Oh, I just had a near death experience! Ran a stop and almost got hit by a bus; would’ve hit me right on the ribs! I’ve had another crash before where a powerline pole fell over my car, right next to my head.

My experience? Life didn’t flash before my eyes. I was just very scared at the moment, and was anxious and upset for a few hours after. It’s definitely going to change how carefully I drive moving forward.

Otherwise, I’ve seen a lot of patients sick, dying or terminally ill, working as a physician. It definitely affected the way I see life; I try to care less about what other people think I should be doing and instead act in a way I think is right. I am happy and satisfied that if I die I will be thought of fondly by most people I’ve interacted with.

Sashimi and prime barbecue cuts.

IDK why you’d want two Palestines but ok.

Can’t hate what doesn’t exist

Israel will build some very nice Jewish beachfront colonies over the bloodstained rubble. It’s what they’ve been doing in the West Bank and Jerusalem, at least.

I’m not a big fan of podcasts, so I got the term from Lenin’s book on the matter; that’s the definition of imperialism I’m using. Countries which are not imperial powers do plenty of things I don’t like. I’m not claiming that one or another war crime is essentially imperialist, I’m saying that the foundation of the state of Israel is a reflection of imperialism as the current, highest stage of capitalism; the stage of the internationalization and concentration of capital through monopoly and the global financial system; reflected politically in the colonization and exploitation of the whole world and its division in empire and colony; which first dominant empire was the British and second and dominant great empire is the US. In this context, the creation of Israel is a British colonial project which was carried out without any consultation to the Palestinian residents of the area, and with the intention to strengthen the British claim to that chunk of the Ottoman Empire. Israel is now repurposed as a bastion of US imperialism in Western Asia, which serves to keep the Arab powers in check and satisfy the goals of Christian Zionism.

My point about imperialism stands because it hinges on the creation of the modern state of Israel itself as well as its consequences. The imperialist character of Israel predates even its foundation, let alone the Arab-Israeli War. I don’t understand why you keep linking to this section about the All-Palestine government. Could you elaborate?

I encourage you to read a bit further into that article about the Gaza Strip. It mentions how Israeli control over the Gaza Strip, both during its occupation and after, has served to operate an intentional de-development, leading to an engineered humanitarian crisis. Israel has arguably turned Gaza into the largest open air prison in the world (the article’s words, not mine), and the large majority of those imprisoned are civilians, including a large contingent of children.

is a link to an article about the recent UN report which categorized Israeli as an apartheid state due to its treatment of Palestine and Palestinians. I encourage you to compare maps of South African apartheid-era bantustans and the current territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority, paying special attention to the fragmentation of territory which destroys any chance of sovereignty and independent development while allowing the country practicing apartheid full control over the isolated area.

Anyhow, I can see that we are both very passionate about this, but I hope that you are at least able to see this from another point of view and understand that my position is not ill-intentioned. I harbor no hatred towards Jews or Israeli citizens as a whole; I do despise imperialist Zionism and the apartheid practices of the state of Israel. I believe the state should not have been created, because it is from its inception a theocratic herrenvolk democracy and a puppet of imperialist powers used to keep the Arab countries in Western Asia and the Mahgreb in check; and that the best possible solution to the Palestinian conflict is a multi-religious, multi-ethnic Palestinian state in which neither Arab nor Jewish supremacy is permitted.

There can be no effective peace talks between the neck and the sword.

Palestinians have always been a people with a homeland but deprived of a state, their identity forged by oppression and resistance under a succession of empires. They were not called to give any input on the British decision to carve out their land for a Jewish state. They were driven out of their land by the millions, and those that remained were squeezed tighter and tigther, slowly pushed out of the usable land by illegal colonists which are protected by the state of Israel. Palestinian statehood was neglected for long enough that Israel was able to shatter or consume all Palestinian territory, making a Palestinian state inviable.

The state of Israel is entirely the product of imperialism, first British and now American. There can be no peaceful two-state solution because one of these states should not exist! The only peace will be a one-state peace, and it can only be achieved through bloodshed. Either the Palestinian people will finally gain their sovereignty, or the Zionists will finish building their monoethnic, theocratic paradise over the crushed bones of Palestine.

The idea that “some societies are just evil” is a very poor excuse to justify apartheid, but it’s certainly not a new one. What is more “evil”: to hate those that invaded your land and deprived you not only of self-determination, but of food, water and a future? Or to consider those of a different religion and cultural background as “human animals”, spit on them and their religious symbols, arrest their children and deprive them of their human rights, kick their elders to the curb, drive them out of their family farms and into crowded and guarded ghettos?

Calling that heinous conclusion you came to rational is an offense to reason and to all moral and reasonable people.

It’s not the end of the world, it’s the end of the world as we know it.

Reddit is becoming a harsher place for the kind of community-driven, higher investment content that made it what it is today (which is less profitable) and a better place for mindless scrolling and sleazy engagement-baiting mostly fed by automatic content aggregators (which is more profitable).

Plenty of communities will remain due to inertia: switching platforms is hard. As far as I’m concerned, I will keep using reddit for two reasons: and to check in on a few communities that I am actually engaged in.