You might feel that way, but committed ideological liberals would strongly disagree with you.

I get it. You find it comforting to believe there’s nothing you can do to change things, so you refuse to consume anything that would challenge that notion. Otherwise, you might feel obligated to do something you aren’t willing to do, like join a cause or think critically about how you might make change.

I suppose ignorance is bliss, after all, but if you did want to challenge that notion, I’m happy to share the following:

• Palestinians being able to fish in Gaza while the IOF was distracted by the Sumud flotilla.
• The global change in public sentiment regarding Palestine and its occupation by a settler-colonialist force, including 60% of Jews in the US recognizing that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza (up from 27% in late 2023).
• International governments recognizing the state of Palestine. A move, albeit performative, indicating that governments are feeling major public pressure to act. And that was before the solidarity protests and general strikes across europe that are breaking out today.
• The successes of the BDS movement. Billions of dollars in divestments have been won from genocidal collaborators like Coca-Cola, Teva, Caterpillar, Microsoft, and countless more, even by governments and retirement indexes, along with 250+ wins in the US alone
• Spain’s announcement of a complete arms embargo against Israel, along with eight other measures against the occupation
• The success of the Mask Off Maersk campaign, a major win being the end of Maersk’s collaboration with illegal settlements in the West Bank.
• Other campaigns; like The Oakland People’s Arms Embargo, and the recently launched AIPAC Out!; uncovering Israel’s American collaborators at every level, in a way that is accessible and therefore actionable to the public.

That’s only what I could name off the top of my head

It is in this context alone that we see serious peace talks taking place, with Trump and other US negotiators getting directly involved, and Israel actually seemingly motivated to engage in negotiations on Hamas’s terms (i.e. their demands for a permanent ceasefire, unrestricted humanitarian aid, full IOF withdrawal, prisoners exchange, resisting the disarmament of their people, etc). That deal most certainly won’t be enough, but it’s a start. We both know that Israel wouldn’t even come to the table without overwhelming pressure to do so. The cracks in the empire are showing and the empire is desperate to close them, but the thing about cracks is they tend to permanently weaken the structures that stand on them.

Communism operates under what was referred to by Marx as a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, which we regard as complete liberation of the working class, because it allows the public to have control which is simply not possible under the liberal framework of “personal liberty for all”. Under the liberal framework, even the smallest most democratic intervention is decried as “government overreach”; that is, if it is even made democratically possible in the first place.

Which isn’t totally incorrect, because what you’re talking about isn’t “personal liberty for all”. You exclude billionaires. Us socialists/communists exclude capitalists as a whole, because the sole interest of a capitalist is to enrich themselves at the direct expense of the working class and our liberty. Billionaires are certainly the worst and most visible offenders, but a materialist lens allows one to see that each and every capitalist serves interests that are fundamentally in conflict with those of the working class. To operate any other way would be to betray their own interests, and wouldn’t make for a very effective result.

Liberation will only come when the working class has the power to decide collectively how our resources will be used, which will only come when we have majority control over the means of production, which will eventually lead to the capitalist class becoming completely obsolete. Liberation means being able to provide for our needs above anything else; for the sake of our humanity alone, and from the work that we are already doing; rather than our labor power being extracted for private gains and our needs provided only to the extent that it serves capitalists’ profit motives.

“Personal liberty” is what allows capitalists to exploit us. They have all the “liberty” you think you have. The “liberty” to put lies in the media, to pay you less than the value of your labor in order to extract a profit, to charge extortionist prices for healthcare and other basic needs, to influence politics and to crush competing public industries. These are all the things that “liberty” gets you under capitalism. “Personal liberty above all” != working class liberation.

you completely dense morons

You not wanting to understand what we’re telling you does not make us the morons.

edit:

In the sense that the government can’t seize your shit […] that doesn’t mean we can’t tax the shit out of billionaires

Doesn’t it? Where do you draw the line between taxes and government seizure, especially in the context of capital owners? Also, wouldn’t it be far more effective for the government to simply own the means of production and operate at the behest of the people? Does taxing capitalists more while still allowing them to have full control over the means of production - which they’ll use to influence the people and government in their favor - not simply set up the same situation we find ourselves in now, just some amount of time down the road?

I would say it does set that up (in fact it has in the past, just look at what was in the new deal and how it’s been eroded since it was signed. Assuming you’re familiar with US history…), and that is why liberalism is incompatible with anti-capitalism.

“We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.” Ursula K Le Guin

It’s been done before, even under more oppressive conditions. It can and will be done again.

You quite literally cannot. Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism.

Fascists and their enablers are not our friends.

They specifically mentioned the liberal establishment. You’re talking about criticism from people that probably abhor the liberal establishment even more than they do progressive liberals like Bernie.

Also I think this kind of criticism is important and I don’t know why it bothers people so much. It’s okay to be critical of things you ultimately support, either for ideological or simply for tactical reasons. It’s called critical support, and I think people should do it more often. Even if the criticism isn’t ultimately supportive, that doesn’t mean all of a person’s hate is directed in that single place. There may be more than just the surface level WHAT, like the WHY of it all and what that implies, that you are missing (or dismissing).

You have to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything, and refusal to engage in critical analysis - pretending any politician can do no wrong (or the contrary case; can do no right), getting defensive, and outright rejecting any investigation to prove or disprove your conclusion - does not fall into the category of ‘standing for something’ to me but rather overzealous team sports.

We have to practice more critical thinking, despite how badly our political class does not want us doing that. Whether it helps any specific politician win an election or not (which you can still do even with criticisms). Especially considering that it’s this kind of criticism that has made it untenable for a growing number of politicians to deny the genocide in Palestine; it’s pretty clear that the only needle that uncritical support will move is that of the progressives, towards the liberal end of the spectrum. After all, it’s our criticism of the current system and its complicity in human suffering that makes us progressive in the first place.

Highest praises to her autobiography, absolute must read. Rest in power Assata ✊🏾