this. Some actually did take to the streets in mass for several weeks. Btw, I am talking about retirees and young mothers, so not your average leftist student either.
However those that did protest quickly learned a lesson about class struggle in a Western democracy: our right-winged parlement didn’t budge an inch. Instead it turned the PR-machine on them, branding them as ‘troublemakers‘, ‘wokists’ and even ‘Islamic youths’. After building the narrative for several days, it started to deploy the riot police. And once they’d mopped up the demonstrators, they blamed the damages on the heartless, antisocial demonstrators who wreaked havoc on our peaceful society.
When faced with state propaganda and state violence, most protesters eventually give up. Gaza is too distant an issue for them to risk sacrificing their social status, relationships or even personal safety. People nowadays are also deeply apolitical, so these protests typically aren’t part of any rooted and well organized opposition.
Back in the 1960’s or 1970’s you had workers parties that would actually connect different groups and social issues to the wider narrative of class struggle and organize sustained and effective opposition. Workers parties could actually throw in in their weight to somewhat counterbalance the state narrative and even attempts at suppressing protests.
But the fall of communism and the rise of neoliberalism effectively killed the political left. Conservatism and corporatism are now the leading ideologies in Western governments. Therefore solidarity with Gaza is quickly branded as extremism. And if the movement then doesn’t dissipate on its own, it is often actively suppressed.
I'm not sure if it constitutes genocide yet, but it's fair to say it's going that direction. For every dead group A, group B wants to kill 10 group A people, and vice-versa. There's two ways that can stop; either they bury the hatchet or one group is entirely wiped out.
As for how I feel about my government, actually kind of hopeful. I was expecting SNAFU but it's clear the Canadian government is actually having to consider the Palestinian perspective this time around.
In the US, speaking the truth about the Israel-Palestine ::cough::Palestinian genocide::cough:: war will get you cancelled by AIPAC astroturfers and useful idiots who just cancel who they’re told to cancel. That’s how they (the AIPAC, the military industrial complex, and AIPAC-run film industry..if you don’t believe me, why was Harvey Weinstein so friendly with ex-Mossad agents that he was able to use them against his opponents?) manufacture consent among normal people these days.
Additionally, 35 US states have anti-bds laws on the books punishing US citizens that choose not to buy products from Israel. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws In many of those US states you can be fired from government jobs for refusing to buy Israeli products in your own personal life.
ROFL!
I don't feel that my country, America, is funding a genocide right now, though it's worth keeping in mind that America is the product of genocide against the Native American tribes and just about every nation in the modern world is the product of conquest at some point in history.
I can only remind myself of the facts:
I won't pick a side between the nations of Israel and Palestine, instead I'll side with the innocent over those who would target and kill them.
The terrorist attacks orchestrated this week by Hamas and possibly funded by Iran and Russia were a sickening crime against humanity and should be easy for anybody with human decency in their heart to reject and condemn. At the same time, innocent Palestinians should not have to bear the brunt of Israeli rage or revenge. This situation has now escalated to full blown war, with rockets and missiles being thrown both ways, hundreds of people kidnapped from Israel, and hundreds of thousands soon to be displaced from their homes in Gaza with basically nowhere to run. It is a genuine humanitarian disaster. Israel has to respond to this attack, not only to at least attempt to save the hostages that were taken, but also to show strength against those that would try to attack them. There are no shortage of nations and groups in the middle east who despise Israel and want them wiped out, and now that they have shown weakness, as their most powerful and important ally America must come to their defense and aide as a deterrent to further attacks.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the oldest and most complicated wars in history. Everyone wants to boil this down to good and bad, but I hate to break it to you. There are no good guys here and there are no bad guys either. Or maybe you can argue that there are only bad guys, if that helps you sleep at night.
But in the end of the day, this shitshow of human horrors is nothing more than the culmination of thousands of years of history, politics, conquest, cold war, religion, prejudice, money and blood. This is war. Just like Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but actually with much more nuance and history behind it.
Yeah let's kill thousands of innocent people, hopefully you'll be one of them /s
Just nuke Jerusalem. If these religious fuck nuts can’t play nicely together someone should take their toys away.
The funny thing about this situation is that it takes 20 minutes just to get past the context on why an oversimplification like “religious conflict” doesn’t work. It is, but… it’s not, and they’re not, but they are. Make sense yet? No? Good.
Depends on the genocide. For Isreal I'm fine with it because I think anyone would do the same in their position.
No it literally fucking doesn't. Doesn't matter what happened before or what happens after. Genocide is never justified. Fire hot. Water wet.
Considering this guy just slapped the label genocide on to thr question to evoke a moral reaction I think its fine to say depends. It wouldn't be an interesting comment section if everyone agreed. In ww2 the us dropped Teo bombs on Japan and basically said surrender or we will destroy you. This show of force and threat of genocide was justified in my opinion.
What's your take on the Holocaust?
What do you mean my take on the holocaust? There's only 1 take on the holocaust..