• Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    All he had to say was "Zionists" instead of "Jewish people" and it would be a misguided and silly take instead of a shitty and racist one.

    • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      people who just sub in the word zionist instead of Jewish people are just anti-semites who are slightly better at hiding it.

      there are criticisms of Isreal to make but if you're just repeating anti-Jew stuff and changing a label that is not cool

      • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        By changing the wording you are making a conscious decision to separate the "bad jews" (aka zionists) from the "good jews" (the ones who don't believe that they are god's chosen people and all other people are trash.) Its the difference between saying "death to all blond blue eyed people" and saying "death to nazis." One is racial the other is ideological.

        You can still be a racist underneath that yes and many people are both anti-Zionist and racist but with a little education anti-Semitism can be turned into anti-Zionism aka. anti-racial superiority and Anti-Imperialism.

        Don't hate the ignorant educate them. We all have our blind spots and our job as communists is to clear those blind spots so people can see the truth that inevitably leads to Marxism. There is no other path forward for us than to convert the ignorant. We can't out breed the capitalists, We can't kill them all, we have to convert them and that starts by tying their brain worms into knots so they die.

        • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          I assure you there are people who when they say zionists do actually mean all Jews. It's not that hard to spot if someone is just saying all the old anti-Semitic tropes with a find and replace for a couple words.

          yes we can never be done with explaining but anti-semitism is dangerous and cannot be allowed to come up without being challenged and called out. A former anti-semite might be convertable but we should absolutely prioritise the safety of Jewish people in our spaces over them, similar to how you can convert a former incel (the ideology not being a virgin) but should prioritise leftist spaces being safe for women by challenging it whenever they say or do something out of order

          • hostilearchitecture [any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            There is a self-defeating nature to call-out "culture". In real life communication at least. For instance, I've never once seen a unproblematic committed capitalist who has no real problems other than Trump's vulgarity converted successfully. Jewish or otherwise, those folks are a nonstarter. Some ignorant shithead though, who thinks humans have never been to the moon? Listens to Alex Jones or David Icke? Those people have nothing coherent to go off of, and they're a mix of so far gone that it's about as useless to try converting them as the libs, but about half the time they acquiesce to every economic argument of Marxism and can be deprogrammed to a large extent after just a couple hours of talking to them.

            And I'm not too concerned with some background CHUD thoughts in an otherwise economic ally. Whereas calling them out before education usually just shuts them down, their brain turns off. It's remarkable the extent to which people have been trained to jump down others' throats because they're ignorant. The ignorant are by far the easiest to convert, as long as you're a little patient.

            Not that it'll amount to anything in all likelihood, I'm sure economic conditions will only worsen and they'll either return to the comfort of racist explanations for that or they'll just become as despondent as anyone else faced with the reality of our current system.

            • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              you can call someone out gently by asking them for clarification on what they mean or even just comically yelling OH like the sopranos.

          • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Yes some people use the the word Zionism as a dog whistle but we should still encourage anti-Zionism and clarify the difference to anti-Semitism. We wont ever convert Kanye (even if we could I think he'd do more harm than good) but we can use his ignorance to convert people who casually listen to him.

            I would argue that Zionism is easily as dangerous as (or worse than) anti-Semitism. Zionism like Nazism is active whereas racism and prejudice (including anti-Semitism) is passive. Anti-Semitism is hate driven by ignorance Zionism is hate driven by Pride. Ignorance can be cured by education (enrichment), Pride is cured though humiliation (destruction).

            We cant just surrender anti-Zionism to the fascists for fear of upsetting Jewish people because it is a key point for radicalization. Material conditions to drive people to Marxism but it also pushes towards fascism. There's a pipeline that starts at anti-zionism which flows to anti-semitism and then to racial supremacy leading to full blown Nazism but with just a little encouragement it can divert from anti-zionism to anti-imperialism and anti-racism and then eventually to Marxism.

            The battle is not how to force radicalization. Capitalism is destroying itself and material conditions will radicalize people. The battle is over whether the radicalized become communists or fascists. If we aren't actively fighting for shared ideological points (like anti-Zionism) the fascism will grow faster than communism (as it already is).

            • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              yes obviously we need to clarify the difference with anti-zionism and zionism is bad. Racism and Anti-Semitism can very much be active beliefs

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]
          hexagon
          ·
          2 years ago

          By changing the wording you are making a conscious decision to separate the “bad jews” (aka zionists) from the “good jews”

          Nah, you're just dog whistling. And plenty of people, both zionists and non-zionist anti-semites, believe that 'zionists" means all Jewish people.

    • SteamedHamberder [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Not nearly as frequently as hasbarist trolls would have you believe, but sometimes “Zionists”’is code for “Jews.”

      See how “I can’t be anti-Zionist because black people are the real Zionists” doesn’t quite scan right.