Another Election in Israel, Too Bad Netanyahu Has No Regard for Democracy

People who think Israel is still a democracy… think again. Israel is heading for another election… and here’s what’s going to happen! Netanyahu will lose again, and yet he’ll probably be announced Prime Minister anyway… why?

Netanyahu has created a mechanism to keep himself in power at any cost. For example, years ago he started a reform of public broadcasting, saying he would stop people from having to pay tax money for state-owned channels against their will… needless to say, that never happened. What he did in practice was to keep the state-owned broadcasting, but reform it in such a way that it became his propaganda tool.

For years Israel’s had a wonderful satirical show called Gav Ha’Uma, hosted by the brilliant Lior Schleien, often compared to Jon Stewart due to his intelligence and wit… despite being very popular, it was cancelled in August 2020. Many believe, and I think it’s true, that the show was cancelled due to political pressure from religious fundamentalists and the right.

But that’s not all Netanyahu has done to consolidate power! In the last election, he actually lost… but “suddenly,” after the election, numerous members of opposition parties left their parties and announced they would support Netanyahu (just to emphasise, it happened AFTER the election results were announced). As you can imagine, such a thing completely distorted the real results.

Netanyahu uses bribes, blackmail, extortion techniques in order to infiltrate the opposition camp with Trojan horses, and activates them after the election. Will he at least attempt to do it again? Obviously!

What would I suggest? Vote for Meretz, vote for Yair Lapid, vote for people who are verified oppositioners. Don’t believe the religious nutter Naphtaly Bennet or spineless Gidon Saar when they claim to oppose Netanyahu. Even if they stick to their promise of opposing Netanyahu, which I highly doubt… it’s obvious that from the get-go their parties are full of Netanyahu’s Trojan horses who will split and back Netanyahu the moment the election results are announced (in exchange for ministerial positions, of course).

Netanyahu belongs to the same category as Putin, Erdogan, and Lukashenko – he’s a corrupt tyrant who should be ostracised by any decent government or organisation. He is a person who panders to religious fanatics, racists, and bigots… all for the sake of personal gain.

Confederate Monuments, Like Nazi Flags, Don’t Belong in Public Spaces

I was long undecided whether Confederate monuments in the South should be preserved or not. I mean, any decent person would agree that the Confederates were scum… but still, monuments are history, and I don’t support the destruction of art or statues no matter how much of a scumbag the subject of the piece was.

We know Nero was a tyrant, we known Henry VIII was voted as the worst monarch in British history for a good reason, we know Genghis Khan was infamous for a reign of terror… but despite all of those personas being absolute degenerates, I doubt anyone would suggest demolishing their monuments, right? I mean, the presence of their monuments does not in any way represent that anyone would like to resurrect them into power today.

However, here is why I’ve come to the conclusion that Confederate monuments should be demolished. Not only that, but I think the Confederate flag (or flags) should be banned from official use… just like the Nazi flag is not waved around Germany.

See, while the historical figures I’ve mentioned are well in the past and have no modern ideological claim… the Confederate ideology is still out there. I mean, it started not long after the end of the Civil War, and lasts to this day, the neo-Confederate ideology and the “Lost Cause” nonsense.

I’ve done my research in various political Facebook groups, and I was horrified to see how much there is an attempt to justify what the Confederacy did. Neo-Confederates attempt to push the “Lost Cause” narrative, claiming the Civil War was not about slavery but about “state rights”… they just omit the part how the “right” they were talking about was mainly the “right” to hold other beings as slaves.

All of the slave women raped, all of the men whipped, all of the abuse, the chains, the humiliation… nope, neo-Confederates conveniently cut it out.

And that ideology never stopped! The lynching continued well into the 20th century. In the 1920, the KKK peaked 6,000,000 members, that was Confederate ideology right there. The horrific segregation laws continued into the 1960s, and same was with the anti-miscegenation laws that literally had humans sent to prison for having interracial relationships.

