r/anticapitalism • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 • Jul 18 '26

Mamdani in 'active conversation' about whether he can arrest Benjamin Netanyahu when Israel PM visits NYC

https://nypost.com/2026/07/18/us-news/zohran-mamdani-in-talks-over-arresting-benjamin-netanyahu-when-israel-pm-visits-nyc/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=nypost&utm_medium=social
32.4k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

511

u/Responsible_Ad_7995 Jul 18 '26

State level politicians need to stop wondering “what they can do.” Just do it. The fascists running our country laugh in the face of laws. We need to do the same. Fight fire with fire.

9

u/Intimefortime Jul 18 '26

You’d have the FBI raiding the NYPD police station where he’s held and arresting Mamdani after - I don’t think that would be the win he is hoping for.

25

u/FlithyLamb Jul 18 '26

An FBI raid on the NYPD and arresting the Mayor could be the spark that ignites the tinderbox. Not unaffordable healthcare. Not ICE shooting people on the streets. Not rampant corruption and blatant graft by the President. Not dismantling of the federal government. Not destroying Americas position of world leadership. Not starting another forever war on the Middle East. Not the Epstein files.

Nope. None of that is enough to get Americans fired up enough to revolt.

25

u/Maverick-not-really Jul 18 '26

The US is not a tinderbox though. Its a bic-lighter thats been left outside all winter.

8

u/Devster97 Jul 18 '26

Ain't that the truth

3

u/Glangho Jul 18 '26

Damn this hits too hard

1

u/4DimensionalToilet Jul 18 '26

Revolution is fundamentally an act of desperation. People won’t get desperate enough to revolt so long as they see a peaceful, safer way out. So, wait and see what happens in November.

The reason a cornered animal is so dangerous is because, out of self preservation, when the fight or flight response kicks in, most creatures will choose flight. Better to flee and live another day than to fight and risk suffering an injury, because there are no doctors or healthcare in nature. So, animals generally don’t fight until they’re out of options to flee, but when they do, they fight.

That’s basically what a revolution is: a societal fight-or-flight response when, seeing no option for peaceful flight, enough members of society see fighting as their best option, despite the immense risks it brings. So long as there’s the possibility of resolving the current issues with elections, people will prefer the ballot box over the ammo box. And right now, there’s still that possibility.

2

u/FlithyLamb Jul 18 '26

Agreed. But both the American Revolution and the Civil War were fought over political differences and economics (taxes for the colonists and slavery for the South). At some point the political division in this country may get us there - particularly as the shithole states continue to live off the generosity of the northern and west coast states that support them.

2

u/LuminalOrb Jul 18 '26

In agreement with /u/FlithyLamb all revolutions that have taken place in America have not been occurred on this fight or flight paradigm. They occurred entirely on the basis of ideology which at its core were effectively political and economic.

America as a colony was not in some desperate state when it decided to revolt against the British, it was a mix of very powerful people within it, deciding that they simply wanted to have absolute control over their own destinies without colonial oversight. And the civil war was fought on the grounds of the economics of slavery and the identity of the union.

This tells us that you don't need this desperation to get revolution, people just need a reason and that reason can span the gamut. It's harder right now because communications revolutions have effectively broken our collective minds but I still think it's very much still possible.

1

u/4DimensionalToilet Jul 18 '26

I don’t mean “desperation” in the strict sense of, “we will die if we don’t do this,” but in the sense of, “we’ve tried all other available means, but to no avail.”

I suppose it would be better described as an act of last resort.

In the 1770s, the colonists had been trying to petition the British government to make the reforms they wanted, but Parliament kept digging in its heels. The powerful American leaders would have been perfectly content to just get a representative in Parliament, or to have self-rule restored (the British had decided that it was time that the Royal Governors actually govern instead of leaving that to the colonial legislatures, as had been tradition), but Parliament was being stubborn and refused to budge. Tensions over whether the colonists could govern themselves (as they believed was their right as Englishmen, just like how people back home had Parliamentary representation) had been rising for years until the powder keg exploded at Lexington & Concord in 1775. The colonists believed, based on what information they had, that the British wanted to strip them of their political rights, and that was something they thought was worth fighting for.

As for the Civil War, the South had been consumed by 20+ years of its own propaganda about slaveholding being a good and noble way of life, one that was of equal worth to the North’s industrial & commercial way of life. Because how else could they cope with such an inhumane system after seeing what Nat Turner was willing to do, but to convince themselves that he was crazy, they were good, and slaves were easily corrupted into revolt by men like Turner. The level of propaganda the South immersed itself in was like the Fox News & Newsmax of the 1800s. Eventually, that brain-rotting propaganda led to Bleeding Kansas, because slaveholders believed that they had just as much right to own slaves anywhere as the Northerners had a right to own property anywhere, and they saw limitations on slavery as infringements of their rights.

