AskALeftist

AskALeftist

Someone accused me of being "obsessed with Israel" yesterday and it just blew my mind. Civil rights are being destroyed throughout the west to defend a state that's committing genocide and ethnic cleansing with western backing, and we're not meant to talk about that state and the things it's doing?
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 12 hours ago

I mean, do people think I like writing about this sleazy apartheid state all the time? Does it look like I enjoy it? Do you think it's been fun having to look at videos of children with their guts ripped out by western-supplied weapons and getting called a Nazi when I say it's wrong? Yeah man that shit's like crack to me. I'm obsessed with it.

I'm not "obsessed" with Israel. I hate writing about Israel. I wish I never had to think about it. Israel just happens to be the focal point of the worst things that are happening in the world right now, all with the backing of the western empire I live under. I can't just not talk about this; if I didn't I'd be a shitty person. This is obvious to anyone with a working mind and a healthy heart.

Dems are happy as a pig in shit right now. They get to pretend all the unfathomable evils their president inflicted upon our world never happened, just because there's a different president doing bad things who people are feeling big feels about. Trump lets them feel smug and vindicated and correct.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 8 days ago

Democrats are as happy as a pig in shit right now. Suddenly they get to pretend all the unfathomable evils their president inflicted upon our world never happened, just because there's a different president doing bad things who people are feeling big feels about.

They wanted to lose. They're overjoyed that they don't have to be the face on the US empire's depravity anymore, and that it's no longer their job to make excuses for it. They're getting everything they want out of the present arrangement, because liberals don't actually care about fixing problems and making the world a better place, they only care about feeling good about themselves. Their politics is never actually about anything other than their feelings, and Biden was making their feelings feel bad. Trump lets them feel smug and vindicated and correct. He also lets them feel outraged and indignant, and they enjoy that too.

But it's all bullshit. No matter what Trump says or does or how he and his goons make people's feelings feel, it will still be a historical fact that Biden and his handlers spent 15 months facilitating a campaign of extermination and demolition in Gaza which could not have happened without US backing. It will still be a historical fact that Biden and his handlers pushed Ukraine into an unwinnable war that the US and its allies knowingly provoked in order to advance geostrategic grand chessboard agendas, sabotaging potential peace negotiations and threatening the world with nuclear annihilation along the way. It will still be a historical fact that Biden kept in place many of the ugly policies put in place during the first Trump administration and actively expanded and added to them.

It's important to point this out because Democrats are posturing as opponents of tyranny and abuse right now, and they aren't. They are ALLIES of tyranny and abuse, who LARP as righteous defenders of truth and justice whenever the other tyrannical and abusive party happens to be in power. Their behavior during the Trump administration shows you how they wish to be perceived, but their behavior during the Biden administration showed you who they really are.

It’s so infantile and embarrassing to love a state like Israel or the US and spend your time defending its actions. It’s a sign of a feeble mind to feel emotional attachment to ANY power structure, but especially the ones that are doing the most evil things in the world right now.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 8 days ago

It’s so infantile and embarrassing to love a state like Israel or the US and spend your time defending its actions. It’s a sign of a feeble mind to feel emotional attachment to ANY power structure, but especially the ones that are doing the most evil things in the world right now.

Every day I am accused of “loving” this or that empire-targeted nation or group, depending on what’s in the news and who westerners are being told to hate by their pundits and politicians. Some days it’s Russia, other days it’s China, Iran or Hamas. Really I have no special emotional attachment to any of those entities — those who hurl this accusation are merely projecting their own internal values onto me: I hate what they love so they assume I must love what they hate.

I don’t love the western empire’s enemies, and I don’t defend them. In reality I am simply standing against the world’s most tyrannical and abusive power structure, whose imperial umbrella I happen to live under here in Australia. I would oppose that tyranny and abuse regardless of the nations it happens to be targeting on any particular day. I have nothing against Russia, China or Iran, but I also have no personal emotional relationship with them. They have nothing to do with me.

It’s impossible to have a real personal emotional relationship with any nation. You can have a personal relationship with people, with individual communities and neighborhoods, with a specific beach or forest or countryside, but nations are too large and full of too many people for you to have a meaningful relationship with them as an individual. In order to feel loving feelings toward a nation, you have to create a symbol of it in your mind and love that symbol instead of the actual thing that the nation is. You’re not loving the actual country, you’re loving a small mental representation of it that you have constructed inside your head. As George Carlin said, I leave symbols to the symbol-minded.

