It also depends on what “two state solution” actually means. Traditionally, Israel has made such solutions impossible. The “you go your way, we’ll go ours” has been off the table because Israel doesn’t want that, they want the entire land and the expulsion of Palestine entirely.

A two-state solution, where there’s a kind of federation between them might actually work. The federation would have to abide by international committees and violations by either state would be subject to some kind of punishment (be it trade deals or even military action in severe cases).

The first problem, though, is the weapons supply and military training from the West. If that were cut off, it would take maybe a year of bloody gorilla fighting, but the playing field would be relatively equal at that point and then it’d be anybody’s guess who’d win out. Getting the USA to slowly wean away support would mean negotiating partially on their terms.

In other words, Xi could just be giving the USA a peaceful “out” here, if they take it. The USA can save face and support a ramp down of the situation instead of escalation. I don’t see that happening near-term, but lots can change in the next few years and this play by China might just be the thing that allows a better situation to happen here.

Jokes on you, bot, I live in America, I don’t have privacy!

He’s a gaffe machine.

I always ask these people when is it actually OK for people to vote for their own interests instead of based on the opposition party? There’s no right answer of course except that you should always vote your interest. Everybody should.

Worse, though, this trope isn’t just against the “tankies”, it’s for anybody and everybody. Whoever a person wants to blame, especially if the Democrats lose the election. And even if people actually did what these folks suggested, they’d still blame them. It’s never the Democrats’ fault somehow.

Tanks. Lots and lots of T-34s.

A rehash of “the devil made me do it” trope.

Why not ask the Chinese government?

To be clear, capital - the value produced from society that is cycled back into society to develop further surplus - isn’t the problem, it’s capital within capitalism. Capital doesn’t have the “insatiable appetite” but rather capitalists, who control most of the capital, do. How we handle capital is a large part of what defines the system.

❤️

“What? Me? On equal ground with the dirty commoner? Good heavens, no!” - bourgeoisie

Don’t assume the readers/hearers of the propaganda all believe it. The military must maintain recruitment numbers and they’ll spend a lot of money to do so. So we’ll hear a lot about how great they are. The DOD even spends a lot of time and money providing props and such for Hollywood movies. They even help edit the scripts to ensure the US military isn’t put in a bad light.

It’s not that the brainrot runs deep. It’s more that the propaganda does. Don’t blame the people for the stuff they didn’t consent to.

Haha. Stalin’s got a way with words for sure. But you are probably right about anarchists not reading him.

That’s kind of what I was afraid of. I’m genuinely interested in a compelling critique. Like I mentioned, I haven’t seen one. I still sympathize with anarchists but I truly don’t understand how we do the switch-a-roo to communism with a snap. Like, nothing in history has worked that way, let alone, it would seem, a transition from class society to classless, arguably the greatest achievement of all time when it’s done.

But, yeah, this is probably wrong place to ask. I’ll seek out another Lemmy I guess.

Human psychology suggests that major life changes require a lot of time to process the internalization we have while going through them. We have to unpack things and question our own assumptions and be honest with ourselves on things we thought we’d never have to be honest with ourselves about.

I think that most people becoming socialists are coming from the toxic ideology of liberalism. Liberalism is a mental cage, designed to keep people captive in the predominant mode, all while thinking they’re actually free! When becoming a socialist, it’s a real struggled to free oneself from the shackles of liberal thought. It’s really, really tough. And it takes a lot of time, just like any change.

During a transition period from liberalism to socialism (technically, Marxism), people go through large periods of doubt and frustration and pessimism. But don’t let that get you off track. It’s natural and normal. You’re just starting to see the world for what it is, rather than what the powerful want you to believe it is. And the world is confusing and wild and lots of ugly. So it’s alarming.

Keep the course. Stay steady on. You’ll get out of the murky waters eventually. Once you can use material dialectics to analyze news and current events and history and movies and … then you’ll start realizing that the world was always this way and there’s no real sense in getting down about it. Live your life, do your part and push things a little further along.

None of the timings of things are up to us. It’s only on us to be ready for when the moment’s right. And to be humble enough to also be ready for that moment to be after we’re gone. Regardless of the circumstances, a socialist’s job is always the same: educate, agitate and organize.

