r/InternationalNews • u/Passervore • Apr 24 '24

Opinion/Analysis Biden launches police-state crackdown at US universities

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/04/24/vcgw-a24.html
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149

u/elitereaper1 Canada Apr 24 '24

Oppressing Americans, ruining American values and destroying international law for Israel.

Ha. The US is so whipped.

34

u/mrdankhimself_ Apr 24 '24

And for what? Some nonsense about the Rapture?

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u/[deleted] Apr 24 '24

It’s for “Western civilization” against “Islam”.

I realize that the reality is more complex but that’s what driving a lot of the decisions. Some combo of racism, bigotry and islamophobia.

People like to avoid this because it’s uncomfortable and immoral (they’ll often pivot to -“it’s about military money, or lobbyists or Christian crazies). But it’s really about western/white supremacy.

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u/ArmorClassHero Apr 25 '24

The "western civ vs islam" narrative is just a rehash of white supremacy and colonialism and red scare repurposed for the new age.

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u/MonkeyDKev Apr 25 '24

Israel is America’s center of operation in the Middle East. That covers everything else you stated, which is also true, and nips it in the bud.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

Ah yes but why would they chose Israel - because it is western and not Muslim. They could have had a Muslim majority country as its base but no because the point is more than just strategic.

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u/KiccGum Apr 25 '24

The reason the imperialist powers opted to prop up a colonial-settler state as a satellite in the region rather than making one out of an already established arab state is that a settler-colonial state, by its inherent nature, will be both internally unstable due to the resistance of the indigenous peoples and under constant threat of being driven back into the sea by the arab states in the region. Both of which make the settler-colonial state's long-term survival entirely dependent upon the continued backing of the western imperialist nations, which means that it is on a much shorter leash than any arab state ally would be.

Make no mistake, all that Israel does, it is able to do because the United States allows it. The United States does not need to be bribed, blackmailed, or otherwise manipulated into wanting this to occur because at the end of the day all Israel's actions amount to is making the US's unsinkable aircraft carrier bigger, more internally unstable, and more reviled by its neighbors, all of which makes it more dependent upon the US.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

The reason is white/western supremacy and Islamophobia - make no mistake about it. They could’ve done this with a Muslim state and destabilized it but they won’t ally with one

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u/KiccGum Apr 25 '24

Turkey is a majority muslim nation and is in N.A.T.O. The United States also uses Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, etc, as proxies against Iran and Yemen.

The ruling class of the United States is solely interested in what maintains and grows their power and hegemony. This means that they will happily support non-white, non-christian nations so long as it serves them and sanction, embargo, and genocide them when they do not.

This is why the Western imperialist nations supported Saddam with his invasion of Iran immediately following that nation's overthrowing of their western-puppet monarch but turned against him when he overstepped into Kuwait.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

Turkey is famously shut out of things due to the fact they are Muslim majority. Saudi and the UAE are controlled and suppressed. If a Muslim majority country were to have a democracy this would be overthrown because most likely the majority would vote in at least some level of Islamic policies which the US hates and they would also fight against settler colonialism and western cultural incursions. They control those places to secure Israel not directly as proxies.

Iraq is a classic example - the US would have never decimated and tortured western non Muslim civilians. Or murdered as many people. The war in Iraq was a lie based on non existent weapons of mass destruction. I’ve been hearing some revisionist history about Kuwait which is what Bush 1 did in a limited incursion into Iraq but the 2003 war that caused so much destruction was based on lies and for the sole purpose of destabilizing the region and to help Israel. It was a crusade. And Bush 2 very much bought into that.

Now of course there is always realpolitik going on but the course is determined by ideology. It begins and ends with ideology of western (white) civilization and Islamophobia. That is the driving force. Anyone who says differently is just uncomfortable with the truth of what the US is.

I entirely disagree with you. The ruling class is deeply bigoted and it drives their decision making.

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u/KiccGum Apr 25 '24

Material benefit is the primary impetus of the ruling class's decision-making. As it is for literally every living organism. The ruling class wants people to believe that the reason bad things happen is because bad people are in power. They want people to think that their system is simply "broken" and can be fixed. The system is not broken. It is functioning exactly as intended and must be destroyed.

You are aware of the fact that the United States's proxies are influenced and suppressed, but you seem to be missing the fact that such suppression is primarily executed with the eager consent of those proxy nations' own ruling classes because it benefits them more to fall in line with the United States, at terrible cost to their own citizens. Furthermore, you miss that these proxy nations ARE democracies, only democracies of, for, and by the ruling classes of those proxies. The idea that a king, dictator, or despot can govern alone and against the wishes of the ruling class of their nation is a myth meant to obfuscate the inherent class nature of society. Likewise, your suggestion that if the proxy nations were allowed to be "democracies" they would become anti-colonialist is demonstrably false. For example, every western imperialist "democracy" is currently supporting to some degree or another the genocide in Gaza whilst Iran, which is not an Arab nation, nor considered by most to be a "democracy" today stands as perhaps the greatest opposition to the imperialist exploitation of the Middle East and the genocidal aims of Israel because, again, so long as distinctive classes exist within a society, one class in particular will come to dominate the society as a whole and so any "democracy" within a class society is in actuality, a democracy of and for the ruling class of that society and in Iran's case it is in their material interest to weaken and undermine western imperialism.

