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[scriver]

Fun fact: People chanting "we are hamas" are not left-wing, or liberal (which aren't left wing either), they're extremist reactionary conservatives and far-right religious fascists, like hamas is.

[Loud Whispers]

Fun fact: People chanting "we are hamas" are not left-wing, or liberal (which aren't left wing either), they're extremist reactionary conservatives and far-right religious fascists, like hamas is.

imo it's not worth the effort to get too caught up on the taxonomy of political labelling. It's like species or gender or race or whatever else, we imagine these discrete taxons but ultimately they're just useful categories we imagined and placed over spectrums

like the most reliable indicator for political labelling is more than anything, just self-identification. E.g. there were very funny interviews of protestant and catholic ppl during the troubles where they'd ask them their views on transubstantiation vs consubstantiation and you'd get catholics openly endorsing protestant doctrine and protties openly endorsing catholic doctrine. Yet these are guys who'd self-identify and fight to the death over this if it came to it

Same thing with politics. If I'm in favour of total government deregulation and government-enforced weakening of labour, either I'm a libertarian or I'm Deng Xiaoping. One of the funniest fucking things I've read about politics and identity, is the easiest way to tell if someone is fascist is usually just to ask them. Since fascists tend to be happy calling themselves fascists

[scriver]

No, it's pretty fucking important to get caught up in taxonomy and political labelling when people are pretending to be one thing when actually supporting the exact opposite. You cannot be left-wing and support hamas. Hamas murders leftists. Hamas has always been at war with leftist ideology. If you shout "I am hamas" then you are at best an incredibly foolish useful idiot, and in any case completely blind to what hamas is, what they want, and what they stand for.

Hamas is not PLO, which was a union of many groups, with the majority of them being leftist and, iirc, secular. Being left wing does not require you to be non-violent or non-terrorist. There are violent leftists and there are terrorist leftists. We saw a lot of leftist terrorism in Europe during the 20th century: IRA, ETA, those German groups I can't remember the name of. Hamas' violence is not what makes them right wing. It's their reactionary, theocratic, and fascist ideology that makes them right wing. And if you support these things, you are not left wing.

[anewaname]

Divide and conquer... get the "trump" sub-groups to recognize that they are supporting a larger group that will crush their sub-group as soon as it controls the power. You see how some evangelicals and some wealthy no longer support trump? They understand now, they will be "purged" if trump gets in, where "purged" means many will be declared criminals so the others submit in fear and offer up wealth.

Groups like Bannon's are gathering support for trump by doing the same thing other authoritarian groups have done in the past, they "recruit" specific sub-groups by appealing to their individual distrusts and keep the sub-groups isolated from each other. One guy I worked with for a day, went down a list of political topics to find what I distrusted and then offered a pod-caster as a solution, who turned out to be just another this-set-of-political-topics-are-wrong-so-you-should-burn-it-all-down podcaster. These podcasters are supported by larger groups like Bannon's, who will purge unwanted political topics later.

This is how governing systems are overthrown and why massive purges followed in every revolution. The purging was done of the "winning" sub-groups as well. The important difference here is that the "bannon" attempt is targeting the multi-nation governing system aka "the world order". It is part of a rise of authoritarian nations, so it probably will end in another world war... (not what I wanted to think about today)

[Strongpoint]

E.g. there were very funny interviews of protestant and catholic ppl during the troubles where they'd ask them their views on transubstantiation vs consubstantiation and you'd get catholics openly endorsing protestant doctrine and protties openly endorsing catholic doctrine. Yet these are guys who'd self-identify and fight to the death over this if it came to it

No, a Catholic who doesn't know fine details of their doctrine ( or even disagrees with minor elements of their doctrine) is still a Catholic not because of his self-identification but because the majority of their views are consistent with the Catholic doctrine.

While the line of who is Catholic and who is not is vague, we can be quite certain that a person who claims that Jesus never existed is not a Catholic even if they self-identify as such. Supporting Islamic theocracy is just as incompatible with the idea of "the left" even if the line of who is "the left" can be very vague.