But that didn’t stop in the 1960s! In 2017, a violent rally took part in Charlottsville, Virginia, called “United the Right Rally” against the removal of Confederate monument. In the rally, Confederate and Nazi flags were waved.

The reason I support the removal of Confederate monuments is because that ideology, the horrific and vile ideology of slavery and the subjugating of other human beings, is still there! The dehumanisation of black people is still there. Those monuments are part of that ideology and are used to preserve it.

And you know what? I honestly understand where neo-Confederates are coming from… it’s not easy to admit your ancestors were lowlife scum who fought to preserve slavery, so you create a new narrative. Will the descendants of Nazi soldiers try the same in the future? Who knows.

And yes, I know not all Confederate soldiers were for slavery, some were drafted against their will… and? So were many soldiers serving in the German Army in WWII. Your point is…? The ones with a moral compass deserted, and the ones with a moral compass and courage did what the great Newton Knight and the Free State of Jones did, and resisted the Confederate regime.

Those monuments need to be demolished, pretty much as we don’t have Nazi monuments around today.

No black child should have to walk past a monument which was the gathering point of those who violently lynched his great uncle, and which still serves as a gathering point for those who lament the loss of the Confederacy and lament the abolition of slavery.

Despite Donald Trump, America is Still Great

There’s a trend these days to insult America, burn the American flag, portray America as Trump, as racism, as discrimination, and so on… but I don’t agree wit that view.

I’m a social democrat, I’m a Sanders supporter, I’m as progressive as it gets… and I love America. I despise Trump, and I hated Obama, Clinton, and now Biden, because they have a proven record of being warmongers.

However, this is not “America” – America is an idea. We can find evil things in the history of every country, however, what makes America special is that individuals can get up and do something about it.

I was born in the USSR where the government committed a genocide against the Ukrainian population (the Holodomor), sent millions into concentration camps for f***ing political jokes, and imprisoned rock musicians… and the USSR never properly apologised for this!

Yes, the American Government was responsible for war crimes in Vietnam, but wasn’t it the American people who demonstrated against it? In the USSR, people who demonstrated against the Afghanistan War… oh wait, they didn’t, because in the USSR opposing the war would have you sent into a mental asylum.

The most American idea is an individual standing against the system, rebellion… the individual working against the system. The “cowboy,” the outlaw.

When I think of America, in my head there are pictures of John F. Kennedy talking about civil rights in 1963; it’s the hippies in front of the White House during Vietnam; it’s blues, jazz musicians, and rock ‘n’ roll musicians revolutionising culture; it’s Bill Gates and Steve Jobs competing on who creates the cooler product from their garages (not forgetting to change the world); it’s NASA and its brilliant missions to space; it’s arcade centres and Back to the Future; it’s Michael Jackson and Guns N’ Roses; it’s The Doors and Lana Del Rey; it’s Hank Greenberg approaching Jackie Robinson; it’s the distinct sound of the acoustic guitar, and the scream of a Fender; it’s Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Elvis Presley;… this is America to me.

As someone who was born in the USSR, I feel like those who generalise America as “evil,” instead of understanding that “America” is, in fact, many things, including those who fight against “evil,” don’t know what it’s like to really live in an “evil” country.

See, in America, when a racist cop kills an innocent black man… it’s Americans who go the next day to demonstrate against it, it’s American patriots within the Senate who talk about the need to promote legislature against racism. It’s Americans who speak against it!

Haven’t you noticed how many of those who represent the worst in America tend to wave or defend the Confederate flag? I mean, the Confederate flag is the most anti-American thing there is… the United States literally defeated the Confederacy!

In the USSR, you didn’t have a right to protest. You had a government committing some of the worst crimes ever against its people, you had sadistic politicians fuelled by envy who enjoyed imprisoning intellectuals and free thinkers… and I think it’s important to understand that when you decide to call America “evil” or whatever.

America isn’t evil, it’s great! You can see how great America is when you play your acoustic or electric guitar while looking up songs on your computer. The evil elements in America are more Confederate than they are American.

