"Notwithstanding any military goals they may have, the means Israel chose to achieve them in Gaza – namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population – are criminal." by FreedomUltd in AskALeftist

[–]FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Interestingly, if you read the ICC statement, the crimes that Israel is found to be committing fit perfectly with the legal definition of genocide.

Here's what the ICC says: "Notwithstanding any military goals they may have, the means Israel chose to achieve them in Gaza – namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population – are criminal."

They also write that "Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival."

Here's the legal definition of genocide from the Genocide Convention (https://un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention):

"Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

The ICC, by saying that Israel is "intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population" as well as writing that Israel has "intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival", implies that first of all, intent is there (notice the "intentionally") and secondly that the points a, b and c of the definition are met. Bear in mind that you only need to meet one point for it to be considered genocide as it's "any of the following acts".

Inescapable conclusion: it absolutely is a genocide.

Having rubbished the ICJ as a "foreign court" (despite being members of it) today in the House they slaughtered the ICC. The Court has "no jurisdiction" you see, because Israel doesn't recognise it. Yet they supported the same Court's action against Russia even though they don't recognise it either! by FreedomUltd in AskALeftist

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You've got to hand it to the Friends of the Rules Based International Order. Having rubbished the #ICJ as a "foreign court" (despite being members of it) today in the House they slaughtered the #ICC as "unhelpful" "wrong" and covered in the "stench" of "moral equivalence" as between the Palestinian resistance and "democratic" #Israel The Court has "no jurisdiction" you see, because Israel doesn't recognise it. Yet they supported the same Court's action against #Russia even though they don't recognise it either! Their rules based order is a farce, lipstick on the pig of brute force, double standards and vomit-inducing levels of hypocrisy. #Gaza has been the graveyard of many. But the deaths include the last ragged remnants of Western moral authority.

In 1961 Eisenhower gave a farewell speech warning about the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex. This post sums up what happened from 1961 to today, and explains why we are where we are now. by FreedomUltd in AskALeftist

[–]FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

In case u are American and wondering wtf is going on - here is a quick summary

In 1961 Eisenhower gave a farewell speech warning about the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex.

He knew they could get so powerful they completely submit the will of the American people and the globe.

He was right.

The Military Industrial Complex quickly grew into the Military congressional media intelligence industrial complex completely pre occupied with subjugating most of the globe.

When JFK became president he meant to deal with the problem by getting rid of the CIA.

By this time the CIA was already responsible for wrecking havoc in the global south - particularly South America and West Asia.

All for the benefit of US capitalists and backed by the military power of the MIC.

Instead JFK was assassinated and the enemies of America got their way.

When the Soviet Union collapsed they totally lost it!

US started talking about full spectrum dominance and the end of history.

As far as US leaders were concerned they had won and could subjugate the entire planet if they wanted to.

And they did want to!

After enjoying full spectrum dominance for about 20 years the architects decided it was time to weaken Russia and maybe divide it up into easily exploitable sections like they did the rest of the planet.

Only this time Russia said not today satan!

U see the neocons had gotten cocky and hadn’t done their homework.

They thought they could quickly collapse Russias economy but that failed. Instead it weakened the Europeans.

So Russia sick of the Wests lies and deceit pivots East to the economic giant that is China.

A colossal foreign policy failure on the part of the neocons.

So now Russia is stronger than ever. Able to stop the US’s worse impulses in Syria and West Asia in general.

While the neocons where handing out sanctions like skittles, nations where looking for alternatives to the Wests system. They found it in BRICS.

Now the major powers are in an economic alliance. And they r more powerful than the Western alliance.

This threatens dollars role as the reserve currency of the world which the US benefits from. Illegally confiscating peoples reserves didn’t help either.

So here we r. US has been utterly horrid to absolutely everyone on the planet

Treating only the golden billion (Western citizens (as humans) the rest of the globe could be kept poor and wretched via bombs or debt traps for the benefit of the golden billion.

Specifically the 1%.

So now Russia is the strongest military on the planet.

