CleverOleg

Glad to hear, thank you for checking in!

The following analysis could not be more vibes-based. My socio and geo-political knowledge of West Asia is limited. But I just have this… gut feeling, this hunch… that when the final story of Palestinian liberation is told, Iraq will play a decisive role (after the Palestinians themselves, of course). Is that a completely off-base hunch?

Edit: the US election thing, it’s literally a coin flip right now. Most of the swing state polls are within the margin of error. I do think rhe Puerto Rico thing will give Pennslyvania to Harris but I also think Trump will win Michigan because of Harris’ support of genocide. But neither of those are by themselves decisive for either candidate.

UN report accuses Israel of ‘deliberate war crimes’ against Gaza’s healthcare system

Navi Pillay, a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory, says an independent investigation found Israel is carrying out a “concerted policy” to destroy Gaza’s health system.

“This is just not reporting what we see on social media, but a very carefully fact-checked account of the destruction of hospitals, the deliberate targeting of doctors,” Pillay told Al Jazeera.

“It’s also the first United Nations report that … drew the conclusion there is the deliberate targeting of healthcare workers, the healthcare system in itself – which is a crime, a war crime.”

Israel makes it difficult to probe its deadly attacks by denying entry to independent investigators, Pillay added.

The report, delivered on Wednesday, concluded: “Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza’s healthcare system as part of a broader assault on the Strip, committing war crimes and a crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities.”

Just more undeniable evidence of war crimes and genocide that the US will do their “it doesn’t look like anything to me” bit.

My back went out just thinking about lifting that TV to move it around.

I was gonna suggest Celtic when I saw the title of this post and saw you had already done so. By far the most pro-Palestine soccer team in the UK and probably the most left wing club in general, too. Liverpool is up there too if you want to stay in England.

there are libertarians with good intentions, but most of them lack theory or just don't like to think to much beyond "good vibes for everyone"

I’ve listened to some of what Chase Oliver (Libertarian Party presidential candidate) has to say. Unlike most LP politicians I’ve heard (or adjacent ones like Rand Paul), he seems like a nice guy who genuinely means well. For example, he’s spoken out pretty vociferously against the the genocide in Gaza; and he mentioned the invasion of Iraq was what got him into politics.

But when he starts to get into the details of Israel/Palestine, you can tell he just doesn’t know much of the context. He doesn’t understand the purpose Israel serves for the US. I think he has good intentions but the libertarian ideals really don’t have a good theory of imperialism like we do.

I never trust someone in a big scarf. They’re subconsciously using the big scarf to “hide” their true selves.

I keep wondering about this. I feel strongly we shouldn’t be like idealist libs and just assume our enemies are irrational and incompetent (like they do with Putin or Xi); that they are guided by desires for conquest and not by material incentives.

I do not think we should assume the Israeli military command is irrational. I mean, their approach in Lebanon (bomb civilians, don’t expose your actual soldiers too much because they will get domed) while incredibly evil, is in a sense rational. BUT… I have a hard time squaring a lot of their actions within the bounds of rationality.

If I had to guess, I would say that their strategy of threats and being hyper-aggressive has never really hurt them in the past, so why stop now they figure. The US will never stop sending Israel bombs, at least not until the US literally just runs out. While that is a reality on the horizon it’s still a ways away. I think their strategy is to just bomb anyone who they feel like and don’t actually use soldiers or tanks much. Bomb someone enough who can’t hit you back and eventually they give up, is I guess the strategy.

The People’s Forum also just raised over $100k (a lot quicker than I think they expected, too) to get supplies and stuff to Cuba.

Admittedly the only Trump supporters I know are petite bourgeois and they are all definitely human garbage.

I despise Hilldawg as much as anyone here, but she was correct with this comment of hers and the right intentionally made it seem like she was talking about all of Trump’s supporters when she clearly wasn’t.

It really was exceptional how some truly awful people like David Duke and Richard Spenser and others were coming out of the woodwork to support Trump (because he was the only GOP politician to come out and talk about immigration and deportation). I’m talking about open white supremacists - the absolute right fringe. If you followed these neo-Nazi groups like I did at the time, they were all thrilled about Trump, it was a real phenomenon. These are people who usually never endorsed even republicans before. Hillary was pointing out that hey, if some of the people who we all agree are terrible are supporting Trump maybe that says something. That’s not how the right took it and I think they worked up their hog base over it, even though it was deployed cynically by them.

This has been a thing in Mexico for a couple decades now, just not on the scale of China and also because Mexico isn’t communist the economic benefits aren’t getting reinvested into the country but instead are retained by American corporations.

Everything I have seen so far indicates that the people of Lebanon are doing what humans tend to always do when their homeland is invaded: rally around a defense (Hezbollah, in this case). So… good luck with that.

Also, I believe this “problem” is also partially caused by the US and Israel. The Lebanese army is very poorly equipped and always has been because Israel doesn’t actually want them to be well equipped and able to mount a defense. I just think Israel never anticipated that Hezbollah would become so powerful.

Thank you, , your wisdom and leadership has likely saved Lebanon.