One thing that I really dislike of him is that he constantly says that Israel has the right to exist. No socialist believes that a genocidal settler colonial state has the right to exist.
He says it has a right to exist as a state with equal rights, that’s not the same as just saying “has the right to exist”.
An Israel with equal rights is no longer effectively “Israel”. The same way South Africa without Apartheid is not the same country as it was 40 years ago.
That means 1 state solution, which I assume is what most of us are also in favor of?
Israel is the nazi colony, Palestine is the land, state, culture and people that has been colonized. Saying the nazis have a right to continued colonization, rather than advocating for decolonization is a non-starter for anyone on the left.
The zionists / Israeli’s are almost completely indistinguishable from the Nazis in practice. They have no right to exist at all. Every single zionist should face the same fate as the Nazi’s faced in the Soviet Union after the war. Zionism must be wiped clean from the earth. Liberating Palestine means the destruction of the colonial cancer, as a people and as a state. It means restoring the names, places, people, history, art, culture and everything else that the colonists have erased. There is no justice if any trace of the zionist cancer is allowed to overwrite that which they have stolen or destroyed. Palestinians do not want to share their land with zionists ever again, in any capacity, full stop.
Zohran said “Israel has a right to exist”. No. It fucking DOES NOT and NEVER HAS. Only dumbfuck libs write apologia for a completely wrong answer such as this. The correct answer is “Palestine has a right to exist, the genocidal colonial zionist entity occupying it does not.”
I am not a fan of Mamdani, I am not satisfied with his answer because he is cautious not to stir up shit, but I cannot say that his answer has ever been that wrong, and certainly not rabidly zionist like every other US politician.
But when the usual lib cop out answer to whether Israel has a right to exist, is “YES”, then followed up by a mealy mouthed two state solution cop out, he stands out as an outlier for always having a very consistent and (by US standards) sensible answer. He has so far never once advocated for a two state solution, and the way he insists on “a state with equal rights”, that is the exact same goal that any sensible person would support. He never stops at “Right to Exist” and leaves it at that. There is always the addition of equal rights, and adherence to international law.
Ultimately, I don’t care what you call a state, and neither do the people who are currently living through Genocide, call it whatever the fuck you like, Israel, Palestine, it’s irrelevant when people are literally being murdered.
You can direct your bullshit semantic outrage once the PRIMARY contradiction has been resolved. And that is and always will be the apartheid, genocide, and land theft. South Africa is still called South Africa, and I don’t think the people who were liberated from apartheid gave a single fuck about it at the end of the day.
I feel like as far as harm reduction goes for now he might be the best option. I’m just curious to see if he will get nerfed eventually. Can’t have a city like New York fall into the hands of someone even mildly socialist.
How about Harm Maximization for New Yorkers you softheaded bastards
That’s a fair point tbh
He’s pretty cool. Makes you wish democracy was real.
The only way a communist will ever get elected to a meaningful position in US politics is if they hide their power level and, to some degree, give lip service to US interests.
Careerists and opportunists also like to give lip service to leftists to steal their energy.
And the system is good at transforming the former into the latter.
Hard to tell until he actually holds executive power.
People here are either in the optimistic group, thinking he is a genuine left guy and people in the other group are condemning him because he does not pass the ML purity test.
First of all, this is bourgeois politics in the city that hosts most of the global financial institutions in the world. So expecting him to win a seat with the Democrats with a very radical language in a country where there’s not a single leftist party in years able to win a single municipal government is a bit delusional. However, I am glad he is talking about socialism and is a mild defender of the Palestine cause. A symptom that socialism is gaining traction in society is when all kinds of opportunists start using socialist language, meaning they know these ideas are gaining traction.
And now the second point, this man is not even a mayor yet. We in the socialist side need to judge people over their actions, not their speech. It’s a common thing people to use partially radical language in the electoral campaign before giving a 180 degrees turn around as soon as they get to office. In Brazil we in the left like to say that during electoral campaign, when the Workers’ Party is in the opposition, it behaves as a radical Marxist party, but throws Marxism into the trash bin as soon as they get into office.
