I’m mostly just going to disengage because I think we’re really on the same side here and I’m just being a pedant on a thread about an innocent man being murdered, but I think you’re kinda missing the point too. Social murder happens literally everywhere constantly, even socialist countries.

show me a state in the entire world that doesn’t exist because it has captured a monopoly over legitimate violence. The best the subjects of a state can hope for is that state violence is only ever implicit, but if there was no threat of being put to death or seriously harmed for individuals that threaten the continued existence of a state, that state would cease to be.

However, it is true that America is particularly brutal with regards to executing civilians. Something that stands out is that, compared to other countries that regularly execute their citizens, there’s a pretty obvious skew in terms of who’s getting the death penalty. Compared to China, for example, the US hasn’t executed anyone for white collar crime in a long time (hopefully someone can find a reference to the last time it happened, I’m not sure where to check) but appears to be killing Black and Muslim folks awfully often. Really makes you think, right?

I think there’s an interesting phenomenon where even white normies understand how demonically racist the American institutions are. Ideologically committed racists don’t, but everyone else sees at least part of it. However, because this only gives you a negative assertion (don’t trust what the courts say) and the isn’t really a normative, absolute system we can trust in the absence of any reliable rulings from the hegemonic institutions, we’re just left with a wide space of viable interpretations of reality, which lets people get off the hook for assuming reality must be close-ish to what said racist institutions uphold. That closeness between imagined reality and the reality white supremacy wishes to impose is what allows for people who aren’t ideologically committed racists to passively accept the brutalization and murder of marginalized people. “Oh, I can’t support those cruel acts, but the sad reality is they probably didn’t happen for no reason either” is the refrain of the embarrassed white moderate.

The DNA evidence was enough to prove him innocent, he was 100% not guilty.

Really? I’ve seen a protest a week since Oct 6

Yep, not to mention somewhere about 60-70% of Americans disapprove of Israel’s genocide. But the Uncommitted Movement just endorsed Kamala Harris. UAW had endorsed Joe Biden months ago after no concessions wrt Gaza. The distance between where western leftists lie and the radical actions that are actually necessary to stop the genocide of the Palestinian people, COVID, and climate collapse is immense. What do you think happens to that 60-70% figure when you break down the effects of the collapse of American empire? Do you think anywhere more than a miniscule number of Americans currently stand in solidarity with the aims of the Axis of Resistance of complete eradication of the Zionist entity and American presence from Western Asia? Or are they just sad because they saw Palestinians being murdered, but will just as easily become outraged by whatever propaganda tells them to be angry about China or Russia next?

What does this tell us about COVID? Upthread there is already criticism of the individualistic approach of criticizing non-mask-wearers and prescription of new measures for the COVID conscious community to demand. HEPA filters, better ventilation, etc. But the thing these issues have in common with the failure of western anti imperialism, is that if we can’t even get the basic knowledge across to a critical mass of people, as to make them make changes in their ordinary routines and daily behavior, then we obviously have a nearly impossible task ahead of us when tackling systems that have defence mechanisms built into them, much hardee defence mechanisms than simple force of habit.

Does that mean that the most effective strategy is to scream at people until they change their minds about the small stuff, then get together to scream about the big stuff? Obviously not, that strategy is ineffective on its own and I agree with you there. But when immunocompromised comrades’ lives are on the line, of couse I’ll scream at people who should get it because it’s patently absurd that I have to explain basic facts that we already understood a couple months into the pandemic to people that are supposed to be materialists.

Waves ARE coming around again

99% of Americans would rather have all Palestinians get killed by Israel than see a 10% drop in the S&P 500 from arms divestment that’d be reflected in their retirement portfolio. Does that mean that communists have to bend over and not call out the bloodthirsty settlerbrained nonsense that the vast majority of people believe? Do we have to be nice to people who are committing violence against the disabled and elderly because they happen to be the overwhelming majority? Do we have to extend that politeness to online spaces that are supposed to be for likeminded people yet still appear to be full of the same plague rat mentality?

It’s weird that boomers tend to strawman us as responding to criticisms of AES with “that’s not true socialism.” Maybe socdems who think Norway is socialist but Cuba isn’t would say that, but anyone who’s reading Marx and is actively participating in discussions about socialism above a high school level probably understands that real socialism has been tried and has succeeded.

Which brings me to my next point: Socialism’s biggest success story is China. It defies every trope yet it looks like most Western leftists are too afraid to claim it as the success it is, evidence that without sanctions, coups, and blockades socialism is a system that can take us to the future capitalism is currently killing. For every rags to riches story in America, there are thousands of people who received dignity, employment, and an economy that worked in their favor thanks to Chinese socialism. It’s the best example of what socialism can achieve without being sabotaged, a country that went from a feudal backwater with tyrannical landlords, where the local warlords could claim the peasants’ daughters as their property, where famines would routinely come and kill several million people, to the largest and most advanced economy in the world in less than a century. And they accomplished this by taking on Western capital and beating them at their own game.

Yes, it’s on my list for sure! Dyson Sphere Program has a big update coming though, so I’ll probably finish Satisfactory only to go to Dyson Sphere before I can try Workers and Resources.

Third vs first playthrough of Satisfactory

protest for the sake of conducting the genocide more effectively is definitely enough reason to cut settlers some slack!

Can someone find a recording of him actually saying it? Telesur doesn’t have any info on it. I can’t tell if he was just joking and this is another Why China banned the letter N ridiculous premise you can only believe if you forgot that the enemies of the US still have functioning brains and aren’t mindless drones.

Hey here’s a quick one, literally the first sentence is a readaptation of the 14 words! Would you look at that!

Oh lol I also am outside of the US so I don’t vote (except I’m voting for Trump by not voting for Kamala, as I’ve been told very often)

There are quite a lot of independent representatives and a handful of independent senators, though for what it’s worth there are still some congresspeople and senators in the Democratic Party that aren’t as disgusting as Harris herself. Many were successfully primaried by AIPAC sponsored candidates this election so they’ll have to run as independents, however.

Vote independent of course, I’d propose you should vote for Claudia de la Cruz from PSL if you live in the states where they’re on the ballot, and probably either Green or write in/don’t vote if they aren’t.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as always

I don’t think you’re wrong in spirit, but we are the “never again” crowd. It’s a good motto to live by and it’s entirely true. The fact that some people hypocritically use it to defend the genocidal state of Israel doesn’t take away from how the rest of us should continue the remembrance of the Holocaust and vow to never allow genocide to happen again. Being Opposed to “never again” is something that you shouldn’t do, even ironically.

At least in Star Wars they explain the context with the scroll at the start of the movie, libs think that Ukraine literally popped into existence in 2022.

If you’re looking for some in depth discussion BreakThrough News just did a video on the subject.

“Not humanly possible” is a quote from an American swimmer commenting on the Chinese athlete’s performance.