The other person explained the excuse. The real reason is: Netanyahu’s government was in danger of dissolution in the Knesset and before the attack only survived with two votes, so netanyahu’s auto-coup required another push.

Who’s gonna stop them? The US has pretty much thrown away all leverage it’d use to prevent such a thing.

Uh… I’m pretty sure there were reasons why the economy would be worse in 2008 than 2015 other than which party is in charge. Also by that logic PiS made people’s lives worse because they were in charge when Covid hit.

Everything you said but also disillusionment with the status quo and lack of an alternative vision for the future. It’s not just that far-right politics are effective (though they certainly are), but that there’s no competition, so so people with a faulty understanding of, well, everything (and a healthy dose of bigotry) assume it’s either the right or establishment lizards they hate with every fibre of their beings.

Okay fair enough. I guess this ship sailed a long time ago.

all the way to whole platoons of Hugh Thompsons.

I sincerely doubt it. From what I heard the military has only gotten more authoritarian as time went on, and the war on terror brought a massive paradigm shift in terms of American attitudes towards military action. I’d wager modern Hugh Thompsons would either find the military insufferable and leave or would be eventually broken by the system like everyone else, which would explain why you used an example from Vietnam rather than a more recent one from the war on terror.

Not that he did much of anything to stop anything, he killed plenty of people, but there was one clear specific moment at which the ship sailed, and it wasn’t Obama.

I was talking about the military obeying the president as he clearly overstepped his constitutional authority. Bush’s shittiness is beyond doubt, but at least he didn’t go to war without Congress’s approval; if I’m not wrong the trend of “Military Operations Other Than War” started with Obama.

Where is the us army ? They are supposed to protect the country from this.

Too populated by MAGAts and indoctrinated to always follow orders. Yeah technically they’re not supposed to follow unconstitutional orders, but that ship sailed with Obama’s escapades in the Middle East.

The thing that pisses me off the most these days is Westerners thinking the “rules-based” order ever mattered. It’s not in retreat because there were never rules protecting small states from oppression by stronger actors; it was just out of sight from Westerners until 2022.

In Gaza the world has watched as a blockade on food, aid and medical supplies, in defiance of binding orders by the international court of justice (ICJ), has now entered into its third month. Israel, in search of security, has in the past month bombed Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. It is daily urging the US to be given permission to bomb Iran.

Yeah the only new part is that they’re looking to pick a direct fight with Iran. Own this shit already you pussies.

The original legislation prohibits boycotting a country friendly to the US based on an “agreement with, a requirement of, or a request from or on behalf” of another nation. It imposes penalties of up to $1m and 20 years in prison for violations.

Okay is it me or is this already really fucked up?

Having lived in Germany in the '90s and given current political winds, I don’t see AfD being able to get very far.

Two crucial things have changed between the 90s and now, though: the standard of living and the number of immigrants (both real and as perceived by Germans). The former is obvious, and as for the latter between the 90s and now there have been multiple (American-caused European-enabled) refugee crises in Europe due to the influx of Middle Eastern people fleeing war. This has made Germany go haywire, counteracting any advantage they may have had on the anti-fascism front over Americans—who are for the most part already used to having Others in the same environment as the Self.

According to a study in 2018 by Leipzig University, 56% of Germans sometimes thought the many Muslims made them feel like strangers in their own country, up from 43% in 2014. In 2018, 44% thought immigration by Muslims should be banned, up from 37% in 2014.[26] -Wikipedia

This sort of disdain for an Other is the indicator for fascism, and it’s very much on the rise in Germany.

They have guardrails yes, but those are only a mildly effective stalling method. Fundamentally Germany is falling at breakneck speed too, so those guardrails will only be a mild inconvenience.

Germany’s AfD gets a lot of publicity, but I’m betting on the UK being the next Western democracy to fall into fascism.

Obligatory life expectancy was only low due to child mortality, so people who survived childhood could reasonably expect to make it to 70.

K.

The Trump administration secured it in January, to great regional fanfare and the humiliation of Democrats

I like the casual Democrat diss there.

is an indicator you’re just some sort of radical liberal.

