Except it is the specific idea that compels them to resist their occupiers. Because they say it is. Saying otherwise is doing literally exactly the same thing that white Americans did that caused indigenous native Americans to have to change their practices, which they did not see as religious, to fit into the western white European understandings of the word ‘religion’ in order to receive government funding. Even if a Marxist or materialist analysis of the situation says in general that oppressed peoples ‘usually’ or ‘always’ react a specific way because of a specific force, you’re missing the point that that is a scientific theory. It is an abstraction. That does not mean it is reality or the only way of viewing a situation.

Your understanding of the situation and how it fits in with your worldview is different than the point of view of the Palestinians actually experiencing the situation. Again, I want to point you to the broad literature of the study of religion that shows just exactly what happens when dudes with white, western ideas of how the world works try to impose those on native indigenous populations.

Your point of view of how the situation works, or your understanding of the powers at play, is not reality. That is your interpretation of reality, a very useful abstraction that is very usually right. But that abstraction has contexts where it is appropriate to apply it, and contexts where it is inappropriate to apply it. And trying to apply it to deny the very real primary motivation that Palestinian people say is motivating them is not a great place to apply that abstraction.

I mean no, it’s not. The main anti-colonial group left in Gaza, which is massively popular, is an organization whose primary driving force is Islam. Religion is an incredibly important cultural force that is a key driving factor for Gazans and other Palestinian people in this fight. That is a materialist analysis of the situation lol because that is what the Palestinians themselves are saying. Just look at the wording used by the people there: the dead aren’t the dead but ‘martyrs’, and this isn’t just a conflict but a ‘jihad’ (righteous fight).

Hakim is very correctly noting the obvious here in that a vast majority of the Palestinians are Muslim and that their faith is a primary driver of this conflict for them. Painting in broad strokes isn’t denying that there aren’t any secular Palestinians, but talking about how Palestinians are fighting back and resisting in aggregate / at a zoomed out level.

Too much reading /j

North Korea’s is like… significantly better than this lol. 15 days paid leave for workers, 2 months leave for students.

WE WIN

The ‘capital’ in ‘capitalism’ means nothing and is there for no reason

Seconding Blowback, I’m six episodes in and went from “Hmm I feel icky about Cuba” to “Holy fucking shit I can’t believe we would do that to them, I unequivocally support Cuba”

Why do you argue so fucking far past the point it’s obvious you’re wrong? You’re an entire branching comment tree in this post. You never give up on a single point but you’re getting bodied left and right.

I’m laughing so hard I almost shat my pants reading this thread

“All the they/thems in this thread are bigots, they’re actually right-wingers!” - WTF is this take

To be clear in the dunking threads folks are not usually engaging in good faith with us. When I was on another server and replied with actual questions to stuff everyone was incredibly nice to me and explained stuff super well. Can agree though that folks can see dunking as alientating. I promise though if you can get past that it’s one of the friendliest communities I’ve found on the web.

took public transportation to get there

We have /c/urbanism so this is doubly true lol

I mean that’s fair, but what you’re doing is like going into a public library and throwing a rave party.

Have you read any of the threads on here? Y’all are absolutely vitriolic against Hexbear users. That is not a ‘public library’ lmfao

No, you are like a cookie in a jar, im a observer.

Genuinely what the fuck does this mean

Blowback has done more for my understanding of Cuba and North Korea than any other piece of media I’ve ever consumed

Lord I’m still listening to Season 2 of Blowback and haven’t gotten to Season 3 yet but I had no clue about this, that’s genuinely fucked up

Is this written by ChatGPT

Hi, I’m new to the community and just wanted to say I fucking love it here so far. Everyone is so fucking nice and understanding while being honest and authentic, I genuinely have learned so much and love coming back to this site. This thread is the perfect example lol.

Doing pretty great. Starting a new job in two weeks I’m excited for! Questioning whether I have autism. Went out and had a good night socializing and shit. Life is doing pretty good rn.

I don’t think this is a bad thing though. Books like the bread book or The Dispossessed can help open people up to a leftist POV by showing them that there are very realistic alternatives to a capitalist system that, while utopian, would be so cool to live under. I feel like we should push people less towards “gloom and doom” books as their first book.

Listen to Teach Me Communism! It’s the podcast that turned me into a leftist.

It’s a nonbinary person and their brother basically doing a book club every week and explaining a different piece of socialist literature or socialist history. They start from square zero (the manifesto), work their way through stuff like The State and Revolution, and do a toooon of history. Also they’ve done the podcast for the past 3 years, do it entirely for free, and donate all of the money from their Patreon to a local Dallas mutual aid fund. I have such an unhealthy parasocial relationship with them but I’m an ML now and love them (though they do a lot of anarchist stuff too).

Really wish more people would suggest them more!!