The third thing is not to be swayed by electoralism. This kind of tactic has been used for generations by people on the demsoc or socdem side, turning potential militants into domesticated voters. So even if Mamdani is half what he says, we still need to understand that votes don’t give us power, organizing does. It is better to have an opportunistic demsoc than a reactionary in the seat, however we should not have any illusions regarding this.
Eh, let him cook in NY only. Whatever his foreign policy is, he has no bearing. All I say is good luck in his progressive economic and cultural policies, but he ain’t bringing revolution.
If he decides to run for congress and so on in federal gov’t, he’s surely ought to be compromised.
If he can divest a single thing from Israel I will be colored impressed. I am not really holding my breath though.
His best contribution to the movement is hope.
Many liberals and unorganized progressives who believe in electoralism see him as a beneficial product of that process. Young people have poured into his race with the same gusto as Obama.
Those same people will grow jaded when he can’t deliver because NYC and NY politics are so corrupt and broken
If we fail to move those people to ML based organizations before they reactionary their way to Adams 2.0, then that’s on us
Honestly i couldn’t care less about a new york candidate lol
DSAmerikkka clutching electoral pearls in here
I dunno, the man’s called to defund the police repeatedly, protested for Palestine before October 7th (e.g. before there was social pressure to do so / clout to be gained by doing so), and has promised to arrest Netanyahu if he sets foot in New York. I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt until he’s in office. He could very well end up being a rotten egg like AOC, but I think for the time being it’d be best to milk the Mamdani hype train for all it’s worth. If and when he betrays us / Democratic Party ratfucks us, it’ll be easier to radicalize his more liberal supporters if we’re positioned as allies.
Plus, the Democratic Party will have to waste hundreds of millions of dollars and untold amounts of energy either way, and that’ll be hilarious.
I really want to believe this, but many of the reactionary de blasio supporters cite his failure to achieve anything as grounds to vote the Adams, and we can see where that got NYC
I’m really hoping we can use this burst of momentum to push as many candidates as possible nationwide before the Democratic Party has time to ratfuck Mamdani’s momentum.
Addendum - Liberal
zionistzionism two years into a genocide and copapologistapologism? Barely qualifies as a socdem.Will not be surprised if he turns out to be a “disappointment”. If he was a real threat then they wouldn’t show him on TV such as a talkshow. If he does get power and able to leverage it (I really don’t like assuming leaders or potential leaders are playing 4d chess) for something of substance I would expect him to be nullified. Without a working understanding (we do not know if he does or does not, though so far not promising) of how capital and liberal democracies actually function I am not sure how you can get beat it.
Case in point: look what they did to PSL.
At best his actions I suspect will be another “how do we distribute the loot of imperialism more equitably”
On twitter there was a good anlogy for this with a customer visiting a restaurant - the kind waiter who is on the customer’s side and the brutish chef who is not, all work for the restaurant owner. It does not matter how nice the waiter is; capital governs all and the waiter despite their best intentions is therefore a useful pawn to help maintain stablity and allowing the customer a pressure valve for his discontent.
“Does the state of Israel have the right to exist?” the host asked him.
“Yes, like all nations, I believe it has a right to exist – and a responsibility also to uphold international law,” he answered.
…
“The conclusion I’ve come to, they’re the conclusions of Israeli historians like Amos Goldberg. They are echoing the words of an Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who said just recently: ‘What we are doing in Gaza is a war of devastation.
“‘It is cruel, it is indiscriminate, it is limitless, it is criminal killing of civilians.’ These are the conclusions I have come to.”
That answer was also met with cheers and applause from Colbert’s audience.
Mamdani was rebuked by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum last week after he expressed the opinion that the slogan “globalize the intifada” was a legitimate expression of Palestinian advocacy.
That’s not zionism.
If you think that saying Israel is “like all nations” isn’t Zionism it sure explains a lot of the squishy left liberal discourse around this. Just divorced from reality because a couple of influencer shoved a mayoral candidate in your face. Not even a senator, not even an anemic presidential candidate. A fucking mayor of a city you don’t even like is making you compromise your principles. Sounds like you have none
If you think that saying Israel is “like all nations”
I’m not saying that, neither is he.
Why are we not at least reading this guy’s statements in good faith?
Getting things right in words alone is just the beginning, not something to write home about. To demand fealty from everyone far and wide over. When people are stuck defending the empty words of someone who does nothing it is a sad situation. Berniecels on suicide watch essentially. I don’t pity you people. Stop doing ActBlue donation drives. You are pathetic. Move to Vietnam or Russia.