Israel is not “the only democracy in the Middle East,” and no, Israel and Palestine don’t “fight for the same piece of land”

Mostly as a result of the pro-Israel lobby propaganda (and I will later explain why this lobby isn’t really “pro-” Israel), many people believe two myths about the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The first myth is that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East,” and the second myth is that “Israelis and Palestinians are fighting for the same piece of land,” which leads many to the false conclusion that one must prefer Israel in this conflict, because “it’s the only democracy…” and so on. As someone who lived in Israel for many years, I can tell you both of these statements are false.

First of all, Israel and Palestine are not fighting for the same piece of land. It’s not like they’re both contesting Tel Aviv, Netanya, Petah Tiqwa, and so on. There is a very clear line between the areas known as Palestine, which are the territories of the Palestinian Autonomy (or Palestinian Authority), which constitute the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the State of Israel.

In fact, the line is so “clear,” that Israel has never actually annexed the Palestinian territories, because that would require Israel to give citizenship to the Palestinian living there, and citizens get human rights, which is something the Israeli far-right government can’t have.

Saying that “Israelis and Palestinians are fighting for the same piece of land” is like letting the US conquer Canada (or vice versa), and then to say, “Well, they’re both fighting for the same piece of land, so it’s very complicated” – it really isn’t.

What happens in practice is that the Israeli army controls the West Bank, and on a daily basis, a Palestinian is required to go through checkpoints (not only to cross to Israel, but within the West Bank itself), long queues, and humiliation on a daily basis.

At the same time, part of the ruling coalition in Israel are parties promoting religious nationalism. Those parties actually believe in a schizophrenic idea that settling the whole area known as “Greater Israel” – a Biblical myth about a “promised land” which includes parts of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan – will bring the Messiah. So what does the Israeli government do, to appease those political parties? It creates illegal settlements in the West Bank, settlers of those who openly wish to dispossess Palestinians and fulfil their “Greater Israel plan.”

Think of the reality under which a Palestinian has to live. Seeing parts of your family’s lands confiscated by Israel for new settlements, getting abused by soldiers, and having your freedom of movement limited. What kind of reality is that? It breeds anger, and anger breeds irrationality, extremism, and violence. That is literally how after WWI the financial penalties against Germany led to poverty and frustration that gave popularity to such extreme and vile ideologies as Nazism and communism.

As for the “only democracy…” argument, is it though? Is it a democracy? According to Western standards, I really don’t think it is. I mean, in order to appease the fundamentalist parties in Israel, i.e. the religious nationalists and the Orthodox, gay people are not allowed to get married, a Jewish couple can’t get married outside the Rabbinate, there is no public transport on Saturday – despite popular demand – due to the Orthodox parties preventing it.

I mean, does that actually count as a democracy? For an average Westerner, hearing such things leaves them in shock, and surprise, surprise, there’s a reason the pro-Israel lobby doesn’t mention it in its donation campaigns.

Even if that “only democracy…” argument were true, does that justify a country dispossessing and depriving another nation of their human rights? I mean, surely that is a ridiculous argument.

Also, I’m not sure the so-called pro-Israel lobby actually does any good to Israel. When someone shows harmful behaviour, the last thing you should do is enable it. Oh, so you’re a drug addict? Here, take unlimited funds to buy drugs! Or oh, you have anger issues? There you go, unlimited access to guns.

The best thing you can do in such a case is take drastic actions to stop that behaviour. In my view, the best thing the West can do is actually stop financing and supplying Israel with weapons unless it negotiates peace with Palestine. As for now, Israel gets huge funds from the West, and sees no need to work towards changing the situation.

Corporate Media Firing Up Their Smear Campaign Against Sanders

Just like with the corporate media in England running a long and tedious smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn, the corporate media in the US is clearly stepping it up against Bernie Sanders. According to Elizabeth Warren, Sanders told her, a few years back, that a woman couldn’t become a US President.

How do we know he didn’t make that misogynistic comment? Easy! It absolutely contradicts everything Sanders has been standing for his entire career. I mean, he was arrested for demonstrating in favour of the human rights movement while she was, well, a Republican.

