The US has a long track record of supporting some of the most brutal regimes all around the world if it serves their geopolitical interests. In that way its support for Israel isn’t much of an anomaly.
More specifically though, Israel serves as a base from which the US can project military power. That prevents other states in the region from taking full advantage of their natural or geographic resources.
For example, the US wants to ensure oil is traded in US dollars. That creates demand for the dollar which inflates its value relative to other currencies. In that way, US financial capital is given an advantage over the rest of the world. This arrangement isn’t necessarily ideal for oil rich countries as it essentially means some of the value of their oil is getting siphoned off. However, the threat of military intervention may keep these states in line. However, many of them have started to experiment with trading in other currencies which might make the US uneasy.
The second thing I can think of is the US wants to ensure Egypt does not use the Suez Canal as a political weapon like it has historically. In such cases, Israel has been used as proxy through which western countries invaded Egypt to try and take back control of the canal. Since the canal remains very important trade route from which the US and its allies benefit, the US needs some sort of leverage to ensure it stays open to them.
They were actually banned from reddit for posting “John Brown was right” memes implying that the radical abolitionist was correct to kill slaveowners. They can be excessive and annoying but they’re certainly not fascists.
I somewhat agree. I do take issue with the notion that the Nordic working class has been bought off though. That makes it sound like they’re conscious advocates of imperialism which I don’t think is generally true. Rather I’d argue that free from hyper exploitation, they can’t develop a meaningful class consciousness. As such, it’s difficult for them to see how their long term interests are put at risk by the capitalist system and how a socialist system could maintain their high standard of living without requiring imperialism.
I doubt the Nordic working class are receiving a meaningful share of the value stolen through imperialist means. Instead, I think the Nordic bourgeoisie are able to accumulate wealth without having to hyper exploit their local populations thanks to imperialism. This ameliorates the local class antagonisms and creates the superficial appearance that a capitalist system can maintain a stable high standard of living for the working class.
Of course, if imperialist exploitation can no longer ameliorate said antagonisms, class conflict will re-erupt in Nordic countries. The danger here is that parts of the working class may be convinced that their standard of living is predicated on imperialist conquest which is the basis for fascism. The good thing is I don’t actually think that’s true. A more reliable way for Nordic workers to maintain their standard of living would be for them to suppress the interests of their local bourgeoisie and transition to an actually socialist model.
Saying the Democrats control the republicans is silly but saying that they use the republicans as a threat to stay in power is indisputable. They literally funded pro trump candidates in republican primaries under the assumption they would be easier to beat in the general election.
That’s an interesting analysis. If it’s correct then it would suggest that while China has a larger economy it has yet to achieve the influence over international finance that the US currently enjoys.
If you ever visit China you’ll realize how silly your comment is. There are electric scooters literally everywhere. You can’t escape them. They don’t look dinky at all either and are more akin to Vespas than the standing scooters that are popular to rent in the US.
That makes little sense. Why would blue collar workers support Israel’s genocidal bombardment campaign? It’s not in their interest. The UAW is even calling for a ceasefire.
Also, the Biden administration can claim all day that they are in back room negotiations with Israel. However, those claims ring hollow when they’re simultaneously trying to pass bills in congress that unconditionally give Israel military aid. People see that and naturally lose faith in anything the administration says.
Most places in the US developed in a similarly shitty way thanks to the logic of American capitalism. That doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t ethnic and cultural diversity.
Well Marx used the term “dictatorship of the proletariat” to describe how a transition would work in opposition to what he saw as the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”.
However, if you’re talking about people like Stalin or Mao, you’ll find self proclaimed communists with a wide variety of opinions on the subject. That’s in part because gets difficult to sort propaganda from the truth of the matter. I also mean both western and communist propaganda. To have a guy going by “Joe Steel” as the leader of your republic of socialist workers councils isn’t exactly a subtle attempt to get buy in from working class people.
Yes, most communists and especially Marxists believe communism must necessarily be fully democratic. It’s certainly true though that there is much debate about what types of democratic structures to use. Although most communists would probably agree that it would require a lot of trial and error to find an ideal system.
That said, communists generally seek to disenfranchise owners of capital from the decision making process up until the point they no longer exist as a class. Therefore in the transition to communism, full democracy may not be realized. This is the given reason for why Marxist Leninist countries generally suppress opposition parties but may allow for political affinity organizations around identity groups that suffer under capitalism, ie worker, youth, women’s organizations, etc.
Ahh I see. So because Zionists haven’t been able to successfully cleanse all Palestinians from the region, Israel doesn’t count as an ethnostate. Don’t worry though because by God they’re still trying their damndest to make it happen no matter how many thousands of children they have to murder.
Communist theory explicitly tries to dispel the idea that political and economic structures are separate things. As such, communists intend to create democratic structures that can distribute resources in place of undemocratic market relationships which empower owners of capital.
Liberalism on the other hand believe that market relationships are inherently democratic. Therefore they may think that any attempt to replace them with a planned economy are undemocratic regardless of how such planning would be decided upon.