So the very idea of loving a nation in itself is absurd, but it’s exponentially weirder to then extend the positive feelings you have toward a nation to its government and their actions and military objectives as well. Then it’s just the same power-worshipping bootlicker mentality that has fueled all of history’s worst atrocities. You have abdicated your responsibility toward your own mature relationship with the world and signed it over to a giant conglomerate of forces whose operators you’ve never met, and whose material interests have nothing to do with your own.

People who love and defend a government are creating parental figures out of the state instead of growing up and taking their stand as mature individuals. And if you are doing this with the US, Israel or its allies, you’re not just handing your responsibility over to a single nation’s government — you’re doing it with an entire globe-spanning empire.

When your umbilical cord is cut you’re meant to begin growing into a sovereign being with a sovereign mind, and instead these empire simps are plugging the end of their umbilical cord into the Pentagon. It’s pathetic.

I have no respect for people who do this. People who grovel at the feet of the mightiest power structure on earth instead of learning to relate to life as free thinking individuals. People who abdicate their responsibility to figure out what’s true and right and how the world should be, and let a tyrannical empire and its interests decide these things for them. They have chosen to remain drooling infants in their minds instead of growing up. They have wasted their time on this planet.

British Writer Pens The Best Description Of Trump I’ve Read - London Daily
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 22 days ago

It is an excellent description of Trump. Best I've read too.

No one deserves to be lumped in with the English. I therefore don't like the term "British" applied to people.

The author is English. He demonstrates some of the positive traits he claims for all British people in this article.

But most of these positive traits are ones the English like to think they have. Most probably never did.

TLDR - Nails Trump, dramatically overrates the English.

The Whig Party was the liberal party in the 1800s. During fights for abolition, a 3rd party arose that was anti-slavery. The Whig party coined the terms "spoiler vote," "purity test," and "lesser-evil," to demonize abolitionist voters... anti-slavery was too extreme, we needed "more humane slavery."
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 22 days ago

A little history lesson that's prescient: The Whig Party was the liberal party in the 1800s. During fights for abolition, a third party arose that was anti-slavery. The Whig party coined the terms "spoiler vote," "purity test," and "lesser-evil," to demonize abolitionist voters, as the liberal Whigs argued that anti-slavery was too extreme and that we needed "more humane slavery." That people should vote for the Whigs because the right-wing Democrat party was the "greater evil." Aristocrats ran the Whigs and were disconnected from everyday people. They embraced a policy that secured THEIR own wealth. Abolitionists started building. Refused to vote for the Whigs. Built a 3rd party. Eventually, Abraham Lincoln, the underdog 3rd party candidate won.

In this last election, liberals argued that a red line on genocide and mass atrocities was a "purity test." That wanting universal healthcare was too much. That being against wars, mass deportation, and police militarization was "extreme."

Those who gaslit and lied to run cover for horrific war crimes were minimized to the "lesser evil." Liberals claimed voting 3rd party was a "spoiler vote," sounds familiar, right? This is how liberals inadvertently normalize the zeitgeist that buttresses authoritarianism and inhumane policy. They helped normalize Trump.

If we learned from history, maybe we wouldn't repeat it. Blame toward voters is misdirected. The DNC had a choice to embrace basic humane policies and refused.

Empire likes to be a lot subtler about its abuses. Starvation sanctions. Staging coups. Secretly arming proxy forces. Drone assassinations. Covert ops. It prefers these means over the overt genocidal atrocities like we saw during Biden. (Could Biden->Trump actually be like W->Obama in that way?)
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 28 days ago

It's possible that Trump's term will constitute another swing from Bush-level depravity to Obama-level depravity.

It isn't normal for the US empire to be as openly depraved as it has been in Gaza. Normally its evils are much more well-disguised, because it is in the empire's interests to preserve its image in the eyes of the western public. You only see the really in-your-face acts of monstrosity when a coalition of forces within the swamp are able to seize on a rare opportunity to shove them through, as we saw in the wake of 9/11 and again in the wake of October 7.

The rest of the time, the empire likes to be a lot subtler about its abuses, like it was during the Obama administration and the first Trump administration. Starvation sanctions. Staging coups. Secretly arming proxy forces. Drone assassinations. Covert ops. It prefers these means over the Hulk Smash ground invasions like we saw during George W Bush's first term, and the overt genocidal atrocities like we saw during Biden's.

