I didn’t want to direct this question to Americans specifically because, at this point, other countries have shown support to Israel in one or the other way. If my country was financing this, I would be taking the streets. Shit, I’m right now in the hospital but all I can think about is protesting anyway just to feel I did something to stop this madness.
Are you doing something about this? Are you feeling unsettled? How do you feel about all this mess?
EDIT: So, buying Chinese stuff takes the USS Gerald Ford to Gaza’s coast. Also, TIL that that chocolate my cousin gave me when she was 20 and I was 5, (delicious stuff!) made me a slavist-ish. The fact remains, this genocide is being paid and supported by taxpayers money; of course, I was hoping that most of us didn’t pay taxes wishing for this. Thank you all for your responses, some of them were hard to swallow.
I mean, if you’ve purchased chocolate in the last century, you’re supporting slavery by your logic. Same for many other commodities, but most people know about diamonds. You could be protesting your entire life, justifiably, about many things. Most people in the world cannot consume without inadvertently causing harm and suffering somewhere in the world. It’s nice that you’re now thinking about it though.
I believe you are taking my question out of context. I didn’t start thinking about this just now. Ultimately, not every company owns representatives in the state. Yes, I believe we should be careful about what we consume and who’s behind those products, but it needs to be in the power of the states to control the best practices to produce goods; it is not reasonable for an individual, for one citizen, to ask for this. It is different with our governments, we can and should demand for them to represent us with dignity. As individuals, we can demand accountability for their decisions taken in our names. Companies don’t represent us, governments do.
Leading question.
Edit: For an actual “answer”, some people are in fact taking it to the streets. For your favorite country you can search for it and if you don’t want to do that here’s an article for the US. While you may argue that we should’ve expected this, at the time of financing all we know is that there was a first strike and people were angry. Now it’s different, at least in my local circle.
Either way, this should not be a question for asklemmy. It should be in the politics community or something.
Loaded question.
rhetorical “question”
My country burns money, resources and human lives to enforce its hegemony on the other side of the planet while I only have health insurance through my crappy job and the infrastructure is crumbling everywhere. How do you think I feel?
Not too hot, I guess. Thanks for taking the time.
Many are just trying to make the best out of what we have and it often feels like we have such little impact on these things happening across the country, let along in other parts of the world. The world population approaches 8 billion. Our impact is often meaningful in some way, but incredibly limited overall.
How can someone truly help with something across the world, like Ukraine/Russia and now Israel/Gaza, when conflict is constant and many also have to simply survive, in the face of entities that are capable of spending trillions of dollars.
No problemo
Since you probably buy stuff made in China like everyone else, you tell us.
What does China have to do with anything?
“it’s not whataboutism when I do it”
China meets the manufacturing needs for most of the world, it’s economically not realistic to boycott them
That said, we still should boycott them, at least in principle.
It’s really not that hard to boycott China, people just don’t do it because they’re selfish and would rather support an authoritarian regime than stand for what’s right
I haven’t eaten any cooked hot food since the HK protests because every appliance is made or parts majority made in China
I will eat sliced bread and beans the rest of my life to own the Chinese
Beans is one thing, but cold beans??? That’s a step too far, I now uncritically support Xi.
Psh. You posuer. I’ve converted my life savings to yuan notes and am now keeping them under the bed to reduce the circulation of cash in the Chinese economy.
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We paid them slave wages to make things for us but they didn’t play fair and learned how to make things for themselves
The principle of being racist scumbags?
In general I agree with you, but reality is also more nuanced. A blanket boycott can often harm the people you want to protect. A common question in the debate about Palestine and Uyghurstan and boycotts is what to do about companies that give equal opportunities to people from the targeted communities - i.e. companies that give jobs in the same terms to both Israelis and Palestinians or the Han Chinese and Uyghur people.
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Tell me you haven’t read any serious report about the situation in Uyghurstan (can we please drop the chinese “new territory” colonial designation? I don’t think it helps anyone, including the Chinese position) without telling me you never read a serious report about the situation in Uyghurstan. There are several identified cases of the use of slave labor, but there are also lots of companies that had credible audits to show that at least on a superficial level they treat everyone fairly - and a huge chunk of places where the situation is as clear as mud.
