In the next paragraph, Carter offered a now unsettling warning about what form that violent resistance might take. He explained that Palestinian and Lebanese militants knew the value of a captured Israeli soldier or civilian. As a result, absent an Israeli commitment to peace, militants would have an incentive to obtain hostages. Israel would then respond with overwhelming and disproportionate force. But it likely wouldn’t be enough to destroy the hostage takers, Carter warned. After the bombs stopped falling, they would emerge more popular than ever.
Looks like he definitely knew what he was talking about.
Some day the world will accept this is South Africa all over again; just not today.
Well it was, now it’s Rwanda.
I say we split the difference and call it colonial/19th century North America.
Fun fact, the last few Indian Wars didn’t end until after World War 1.
and today’s democrats are pushing further away from peace by escalating a genocide to create an even bigger apartheid state like carter warned us against.
I love how it always ties back to the Democrats. Whatever heinous world event we are discussing, someone pops up to say it is the Democrats’ fault, and them alone. Inflation? Netanyahu? Apartheid in Gaza since the 80s? Police brutality? Believe it or not, straight to Democrats. We have the best elections in the world because of enlightening folk like you.
Well, we didn’t get Democrats this time. You guys are about to get a catastrophic demonstration on the world stage about why blaming the Democrats for Netanyahu, and the US foreign policy since the 80s, can make things CATASTROPHICALLY worse if it also leads to the other guy winning the election.
americans are too propagandized to know that both the republicans and democrats will lead us to those catastrophically worse results because they both serve the same system whose inherent contradictions guarantees a descent into fascism no matter what.
the democrats’ love for the trolly cart excuse blinds them to the reality of their fellow democrats increasingly not voting is a symptom of those inherent contradictions getting worse and that their steadfast insistence that they’re the adults in the room only serves to enable the reality that carter warned them against.
See, almost all of that, I agree with. Pretty much the only part I disagree with is “whose inherent contradictions guarantee a descent into fascism no matter what.” The existence of strong structural forces which tend towards fascism doesn’t guarantee that they will win. There are plenty of historical examples of countries subject to the exact same universal structural forces resisting fascism. And, refusing to engage at all with any part of the system or try to work to make things better makes that descent quite a lot more likely.
I’d be interested to hear about these countries subject to the exact same universal structural forces resisting fascism, because I don’t think many other countries had millions of dollars flowing in from their foreign rivals propping up fascism over decades to make sure that it grows and takes root.
True. One of the essential tenets of the way the US government was supposed to be structured was free press and an educated populace, so that the decisions they’re making when they vote can be the right ones. What we have right now is so laughably far removed from that, that I’m a little bit surprised it’s survived this far before the collapse. I actually think Trump and the catastrophe that’s coming is a perfectly predictable result of how we’ve structured media and education in this country, and certainly having skilled and well-funded bad actors trying to wreck the whole thing also hasn’t been helping.
IOW we’re fucked. I wish I saw a happy ending somewhere.
The descent into facism is a guarantee and the only question is how long it will take.
Democrats have proven time and time again that they’re not interesting in slowing the descent anymore in their repeated failed attempts to peel away republican voters in service to appeasing their oligarchical donors while simultaneously wagging their finger at other parties for not abandoning their own platforms to adopt theirs and that self righteousness makes them blind to the fact that their diet-republican platform drives away their own fellow democrats so much that there aren’t even enough leftists to make up for the loss of disengaged democratic voters anymore.
History has proven that democrats can easily win if they adopt leftists platforms like Obama did in his first term and acknowledge some of the issues that dissafect fellow democrats but even Obama went to the right on his second term like the democrats also did in 2016 & 2024 and gradually lost leftists voters as a result. Which leave us in a situation like 2020 were republicans have to fuck it up enough to get 3rd party voters to go democrat and also galvanize democrats to actually show up on election day; all ensuring a sooner rather than later descent into fascism.
the republicans are going to fuck up since they have no real plans so democrats will get at least one more victory in 2026 and/or 2028; but it will be on a diet-republican platform and that too will help usher in fascism.
The descent into facism is a guarantee and the only question is how long it will take.
Tell me more about why you think this.
History has proven that democrats can easily win if they adopt leftists platforms like Obama did in his first term and acknowledge some of the issues that dissafect fellow democrats but even Obama went to the right on his second term like the democrats also did in 2016 & 2024 and gradually lost leftists voters as a result.
So… not guaranteed? George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore all displayed markedly more leftist tendencies and lost elections. Obama and Clinton tacked to the right and met with wild success.