The pharmaceutical companies, the insurance industry, and Wall Street are petrified of Sanders, and Warren is happy to dive into a dodgy relationship with the corporate elite against Sanders, to slander him.

Warren is a dodgy character! She was a Republican for most of her life – a “die-hard conservative” according to some of her colleagues (look it up) – and now she’s trying to set Bernie Sanders up.

For a long time, they had been allies. Her attacks against him clearly threw him off guard, as he didn’t expect her to stoop so low. I mean, Sanders was trying to convince her to run for President a few years back, and decided to run for himself only after Warren had refused.

The CNN, probably the second most unreliable network after the Fox “News” sham, are happy to peddle that lie, by presenting headlines such as “Elizabeth Warren fires back at Bernie Sanders’ denial about women candidates” (headlines that are intentionally formulated in such a way as to make it look like there isn’t any doubt that he had said it). With their corporate ownership, just like when Sanders was competing against Hilary support-every-war Clinton, they’re doing everything in their power to smear the most progressive candidate America’s ever known.

I really hope Bernie Sanders picks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as his running colleague for this election, i.e. candidate for Vice President. In the long run, I can’t see anyone better than her to run for President.

It’s time for Democrats to run a truly progressive team. I mean, running Hillary support-every-war Clinton a few years ago, really?! Why would any progressive person want to vote for her, with her pro-war and pro-corporate record?

As for Obama, he won an election using progressive slogans, but ended up bombing more countries than Bush, continued representing corporate interests, and did nothing about racism and brutality within the police force against black people. But fact is, he won his election using progressive rhetoric, which proves there’s demand for it.

Instead of suggesting pro-war de-facto Republicans like Biden, or sleazy Warren who was a Republican until the mid 90s, it’s time to run a truly progressive team. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are the best thing that could happen for the American people!

Corbyn’s defeat was everyone’s defeat – why it happened, and consequences

The nurse that works overtime and has to count coins to get by has to go back to work and know that nothing is changing. Corbyn was a chance to build new hospitals and add funding to the NHS, make education more accessible, and improve workers conditions so working people wouldn’t have to live in anxiety.

I see many Labour supporters blaming the British voter for “selfishness”, “gullibility”, and in general, basically saying everyone’s an idiot – however, it’s not so simple. How about taking a look at our own mistakes?

The majority of Britain voted to leave the EU, and it was particularly strong in Labour strongholds, which makes sense, considering the fact Old Labour with the likes of Dennis Skinner and Tony Benn always opposed the EU. The reason Labour came close to defeating the Tories under May was because Corbyn committed to delivering Brexit.

Three years later, Labour were pushing for a second referendum, with a choice between remaining in the EU and a soft deal. Another Brexit referendum, only a few years after the original one – exactly what the British public wanted, not.

The result was that many Labour strongholds in the North of England and big parts of Wales turned to the Tories. I think it was a terrible idea for them, but you can’t claim everyone to be stupid when your own strategy on Brexit left those people feeling betrayed and alienated.

Corbyn made only one mistake as the leader of Labour, but a crucial one. Despite the corporate-media smear campaign against him, he was steadily gaining popularity, and at some point, it seemed like Labour could win this (I mean, from June to February 2017-2018, Labour led the polls). Corbyn’s crucial mistake was to succumb to the pro-EU Blairite pressure within Labour and to retract his earlier position on delivering Brexit.

I mean, look at Wales! Whole parts of it turned from Red to Blue, and even in the remaining red strip, close to 60% voted Brexit in the referendum.

I know some people think the EU referendum was a close one, but not in England or Wales. In Scotland, yes, the majority voted to remain in the EU, but in England and Wales a huge majority voted to leave the EU. When it’s England and Wales where most of your strongholds are, staying “neutral” but hinting you might go for cancelling Brexit after saying how you’re willing to deliver Brexit isn’t the smartest approach.

