Karmadhi

USA culture is more engrained with capitalism because of its success USA is seen as the most successful country in history since it is also the most powerful They attribute it to capitalism, especially since they basically won the cold war against another system (communism) However, that system is now reaching its limits in its current form and USA is too stubborn to let it evolve as they attribute the unregulated capitalism to its success However, it has already happened Capitalism has evolved, you have the case in Western/Northen Europe where you have a capitalism system but it is softer and more regulated It takes the good part of communism like striving for equality with the good of capitalism like rewarding ambition and private property USA acts like its special but they will eventually become more and more like Western Europe We see it with DSA becoming more and more popular within democratcs, especially in more liberal states like New York

Yes it is more Orange like Orange has its limits USA is feeling them Only way to move forward is to evolve towards Green which i am happy to see slowly happen. Started with Obama and now is going stronger with DSA becoming more and more popular within democrats Evolution marches forward I feel Americans on this group seem to be not as enthusiastic about it as they should be considering going from Orange to Green is a leap in evolution and progress.

His stance on the Gaza war. Ehud Olmer has had a better stance in calling it out as it is (he also did war crimes as PM though ) But to be honest the only people who to me are truly objective about the war are Haertz people Rest are different degrees of wrong Olmer at least had enough integrity to say its bad bad https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/27/former-israeli-pm-ehud-olmert-says-his-country-is-committing-war-crimes Lapid is still better than Bibi dont get me wrong. Basically I want Israel to go as close to Green as possible Haertz is green which I like Bibi is proper Blue with some Orange, Ben Gvir and Smotrich are Blue to Red Olmer seems more Orange to me alongside Lapid

From all the people you send here, Yair Lapid seems the most reasonable And I have so much disagreement with him, shows how bad the others are.

There is a better alternative which is what is applied in Western Northen European countries Germany, Netherlands, Scandinavia etc It is not perfect, but there is less inequality, a much more livable minimal wage and overall life is much more stable and secure. It has downsides ofc, like it makes innovation harder But the pie is much better distributed. I notice Americans never take into account that middle ground which is what is applied in the countries I mentioned To them it is either American style capitalism or Soviet socialism (which has failed)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/08/netanyahu-warned-7-october-hamas-book-haaretz @Nivsch Do you think this is true? Is it having any effect on the elections (regardless if true or not)?

I am ashamed to say, once, I was also a fan of him Never a proper hardcore fan because I could always see he was somewhat scummy, but I thought he had a lot of good advice and found him motivating and inspiring At the time I was around 24 or so, around 5 years ago He is very good at making young men who are struggling with girls like him That was my situation Orange days...

I can give you my 2 cents from discussing with many people about it 1. Israel is fairly democratic while Russia is not. This means that when Russia government does bad actions, the population seems to be excluded, it is just the dicator fault. In a more democratic place, the citizens bear responsability a lot more because they do not seem to protest or do much to stop it 2. The sentiment and rhetoric coming out of normal Israelis in interviews is usually a lot more genocidal and disturbing. In the case of Russians, they usually say "it is bad but what can we do". Israelis seem to be supporting the killing of Palestinians a lot more. Polls in Israel show that and they are trusted more than Russian polls which can be viewed as government propaganda. I have been told for example by a Russian I met once that most young Russians oppose the war, same cannot be said for most young Israelis. 3. The footage of dead and injured civilians, especially kids coming out of Gaza is NR 1 reason for the outrage imo. There is simply not the same footage coming out of Ukraine, especially if you are not in very specialized telegram chats, meanwhile about Gaza it exploded in popular platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok 4. The numbers for Gaza are much worse. Over 21.000 childreen killed compared to 700 or so in Ukraine. At least 50.000 civilians killed in Gaza when in Ukraine it is around 16.000. Note that Ukraine has a much higher population which means that proportionally, Gaza is way worse in terms of civilian losses. I checked for example the life expectancy in Gaza has almost half since the conflict began while it has barely moved for Ukraine. Basically "Russians are bad but Israelis are way more inhuman" is the sentiment I heard from MANY people. 5. The conditions of life for civilans in Gaza is a lot worse. Famine, no anesthesia in hospitals, no safe place to go. Hundreds getting shot to receive some basic aid. In Ukraine life goes on. A friend of mine told me once "I can go to Ukraine and have the best time of my life". People still have fairly normal lives, go to school, party or go to work. And people evacuate when the war reaches their city. If you did a poll I am sure 99% of the voters would prefer to be a civilian in Ukraine than Gaza if they had to pick. These are some reasons. Now you may rightly say, "what would Russia have done if it was attacked the same way" The thing is that, people do not go with those "what if" scenarios They go with what has actually happened, they go with the current situation. They see what happened to Gaza and Ukraine and compare with the outcome only. Also, to be fair there was a gigantic bad terrorist attack in Moscow in 2024 killing close to 200 civilians in Russia and I did not see Russia go apeshit and start carpet bombing Uzbekistan or Syria or whoever was responsible for it. Even if you would say "they blamed Ukraine", it did not really change the strategy used. They did not suddendly become worse. They brushed it aside. If a similar attack had happened in American soil, they would have went out for blood 100%. Another counter-argument you may have is that "Ukraine overall has lost more people than Gaza" That is true I would say. However, you need to understand that people do not put the same value in life lost of soldiers compared to civilians, especially childreen. Soldiers dying is seen as a tragedy of war and not avoidable However, civilian deaths especially in the way Israel does it is seen as simple bruality and avoidable Especially childreen The number 1 insult that people give Israelis these days is "baby or child killer" In Ukraine 90% of losses are soldiers, so such sentiment is not held And it is the idea of killing kids which gives people the most outrage and anger.