I think the reasons for that are complex and have a lot to do with the media in this country, but surely blaming that all on the DNC, when they’ve tried fielding slightly-more-left candidates and gotten beaten up for it, is missing part of the picture. Why are you saying that all they have to do to win elections is move to the left, and yet, their movement to the right is a preordained law of nature that nothing can prevent? I mean, if your answer is that they’re addicted to billions of dollars of oligarch campaign contributions, I’ll completely agree with you, and if you want to talk about fixing that, that sounds great.
Tell me more about why you think this.
https://archive.org/details/capitalvol3
https://archive.org/details/ComManifesto
https://www.amazon.com/Grundrisse-Foundations-Critique-Political-Classics/dp/0140445757
So… not guaranteed? George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore all displayed markedly more leftist tendencies and lost elections. Obama and Clinton tacked to the right and met with wild success.
people like carter or gore et al. weren’t “more leftists” they were generic liberals for their time when 3rd party alternatives barely existed and democrats were more engaged and empowered. (to be fair they were more liberal than the democrats we have in charge today; but that’s only because the democrats helped shift the overton window to the right).
obama met his success in his first term because he espoused leftists views and then lost voters in his second term because we went to the right. clinton went further to the right in 2016 and accordingly lost even more voters. harris went even further to the right and likewise lost even more voters; so much so that she lost the popular vote. the democratic leadership has already signaled that they intend to go even further right in 2026 and/or 2028.
I mean, if your answer is that they’re addicted to billions of dollars of oligarch campaign contributions, I’ll completely agree with you, and if you want to talk about fixing that, that sounds great.
it can’t be fixed because that’s the democrat’s goal and the reason why they’re gaslighting democrats into believing that it’s necessary to go right. they’re hoping that democrats don’t pay attention to how it’s disaffecting their fellow democrats and it works because democrats are so heavily propagandized they believe leftists are little more than a different flavor of liberals; which serves to make them willfully ignorant of why leftists won’t vote democrat all the time.
If there’s one thing Karl Marx felt super strongly about, it was about constantly ragging on one and only one of the mainstream oligarchal parties, trying to get people not to vote for that party in particular. There’s a whole chapter of “Das Kapital” about how important that part is.
Because Biden just spent the last year of his presidency covering for and supplying a Genocide. He’s the head Democrat, so yeah. Just like the Republicans eat it when Trump does something wrong.
“Today’s women CEOs are just grabbing more for themselves and working full-time on ways to better oppress the workers.”
See how weird that sounds? If you picked out one specific CEO you were complaining about, it would make sense. If you talked about all CEOs, that would make sense. But zooming out just far enough from Biden to indict all the Democrats because of what Netanyahu’s doing, but not far enough to encompass all of the US political system which is fully unified in support for Israel, is super weird. Why are you doing that?
It is not fully unified. There are politicians who do not support Israel. In the Senate even.
But also that’s a hilarious double standard. One Republican does something and it’s all Republicans. The leader of the Democrats and the majority of their politicians do something and suddenly it’s just a symptom of the system?
Dude.
It is not fully unified. There are politicians who do not support Israel. In the Senate even.
Correct. Democratic politicians. That’s what makes it weird to single them out as the singular problem.
All Republicans do something and it’s all Republicans. The leader of the Democrats and the majority of their politicians also do that same thing and suddenly it’s a symptom of the Democrats and the Democrats specifically?
Fixed it for you.
Putting words in my mouth isn’t fixing anything. And neither is ignoring the fact that the Democrats majorly fucked up.
I know people like to defend democrats with “BUT OTHER GUY” but this article is about a democrat, so discussing how the democratic party acts is relevant. If you haven’t noticed, biden and the democrats have been sending additional billions in support of israel for over a year now.
Blaming this on Democrats is the most tone deaf response one could have. There are many countries involved.
Don’t be the kind of American that thinks we own the world stage. It’s not a smart look.
this is on capitalism and the democrats are only playing their role as controlled opposition for the current capitalist hegemon we call america.
it’s on the world stage because all of the western capitalists kotow to the current hegemon and isreal is that hegemon’s current colonial settler project complete with genocide of the natives and propaganda to keep everyone distracted; exactly like the predecessor projects in north america and australia and precisely what carter was trying to warn everyone about in this book.
the only smart look is waking up to all of it to see it for what it is; but the democrats are now saying that they lost this election because they went too woke despite already going to the right and i used to be a democrat too, so i can understand your choice to willfully keep your eyes closed to stay in solidarity with them.
It’s kinda wild to think that Carter was shunned as being too moderate with the state of the current Democratic party. Now, he’d be considered one of the most leftist members of the party.
Yeah. They’re the bigger threat. Sure.