[Loud Whispers]

No, it's pretty fucking important to get caught up in taxonomy and political labelling when people are pretending to be one thing when actually supporting the exact opposite. You cannot be left-wing and support hamas. Hamas murders leftists. Hamas has always been at war with leftist ideology. If you shout "I am hamas" then you are at best an incredibly foolish useful idiot, and in any case completely blind to what hamas is, what they want, and what they stand for.

It's as easy for a left-winger to support Hamas who kills left-wingers as it is for someone LGBT to support a religion that says kill all LGBT

Which is why I say it's not "pretending" because they are left wing and they can support hamas and be left wing because left wing is not an objective state of being, it's just a political identity

Like a Chinese communist who supports Hamas and opposes collective punishment of Palestinians because of a small number of terrorists but also supports collective punishment of Xinjiangers over a small number of terrorists

You can go on about how "they're not real communists" much like a Christian who is vengeful and spiteful is being most un-Christian and yet, there are a large number of people who are walking self-contradictions. So you can just waste all your time saying everyone isn't really xyz like Margaret Thatcher isn't really a free market lady because she actually supported massive industrial subsidies, US police officers aren't real police officers because they don't actually protect or serve people e.t.c. but you just end up in a meaningless hole

You can point to every communist regime that wasn't very communist, every Islamic or Christian terror group or army that violates their own religious tenets, every political party that fails to maintain "ideological purity" and eventually you end up semantically deconstructing everyone into no true scotsmen

Cos at the end of the day I don't give two fucks if someone who wants to be a team killing fucktard is left wing or right wing, and the left/right wing meme isn't even that useful cos left wing USA would be far right europe but the left wing USA is friendly and self-identifies with left wing Europe. Is it doctrinely consistent? Who cares. It's just a label, useful only so far as it's useful

Hamas is not PLO, which was a union of many groups, with the majority of them being leftist and, iirc, secular. Being left wing does not require you to be non-violent or non-terrorist. There are violent leftists and there are terrorist leftists. We saw a lot of leftist terrorism in Europe during the 20th century: IRA, ETA, those German groups I can't remember the name of. Hamas' violence is not what makes them right wing. It's their reactionary, theocratic, and fascist ideology that makes them right wing. And if you support these things, you are not left wing.

Head to any Western University and you'd probably be able to find someone who supports Hamas without supporting Hamas ideology, same way you used to be able to find anyone who supported the IRA but weren't even catholic

Consider the triangle of Russia, China and Iran. The three are like three prongs on a chair and have basically next to nothing in common when it comes to governance, culture, faith or faithlessness. They still support each other without all mutually endorsing Chinese atheist communism, Russian orthodox conservatism or Shiite theocracy

No, a Catholic who doesn't know fine details of their doctrine ( or even disagrees with minor elements of their doctrine) is still a Catholic not because of his self-identification but because the majority of their views are consistent with the Catholic doctrine.

While the line of who is Catholic and who is not is vague, we can be quite certain that a person who claims that Jesus never existed is not a Catholic even if they self-identify as such. Supporting Islamic theocracy is just as incompatible with the idea of "the left" even if the line of who is "the left" can be very vague.

Where do you cut off the line? Does a Catholic who supports abortion and gay marriage stop being a Catholic when the Catholic church opposes it, and do they become Catholic again when the Catholic church changes its doctrine? When Tolkein insisted on Latin mass whilst the Catholic church adopted common liturgy, was Tolkein being un-Catholic because he was deliberately disobeying Catholic doctrine, or was he extra-Catholic for sticking to ancient Catholic doctrine? Who decides what is the majority elements of a doctrine, who decides how much of a doctrine is a majority? Are doctrines given equal weight, or are some more than others? When you have two left wing groups, and both are calling each other reactionaries, which one am I supposed to believe is the fascist, which one can claim doctrinal superiority?

Obvious answer: bro who gives a fuck. It's just a self-label. Don't have to start purity testing furries on how much furry lore and doctrine they know, whether they own a fursuit or not. Left wing is the broadest big nut label in the world, rivalled only by right wing. Fighting to see who is authentic true left wing and who is just a poser is silly billy behaviour

[McTraveller]

I'm in the "they will know you by the result of your actions" camp, not the "what you call yourself or who you hang out with/live near" camp.