Personally, I would choose to focus on things I ostensibly have some amount of control over. As an American, I have no effect whatsoever on Chinese laws or policy. However, I allegedly have power over my own country’s laws and policies, so I choose to expend my energy trying to end slave labor in America, which is legal if the person has been convicted of a crime.
Why would I spend the precious little free time and energy I have (between making enough money to pay rent and eat food) on something out of my control?
I have been boycotting them for best of my ability for the last 6 years.
I think problems usually include airplanes or using car where it is not clear what components is chinese made.
The one I got stuck with was a PS5 controller. I thought Sony electronics fully made in Japan to later find out they sourced things to china.
I just love all these creative ways people find to say that they’re imbeciles without saying it explicitly.
If you read the thread, or at least my responses, you would probably made a more conscious effort to answer my question.
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Thank you for saying it better than I could have.
How did you feel insulted? I’m not saying any citizen is guilty of anything. I do not think so. But this is happening with their money. All I’m saying is representatives of these countries should know and follow whatever the people they govern thinks they should do. If you feel insulted, maybe, just maybe that’s on you.
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I feel that taking one side over the other without allowing for any nuance in that complicated clusterfuck over there is disingenuous. I feel very sorry for all civilians caught between the many murderous assholes in that region, but I can’t fully support one group while completely condemning the other. Acting like it’s a black and white issue is so very wrong and not helpful.
But our government did pick a side. So what is our obligation, then?
Let your delegate know that you wish for more nuance, that instead of supporting the state of Israel, that it’d be better to side with the civilians on all sides who are dying in this messed up conflict.
Well put and i completely agree!
Which side is committing genocide? That’s the side to oppose in any fight.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Keep posting of that’s all you can do right now.Great quote you made me think of.
The truth hurts, but silence kills. -Mark Twain
Not good. All I can do is vote. Until they take that away.
Do you feel represented by one of the political parties you may have in your country? Would they act in a general agreement with your own convictions?
I do not. Not one iota. That being said, I’m an American who’s been around the world twice and speaks multiple languages. I consider myself reasonably left, but in this country I am extreme left. Our politicians are bought and paid for by lobbyists. The few who tend to be honest are either marginalized or silenced.
My vote counts for nothing. I will still vote in earnest.
This is why I started to support rank choice voting like they have in many countries in Europe. It’s not perfect but a nice step forward from what we have.
I’m assuming you meant ranked choice, but the mental image of your typo is quite entertaining.
Don’t they have tank choice in places like Russia, North Korea, Iran? Thanks for pointing that out and your welcome for the laugh.
I’ll take a T-38 please
Agreed. Ranked choice is one of the few ways to vote with your conscience.
Contact counts for way more than voting.
Contact your representative, they don’t know who voted for them, they do know about the people who care enough to call though.
I’m an anarchist with no political representation. My country (US) has never been in agreement with my convictions. I don’t expect it to in my lifetime, but I am disappointed it isn’t even headed in a non-authoritarian direction.
I’m an anarchist with no political representation. My country (US) has never been in agreement with my convictions.
Well this shows that not everything about the US is bad.
I’m Libertarian and there are candidates that seem way more up my alley than the Big Two, but it never gets much traction.
Also while I think our foreign involvement should be minimal, I don’t think unceremoniously dropping those connections is wise. I think if the State Dept were following my orders, it could take about 50 years to get to the level of foreign interference I think we should be doing.
DISGUSTING.
Prime minister of my country supports Israel because “they’re allowed to defend themselves”.
What is happening now, has nothing to do with defending themselves, it’s their mission to genocide. I cannot believe the entire world is fine with it. Western but also Arabian countries unfortunately.
In my opinion, “justice” does not exist. It never did. Because it seems the law doesn’t apply to Presidents and a country that purely stands for genocide.