The joke is, the same pro-EU Blairites who pressurised Corbyn, an old Eurosceptic, to align himself with the remain camp, will now blame Corbyn for everything and try to return it to be what it was under Blair, a party of careerists without a clear ideology.

Under first past the post, Britain is NOT a democracy – why we need proportional representation

The main problem in British politics, and the reason this Brexit thing got dragged out for so long – which, obviously, embarrassed the UK in front of the whole Europe – is the political system.

The truth is, Britain is not a democracy. Instead of having a logical proportional representation system where a party gets the amount of seats that matches the percentage of votes it has received, the first-past-the-post system creates a situation where under certain circumstances, a party that gets less votes, in theory, gets more seats.

As much as I can’t stand UKIP, I find it ridiculous that in 2015, UKIP got only one seat despite getting 3,881,099 votes, while the Lib Dems got 8 seats despite just getting 2,415,916 votes. It’s a ridiculous situation, it absolutely makes no sense!

Naturally, it hurts the prospects of the smaller parties. Most people in Britain are critical of both Labour and the Tories, and yet they’re forced to choose between the two parties they despise (or the Lib Dems, as the lesser of two evils, in some cases), instead of just going for the party they want.

Until 2015, I wanted to vote for the Green Party, but couldn’t, because I knew that would be a voice getting wasted, so I was forced to back Labour. Just for the record, millions of Brits would like to vote for the Green Party, but they can’t, and therefore, this potentially important party gets pushed beyond the sidelines.

For record’s sake, I’d never vote for Tories or for the Lib Dems, but as a Brexit supporter, the fact I was forced to back Labour in the last election after they shamefully backtracked on their 2017 promise to deliver Brexit, was very unpleasant for me. In a true democracy, pro-Brexit Labour supporters could just form a new party, get into parliament, and work both against the Tories and attempts to prevent Britain from leaving the EU – in fact, remainer Tories could do the same thing, which would be a fair thing to allow them.

A person with any sense of dignity will never like a system that takes the results and minces them in order to keep the two major parties in power, because that’s the only reason the first-past-the-post system exists! It’s there to keep the large parties in power. It’s there to prevent left-wingers from creating an alternative to Labour, or to prevent right-wingers from forming an alternative to the Tories.

The system allows the leadership of both parties to backtrack on their promises, promote policies that even their own supporters disagree with, and know that their strongholds will be held hostage to vote for them.

Why, despite being a Brexit supporter, I will not even consider voting for Farage

Let’s start with the simple fact I’m a Brexit supporter. I don’t like the idea of a giant superstate that supersedes democracy. I was born in the USSR, a pretty sh**ty country, and the idea of a bureaucratic mechanism that lacks transparency and “knows what’s best” is all too familiar for me.

No, I am not comparing the EU to the USSR, Nazi Germany, Franco’s Spain, or any other horrendous regime out there, but the tendency is clear! Since the UK Brexit vote, we’ve been hearing characters like Guy Verhofstadt talking about the need to transfer more powers to the EU and make the EU more like the US, and it’s not like we hadn’t heard such statements from EU officials before Brexit. The elite of the EU doesn’t make a secret of its final goal!

I don’t like dictatorships. I’m a liberal, and I prefer an elected government I dislike over a dictatorship ruled by those whose views on society are similar to mine. I believe in educating people about politics and schools of thought since childhood, and in creating a society of informed people who understand the value of critical thinking, civic responsibility, and individual rights.

I must say, I like Alan Sked, the creator of UKIP. In my opinion, he’s one of the most significant ideologists of Brexit, together with Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner, two other politicians I respect a lot. The fact he’s not an MP is a result of the anti-democratic first-past-the-post system, where millions of votes go to waste, and millions of others are forced to chose between greedy Tories and pathetic Labour – I’m not even mentioning the Lib Dems, who for the last decade have been nothing but a Tory doormat.

There are plenty of people who, in terms of views, suit the Lib Dems, but would never vote for the Lib Dems due to being Brexit supporters. This whole thing of people being forced to vote for parties they mostly disagree with is terrible for democracy.

