I know enough! Great that you are helping Palestinians though, since you have the resources to do so. Look this discussion is entirely hypothetical given that, regardless of your personal view or my personal view on potential sanctions for the US, the US government would never allow such sanctions to take place. This country has toppled governments for much, much less.
Are you familiar with the Hague Invasion Act? It gives a pretty good indication of how anyone sanctioning the US would go, and we are in that unique hegemonic position in the world precisely because the scale and scope of our imperialist efforts over the past century.
Shocking lmao
I didn't create the hypothetical, someone else asked if I'd be ok with sanctioning the US for our actions and I said yes. For some reason that wasn't enough and you guys started talking about genocides and what I would or wouldn't actually do.
No, you stated the international community should sanction the US over Palestine. Whether or not such a thing is possible is relevant to the discussion, because it informs why one might make that claim. It’s a claim that is much easier to make when you know it’s an impossibility. It’s also relevant to sanctions policy because the fact that the US will never be sanctioned, yet can freely sanction any nation it wishes to, is one of the primary problems with sanctions policy in general. This is not an equal relationship and that has to be understood in order to get a full view of the impact of sanctions policy.
I was responding to someone that was suggesting genocide of the American population as something I should be in favor of. I simply clarified my stance and gave an example of how sanctions should be applied to the US. I ended that post by saying no one is actually willing to do it.
You’re getting pushback because people disagree with you. Most here are not in favor of sanctions policy. It’s easy to say “there is no contradiction in my beliefs when I say we should have crippling sanctions against Russia or other enemies, because I would also support the rest of the world sanctioning the US” when you know that the US will never be sanctioned, meanwhile the opposite end of that equation is currently happening and will continue to happen for the foreseeable future
Again, someone literally asked me if I'd be ok with sanctions against the US. I didn't bring that up, someone else mentioned that hypothetical and I simply answered it. I'm fine if people disagree with me, I disagreed with you all respectfully, but that's hardly why I'm getting pushback. You guys started nitpicking every little thing that has nothing to do with my stance on the sanctions, and of course because I'm a former landlord.
It's scary to see this "United Front" mentality take hold in regular people who, whether consciously or not, contribute to the black-and-white-ism of the conflict by basically saying "well, you have to do SOMETHING" even if it's trite/silly at best, or harmful to regular Russian people, not Putin or his regime, at worst.
You are getting pushback and doubt at your answer to the hypothetical and your general stance on sanctions, the 2 issues are related. People aren’t going to forget you having been a landlord and profiting heavily off of that, sure. Why would they forget it? We know you aren’t a socialist
So it's just a big debate about whether you believe me or not? Well you said you don't and I didn't object much further.
When you say you are for socialist policies but want them implemented in a 'realistic way' it just points to you don't really want to implement them.
How do you figure that?
you're not the first person to do so
Well what is that supposed to mean? What's wrong with wanting a realistic approach to implementing these ideas?
realistic is subjective and tends to be used in place of "what I want". unless you can give examples?
Realistic as in how viable is it that we can accomplish this. Legislation has to be passed in the US to become a reality. Just saying we need universal healthcare or universal housing is a nice gesture, but I want to find out how do we get that done in reality. For example I support a lot of AOC's policies, and so my reaction was to hit the streets and support her campaign during her first primary. She's now in Congress, has a huge social media platform and is hopefully just at the start of pushing her agenda. If she ever chooses to run in a competitive election, I will donate to her campaign. I also supported Bernie Sanders in the democratic primary. That one didn't pan out, but the message getting out there matters.
I’ve seen your posts for many years, calling yourself an “advocate for socialist policies” is a massive stretch lol. You literally derived your wealth from one of the most nakedly, directly exploitative modes of capitalist accumulation with seemingly no guilt or restitution, having gotten out of that mode of accumulation in order to further enrich yourself. You have a history of constantly entering into topics where socialism comes up and downplaying the effectiveness or legitimacy of socialist policy. Even now you employ the familiar canard of “realism” which is used to kneecap any attempts at socialist reforms, much less revolutionary action.
