theacharnian

joined 2 years ago
[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I'm not expecting harmony immediately, I'm advocating for a political project with outside pressure to get to it eventually. Israelis like to talk about deradicalization of the Palestinians, but Israeli society itself needs to be deradicalized.

There is nothing cosmically exceptional about this conflict compared to other conflicts. If Bosnia and Herzegovina can be a society for Bosniak, Serbs and Croats and if Rwanda can find reconciliation after a genocide, so can Palestinians and Israelis.

This: "Why Rwanda is held up as a model for reconciliation, 26 years after genocide" | CBC Radio https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/why-rwanda-is-held-up-as-a-model-for-reconciliation-26-years-after-genocide-1.5842139

If we can't imagine this horizon and if we don't have the courage to work for it, what are we even doing? If all we can imagine is death and hatred, we are creating a self fulfilling prophecy and precluding ever going beyond it. We need moral courage and ambition, that's all I'm saying.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

The NDP's problem is not the candidate, it's the lack of policy alternative. We just spent 10 years on very incremental small potatoes. Sure non-universal dental and pharmacare is absolutely not nothing but these are not normal times. We need some Mamdani style policy proposals, a morally ambitious program to reform Canada.

Things like:

  • am aggressive tax policy to curb income and wealth inequality, which is a ticking bomb for our democracy
  • massive increases in non-market housing to address the housing crisis
  • free university to expand and train our next generation of doctors and nurses
  • a decisive energy transition and an actual war on the fossil economy, from the wells to the pumps
  • a new urban strategy framed around transit and active transport
  • a restorative economy and actual reconciliation and land back to indigenous people
  • a program for opening our borders aiming to grow and renew our smaller towns and cities
  • a renewal of our glorious Peacekeeping tradition and a positive role in the world based on an uncompromising commitment to international law

We are facing a slew of crises from the climate, to fascism, to billionaire dragons siphoning capital and throwing us into economic stagnation.

If we don't argue for our ideals, who will?

The NDP needs to do its job and present a brave democratic socialist vision for Canada and start shifting the Overton window to a future where the Liberals would be the right and the Tories the minor party.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 6 points 18 hours ago
[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Nothing is "viable" if you just extrapolate the present, except I guess genocide.

To take a step back, moral ambition and political courage are necessary. If Ireland could reach a Good Friday Agreement, if South Africa could overcome apartheid, so can Palestine/Israel.

A plurinational democratic state with equal rights for all, with a truth and reconciliation process, and with strong international support is the only way the middle east can ever reach peace.

And if we are putting on big boy pants and imagining a better world, why not envision the Mediterranean Union becoming a force for democratization and stabilization allowing the free movement of people throughout the region.

When realism is dystopian, fuck realism and pick utopia. Otherwise, why even live?

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

My pro-palestinian praxis is making sure my Jewish neighbours have no reason to even think about aliyah. Jewish safety? It's here. Reverse doikayt.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

US booze? Bah. I'm here skipping US cauliflower.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Oh I'm sorry, I thought the recent moves deepening the existing framework was proof enough. You want to go back instead.

Let's try this one: https://aje.io/78f3r5

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca -2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceqg440v0gxo

They are not doing the bombing in Gaza. They are protecting the ones doing the bombing in Gaza.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

There is only one context in which Palestine Action is "a terrorist organization such as Hamas" and that's the depraved legislation that the idiots in Westminster passed. The bravery of the 83 year old priest this article is about lays bare the depravity and stupidity of this absolutely idiotic legislation. Your comment on the other hand, by using this idiotic comparison buys into this aberrant degeneracy. Why do you do that?

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Damaging equipment that is being used to conduct genocide is not vandalism, it's human fucking decency.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

smrt fasizmu sloboda narodu

 

The Reverend Sue Parfitt, from Bristol, was detained for holding a placard that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” She was among more than 27 people arrested on Saturday for acts of defiance against the proscription.

 

Bob Vylan gets flak for supposedly preaching hatred and wishing death to the IDF at Glastonbury, as if wishing for the destruction of a genocidal army is the same as advocating for violence against people, much less a People.

Well, in 1998, Bob Dylan sung these lyrics, addressed to the "masters of war" :

And I hope that you die and your death will come soon
I will follow your casket by the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave 'til I'm sure that you're dead

Hear it here, on 37:04: https://youtu.be/fHE6XBWM_yA?t=2224

In a sense, Bob Dylan was in fact more extreme than Bob Vylan, since he's talking about actual dying people as opposed to institutions.

In any case, Bob Vylan with their "Death to the IDF" slogan is in very good company.

 

Women, children and elderly people among at least 24 killed by attack that turned beach spot into scene of carnage

 

“We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine,” the duo said on Instagram. “A machine whose own soldiers were told to use ‘unnecessary lethal force’ against innocent civilians waiting for aid. A machine that has destroyed much of Gaza. We, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story. And whatever sanctions we receive will be a distraction.”

 

Leading economists endorse Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral plan to freeze rents, expand free buses, and launch public grocery stores.

 

Comment: this is what actual argumentation for increased military spending looks like, not the cheap shots and smears of being propaganda vectors levelled against dissident points of view like those of Sanchez or Varoufakis. Europe deserves better than paranoia and McCarthyism.

 

Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy on what's driving Netanyahu and why this will be a defining moment for Trump's MAGA movement.

 

The House of Representatives is trying to pass a resolution making the term “Free Palestine” an official antisemitic slogan.

Republican Representative Gabe Evans from Colorado introduced the resolution in the wake of the attack on a gathering for Israeli hostages in Boulder this week. Mohammed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, has been charged for the attack, during which he yelled “Free Palestine,” according to the FBI.

“Whereas, while shouting ‘Free Palestine,’ an antisemitic slogan that calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and Jewish people, Mohammed Sabry Soliman attacked the peaceful demonstrators with homemade Molotov cocktails,” the resolution reads. House Republicans are expected to vote on the nonbinding resolution next week.

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