What Russia is doing to Ukraine to me seems a strong example of "cultural genocide" Basically they want to change the software of the population from Ukranian to Russian. They view Ukranians as deluded Russians who need to be educated back into their senses and once it happens, they get treated the same as other Russians. If Ukraniansdo not obey, they get killed by Russia. Israel seems to want to ethnically cleanse Palestine They view Palestinians as inherently bad and there is no desire to change or educate them. They must be removed as they are beyond help. If Palestinians do not obey, they get killed by Israel If i had to oversimpify the whole thing

I did some reading and appearently Russia has created a Jewish state where they gave a piece of land to be goverened autonomously If Israel had been created on a piece of Russian land, all this bullshit would have been avoided as Russia willingly gave it to them Most Ashkanazi Jews come from Russia technically so it makes sense somewhat Missed opportunity imo Much calmer alternative than the heart of the Middle East

PLO are not terrorists from what I checked, no country designates them as so Hamas are considered terrorists but they represent only Gaza and FYI https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/6/hamas-announces-dissolution-of-gaza-governing-body I feel Gazans have realized that Hamas type leadership does not solve their issues and through the hell they have living perhaps will realize a new way must be found Or am I being too optimistic? I have seen a lot of interviews with people in West Bank and tbf they seem pretty chill I see more hateful attitudes from Israelis than anything else I feel that perhaps due to different degree of brutal occupation, Gaza and West Bank are not the same West Bank seems more moderate, less religious fundamentalist and more mature overall It is reflected in their government which is recognized as a viable government by most of the world So your concerns and reasoning can apply to Gaza but to me Palestine is more West Bank than Gaza due to the size in population and land area.

How do you determine that? Is it because you are from there? Seems very biased to me this response. No nation is more worthy than another to exist, only biases make it so. They are doing a good job surviving, yes. But they can survive just as well with a good settlement deal backed up by Western powers. The reason that has not happened is because Ukraine is hell bent on getting its land back. On getting its land back, they have not gained anything in almost 5 years. It is not looking like they will get anything soon either. So in that regard they are not doing well. And all that "worth trying" attitude has killed hundred of thousands of Ukranians and cost the West hundreds of billions of dollars. Reducing Palestine to that seems to be a bit Islamophobic, no offense. The idea of "brown backward islamist Arabs that all that do is terrorism and cannot do anything else" is a classical trick used by to downgrade the whole Palestinian issue. Cenk says the same and I agree with him on that. Palestine issue is fundamentally about land and colonialism. Not radical Islam. Palestinian issue has been on for decades and it has never changed.

The entire response is moralizing, saying how Russia is so bad and why they are bad and must be stopped That is not the point The point is how to resolve it Yes, Russia is on the wrong here. But this is not about right/wrong it is about raw power dynamics Russia can take Ukranian land and Ukraine cannot get it back, no matter how hard they try. If all the stars align, which they usually do not, they will not loose much more land. Not get back land. So, how do you resolve this? See, here you starting moralizing instead of having the "you are outmatched better submit" attitude you have for Palestine Also, fyi Israel does take Palestinian land and would eat it all up if allowed.They are currently lobbying USA hard to get a greenlight to kick out Gazans so they can annex it. Israeli government does not even recognize Palestine as a thing, calls it a myth and is taking land every day in the West Bank. They are as bold as Russia. My response also applies to @hundreth

What I personally find a bit hypocritial from many centrists like Destiny or even non centrists like @Leo Gura is that when it comes to Israel and Palestine they seem to have a very pragmatic ruthless attitude not based on morals but on purely raw power dynamics Basically, Israel is on the wrong but Palestine is too weak to do anything about it so they must submit and allow Israel to get away with the bad things they did and heavily compromise. Because they cannot revoke the wrong-doings. Fair But when it comes to the Russia-Ukranian conflict, they do not have the same stance. They have the stance that Russia is on the wrong and Ukraine should keep fighting to reverse the wrong-doings of Russia. They should not submit but keep on fighting. Even though Russia is much more powerful than Ukraine and Ukraine realistically has no chance of gaining back any of the land they took nor Russian leaders facing serious trials for war crimes So basically, there it is a lot more idealistic and moralistic attitude meanwhile on Israel and Palestine it is basically "you lost, now submit to the one that fucked you" Now I agree that the power difference between Russia and Ukraine is no near as big, but it is big enough that it is still pretty impossible to resolve without any compromise from the side that got unfarily treated (Ukraine here). Especially since Trump came to power and basically removed a lot of aid and there is even an air defense Western shortage thanks to the Iran war. I find it interesting that when I speak with hardcore Pro Palis and I tell them they need to do a 2 state, I get the response (you do not lower your head when someone comes to your house, takes your house, rapes you and tortures you) When I say to an Ukranian or someone very pro Ukraine that Ukraine needs to probably make some compromises to Russia I get the response (you do not lower your head when someone comes to your house, takes your house, rapes you and tortures you) Both sides view it in a similar way even though they will each say 'but that other conflict is different" Yet 1 side should compromise and submit meanwhile the other is encourged to fight on against impossible odds according to centrists. I find this a bit bizzare. Personally I support both Ukraine and Palestine, do not get the wrong idea here. But I feel compromise is needed on both sides, not just for 1 conflict. Ironically I get called here a leftist but when it comes to Ukraine I am extremly realistic and pragmatic and not moralistic at all. @Raze What do you think about this or I have the wrong idea?

Israeli and American mainstream propaganda make Hamas seem like the face of Palestine I feel Leo has somewhat fallen for that too