It’s never just been the US - Israel doesn’t just have a whole bunch of enablers… said enablers also back the very idea of a modern-day Israel.
France, the UK, Germany, Australia, Apartheid-era South Africa all played their part in helping with all this - I guess the fact that it’s all countries with histories that are deeply entwined with white supremacism, antisemitism and colonialism is purely coincidence, eh?
I love genocide. I just wish there was some way I could actually vote for it. Instead I’m stuck voting for the closest option which does none of what I want but fortunately both sides support Israel killing Muslims in mass.
I’ll put this here because people are dumb as hell /s
In the US, speaking the truth about the Israel-Palestine ::cough::Palestinian genocide::cough:: war will get you cancelled by AIPAC astroturfers and useful idiots who just cancel who they’re told to cancel. That’s how they (the AIPAC, the military industrial complex, and AIPAC-run film industry…if you don’t believe me, why was Harvey Weinstein so friendly with ex-Mossad agents that he was able to use them against his opponents?) manufacture consent among normal people these days.
Additionally, 35 US states have anti-bds laws on the books punishing US citizens that choose not to buy products from Israel. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws In many of those US states you can be fired from government jobs for refusing to buy Israeli products in your own personal life.
and supported by taxpayers money;
nah our national taxes don’t pay for anything, a sovereign government prints fiat money before anyone pays any tax and part of what gives that money any real value is that it’s accepted as payment for debts owed to that sovereign.
They print money for the government budget but that massively inflates the money supply so to counterbalance that inflation, they destroy all the money that was paid in taxes by their citizens
Taxpayer money funding government budget is fairly accurate
Taxpayer money funding government budget is fairly accurate
you can print money up to the natural resource+ labor output of a nation-state and nobody is printing that much money.
where did the 20,000 per person per year for all those years the US spent on its wars in iraq and afghanistan come from? it wasn’t tax revenue.
It wasn’t all tax revenue but taxes were definitely necessary for the US economy to not collapse while funding the war machine
good thing the US economy didn’t collapse during those wars then…
I live in a country where people’s been bornt in debt for decades. It definitely feels people’s debt, particularly if you are poor.
what?
If my country was financing this, I would be taking the streets.
If I took to the streets over this, I would make protestors look bad because I have no experience, no social skills, no support network, and I’m a terrible rhetorician, especially when I am angry. Additionally, my family is fast to call the cops and has promised me that they would cooperate with the police if I ever got on their radar, so my presence would be a security culture issue.
Are you doing something about this?
Well, I have chosen not to work for companies that participate in such genocides, which is not a completely vacuous statement because they have sent me recruitment emails to design their fucking missiles! But frankly, I am fighting my own battles right now. I am desperately trying to find work. I am constantly fighting insurers to pay for the few times I ever muster up the courage to use my insurance. I am fighting my own goddamn family who will throw me to the fucking wolves if I can’t afford the rent. I am fighting the urge to walk off into the woods and fucking die of embarrassment at having accomplished so little at my age.
So no, I’m not really doing anything. I’ll cop to that. I’ve copped to worse, and at least for now I can live with being a hypocrite. Sorry if that’s unsatisfactory.
Are you feeling unsettled? How do you feel about all this mess?
I fucking HATE America, I fucking HATE world governments, and this just adds to the list of reasons why. Unsettled doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I desire the end of America and indeed all capitalist states, ideally before they slide even further into fascism in the near future. Death to the Israeli state, and death to any states that support it.
Defeated and hopeless mostly. Almost the same as I felt funding the war in the middle east after looking at the casualties and reading testimonies from US soldiers. It’s long weighed heavily on me that half of every dollar I’m required to pay to the government is used to kill people who have nothing to do with me, especially as someone whose worked since he was 16. The war in the middle east was met with the largest protests in US history at the time and nothing changed. We then elected a democrat who was given a noble peace prize, he kept the war going and killed many civilians with drone strikes. I don’t even own a house and the rate at which my savings are stacking up, there’s not much I can even afford to do. Welcome to the machine.