China is everyone’s most important trade partner.

And Iran is now the undisputed giant of West Asia.

US has 3 enemies on 3 continents and it isn’t in the position to defeat a single one of them militarily.

Yes! Not even Iran! Not without bringing a world of pain on itself anyway.

So what is a cruel and dying empire to do?

Well thats where we r now.

In order to get away with all of this the US had to completely destroy the anti war movement.

But right now that is our best shot. Revive the anti war movement. Amplify the voices of the anti imperialists.

The populists are racists and will lead to problems at home. Though their nationalism is well timed and why they r so popular.

But I write this because the US is in deep shit and the truth is being hidden from u.

It’s important that we all wake up because a scorched earth policy is not impossible.

The Neocons are stuck and they have no reverse gear.

I don't spend my time attacking the US war machine because I have any special love for Hamas, Iran, Russia, China, or any other power. I do it because the US empire is quantifiably the most destructive and tyrannical force on this planet, by an extremely massive margin. by FreedomUltd in AskALeftist

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In my own words -

I'm sorry that the USA doesn't offer us something better. I'm sorry that it has become beyond obvious that it is not the force for freedom and democracy it promised it was. I couldn't be more sorry that it has proven itself to be unquestionably worse than Hamas, Iran, Russia, and China.

The US (along with most of the West) is currently waging war against humanity. Choosing a side in that war should be easy.

The USA doesn't necessarily need to be destroyed completely... but it cannot win a war against humanity. Again, easy.

If it wins, we lose all options. Multipolar > unipolar. Yet again, easy.

What Caitlin said:

I don't spend my time attacking the US war machine because I have any special love for Hamas, Iran, Russia, China, or any other power. I do it because the US empire is quantifiably the most destructive and tyrannical force on this planet, by an extremely massive margin.

No other power has spent the 21st century killing people by the millions and displacing them by the tens of millions. No other power is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases, starving people around the world with blockades and economic sanctions, staging proxy wars, color revolutions and coups all over the earth, and working to destabilize and destroy any nation anywhere on this planet who dares to defy its dictates.

Only the US empire is doing this. No other power comes anywhere remotely close.

That's as murderous and tyrannical as it gets. Propaganda-addled empire simps sometimes try to act like it's strange and suspicious that I spend all my time criticizing the US war machine, when what's actually strange and suspicious is that everyone else does not.

It's like we're going, "Oh my god, civilians are being massacred on a daily basis by a racist apartheid regime!" And they're going, "Oh yeah well you know what we should really be worried about? Sauron, the Dark Lord." by FreedomUltd in AskALeftist

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It's insane how we're talking about actual children getting killed by the thousands, and they're talking about an entirely fictional "antisemitism" crisis that exists nowhere outside the imagination. It's like responding to warnings of another holocaust by babbling about Sauron.

It's like we're going, "Oh my god, civilians are being massacred on a daily basis by a racist apartheid regime!" And they're going, "Oh yeah well you know what we should really be worried about? Sauron, the Dark Lord."

You'd be like "What?? I'm talking about a real thing that's actually happening to actual real-life human beings! You're talking about a work of fiction by JRR Tolkien."

"Oh so you're just going to dismiss Sauron's plan to overrun Middle Earth with orcish hordes as soon as he recovers the One Ring?" they'd say. "What are you, some kind of Mordor lover?"

"What the hell are you babbling about??" you'd protest. "We're talking about actual, physical people being ripped apart by actual, physical military explosives, and you're talking about some imaginary fantasy land like it's a real thing! How are we supposed to address this actual real-life problem when you only want to talk about something that has no existence outside the realm of the imagination?"

"I guess you just hate hobbits," they'd say.

I mean, how would you even argue with someone like this? How do you debate someone about a real-life problem of unparalleled urgency when all they want to talk about is a completely made-up crisis that absolutely is not happening on this material plane? It's the most frustrating thing in the world.

