doccitrus

What year is that image from?

Let him know that you think those anti-communist materials are wrong or misleading. Offer to explore some of these topics in depth with him in some format(s) that's agreeable to both of you (video, books, podcasts, whatever). Let him pick some sources, and you pick some sources, and then you both discuss them together.

Most people who are anti-communist are reflexively so, and have simply never heard a lot of key history. Just studying/exploring/discussing communism and its history can undo a lot of that.

As tempting as it might be, you don't have to go through everything in the propaganda they've sent you sentence by sentence and then debunk it. Just have a conversation with them about it and take a look at the real stuff together.

It's especially weird that they did so rather vaguely. It's not like they were like 'fascist figure X was right about historical fact Y in context Z, and here's why I think that matters'. They just favorably compare fascist 'geopolitical analysis' to your blog post, in general. That does seem like more or less just praising fascists to me.

Made curious by some of the other comments here connecting that Redditor's abusive language and refusal to really say anything of substance beyond 'I don't like this' and Maoism, I just spent kind of a long time looking back through that person's comments trying to figure out what about their thinking is particularly Maoist, especially in the context of that series of insults they wrote on your post, which don't, to me, reveal any particular way of thinking so much as a temperament.

I did eventually find some Maoist language across their comments. They probably do self-identify as a Maoist or Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, though I didn't see a comment to that effect.

But what I noticed more was that pretty much their only mode of discussion was verbal combat, and maybe in some cases declarations on certain questions or definitions of terms. There wasn't a lot I could recognize as instruction, exploration, or listening, although I imagine they'd consider some of their declarations educational.

I'm tired. I can't think. I don't have a thesis here. But OP, I'm sorry that someone took it upon themselves to shit on your work instead of offering you feedback or simply saying nothing.

You repeat the phrase 'in good faith' several times here but what you're describing is still just entryism

It's just another iteration of the Eternal September. Nothing too surprising imo

Yes! 😂

Apparently, by a series of accidents, she got into some kind of slapfight with Ben Shapiro over Palestine, and she did an 1.25 hour interview with Norman Finkelstein for The Daily Wire (which Shapiro founded and owns at least a chunk of) as part of it.

It's actually not a bad interview; she pretty much just lets him talk.

This is the closest thing the world needs to a Shapiro-Finkelstein debate imo. Exposes Finkelstein's knowledge to that audience (for whatever good it will or won't do), without subjecting him to interruption and bad faith maneuvering by Shapiro.

(Obviously, Candace Owens still sucks. Broken clock moment, blah blah blah)

The crackerverse would holler otherwise, but the crackerverse would holler anyway.

This is also true in Israel. Due to the current state of the West Bank, a two-state solution would essentially require partition all over again, an opening of a new instance of the same kind of wound as 1948 constituted.

When the Israeli Jewish settlements were removed from Gaza, there was a huge uproar inside Israel. If the Israeli government did that in the West Bank today, it'd be a huge reversal and they'd have to contend with a very vocal, very armed, right-wing religious extremist faction going absolutely nuts over it.

Alternatively, if the Israeli government proposed to do land swaps instead (which they'd probably want to do since the West Bank is of special religious and historical significance to Jews, much more so than most of the territory the state of Israel now claims for itself), that could mean further mass displacement for Palestinians living in the West Bank, plus the same kind of domestic problem for the Israeli government in whatever territory they would give over to the Palestinians in exchange.

There's no way to do a two-state solution that doesn't require mass displacement by force, possibly for both sides. I don't understand how that inflames things any less than decolonializatlon/reconstruction/reparations to transition to a single multinational state or a confederation with free movement across the whole territory or something like that.

Israeli Jews certainly cry out loudly today if anyone talks about a one state solution, but there would also be a massive outcry from them if steps were taken to actually realize a two-state solution, too.

(If, when they have a hand strong enough to actually meaningfully negotiate with Israel and hold them to account, Palestinians (including the Palestinian diaspora), should choose a 'two-state solution', you won't find me opposing that. But I really struggle to see how that's possible given current realities on the ground.)

In the 'international community' (i.e., among certain world leaders), this still seems to be the consensus. The idea is motivated not so much by a thought of what is most just, but what is (supposedly) most possible to get both parties to agree to. And China is here trying simply to echo that consensus.

I think at this point, though, it's hard not to see that this 'consensus' is a zombie, and the territorial and political viability of such a solution is visibly, obviously dead. That does make renewed endorsements of a 'two-state solution’ untimely and even uncanny things to see, imo.

I agree that a single state covering the whole of mandatory Palestine seems more just. Palestinians deserve the right of return, full freedom of movement, and all national and civic rights, across the entire territory. I don't see how a multi-state solution facilitates that.

I also don't really know how to 'help' as an outsider, with a two-state solution. For a one-state solution, we have a model in the original anti-apartheid movement and an existing international movement in BDS. What would helping Palestinians 'win' a partitioned state even look like at this point?

Reaction videos are the lowest form of content imo. Far lazier and far less interesting than speedrunning, coding streams, reading/discussion streams, etc. (Not that I find Twitch streams generally compelling, either.)

And payments to streamers aren't donations in the sense of charity and don't claim to be. They're tips paid to entertainers, like money tossed into the hat of a street musician. It's a different model than wage work but it's not like a scam or a trick or something.

Using those tips to employ the wage labor of others (e.g., video editors) is exploitation, though.

the gradual technical changes, from bullets to gas to bombs to depravation of water

I'd like to emphasize with you just how gradual that has been, comrade. Israel has been using criminal siege tactics against civilians, like we're seeing today, including the deprivation of access to electricity, food, clean water, and medical supplies, since at least the 1982 invasion of Lebanon— over forty years ago. But unlike the 1982-2000 war in Lebanon, of course, each time Israel has ratcheted up these techniques against Gaza, the Gazans were already and continuously surrounded, penned in, and totally dependent on the IDF for all of their infrastructure needs. The Gazans were pre-invaded, occupied ahead of time, pre-besieged.

In the particular case of water, contaminated drinking water had already been a major source of disease in Gaza for years before this latest episode of escalating deprivation. There has been an astonishingly prolonged, unremitting march towards this point.

I'm pretty sure that's Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, who wrote a really powerful and informative history of the IDF, starting with the paramilitary organizations that preceded it. (I strongly recommend it even if you don't normally have much interest in military history or military-oriented histories! It's as much or more about the role of the IDF in Israeli society/culture/ideology/education/propaganda as it is about the causes/trajectories/outcomes of battles and wars.))

He has a couple of YouTube channels (old, new), though only the newer one seems active. He has a lot of good interviews and lectures available in English on them, often together with other dissident Israeli Jews, like Shlomo Sand and Avi Shlaim.

Incidentally, I believe he is a Marxist, too. In his book, he talks about having been active in Matzpen, a defunct revolutionary socialist (and anti-Zionist) organization when he still lived in Israel.

Anyway, yes: extremely based.