You also need to understand that Israel IS a proxy of the west, Israel would not have survived the first Arab-Israeli war without western support and it could not perpetuate its existence, continue its genocide of the Palestinian people, or survive a war with its neighbors today without the support of the west. The ruling classes of both the west and Israel openly acknowledge this fact, that is why Israel lobbies western imperialist nations for aid and that is also why the western nations make such a high priority of bestowing that aid. You also say that the west could have proped up an Arab state and destabilized it as they do currently instead of creating Israel if they weren't islamophobic, but that is precisely the point I am making: those muslim states need constant destabilizing and surpressing to remain proxies, Israel does not...Because Israel destabilizes itself through its genocidal nature and cannot survive without the Wests support and so its loyalty and ultimate subservience is assured.

And finally, you say quote:

"...the US would have never decimated and tortured western non-muslim civilians."

I'm sorry, but this is patently false. See the pagan Indigenous Americans of old, see Christian African Americans of today, or white Catholic Mexicans, or white Catholic Irish, or the Romani, or the Jews who lived in the United States before antisemitism fell out of style in the west. Ask any woman of any color, race, religion, or time, and you will see how non-discriminating the United States can be in doling out discrimination and bigotry.

I do not, nor did I ever say that the ruling class in the west were not bigoted, I would actually argue the opposite in that I believe the ruling class to be the primary spreaders of all forms of bigotry present within the societies they dictate, and that they do so because it serves to hide the truth that lower class white citizens of western nations, even for all their relative privilege, still have more in common with the oppressed peoples of the world then with their own ruling class. I am simply pointing out that when funneled up to the scale of the entire nation, the bigotries or desires of individual members of the ruling class will always be subordinated to the collective material interests of the entire ruling class.

Finally, I know full well that the western ""intervention"" in Kuwait happened under H.W. Bush, and I'm not sure why you thought I had mistaken it for the fraudulent and criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003. My point was to demonstrate that the west is fine being """allies""" with muslim nations or even ""terrorist"" groups (see the Mujahideen, ISIS, Israel, etc...) so long as their actions align with the western ruling class's interests or benefits them in some way.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

Look we can agree to disagree here. I know it’s comfortable to think the ruling class are rational actors who make decisions in predictable ways. But they are not. They are emotional human beings and make decisions based on their biases and bigotry.

They will of course factor greed and power into it but often you will see decisions being made to the detriment of greed and power but it makes sense through the lens of supremacy.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not democracies. Egypt is a corrupt fake democracy. I’m VERY familiar with the Middle East. The low lifes that were selected by the west do not represent the people. That’s how neocolonialism works. They destroy whatever ruling class is there naturally and prop up western sell outs. It’s also the reason those sell outs support the genocide in Gaza.

Your underlying assumptions are erroneous here. It’s ok, I think it may be because you haven’t lived in the region / are less familiar with it. I also don’t know you but I do know when other people fall back on these tropes of it’s only about the greed it’s because it’s uncomfortable to admit the driving force behind it is so unhinged

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u/MonkeyDKev Apr 25 '24

I never disagreed with the fact that Islamophobia plays a huge role in all of this. We all know that if America wanted to make a majority Muslim country their base of operations, they would wipe out the people living there.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

Well there’s a genocide in Palestine right now

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u/MonkeyDKev Apr 25 '24

Yeah, Israel is genociding Palestine, a project they’ve been doing over 100 years. This is why America won’t stop sending aid to support the genocide.

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u/elitereaper1 Canada Apr 24 '24

Even worse is the outcome of said rapture.

For the Evangelicals, Jesus comes down and wipe all the non believers. All believers go to heaven.

For the Jews, everyone is mass conversion to Jewish religion and non convert die.

Both group think their guy (jesus/god) is on their team.

2

u/PacVikng Apr 24 '24

You see we send Israel billions of dollars each year out of the national coffers, have for 75 years.

Israel then sends millions back into individual politicians election campaigns and millions more into lobbying. Israel is literally bribing our politicians with our own money.

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u/Additional_Olive3318 Apr 24 '24

I think the role of Christian zionists is exaggerated. It’s not like Biden is one or the Democrats in Congress need that constituency. 

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u/Direct-Tie-7652 Apr 24 '24

I don’t think I agree. Christian Zionists played a big role in Israel’s founding, and many in Congress justify their support for Israel based on their religious beliefs.

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u/ArmorClassHero Apr 25 '24

Biden has been a keynote speaker at every annual AIPAC gathering for 40 years.

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u/captaindoctorpurple Apr 24 '24

Biden's definitely, technically one. He's a Catholic and a Zionist.

He might not be a Christian Zionist evangelical weirdo, like the largest group of Christian Zionists, but he is one.

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u/Additional_Olive3318 Apr 25 '24

Catholics are not Christian Zionists in that sense - the belief that Israel has to exist for the messiah to come back. The theology is different. Also I think Biden is a cultural Catholic, more or less. 

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u/captaindoctorpurple Apr 25 '24

Right, they're not capital C capital Z Christian Zionists.

But he's a Zionist whomst Christian

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u/ArmorClassHero Apr 25 '24

No. Only the fools are true believers. The lifetime politicians are just paid.

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u/satinbro Apr 24 '24

No. It’s about domination and money. Always had been. Don’t believe in dumb conspiracy theories.