The Zionists, war profiteers and empire managers seized on the rare opportunity presented by October 7 combined with a senile lifelong Zionist in the White House to push through agendas in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon that they had wanted to push through for years, but they greatly damaged the empire's propaganda interests in the process. We can expect the empire to try to move its ugliness out of the spotlight as swiftly as possible in the coming years if at all possible and attempt to restore its false public image as a force of good in the world, while continuing to advance its psychopathic agendas in sneakier ways.

470 days
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 28 days ago

https://x.com/zei_squirrel/status/1880892643804131760

there is an additional sick depravity this image exposes: The actual "tank man" video from Tiananmen Square was deliberately edited to not show that nothing happened to him, but still it became a propaganda symbol of the evils of China.

The entire Western media and political class to this day hysterically cries about it constantly.

Meanwhile Israeli tanks actually drive over Palestinians as they are alive. Their crushed mangled bodies with the tank tracks on them is on video and photo, and it has received zero attention in the Western media. They drove over children, and it didn't get a single line in any Western media outlet, from the NYT, to the BBC, Guardian, CNN, Washington Post, AP, Reuters. Zero. Nothing.

"OMG TANK MAN OMG CHINA BAD EVIL TANK MAN OMG ISRAEL IS THE MOST MORAL ARMY IN THE WORLD THOUGH HERE TAKE MORE MONEY AND FUNDS AND TANKS TO CRUSH PALESTINIAN CHILDREN TO DEATH WITH"

Western liberalism in a nutshell. The problem isn't the genocide, the problem is people being insufficiently polite about the genocide. Western officials feeling inconvenienced and insulted is a greater concern than children being shredded and burned by US military explosives.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 1 month ago

She's responding to a tweet from Aaron David Miller @aarondmiller2

In 27 years at State, never seen a situation where a Secretary of State - a caring compassionate man - is heckled in his own building by a heckler yelling “Why aren’t you in The Hague.”A new low in civility and discourse.

Be careful Californians, don’t wave anything white or they might shoot. Also, lock your ladies underwear up, they may try them on and take pictures.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 1 month ago

And ffs keep your kids away from these pedophile rapist freaks.

Israel, going back decades, has played a duplicitous game. It signs a deal with the Palestinians that is to be implemented in phases. The first phase gives Israel what it wants — but Israel habitually fails to implement subsequent phases that would lead to a just and equitable peace.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 1 month ago

The right of Palestinian refugees to return to the historic lands seized from them in 1948 when Israel was created — a right enshrined in international law — was given up by the PLO leader Yasser Arafat, instantly alienating many Palestinians, especially those in Gaza where 75 percent are refugees or the descendants of refugees. Edward Said called the Oslo agreement “an instrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles” and lambasted Arafat as “the Pétain of the Palestinians.”

The scheduled Israeli military withdrawals under Oslo never took place. There was no provision in the interim agreement to end Jewish colonization, only a prohibition of “unilateral steps.” There were around 250,000 Jewish colonists in the West Bank at the time of the Oslo agreement. They have increased to at least 700,000. No final treaty was ever concluded.

The journalist Robert Fisk called Oslo “a sham, a lie, a trick to entangle Arafat and the PLO into abandonment of all that they had sought and struggled for over a quarter of a century, a method of creating false hope in order to emasculate the aspiration of statehood.”

Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the Oslo agreement, was assassinated on Nov. 4, 1995 following a rally in support of the agreement, by Yigal Amir, a far-right Jewish law student. Itamar Ben-Gvir, now Israel’s National Security Minister, was one of many rightwing politicians who issued threats against Rabin. Rabin’s widow, Leah, blamed Netanyahu and his supporters — who distributed leaflets at political rallies depicting Rabin in a Nazi uniform — for her husband’s murder.

Israel has carried out a series of murderous assaults on Gaza ever since, cynically calling the bombardment “mowing the lawn.” These attacks, which leave scores of dead and wounded and further degrade Gaza’s fragile infrastructure, have names such as Operation Rainbow (2004), Operation Days of Penitence (2004), Operation Summer Rains (2006), Operation Autumn Clouds (2006) and Operation Hot Winter (2008).