It’s liberal zionism. AKA: “look, what the nazis are doing is bad, and we should condemn them, but the concentration camp has a right to exist”
The guy saying “globalize the intifada” is not a zionist. Come on.
that concentration camp has a right to exist
He said the exact opposite of this. He directly criticized Israel’s indiscriminate killing of civilians.
Palestine has a right to exist, not the nazi colonial occupation that has been terrorizing it for over 75 years. Israel is the occupation that is erasing Palestine. There’s a huge difference. All zionists need to be put to death. Israel does not and has never had the right to exist. Palestinians have no desire to share their land with their oppressor ever again. Nor should dumb fucking both-sidesing liberals impose that on them.
It’s very simple. The correct answer is “Palestine has a right to exist. Isreal does not and never has.”
It’s infuriating you’re having to explain this… on an ML forum.
October 7th is a war crime… israel has a right to exist… endorsement from Sanders and AOC. So he’s getting crucified in the media as a milquetoast liberal for the DNC for saying the bare minimum against the genocide so what’s the grand fucking strategy here? Slowly coax USAmericans into being less violently bigoted? I am not critcising this person as a person (I don’t know him), I am critcising him as a politician. If the argument is that this is the best he can say otherwise he won’t be elected then that’s part of the problem and why MLs critcise bourgoise electoral politics.
Yes what he is saying is significantly better than a lot of western politicians, and for a lot of westerners against the genocide that makes them feel better but so what? If you’re going to take a pro-palestenian stance then that means being pro-palestenian resistance fighters. Which in the US will mark you as a target for homeland security/ICE/various 3 letter agencies.
Fucking tired of vibes based marxism afflicting westerners; I don’t have the patience to dissect their BS.
Don’t bother, they’ll just use whatever new words you teach them to try to get more donations out of people, and then everyone will associate the words you taught then with useless fucking democrats
I’m at a point if someone calls themselves a marxist but they are a westerner whatever the colour (and I will include labour arisotcrats from the global south with similar tendancies) I’m going to assume they’re a radlib who has read/seen some marxist lit/vids. Like a lot of the justifications in this whole thread is essentially Proudhonism, which marx already dissected couple of centuries ago in rhe Poverty of philosophy. However, you don’t have to be a marxist to consider why this not some “ML purity” test; if someone used the milquetoast language to describe a group responsible for ethnic cleansing your loved ones there would be no doubt about how to feel about this. Only the privilege of a westerner can shield them from this instinct.
It’s very simple. The correct answer is “Palestine has a right to exist. Isreal does not and never has.”
If you’re arguing there’s a better answer than the one he gave, that’s fine – just don’t wildly misrepresent what he said.
As for whether your answer is actually better: if you leave it at what you wrote you play right into the bullshit “any criticism of Israel is a call for genocide” line. It’s a loaded question. A longer explanation would have to be too long and would never be included in the million attacks that would use the clip.
I can see the argument for a stronger response, but I’m going to defer to the person actually out there getting their hands on state power over internet commenters.
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He seems like he might be an okay guy… maybe it’s just me, but something about NYC democratic politicians pulling off upset victories against party incumbents while campaigning far to the left of their establishment counterparts has soured on me. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop now that this guy won.
You cannot vote revolution into power in a liberal system. Full fucking stop.
The most important role that he plays is moving the Overton Window, that alone is much more important than anything he actually achieves. Just him refusing to “recognize Israel as a Jewish state”, claims he doesn’t like capitalism and literally just being Muslim has shifted the narrative over what is permissible in the eyes of normies. And NYC is front and center in the US, this isn’t Hoof Hearted, Kansas.
So I’m willing to say his election is of massive importance, even if what he actually accomplishes is lackluster.
I really liked his musical, Hamilton.
People need to leave him alone. He’s a Mets fan; hasn’t he suffered enough?
i’m not american, but that guy needs to be taken with a bag of salt…a true communist in the us, under the regime of taco emperor? i don’t believe it, most of the comments have a relatively healthy mistrust in a…ugh…democrat using communist-ish phrasing. but people deserve to dream, am i right?