However, we must remember these people are people

Correction: these people are proletariat. We have the same enemy. Mostly, the only difference between us and them is that we’re a little better at identifying the enemy than they are.

And those bears ain’t even hexed!

I know. I should’ve just made it its own top-level comment probably. Too late, tho.

Ferengi are the ultimate capitalist realists.

I have two dogs (a big one and a little one) and some training from a dog trainer. There’s no “getting even” with dogs. If you pee on their bed, they won’t care. They’ll smell it, and because their sense of smell is drastically more evolved than ours, they’ll figure out what you ate a couple of meals ago and what you’re current mood is. They will not interpret your pee as an act of vengeance.

There’s no punishment you can give. Instead, you need to hack dogs’ psychology (which is easy, actually) and train them to pee outdoors only. The way you do this is to by POSITIVE motivation. Each time they pee outdoors, give them a treat. You have about ~2 seconds to give them that treat though, so keep treats in your pocket at all times. Treats you know they like.

What will happen is that they’ll pee exactly where you want them to pee to get the treat. It takes multiple times, but they’ll make the connection. They just want the treat. Only after they’ve made the appropriate connection between peeing where you want and getting a reward can you begin then to not always give them the treat. Instead, affirm with a simple “good boy” and maybe a pet. Slowly (over weeks) retreat the reward until you’re just giving a verbal “good boy”. And maybe not even every time.

What they will do is just pee outside because “that’s the way they always do it”. That’s it. That’s all their brains will tell them. And they might bark or ask to go outside even when they need to go because, in their heads, it’s “weird” to go inside. It’s not what they did the last 20 times so they don’t want to.

Anyway. Take it from a random person on the Internet: punishment won’t be effective. Just hack your dog’s love of food and love of routine. Keep it positive and you’ll, eventually, receive the fruits of your labor.

as Americans, how can we support struggles that are so far away?

Outside of laundering money to a leftist organization somewhere, I’m not really sure, TBH. Organizations like the International Socialist Alternative (ISA) exist as a kind of way to link up the global struggle across national boundaries. But I have no experience with them and don’t know if that’s a good or bad route.

And how come we are powerless to change things home?

This is all my opinion. I’m sure there’s a way but I think it’s pretty well-hidden. Most of human history is not revolutionary but rather the continuation of a bad system. So it’s less likely you’d be living in a time of revolution than in a time under some class system that seems to be maintaining itself pretty well.

Having said that, we don’t know when the opportunity will present itself either. So in my view, you may as well operate as if a great revolution is just around the corner. Educate workers, organize them, mobilize them, rail against the existing order, etc. The old “education, agitated and organize” addage.

So saying “we’re powerless” isn’t the point, I guess. Because we won’t know whether we are or aren’t until we try and either fail or succeed. Rather, I would say a better viewpoint is simply to acknowledge the fact that we aren’t currently in a moment of historical change. But despite this, our work is pretty much the same either way. And it’s a lot better to understand how political economy works anyway than to remain ignorant and be predisposed to the rat race of electoral politics and the whole spectacle of society.

Like, I can spot the neoliberal propaganda in Marvel movies quite easily. But not too long ago I didn’t see it at all. I think there’s value in that. I’m growing and learning. And I’m able to understand events in terms of class or class struggle.

Like the issue in Niger right now. As a liberal, I would be wanting to pick sides and know if they’re good or bad and probably would have thought the new government was bad and we need to send in the troops. But as a Marxist, I’m like, “Oh, this is like international bourgeoisie against local bourgeoisie and local bourgeoisie has a current interest in decoupling them from neo-colonialism, which is good, but will probably betray that on down the line.” Just being able to frame things by class and class interest is useful.

And, of course, in the context of the USA, your greatest impact is at the local level (county). Your vote actually does count there and it’s at least possible to form a leftist org that forces policy changes on the local level to materially improve lives. Something along the lines of forming a mass line would be the approach here. But on the state and then national level, your vote is effectively useless. Because those processes are anti-democratic and they’re mostly theater to give people the illusion of democracy and make us feel involved when really we’re not actually doing anything that nudges power in the right direction ever.