But despite being a Brexit supporter, I believe that once again, I’m forced to back Labour, and yes – I am disappointed with Corbyn, whom I’ve supported for a long time, by pandering so much to the Remain camp in the party; but except Dennis Skinner, I don’t see anyone more suitable to be Prime Minister.

Despite me being a Brexit supporter, there is no way I will back Farage’s new Brexit Party. He took Sked’s UKIP, which was a liberal party, and made it a far-right party that fails to tackle homophobia, racism, poverty, and many other issues that affect many people in Britain. In fact, Farage, who has remained a hardline Tory, has consciously turned a blind eye and gave the silent approval to racist elements joining UKIP, and later the Brexit Party, and allowed them to gain positions of power in both.

Alan Sked has described what Farage did to UKIP better than anyone: “After I stepped down to return to academic life, however, the party came under control of a preposterous mountebank named Nigel Farage, who reoriented it to the far right. The clause about a lack of prejudices was abolished and all sorts of nasty statements were made against blacks, Muslims and gays. Former members of the National Front were allowed to work for the party or become candidates.”

I will not associate myself with the likes of Farage, no matter how much I support Brexit.

People Get the Leaders They Deserve

“The public wants what the public gets” – Going Underground, The Jam.

I’ve made a rather cynical observation: people get the leaders they deserve.

I feel strongly attached to my Russian heritage, and it certainly pains me to witness the state of Russia and what its people have to endure today – but to be honest, Putin is what the people of Russia deserve. If they deserved anything better, they would’ve picked someone else. They’re the ones who have chosen him! They consciously ignored the corruption he and the officials appointed by him are associated with and made their choice.

It’s the same thing with the Arab world. Those dictators are there because most of the population are still stuck in medieval times and can’t comprehend the ideas of civic responsibility and liberty. One might mention the revolutions that have taken place in the Arab world during the Arab Spring, but what did those revolutions actually lead to? The next day, the revolutionaries didn’t know what to do and plunged into internal disputes and inter-tribal warfare.

Ukraine is another example of that. Fair enough, they had a revolution in 2013 to get closers to the West, but what did they actually do after the revolution to reduce corruption or increase the living standards?

One might argue that people living under dictators can’t really be held responsible, but is this really so? Dictatorships don’t appear out of nowhere; they appear and survive due to social and cultural conditions.

Democracy can only survive if citizens understand the concept of civic responsibility. Even for those who live under dictatorships, revolution alone is not a solution – it might be a means to a solution, but if those who do it take to settling scores with political rivals or representatives of the old regime, the post-revolutionary reality becomes just as bleak as the one to have preceded it.

We’ve seen it with the Red Terror in Russia and the Reign of Terror under Robespierre in France; the lack of ability to call it quits and focus on creating a peaceful, democratic society, and rather plunging into paranoia lead to the formation of regimes even more ruthless than those they had toppled.

Rupert Murdoch, the Tory victory, and the “morons” who voted for them

According to a study conducted in 2009 by Pew Research, 31% of the American public deny evolution. Those 31% can be classified in popular jargon as “morons”, and those are the same 31% who are being manipulated and made even more dumb by Fox News.

But Britain doesn’t lack its morons, and those morons have their own version of Fox News, it is called The Sun. And yesterday, those moronic Sun readers voted the Tories into power.

They voted Tory despite the controversial privatization of the Royal Post, despite Cameron’s outspoken support of billionaires dodging tax and despite the fact that the number of those requiring food banks went through the roof.

Trivia: Did you know that the man behind The Sun and Fox is Rupert Murdoch? Also, did you know that Tunku Varadarajan referred to Murdoch as “The man whose name is synonymous with unethical newspapers”?

Family activity: Discuss, do you think Rupert Murdoch’s status as a business magnate in any way effects the “ideas” that both Fox and The Sun are promoting? Also, why do you think that both in America and in Britain Murdoch created a format appealing to the most moronic segment of the population?