Yeah, I've never, ever done that. I've always been a huge advocate of universal healthcare, universal housing, and universal basic income, as well as raising my own taxes to pay for it. Now you're just straight up lying about me.
What do you mean “a realistic way to have universal housing”? You act like this has never been done before. You eliminate private property, pursue land reform policy, the state literally seized assets and then guarantees them to people. Plenty of examples from states that are or were examples of actually existing socialism. Universal healthcare policy is even more apparent, even thoroughly capitalist nations like Canada and the UK have that.
You can’t be an advocate of universal housing and be a landlord at the same time, lol. It’s like trying to be an anti-racist Klansman
It's like you didn't even read my post. I know how the concept works....Thus the reason I support it.
That is not socialism. Those are social democratic reforms. Socialism is a specific thing with a specific meaning. I know you like dictionary definitions so here's one:
Sure I can. I can't live my life based on the world I wish to live in, just the one I do. I can then further work towards the agenda I wish to accomplish.
Yeah, I said I liked socialist policies, not that I was a socialist.
See? I'm not under the impression that the US is going to turn into a socialist country, that's not realistic in my mind. I do think universal healthcare and housing are realistic right now. And UBI is realistic in the future.
The world as it exists did not require you to become a landlord. While there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, you do bear some degree of personal responsibility for the exploitation you’ve personally inflicted on others. Again, you were profiting off of housing for years whatever work you did with them certainly wouldn’t approach the harm done. Affordable housing is policy in the US is shameful btw, I have no idea what the details are of how you “expanded public housing” but it’s not incredibly convincing.
If you think socialism is unrealistic then you aren’t a socialist. How is that hard to understand?
Bro again, first sentence of my post.
Well I'm not trying to convince you. I don't think you do anything relevant to your cause other than yap on a message board and grandstand and if you're superior to others. You don't take any action to further your agenda and you're all talk. You think I'm a horrible person for being a landlord and supporting sanctions against Russia. Guess that's that.
Yes that's what I meant
I couldn’t give less of a shit what you think about me tbh. Even someone who takes no political action in their entire life is more in line with the tenets of socialism than someone who has made themselves rich off of exploiting others. I hate to tell you this, but it’s not just me that thinks that about you lol.
So only people wish to implement social policies through unrealistic means are true supporters of said policies?
That's not what I said
for a so called realist, you seem to have difficulties understanding reality. you can't pick and choose the effects of sanctions that you support and the ones you don't. especially when the citizens you purport to care about are the most affected by them.
Not at all. I'm a realist in that I acknowledge there are no good options in the situation we're facing now. I acknowledged that citizens being effected was a result of sanctions, just saying that punishing citizens isn't the basis of my support for the sanctions. I pointed that out because you said I should be in favor of American genocide as punishment for our past actions. I explained that further in the post you quoted.
America is the greatest enemy of socialism in the entire world, pretty standard for socialists to hate American policy. It’s pretty suspect if you don’t. You and Hazel have seen a lot of pushback for reasons that have nothing to do with debating the finer points of socialist policy, but rather for supporting crippling sanctions on other countries, which is again another standard socialist, anti-imperialist policy, to be against sanctions. Hazel has a pretty significant reputation among the people who’ve posted in various communities and identify as socialists, and it’s not a good one. That doesn’t go away because we’ve hopped on a new forum and she sold her properties due to the pandemic and new rent protections making renting said properties less profitable than it would be to sell them in a very competitive real estate market. She didn’t have a change of heart, which she’s repeatedly confirmed in this thread.
It doesn’t matter that the suffering of civilians isn’t the basis for your support, you are still supporting the policy that is causing suffering of civilians. You don’t get to wash your hands of the harm done because your intent is purportedly noble.
So are you.
Supporting a diplomatic solution to end the conflict as quickly as possible is something that directly causes mass suffering and death? Gonna need to explain that one
By supporting an action that would directly fund the military of the invading army. You don't get to pretend that has no effect on the war. You wouldn't even pass your own purity test here.