Not quite, but maybe close. I’m a leftist Islamist (I don’t think rightwing Islamism even exists as a coherent ideology but just in case). See why I didn’t elaborate? I have coherent arguments for why it’s a good ideology even in a purely secular sense, but no Lemming would ever listen to you stan for a 1400 year old book.

what would you like me as an individual to do besides what i am already doing. help organize a general strike?

Aside from the obvious stuff like promoting mutual aid, grassroots agitation efforts are probably your best bet. Organize in workplaces and other places where people meet, get them angry and suggest effective courses of action. For example there are many one-day protests and sit ins, which is fine and all but why is nobody striking? The goal is a mass movement that can then turn out in mass protests or a semi-spontaneous general strike. But setting aside the specific tactics I think will work, my pitch is: The top of the political pyramid is either incapable or unwilling to help you, but the bottom isn’t, so put your focus there.

and if not these, what else? organize boycotts? people already do those. organize public marches? people already do those, to the point where it’s impossible to keep up with all of the ones being organized. organize sit-ins and other nonviolent protest? people already do those.

Boycotts with a time limit lose most of their effectiveness. If you’ll boycott boycott permanently or until you see change, so I guess that’s another thing to focus on. You can take a page from BDS’s playbook there. Also you’re not supposed to be able to keep up with public marches and sit ins; you want people turning out in the millions all over the country.

i don’t know what you expect here that isn’t already happening.

All that, but more of it and longer and also strikes.

if fighting for what’s right means potentially being arrested and tortured then, yes, as unpleasant as such a commitment sounds you should be willing to be arrested and tortured!

Okay? Being out for the count before anything actually happens (and it will because of the regime’s authoritarian incompetence) doesn’t seem to be good strategy, but there’s no point talking about this.

you cannot separate the economic system out here, nor will superficial political and economic reforms ever prevent what is happening now in America and Europe from occurring again in the future.

So… I’m not really pro-capitalism as you’d likely conceive of that term, but either way I’m criticizing tactics here. No matter what your preferred destination is you need to push the gas pedal or you’re getting nowhere.

just as a sample, my Support 2026 and Oppose 2026 lists, or my For a “Bill of Rights” Package in Every State, County, and City which lays out an electoral strategy for American socialists to adopt and whose basic planks i’m pushing for within DSA in the lead-up to this year’s convention.

I don’t think you get me. You likely don’t have until 2026. A lot of the infrastructure for a full authoritarian takeover is already in place.

don’t put your slothfulness and excuses for why you can’t do political work on me, a person actually doing political work as a volunteer day job because i want the things i believe in to be built in my lifetime.

If not wanting to get arrested and tortured (again, this is not a hypothetical) is slothfulness then… Uh… Okay?

My longer reply got deleted before I could send it so I’ll just summarize:

First, I never said I was a socialist. Second, America doesn’t have the time to take it slow and educate people about the dangers of capitalism; Trump is already arresting critics of his regime. Third, this is a time of crisis; you can skip the stage of political education and jump straight to action (which aside from building class solidarity and confidence convinces bystanders to join in). Fourth, everyone has the right to voice criticism. Fifth, where I come from political education is both irrelevant (the price of bread already has everyone hating the ruling regime’s guts) and impossible (the government will literally just arrest or disappear you). Sorry I can’t pass your little purity test; now actually do something something so you don’t end up like us. To quote the article:

But how do you get from “standing up” to winning? What are the intermediate steps? Is it time for mass protests? What specifically should people do right now? I’d like to see Sanders and AOC address those questions more concretely.

i think demonstrating popular opposition to a flagrantly bought and corrupt administration which is being visibly puppeteered by one of the richest men in the world

I see. “Demonstrating popular opposition” that’s… Uh… Something, I guess. It might have been less disappointing if there was no goal to be honest. That aside it’s still missing the final touch; what are people meant to do in and after attending these rallies? Just… Exist?

It’s happened before so… Pretty okay.