Israel violated the June 2008 ceasefire agreement with Hamas, brokered by Egypt, by launching a border raid that killed six Hamas members. The raid provoked, as Israel intended, a retaliatory strike by Hamas, which fired crude rockets and mortar shells into Israel. The Hamas barrage provided the pretext for a massive Israeli attack. Israel, as it always does, justified its military strike on the right to defend itself.

Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), which saw Israel carry out a ground and aerial assault over 22 days, with the Israeli air force dropping over 1,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, killed 1,385 — according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem — of whom at least 762 were civilians, including 300 children. Four Israelis were killed over the same period by Hamas rockets and nine Israeli soldiers died in Gaza, four of whom were victims of “friendly fire.” The Israeli newspaper Haaretz would later report that “Operation Cast Lead” had been prepared over the previous six months.

Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, who served in the Israeli military, wrote that: the brutality of Israel’s soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesman…their propaganda is a pack of lies…It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It did so by a raid into Gaza on 4 November that killed six Hamas men. Israel’s objective is not just the defense of its population, but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza by turning the people against their rulers.

These series of attacks on Gaza were followed by Israeli assaults in November 2012, known as Operation Pillar of Defense and in July and August 2014 in Operation Protective Edge, a seven week campaign that left 2,251 Palestinians dead, along with 73 Israelis, including 67 soldiers.

These assaults by the Israeli military were followed in 2018 by largely peaceful protests by Palestinians, known as The Great March of Return, along Gaza’s fenced-in barrier. Over 266 Palestinians were gunned down by Israeli soldiers and 30,000 more were injured. In May 2021, Israel killed over 256 Palestinians in Gaza following attacks by Israeli police on Palestinian worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.

Further attacks on worshippers at Al-Aqsa mosque took place in April 2023.

And then the breaching of the security barriers on Oct. 7, 2023 that enclose Gaza, where Palestinians had languished under a blockade for over 16 years in an open air prison. The attacks by Palestinian gunmen left some 1,200 Israeli dead — including hundreds killed by Israel itself — and gave Israel the excuse it had long sought to lay waste to Gaza, in its Swords of Iron War.

This horrific saga is not over. Israel’s goals remain unchanged – the erasure of Palestinians from their land. This proposed ceasefire is one more cynical chapter. There are many ways it can and, I suspect, will fall apart.

But let us pray, at least for the moment, that the mass slaughter will stop.

Israel, going back decades, has played a duplicitous game. It signs a deal with the Palestinians that is to be implemented in phases. The first phase gives Israel what it wants — but Israel habitually fails to implement subsequent phases that would lead to a just and equitable peace.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 1 month ago

The Ceasefire Charade

Israel, going back decades, has played a duplicitous game. It signs a deal with the Palestinians that is to be implemented in phases. The first phase gives Israel what it wants — in this case the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza — but Israel habitually fails to implement subsequent phases that would lead to a just and equitable peace. It eventually provokes the Palestinians with indiscriminate armed assaults to retaliate, defines a Palestinian response as a provocation and abrogates the ceasefire deal to reignite the slaughter.

If this latest three-phase ceasefire deal is ratified — and there is no certainty that it will be by Israel — it will, I expect, be little more than a presidential inauguration bombing pause. Israel has no intention of halting its merry-go-round of death.

The Israeli cabinet has delayed a vote on the ceasefire proposal while it continues to pound Gaza. At least 81 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours.

The morning after a ceasefire agreement was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of reneging on part of the deal “in an effort to extort last minute concessions.” He warned that his cabinet will not meet “until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement.”

Hamas dismissed Netanyahu’s claims and repeated their commitment to the ceasefire as agreed with the mediators.

The deal includes three phases. The first phase, lasting 42 days, will see a cessation of hostilities. Hamas will release some Israeli hostages – 33 Israelis who were captured on Oct. 7, 2023, including all of the remaining five women, those aged above 50, and those with illnesses – in exchange for up to 1,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

The Israeli army will pull back from the populated areas of the Gaza Strip on the first day of the ceasefire. On the 7th day, displaced Palestinians will be permitted to return to northern Gaza. Israel will allow 600 aid trucks with food and medical supplies to enter Gaza daily.

