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.
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”
Since you probably buy stuff made in China like everyone else, you tell us.
What does China have to do with anything?
“it’s not whataboutism when I do it”
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.
It’s really not that hard to boycott China, people just don’t do it because they’re selfish and would rather support an authoritarian regime than stand for what’s right
I haven’t eaten any cooked hot food since the HK protests because every appliance is made or parts majority made in China
I will eat sliced bread and beans the rest of my life to own the Chinese
Beans is one thing, but cold beans??? That’s a step too far, I now uncritically support Xi.
Psh. You posuer. I’ve converted my life savings to yuan notes and am now keeping them under the bed to reduce the circulation of cash in the Chinese economy.
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We paid them slave wages to make things for us but they didn’t play fair and learned how to make things for themselves
The principle of being racist scumbags?
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.
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Tell me you haven’t read any serious report about the situation in Uyghurstan (can we please drop the chinese “new territory” colonial designation? I don’t think it helps anyone, including the Chinese position) without telling me you never read a serious report about the situation in Uyghurstan. There are several identified cases of the use of slave labor, but there are also lots of companies that had credible audits to show that at least on a superficial level they treat everyone fairly - and a huge chunk of places where the situation is as clear as mud.
Personally, I would choose to focus on things I ostensibly have some amount of control over. As an American, I have no effect whatsoever on Chinese laws or policy. However, I allegedly have power over my own country’s laws and policies, so I choose to expend my energy trying to end slave labor in America, which is legal if the person has been convicted of a crime.
Why would I spend the precious little free time and energy I have (between making enough money to pay rent and eat food) on something out of my control?
I just love all these creative ways people find to say that they’re imbeciles without saying it explicitly.
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.
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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.
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My country burns money, resources and human lives to enforce its hegemony on the other side of the planet while I only have health insurance through my crappy job and the infrastructure is crumbling everywhere. How do you think I feel?
Not too hot, I guess. Thanks for taking the time.
No problemo
Many are just trying to make the best out of what we have and it often feels like we have such little impact on these things happening across the country, let along in other parts of the world. The world population approaches 8 billion. Our impact is often meaningful in some way, but incredibly limited overall.
How can someone truly help with something across the world, like Ukraine/Russia and now Israel/Gaza, when conflict is constant and many also have to simply survive, in the face of entities that are capable of spending trillions of dollars.
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 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.
Well put and i completely agree!
Which side is committing genocide? That’s the side to oppose in any fight.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m an anarchist with no political representation. My country (US) has never been in agreement with my convictions.
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.
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?
Did I read this correctly? You just tried to say that Israel’s supporters are antisemitic? How’d you connect those two dots?
You just tried to say that Israel’s supporters are antisemitic?
No. I never tried to say it.
I just plain said it - the countries that enable Israel is as antisemitic and white supremacist as they have always been. They’ve been hiding it since WW2 - but, as the resurgence of mask-off far-right ideology in the US and Europe proves, it’s still the same old west.
The west’s support for Israel has always been antisemitic - dumping European Jewish people in Palestine was literally one the Nazi’s potential solutions to the “Jewish Question”. It’s no secret - just mundane history that westerners doesn’t like talking about.
Christian Zionism predates Jewish Zionism - the whole reason these white supremacist and antisemitic societies fantasized about a modern-day “Israel” was simply because they did not believe Jewish people belonged in their precious “white” societies.
You don’t have to think about it for very long to see it for yourself - who were the people that made it so difficult for Jewish people to “belong” in western societies? If the US was so friendly and welcoming to Jewish people as the US wants to pretend it is (prominent Jewish people like Steven Spielberg and Noam Chomsky will happily tell you about US-style antisemitism), why would Jewish people need a “homeland” in the middle-east?
No. I never tried to say it. I just plain said it…
I’d like to point out to folks that whatever your stance on the issue may be, this statement (taken by itself) is pretty funny.
Please excuse the interruption and continue.
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Either you replied to the wrong comment, or I’m misunderstanding yours
Ah so it would seem. Sorry.
No worries. These things happen.
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.
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
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.
This is the way
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.
and supported by taxpayers money;
nah our national taxes don’t pay for anything, a sovereign government prints fiat money before anyone pays any tax and part of what gives that money any real value is that it’s accepted as payment for debts owed to that sovereign.
They print money for the government budget but that massively inflates the money supply so to counterbalance that inflation, they destroy all the money that was paid in taxes by their citizens
Taxpayer money funding government budget is fairly accurate
Taxpayer money funding government budget is fairly accurate
you can print money up to the natural resource+ labor output of a nation-state and nobody is printing that much money.
where did the 20,000 per person per year for all those years the US spent on its wars in iraq and afghanistan come from? it wasn’t tax revenue.
It wasn’t all tax revenue but taxes were definitely necessary for the US economy to not collapse while funding the war machine
good thing the US economy didn’t collapse during those wars then…
I live in a country where people’s been bornt in debt for decades. It definitely feels people’s debt, particularly if you are poor.
what?
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.
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.
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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 weren’t 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.
It was then the Romans and the Muslims that did the oppression and genocide.
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?
Your abolishment of boundaries and countries is also a very simplistic world view.
I’d say that fetishizing lines drawn on a map is a pretty simplistic thing in itself.
Without government, you can’t stop the strong from obliterating the weak.
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 academics don’t, but wtf?
Why am I actually responding to a comment that is saying muslims don’t want to exterminate Jews.
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?
Sure the liberal ones don’t, but wtf?
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.
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.
Deuteronomy 20:16-18
16 However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.
דְּבָרִים
טז רַק, מֵעָרֵי הָעַמִּים הָאֵלֶּה, אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, נֹתֵן לְךָ נַחֲלָה–לֹא תְחַיֶּה, כָּל-נְשָׁמָה יז כִּי-הַחֲרֵם תַּחֲרִימֵם, הַחִתִּי וְהָאֱמֹרִי הַכְּנַעֲנִי וְהַפְּרִזִּי, הַחִוִּי, וְהַיְבוּסִי–כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוְּךָ, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ יח לְמַעַן, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-יְלַמְּדוּ אֶתְכֶם לַעֲשׂוֹת, כְּכֹל תּוֹעֲבֹתָם, אֲשֶׁר עָשׂוּ לֵאלֹהֵיהֶם; וַחֲטָאתֶם, לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם.
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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.
