I think they just want “plausible” deniability for the entity’s next planned/declared steps because the entity’s internal racist genocidal discourse is becoming increasingly external. It’s not like Europe is actually reversing course on “Israel” in any meaningful way.
The Belgians know how to hit the Dutch where it hurts: windmills
Hi comrade! I’m vegan.
I do think that being vegan makes one a more coherent leftist. And I encounter more vegans in left spaces than other spaces, so anecdotally this makes sense.
I do think that most people on the left are not coherent and that’s something we just have to deal with, working to improve that state of things as we build for liberation and revolution. Every successful revolution has not been vegan, so I think it’s not necessary for doing the work and I don’t think there are new conditions that make veganism essential for doing our work here and now, objectively. I still wish everyone was, but I don’t think of it as a necessity.
I think there is a similar situation we can compare to, which is people being COVID cautious. It is about people and not human animals, trying to be consistent in one’s empathy despite social forces opposing this, it has niche communities, and it has both an individual action aspect as well as attpts at mass action. I think COVID cautious leftists are more coherent leftists as well. They have avoided one of the more obvious forms of liberal normalization, every leftist should’ve noticed and rejected that normalization, but most leftists are not that disciplined or coherent. Similarly, I don’t think COVID cautiousness is necessary for revolution, but it would probably help.
I think it really is just resistance to self-crit and inconvenience 95% of the time. Those are strong forces among the people we try to organize with. Many already have trauma and that makes those forces even stronger. Moving past those things is a long-term process and not really about veganism (or being COVID cautious) at all, it is a more fundamental barrier. And I would bet that you and I have some barriers like that, too.
I’ve had lots of luck on helping people who are “trying out” veganism stick with it by helping them find foods they like and can eat regularly. Convincing someone that isn’t already vegan, much less luck, though I wouldn’t necessarily know anyways. I’ve seen people around me go vegan and start agreeing with me on things I’ve said, they just don’t explicitly credit me. If there’s something I’m doing, it’s being someone people feel comfortable confiding in and looking to for help. Like various famous communists recommending that organizers be exemplary workers to gain the confidence of their coworkers, having social influence is also power to spread your own habots or ideas.
If you organize you will usually make friends along the way. Not with everyone, of course, but it is eaay to pick up a few if you are nice and invite people to do things.
There are many activities that attract left people. For example, you might have a local mask bloc and COVID cautious people. This will be made up of people who care about COVID, i.e. have not bought into liberal normalization, which will include people more impacted by it like people with disabilities or just people who are consistent in their understanding and empathy. You’ll be sure to find some anarchists, DemSocs, and commies in there along with some liberals that are close to radicalization. Food not bombs, Palestine protests, anything anti-imperialist, movie nights with lefty movies, (sometimes) union events, teach-ins. Sometimes you can find these things online. Sometimes they’ll be on library bulletin boards or pasted on telephone poles.
You might also look for people tabling near suburban loci like grocery stores. Even though suburbanites are spread out they tend to all go to the few commercial outfits nearby, especially grocery stores.
Hell yeah I need to try these.
It really depends on context. The best defense against bullies is to just have other people who will have your back.
But what is the bullying?
They are probably orientalist racists. Deprogramming this will be challenging. I would start them on a path of media criticism, like reading FAIR.org articles.
Since others have already provided resources, I’ll take a different angle: why do you want this? Is it for education of friendlies, presentation to a hostile audience? Irl or online?
Dumping links is useful for shutting up some people who will never read them anyways but usually won’t educate, for example. And some people need a rhetorical aporoach more than an informative one.
i agree not all, but the Han people have been using these techniques for thousands of years
No they haven’t and China is an actual multiethnic country, not an ethnic supremacist country premised on settler colonial genocide like yours.
You wish Han were like white people because it means white supremacy has less guilt. This is itself a white supremacist way of thinking and you’re told to believe in it to remain consenting to anti-China actions that are tajen by your vassal state.
no culture or people have clean hands, that is just the human experience.
Whataboutism, eh? Only yours is actually meant to ahistorically flatten the crimes of Eurocentric capitalism and falsely equate it to unspecified “Han” crimes. But I bet you couldn’t even give a definition of “Han” without looking it up.