The second phase, which begins on the 16th day of the ceasefire, will see the release of the remaining Israeli hostages. Israel will complete its withdrawal from Gaza during the second phase, maintaining a presence in some parts of the Philadelphi corridor, which stretches along the eight-mile border between Gaza and Egypt. It will surrender its control of the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.

The third phase will see negotiations for a permanent end of the war.

But it is Netanyahu’s office that appears to have already reneged on the agreement. It released a statement rejecting Israeli troop withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor during the first 42-day phase of the ceasefire. “In practical terms, Israel will remain in the Philadelphi Corridor until further notice," while claiming the Palestinians are attempting to violate the agreement. Palestinians throughout the numerous ceasefire negotiations have demanded Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza. Egypt has condemned the seizure of its border crossings by Israel.

The deep fissures between Israel and Hamas, even if the Israelis finally accept the agreement, threaten to implode it. Hamas is seeking a permanent ceasefire. But Israeli policy is unequivocal about its “right” to re-engage militarily. There is no consensus about who will govern Gaza. Israel has made it clear the continuance of Hamas in power is unacceptable. There is no mention of the status of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the U.N. agency that Israel has outlawed and that provides the bulk of the humanitarian aid given to the Palestinians, 95 percent of whom have been displaced. There is no agreement on the reconstruction of Gaza, which lies in rubble. And, of course, there is no route in the agreement to an independent and sovereign Palestinian state. Israeli mendacity and manipulation is pitifully predictable.

The Camp David Accords, signed in 1979 by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, without the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt. But the subsequent phases, which included a promise by Israel to resolve the Palestinian question along with Jordan and Egypt, permit Palestinian self-governance in the West Bank and Gaza within five years, and end the building of Israeli colonies in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were never honored.

Or take the 1993 Oslo Accords. The agreement, signed in 1993, which saw the PLO recognize Israel’s right to exist and Israel recognize the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people, and Oslo II, signed in 1995, which detailed the process towards peace and a Palestinian state, was stillborn. It stipulated that any discussion of illegal Jewish “settlements” was to be delayed until “final’ status talks, by which time Israeli military withdrawals from the occupied West Bank were to have been completed. Governing authority was to be transferred from Israel to the supposedly temporary Palestinian Authority. The West Bank was carved up into Areas A, B and C. The Palestinian Authority has limited authority in Areas A and B. Israel controls all of Area C, over 60 percent of the West Bank.

"The startling proposition that there should be no judicial scrutiny of a law shuttering a speech platform used by 170 million Americans would mean Congress could ban petitioners from operating TikTok explicitly because they refused to censor views Congress disfavours or to promote views it likes."
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 1 month ago

A 1998 NY Times op-ed by John Gaddis on NATO expansion warned that shutting Russia out of the West would have consequences. Bill Clinton's plan was to block Western integration for Moscow (which very much wanted it at the time) to keep NATO relevant by ensuring it had an enemy.

Wow. Elon Musk suspended the account of the terrorist from the Christmas market in Germany on X. Later, the account was restored, but all history and posts supporting Netanyahu, Israel, and attacking Islam were deleted.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 1 month ago

And there's even more from the Wayback Machine, potentially thousands of tweets that show us who he really is in spite of X deleting them.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/https://twitter.com/DrTalebJawad

Wow. Elon Musk suspended the account of the terrorist from the Christmas market in Germany on X. Later, the account was restored, but all history and posts supporting Netanyahu, Israel, and attacking Islam were deleted.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 1 month ago

The good news is that we can still access plenty of his receipts that have been captured and archived.

https://t.co/N1jYaLdWYr

The reason Ireland is taking its stance on Israel/Palestine is straightforward: Ireland was conquered, colonised, murderously subjugated, starved by the British. That breeds a level of empathy and solidarity beyond most other European nations, many of which were colonisers.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 2 months ago

The Irish are still stuck living right next door to the pathological lying, thieving, murdering, genociding cunts who were directly involved in early the earliest days of Zionist genocide and are directly involved in the Zionist genocide they're opposing now.

The US GOV billed Israel $17 million for damages for the USS Liberty, but Israel said it would only pay $6 million. They mock us. Israel displays in a museum the wheel & bell of the motor torpedo boat that blew the 40-foot hole in the side of the Liberty killing 25 Americans. Again, they mock us.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 2 months ago

USS LIBERTY: ONLY WORTH $6 MILLION & MOCKERY AT THE ISRAELI NAVAL MUSEUM

In 1980, when the public still knew nothing about the attack on the Liberty, israel finally paid for the repairs. The US GOV billed israel $17 million for damages, but israel said it would only pay $6 million--which the occupied US GOV accepted. $6 million? They mock us.