If too many people wake up from the propaganda matrix it won't have any effect any longer, and without their propaganda our rulers cannot rule, because that's the entire control system upon which their rule is premised. by FreedomUltd in AskALeftist

[–]FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The imperial murder machine has many strengths, but it also has weaknesses.

The globe-spanning power structure that is loosely centralized around Washington has invested in perception management more heavily than any other empire in history — that's what you're seeing with all the mass media propaganda, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, oligarch-funded think tanks, and mainstream culture manufacturing in New York and Hollywood. By using mass-scale psychological manipulation via the most sophisticated perception management system that has ever existed, the US-centralized empire is able to manufacture support for its agendas at home and abroad while dissuading the public from protest and revolution.

This is an immense strength, but it's also a weakness. Its so-called "soft power" narrative manipulation systems allow for an immense amount of control while still creating the illusion of freedom and democracy, thereby suppressing public desire to overthrow what would otherwise be perceived as a murderous and exploitative oppressor, but its heavy reliance on perception management means it can't afford to be seen in too negative a light without causing widespread distrust in its propaganda machine.

If too many people realize that their government is psychopathic and their news media and other indoctrination systems have been lying to them about it all their lives, the empire will lose the ability to propagandize them, because propaganda only works if you don't know it's happening to you. If too many people wake up from the propaganda matrix it won't have any effect any longer, and without their propaganda our rulers cannot rule, because that's the entire control system upon which their rule is premised.

The empire therefore needs to tread very carefully when public opinion starts to turn against it, and retreat whenever public trust in imperial institutions would be compromised too severely for the empire to continue on a given path. It simply cannot afford to wake the public up from the propaganda-induced coma it has spent generations lulling them into.

What this means is that the empire can be pressured into retreat simply by spreading enough awareness and sowing enough opposition to its depraved actions. If enough eyes open to the truth of what's happening in Gaza for example, there's no amount of geostrategic middle east agendas or Israel lobby funding that can outweigh the empire's existential need to prevent a mass-scale awakening from the mainstream imperial worldview and a transition into widespread revolutionary consciousness. The empire would necessarily need to step back before things reached that point, because its very existence depends on it.

The empire has been walking that line this entire time. Whenever you see it doing things like stepping back from invading Cuba or Syria or refraining from going as authoritarian as it could go on a given issue, it isn't because the empire suddenly evolved a conscience. It's because it hasn't yet succeeded in manufacturing public consent for such agendas, and imposing them before the public has been manipulated into accepting them would snap them out of the matrix of psychological control. They work so hard to manufacture public consent because they absolutely need it.

So the empire can be pressured on Gaza and on every other issue if enough people put enough energy into spreading awareness of the truth. That's why the empire managers are freaking out about this new protest movement right now; they understand the absolutely fundamental role that narrative control plays in the existence of imperial power structures, and how much they stand to lose if it is taken away.

And hopefully it will be. Hopefully one day, maybe even soon, we will see people begin unplugging their brains from the matrix of imperial mind control at so widespread a scale that no amount of retreating and backpedaling can save the empire from the people collectively deciding they'll have none of its murderous tyranny anymore. From there it will lose its allies and assets abroad, it will succumb to revolutionary sentiments at home, and the people can start working toward building a healthy world together.

UN General Assembly (not the Security Council, so no veto possible) will vote on a resolution that grants Palestine almost the full rights and privileges of a member "EVEN if the UNSC fails to admit Palestine". Designed to bypass US veto, virtually guaranteed to be approved. by FreedomUltd in AskALeftist

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The Israeli UN ambassador has already said that “if it is approved, I expect the United States to completely stop funding the U.N. and its institutions, in accordance with American law."

Alan Dershowitz vows he will engage in "massive offensive lawfare" against allegedly "anti-Semitic" student protesters. He threatens to have their dorm rooms taken away, take their cars and boomboxes, and "bankrupt" them. He says this is necessary to "deter" the return of Hitler by FreedomUltd in AskALeftist

[–]FreedomUltd[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Why is he making himself look like one lawyer determined to do what he can, when he's part of the establishment machine that is already doing these things?