By even implying these are issues with China you have already provided a perspective. Everyone can see it and it is a perspective that has hoovered up propaganda.
a trade war that has been continuing for over 20 years
Pushed by your country every single time.
extremely high property prices
Your housing is financialized. This is capitalism in your country functioning per capitalists’ intentions.
continually being sold to foreign investment firms
This is a consequence of financialization. But you’re supposed to be talking about China, right? Why don’t you show us a breakdown of the percentage of your country’s real estate is foreign-owned and by country?
Anglos have been scapegoating other countries for their financialized real estare bubbles to take the heat off their own financial capitalists, i.e. the people actually doing the deed.
an agricultural industry formally based upon small business family farms now being funnelled into a few small foreign hands
You used that word again - foreign. Is everything foreign China?
PS your country’s agricultural industry has monopolized for ages, you’re describing a myth that hasn’t been true since the 70s.
a loss in political influence over our neighbours due to a global superpower pushing us out
Why does your country deserve political influence over its neighbors! What has it actually done with that influence? Ever done any investigation of, say, East Timor?
an education system focused on providing greater care for exchange students than educating an increasingly stupid at home population
Oh so you’re just a xenophobe and likely racist. Go ahead and show your math on that one, O Great Working Class Appreciator.
would you like me to go on?
I’d rather you grew a spine and stopped pretending at knowledge.
edit: also my favourite, random military drills in nearby waters without warning leading to passenger flights being diverted so they dont get shot down
Just think critically. Just for a moment. These were “warships”. Their live fire is basically big guns. How high to passenger aircraft fly? Put on your thinking cwhataboutismon’t want to get all wgataboutism lest you have a critical thought, but what might be comparable here for, say, Australia? Has it, perchance, engaged in naval war exercises in the Taiwan Strait? Go ahead and remind yourself.
no member of the working class has power over any political authority and yet i can still have an opinion.
Literally every working class organization is a political authority over which they are exercising power. And these organizations are frequently used to effect change, which is why capitalist states constantly try to stifle them.
thinking israel is a colonist state also doesnt ask anything of me.
Your state funds and runs interference for genocide. It uses fake genocide propaganda against China, in part, to take the heat off of itself. You are gladly supporting their effort using faux left language that is really just liberal thinking.
in fact, the chinese situation is much closer to home for me considering china is on my side of the world and an extremely potent political issue in my country. but ig you keep assuming…
China is not a political issue. It is a country of over a billion people. Your country is just an Anglo settler colonist vassal of the chief imperialists and those imperialists demand that you pick fights with their designated rival.
Are you just going to do what they tell you?
im not from either of those places and like, don’t you see how clearly this is whataboutism.
Whataboutism is a liberal thought-terminating cliché whose purpose is to shut down valid points about inconsistent rhetoric and thoughts. Liberals depend on inconsistency to maintain their worldview, for them and theirs to be the good guys doing correct actions even though they constantly do the exact opposite and for their designated enemies to be evil incarnate deserving of every violence the liberals’ governments attempt to unleash.
Instead of validating this absurd way of thinking, criticize it.
normally i dont really like the ‘logical fallacy’ point in political diacussions or whatever, but damn. all governments around the world are awful and will fuck the working class as soon as it gives a powerful individual more power.
Is “Israel” genociding Gaza the same as Vietnam having traffic cops? This flattening rhetoric is not insightful, it is actually incorrect and you’re using it to defend actual imperialist lies. It’s also basically ancap bullshit at its core, zero social analysis, just a vague “government bad” statement. What tools do you think the working class will use for its liberation? You think it’s just going to abolish government and survive?
if the UN has clearly stated that in many interviews people have said they were forcibly drugged, woman assulted and people interred without access to communications with their family…
“The UN” has said none of this. Read your sources more carefully.
idk, ig i am wasting my time, obviously the most scrutinised multi-national institution is bias. china definately doesnt have greater representation than most other countries.
I think you’re trying to make some sarcastic point but it doesn’t make any sense. What are you trying to say?
Left: Adam Right: Cool Adam
I’m sorry I know this reference.