The US then quietly disposed of the ship for $100k in scrap.

The money was used to pay off the widows of the 34 murdered crewmen as follows: Each widow received $25k & then $10k more for each child over 5. They recieved nothing for children under 5 as they were deemed too young to remember their dads.

To add insult to injury, Israel displays the wheel & bell of the motor torpedo boat that blew the 40-foot hole in the side of the Liberty killing 25 Americans. They also display the Liberty's last remaining life boat--which they stole--having machine-gunned the other remaining 2 and sinking them. Again, they mock us.

The level of xenophobia and racism by Israelis towards Ireland tells you everything you need to know about them. It isn't just Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians, Syrians and Yemenis they hate to the point of evil. It's anyone who dares tell them they cannot do what they want.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 2 months ago

It's more accurate to say that they accept nothing less than complete slavish obedience to their superiority as god's chosen.

I think about this quote a lot. I think about it when reflecting on the way Israel is exterminating Palestinian journalists in Gaza while keeping western journalists out of the enclave to prevent the world from learning the truth about what the IDF is doing there...
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 2 months ago

I think about this quote a lot.

I think about it when reflecting on the way Israel is exterminating Palestinian journalists in Gaza while keeping western journalists out of the enclave to prevent the world from learning the truth about what the IDF is doing there.

I think about it when reflecting on the mountains of government secrecy with which the western empire protects its information interests, imprisoning whistleblowers and persecuting journalists who try to expose the truth about its criminal actions around the world.

I think about it when reflecting on the nonstop deluge of empire propaganda that public consciousness is hammered with to manipulate the masses into accepting the global leadership the US-centralized power structure.

I think about it when reflecting on the US war machine and how all the military operations of Washington and its allies are always justified by lies.

I think about it when reflecting on dysfunctional relationships that are held in place by secrets and dishonesty, preventing the ones being deceived from freeing themselves and finding their way into a life of authenticity.

I think about it when reflecting on the ego and how easily its illusory nature can be seen with a penetrating insight into the truth of how human perception and cognition are really operating.

There are times when withholding the truth would be in the highest interest. Someone lying to the police to protect someone from unjust persecution at the hands of an unjust system. A journalist protecting a source by obfuscating the truth from government agents. A battered wife lying to her husband to calm him down. An abused child lying to their abuser about what they've been doing.

But as near as I can tell the only times when withholding the truth is in the highest interest is when there's an abusive power dynamic at play and the person in the down-power position is using untruth to protect someone in an unjust situation which should not exist in the first place. In all other instances, truth is best.

Truth is the great equalizer. It makes the abuses of the powerful much more difficult to execute, and gives the disempowered much more power. This is why our rulers are constantly working to expand surveillance and eliminate the privacy of ordinary citizens while increasing government secrecy to allow themselves to hide the truth, when in a healthy society it would be the exact opposite. In a healthy society ordinary members of the public would have enshrined privacy protections against the government, and any governmental systems would be as transparent as air.

In a healthy society there would be a direct one-to-one correlation between power and transparency. The more power you have the more transparency should be required of you, and the less power you have the more secrecy you should be shielded with. This would protect ordinary citizens from abuse at the hands of the powerful, and prevent the powerful from becoming abusive toward the citizenry. We know this is true because all the most abusive power structures work constantly to reverse this dynamic to the furthest extent possible.

A healthy society will be a truth-based society. It's hard to imagine what a society that is guided by truth would look like, because we live in a society that is made of lies. If deceit magically became impossible today, all our institutions would crumble by tomorrow. A truth-based society would mean the total destruction of all that is familiar to us right now. But that which can be destroyed by the truth should be.

Truth can be scary, because in any situation sustained by falsehood, truth is a destructive force. It can cause political upheaval. It can end relationships. It can annihilate egoic delusion. Any of these will typically feel like a giant leap into the unknown, and are generally terrifying for exactly that reason. But this is the only path toward health.

If we are to survive on this planet, eventually we're going to have to take that leap. Eventually we're going to have to become a truth-driven species. Everything about our current status quo will resist this movement — the untruth in our current power structures, and the untruth within ourselves.