[bloop_bleep]

Hamas blames Jews for the Bolshevik Revolution in their charter lmao. People praising Hamas is literally the Michael Scott being congratulated meme.

[Starver]

Nearly forgot (as I noticed the upcoming date, the other day), but...  Happy Birthday Nikki!  It just about still being Saturday here, and definitely is over that side of the Pond. Not sure there's anything happening particularly current and 'birthday gifty' for her, in the world of politics, but marking the day anyway.

(Also the likes of Buzz Aldrin and Tom Baker, but they'd be for  other threads. And there's a whole host that would suit mentioning elsewhere, it appears. Prolific lot, the film and cinema types...)

[Maximum™]

"What have you got to lose?" Realistically a lot of Trump voters aren't cheering for him they're cheering against the US government

That might have been arguable back in 2016, but after republicans rolled over for him and continue to, no, it isn't allowed to argue they're rooting for an antiestablishment outsider, he IS half the government unless they kick him aside and wash the stink off with lots of good deeds and good governing (i.e. never) they will remain the party of orange fascist turds.

[anewaname]

Trump supporters are made of sub-groups... some want trump to break the federal government so they can take a state's power as their own, and some want trump because he will give them the authority to hurt others.

They all know that trump will rule with the "do as you like unto others as long as you give me my cut and do not bother my crew or my cattle".

[Bumber]

Fun fact: People chanting "we are hamas" are not left-wing, or liberal (which aren't left wing either), they're extremist reactionary conservatives and far-right religious fascists, like hamas is.

Others have said most of what I was going to say on this. The Queers for People Who Want to Throw Us Off Roofs don't at heart support the religious doctrine of Hamas, but do somehow carry more hate for Israel (and by extension Jews, for complicity or whatever reason.) It doesn't matter that the laws in Israel are actually more liberal than in Gaza (if they're even aware of that fact.) It's not grounded in rational thought. Same old.

Perhaps it's their brand of identity politics, where the "white" Jews must all be engaging in the systematic oppression of the "brown" Palestinians, and therefore any atrocity is justified to even the scales. Maybe it's due to ignorance and propaganda. The Oct 7 attack videos are all faked, and the IDF massacred their own people to start a war. Whatever the reason, they are very much left-wing ideologues, and they're no less susceptible to antisemitic conspiracies and hate as those who engage in the same on the right when the correct buttons are pushed.

[Strongpoint]

It is actually beyond bizarre that people who claim to be anti-racist think that the amount of melanin in someone's skin is a factor in determining who are the good guys in a conflict.

[Schmaven]

It is actually beyond bizarre that people who claim to be anti-racist think that the amount of melanin in someone's skin is a factor in determining who are the good guys in a conflict.

I find all the anti-racist stuff confusingly backwards.  I still believe that how someone acts and conducts themself is more important than what they look like, and to treat everyone with respect and kindness until they give reason not to.  But it seems like the current mainstream approach is to treat people differently primarily based on how they look, regardless of their actions.  I thought doing that was racist.  Doesn't North Korea punish children for the crimes of their parents (and even grandparents)?  That seems to be where this new approach to racism is heading.

[Frumple]

It is actually beyond bizarre that people who claim to be anti-racist think that the amount of melanin in someone's skin is a factor in determining who are the good guys in a conflict.

I mean, yes, which is why the number of those that exist outside strawman fever dreams approaches nonexistent. The wildly vast majority of folks claiming to be anti-racist, especially with any actual sincerity, are capable of understanding more nuance than that.

That seems to be where this new approach to racism is heading.

It really just isn't. Anti-racist practice, rhetoric, and so on, just. Doesn't work like that in reality to any degree worth noticing. The rare exception some idiot does something particularly dumb gets massively signal boosted due to the current state of political propaganda and news reporting, and there's a staggering amount of bad faith manipulation of things that get said, but that doesn't actually mean sod all in regards to the larger movement.