VentraSqwal

I prefer a one state solution VS two state one, but i guess this is better than no state.

Thanks! You seemed very informed about the conflict so yours felt like a good comment to ask that question under, which had been on my mind since I saw it under an old Abby Martin video of her interviews with Israelis. That video looks like it will probably take some time to watch but it gives me a place to start.

My gf and I also enjoyed it! You have to be on board with the silliness, and I guess we were. My only complaints were few, I thought the villian could've been a bit better (I didn't really believe she could take on Captain Marvel by herself, let alone with 2 super hero friends) and the breezy pace made me have some questions (it took until after the movie for me to realize why destroying the Supreme Intelligence hurt their sun) but the situations were fun, action scenes creative, and it didn't out stay it's welcome. Overall, it's not amazing, but it's better than most Marvel stuff I've seen since probably Shang Chi, and better than the reviews and box office had me thinking it would be.

It's implied. A ceasefire gives a chance to negotiate for hostages and for peace.

It's hilarious for all the "democracy" the US loves to "export", it actually has a pretty terrible democracy. Wildly popular policies have no way to make their way to the government unless a rich person or corporation also lobbies for it.

They migrated from North Arabia and took Jewish land every time the Jews were forcefully removed by a long line of oppressors. Then, when every Arab country started kicking out Jews, thy had nowhere to go but their homeland. When they arrived in the early 40's en masse, the Palestinian leader met with Hitler to see about exterminating them. You got the colonizer/colonized dynamic backwards. This is what happens when you get your info from Facebook.

I saw this YouTube comment where people were arguing whether the Palestinians or Jewish people were there first. Does anyone know how accurate this comment is?

Yup I think I'm going to have to share this a lot, especially with a lot of people here in the States that only know that Hamas sucks (which it does) but don't know the conditions in Gaza or what Israel has done to exacerbate this situation. It's the best take I've heard on the situation so far. That organization of parents of dead kids from both sides was the first thing to give me hope about this conflict in awhile.

The comment the last guy said was especially poignant. "Were going to have to either share this land, or share the graveyard underneath it."

I really did lol. Already apologized, but I suppose that I maybe should throw an edit in there for future people.

And you like to take the nicest part of the pre-revolutionary history, where often rulers perpetrated violence against the poor as well for years, and ignore that as well. You also seem to be taking the worst examples. There's been socialist revolutions where nothing happens to teachers, doctors, or small businessmen. Most of them, actually. China and it's Cultural Revolution is the only one I can think of that went out and hurt a bunch of unrelated civilians.

That's the thing, often the rulers resort to violence even before the people. You can't talk or debate your way into power against a dictator or monarch. They'll shoot your peaceful protestors and kidnap and torture your leaders. They will blacklist your writers and artists. Talking and other avenues should always be the first step, and if you're already in a democracy probably your only step, but if violence is used to enforce an unjust system I'm not sure how else you think it could be changed.

I could see a vanguard party providing for more than just defense or violence, too. It provides a way to organize and spread your thoughts and ideas, a way to provide mutal aid, a way to focus your demands, a way to teach political theory, etc. The rich always have class solidarity while they are masters of splitting up the poor intos different factions based on race, sex, gender, etc. Finding a way to foster solidarity into a big group where the proletariat can get their needs met seems like a worthy goal.

Generally these countries already had massive wealth disparity so keep that in mind, with a few landlords and the rich ruling over vast amounts of a mostly rural populace.

The USSR massively reduced wealth inequality and then it rose against after it fell. The funneling as much wealth as possible to their ruling classes happened more afterwards, with the rise of the oligarchs.

North Korea was a lot more equal than South Korea when it was formed although I'm sure it's changed since then, but they don't let people in so there's not many official figures. China is basically a capitalist country now, although notably it's income inequality rose more when it implemented these market reforms that made it more capitalist. It's wealth inequality is less than the US's, or about the same, anyway.

Cuba was a lot more equal after the revolution than before. They basically removed homelessness, fed everyone, gave everyone health care, etc. It's commonly known that the Batista era was filled with graft, rich landowners and club owners, and corrupt government officials while most of the countryanguished in poverty. Inequality has only risen when they had to implement more capitalist-like market reforms after the Soviet Union fell and they lost their major trading partner.

Vietnam had also done well at that front, increasing growth with only slight increases in inequality, doing better than China on that front. They're still worried about it after implementing market reforms as well but are working on it, and have still done better than other countries.

Notably Social Democratic countries like the Nordic ones have also done well in terms of wealth inequality, but like these other ones examples, it can trend worse when increasing - privatization or similar capitalistic reforms. Some of these countries like Norway also have even more publically owned goods and companies than countries people think of as socialist, like Venezuela.

Speaking of, Venezuela had the lowest inequality in South America for a long time, although crashing oil prices has impacted that.

I think one thing that's confusing is that there's Marxism, communism, Leninism, MLM, etc. Different communist countries try to learn from other countries and each one has its own implementation based on its own material conditions.

From what I've heard, Lenin's vanguard party and violent revolution thing was basically theorized to be required basically because of the long history of more peaceful movements being squashed by violent capitalists, the difficulty it is to wrest power from the old dictatorship, that of the rich, and the difficulty it is to change a country's culture (see the super brainwashed US that might re-elect Trump let alone ever be able to get affordable health care). It's not really required for communism so much as seen as a working theory of what's required to achieve it in a pragmatic way due to the US trying to destroy it in every country that's gone near it from its very inception and their full corporate-owned media blitz on people like Bernie or the democratic socialist in the UK.

A lot of the authoritarian nature of these countries is due to the material conditions from which they arose (usually poor, rural non-industrialized dictatorships, often colonized) and from which they had to stay alive (which is usually in a siege mentality as the US or other Western countries continued to sanction and undermine them). I'd definitely prefer to live in a Nordic country than any communist one, but they also started off in very different contexts, so I'm not sure if that will always be true. Like the other commenter, I'd be curious to see more data. I'd give the point to socialist countries right now though, because the experiment of capitalism has the entire global south counting against it.