bearboiblake [he/him]

I think leftists can sometimes get a bit tied in knots over this stuff, because we need to defend anti-imperialist action and there are a shitload of bad faith arguments about Hamas. Most of it is pretty typical whataboutism. A state is perpetrating a genocide against Palestine and has been doing so for decades at this point. The resistance against it could commit a hundred Oct. 7s and not come close to the level of violence committed against the Palestinian people. It’s very understandable to handwave it away and dismiss it, but yeah, we should just briefly accept that violence against innocent people is wrong and immediately turn it back to Israel, who, by far, hurt and kill way more innocent people than Hamas ever could.

Believe it or not, I don’t wander the fediverse with receipts for propaganda in my back pocket. If I really wanted to, I could spend a few hours putting together a response to your comment with relevant citations, but unfortunately I don’t have all day to spend arguing with people on the Internet, and I didn’t come here for a debate in the first place. I saw you post this:

I asked, concisely and simply, what was being hidden from us.

I responded, concisely and simply, with a few examples of mainstream media acting defensively on behalf of capitalism which I suspected that most people would have personal experience of noticing themselves. I don’t want to waste hours of my time on this, either accept the truth or don’t. It’s not my problem, it’s yours.

I’m not going to waste my time arguing with someone who clearly has their mind made up, if you want to be a slave to daddy capitalism, don’t let me get in your way.

I am not a tankie, but I can help you out - there are many many examples of this

1. Some journalists will call any policy even slightly to the left of neoliberalism “socialist”. This is done because the red scare taught Americans that socialism and communism are evil ideologies, despite Capitalism having a much higher death count - think of all the kids dying mining conflict minerals for our iPhones in Africa.

2. In mainstream press, criticism is focused on individuals and policies, rather than the system itself. In any kind of financial crisis, there is never much mainstream media coverage suggesting that capitalism itself is at fault, it’s always little cracks in the system. There are always going to be more cracks because it is a deeply flawed system.

3. The media often refers to the democrats as “left wing”, despite democrats being very decidedly right wing. This serves capital by shifting the overton window and preventing people realizing there is no left wing alternative in the United States.

4. Any economic policies which acknowledges the reality, that taxes being spent on things like healthcare and education are always a net benefit to the economy, are dismissed as somehow delusional or wrong. In the mainstream press, the national budget is treated as being like a household budget, which it clearly isn’t.

The mainstream media is owned by billionaires. Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, The Times (UK) are all owned by the Murdoch family. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. The LA Times, the Atlantic, Time Magazine, the Boston Globe, are all owned by billionaires. It’s obvious that it is in their best interests to mislead us into thinking that capitalism is the best system.