It's good to bring him up when talking to liberals about the necessity of violence to achieve liberation (something they'll vehemently deny). Usually, they respond by going "well Nelson Mandela was peaceful, unlike [insert unacceptable resistance movement]!". After which you can point to all the bombings and acts of "terrorism" that uMkhonto weSizwe engaged in. That can then lead to a productive convo about how those aren't actually blemishes on an otherwise peaceful and democratic struggle for freedom, but is itself part of the struggle for freedom (and, of course, based af).

Unfortunately, for the average left-leaning lib/succdem, symbolic victories and vibes are all politics consists of. I recently made the mistake of airing some doomerism about the state of EU politics to my overwhelmingly succdem family, essentially just saying that I believe fascism will continue to gather support in Europe as long as the "left" continues its strategy of moving right to counter the right, after which (surprise) the right says "thanks" and moves further right.

This was met with a) astonishment at where I got these "conspiracy theories" from, b) concern trolling ("are you doing all right? I get worried about you when you say these things") and c) vibes ("I have to believe things are getting better!").

All participants in this conversation are people I would call above-average in terms of political literacy among libs/succdems. And even they are just completely checked-out. They are also all quite excited for Kamala Harris

Even my lib dad could see this bullshit for what it was. It's a super transparent attempt to manufacture crisis support.

Makes me so fucking dejected. Not even just for myself, but I have wonderful nieces and nephews and they don't deserve this shit

So public support for Palestine is just straight up outlawed then? Wonder if they're already handing out fines to people wearing keffiyeh yet?

This is common sense and while I agree, in principle, I feel like 90% of noise complaints that get escalated have to do with two groups that don't follow common sense on the issue: power-hungry assholes who just want to control people and start shit, and genuinely disabled people whose noise tolerance is completely different than most people (hypersensitivity to sound, auditory hallucinations etc.).

My sister got harassed out of an apartment by an elderly lady downstairs (not sure which category she fit into) who would complain about literally any sound they made upstairs. Normal conversation, in the early evening, would prompt angry letters in their mailbox. She would write meticulous logs of all their "transgressions" (like, "1 AM, chair moved across floor") and threaten to send them to the police, talk shit to other neighbors trying to spark drama etc. I don't feel like there was really any way my sister could have fixed that situation by being "better", because she didn't do anything wrong. Life makes sounds sometimes, maybe even at inconvenient hours. Sometimes you gotta move a chair real quick at 1 AM. It is what it is. All she could have done was accept that her downstairs neighbor has extreme needs, and then work to live a completely silent life. She didn't, she moved out instead. Like most people would probably do.

I guess my point is that having simple "common sense" rules about this doesn't really work in a system where vulnerable/sensitive people live next door to neurotypical/non-sensitive people whose ordinary lives makes a baseline of noise. People like my sister's upstairs neighbor would probably need detached housing or a heavily insulated apartment, which I imagine a better society could probably provide to those who need it.

Nasty mental illness known as "some semblance of a conscience"

I saw a thread on praising the Macklemore Gaza song, in which he explicitly says he won't vote for Biden. Someone wrote a comment like "yeah, I won't vote for Biden either. Genocide is a dealbreaker" or something like that, and the comment had like 50 downvotes and a bunch of nerds going "what, you prefer Trump who will do genocide but on steroids??". Honestly hilarious that they were seemingly fine with the song, but the moment a "normal" had the nerve to repeat the lyrics their lib attack dog mindset kicked in.

Can you provide evidence of neo-nazis who actually justify their antisemitism as being pro-Palestine? Anti-jewish violence from fascists has been a constant throughout the years, including years where Israel/Palestine has gotten much less attention, and to this date the only people I have never seen an actual example of what you describe. I have heard the claim a million times from zionists, though.

What an absolute badass

Parenti has a good bit in Blackshirts and Reds which is a bunch of quotes from Soviet officials, intellectuals etc. gushing over western democracy, freedom and markets. Then he follows that up with brutal descriptions of the consequences of shock therapy, forced privatization and so on and lots of people going "what is this shit? Why does nothing work, and only like 5 guys are rich??" and "wow, I had no idea these leopards would eat my face"

I'd love for you to explain exactly what you mean by "tankie"