Maybe we won't take that leap until things get so bad that the unknown looks less terrifying than what the familiar has become. Maybe we will find our courage before it comes to that point. But we're going to have to jump for it eventually, or we will go the way of the dinosaur.

And if it does come to that, if we are collectively unable to take the leap because we value our lies more than our lives, that too will reveal a truth to us about who we are and what we were always made of. One way or the other, truth will have the final say.

That which can be destroyed by the truth should be. And, eventually, will be.

Problems with diasporas around the World: Syrians in Europe are Anti-Assad and back the HTS terrorists but would not want to live in a radical Islamist state and are happy to stay in Europe. Ukrainians in EU want those in Ukraine to fight against Russia no matter the cost...
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 2 months ago

Problems with diasporas around the World

Syrians > many are in Europe, many are Anti-Assad and are backing the HTS terrorists who took power but they would not want to live in a radical Islamist state and are happy to stay in Europe, many living out of Eu social welfare.

Cubans > most live in the US, most were not even born in Cuba, they want Castro to be toppled and are putting pressure on every US government to keep sanctions and keep starving Cubans and yet they will not go back to Cuba as they have fully adopted Western lifestyle and western brainwashing.

Venezuelans > many are in the US living their US dreams and hope of better life, they don't want to go back to Venezuela and would not care if Venezuela's wealth is sold to the gringos but still, they want to have a say in Venezuela's politics

Iran > many are from the very wealthy generation that left Iran because they could not keep on sharing the wealth from oil and gas with their US masters. They could not care less about Iran as they have adopted a new country and new lifestyle.

Moldavians > the huge diaspora living in the EU tilted the vote in favour of the EU because they want to make sure they have the possibility to live and work in the EU, outside of Moldavia as they could have a better standard of living and yet they don't mind Moldavia loosing its sovereignty in favour of the globalist elites running EU from Brussels and working for the destruction of nation state. This diaspora has selfish aims, don't want to go back to Moldavia and yet are influencing its politics.

Ukrainians > for the ones living in the EU, they want Ukrainians living in Ukraine to fight against Russia no matter the cost and yet....many have escaped because they don't want to die for corrupt politicians and globalist elites and they are glad to live outside the poorest and most corrupt country in Europe, most don't want to go back.

Biden has always been a liar and a Fraud. He lied about his education He lied about his qualifications. He cheated during his exams. He stole other politicians' speeches. He's going out the way he came in. A Fake.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 2 months ago

He was finally elected when the entire Dem base became frauds who surrendered and fled from any principles they ever had out of fear of the orange fraud.

It's the most liberal thing ever how Democrats who've spent months frantically telling everyone to shut up about an active genocide are now going "HAHAHA see what happens when you stupid Muslims and leftists refuse to support Kamala??" Says so much about their worldview.
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 3 months ago

It's the most liberal thing ever how Democrats who've been completely ignoring Gaza are pointing to the news of Israeli plans to annex the West Bank and going "HAHAHA see what happens when you stupid Muslims and leftists refuse to support Kamala??"

Like, the West Bank is already an occupied territory. West Bank annexation would have been an escalatory move a couple of years ago, but compared to everything that's happened in the last thirteen months it's barely a blip. The way these Democratic Party loyalists spent months frantically telling everyone to shut up about an active genocide are now going "Are you happy now?? Israel's gonna CHANGE THE PAPERWORK on the West Bank!" says so much about their worldview.

Zio propaganda is entirely constructed on easily debunked lies. But to fully understand the Zionist narrative from Palestine to Amsterdam, in which Israeli perpetrators claim to be victims, we must understand that to someone who has only ever known impunity, accountability feels like persecution...
FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 3 months ago

Israeli propaganda is entirely constructed on easily debunked lies. But to fully understand the Zionist narrative from Palestine to Amsterdam, in which Israeli perpetrators claim to be victims, we must also understand that (1) to someone who has only ever known impunity, accountability feels like persecution (2) the stripping away of privilege feels like discrimination (3) criticism of their racism feels like a racist attack on them (4) holding them to the same standards as everyone else is an intolerable denial of their superiority, and (5) facts, truth, law, human rights norms, and anything else that contradicts their political ideology feels like a personal threat. This is how a racist political ideology morphs into a kind of mental illness-and a very dangerous one.