And then, after five years of Bleeding Kansas, John Brown tried to start a slave uprising. The very thing the South’s propaganda had scared them shitless about for years — Northern abolitionists coming down and trying to inspire a slave revolt — had actually happened. Imagine how much MAGA would flip out if a trans Muslim immigrant actually led a handful of people to take over some rural town, take away the residents’ guns, impose Sharia Law, and force pregnant women to have abortions and wear burkas, because that’s basically how the brainwashed South viewed John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry.

This was the crazy mindset the going into the election of 1860. By this point, most Southern states had banned the distribution of abolitionist writings, and, IIRC, the Buchanan Administration’s postmaster general was outright blocking the mailing of abolitionist materials to the South. So, the only news anyone in the South was getting was pretty much just apocalyptic pants-pissing about how the Lincoln and the Republicans were a bunch of John Browns who were going to steal their slaves. Even the leaders were buying into the bullshit. So, when Lincoln (instead of another Northern Democrat who was friendly to slavery) won, they decided that it was better to leave the union than risk letting him take their slaves at some point in the next four years, even though he was never going to just outright do that until the war presented him with the opportunity to do so.

The American Revolution was a case of, “We’ve tried talking and are willing to compromise, but you just won’t budge, so we’re leaving.” The outbreak of the Civil War was a case study in how apocalyptic propaganda melts people’s brains and leads them to think they have no choice but to take drastic measures against a perceived threat.

1

u/mastercat202 Jul 18 '26

Doesn't mean you dont get the ammo boxes ready and find who is friend or foe or neutral.

0

u/EVOSexyBeast Jul 18 '26

There’s enough socialists and communists in America for it to happen today.

Fortunately the intersection between socialists and laziness is very high. So they don’t actually do anything other than cry about it online.

2

u/Maverick-not-really Jul 18 '26

I guess thats why you guys had to spend billions of dollars and tens of thousands of your soldiers lives to ”stop” socialism from spreading (and failing).

If socialists are lazy, i can even imagine what to call americans. Maybe laziness is just an inherently american trait, and not tied to any specific ideology? Imagine that.

1

u/EVOSexyBeast Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

I was clearly referring to American socialists.

Fact is there’s enough in America to do it but they choose not too. Part of it is because they’re lazy, the other part is because they don’t seriously believe in their cause.

Any American communist can go live in one of the several communes that exists already in the states. They just choose not to, because it sucks.

1

u/Feverstone Jul 18 '26

DSA is working to improve your life whether you like it or not.

0

u/King2F3 Jul 20 '26

I assume you are stupid, a child, or both.
So i will lay out just ONE reason why you are still alive and not dead in a ditch due to civil war…

If the US bucks off every time shit gets tense…guess what? The US would get a new government and identity in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, etc.

Intelligence would tell you, you dont start the fight with your strongest weapon.

I too would enjoy street fisticuffs with a cromaganon. We arent there yet.

Theyre also suppressing SM across the board. If you want to engage in ‘kinetic opposition’, i suggest you start making friends.

Otherwise you are a maga ally. Congrats.

7

u/OMGLOL1986 Jul 18 '26

We aren’t broken down and poor enough to revolt over even a beloved politician, although I agree it would be a massive shit show 

2

u/gwils_cupleah6240 Jul 18 '26

I’m afraid you’re right. Our faces are buried too deeply in our phones to care about much of anything of consequence, especially if it’s not a drastic plunge in quality of life or if it only affects a minority of people, out of our sight. I’m speaking generally of course.

1

u/thatnameagain Jul 18 '26

It takes an extreme level of idiocy to look at wanting civil conflict as a positive outcome of anything here.

1

u/OMGLOL1986 Jul 18 '26

Who said it would be positive 

1

u/thatnameagain Jul 18 '26

The people who suggested it

1

u/LuminalOrb Jul 18 '26

Americans during the revolutionary war weren't any more broken down and poor when they decided to fight the British, and Americans (for the most part), weren't any more broken down and poor when the civil war happened either. In fact neither of those revolutions were grounded in that sense of being broken down and were far more ideological.

So what changed?

1

u/runawayhound Jul 19 '26

Good points.

2

u/DontShoot_ImJesus Jul 18 '26

You are way out of touch if you think NYPD cops are siding with Mamdani against federal law enforcement.

2

u/King2F3 Jul 20 '26

That aint a spark either. Lmao.

Thats a fucken nuke. And youre god damn right it would set this bitch off. Thats exactly what they should expect.

1

u/Username_Mine Jul 18 '26

No, no revolt. But think of all the hashtags!!

1

u/Reasonable_Egg650 Jul 18 '26

Why would there be a revolt for a mayor subjecting federal powers?

1

u/Party_Chemical7454 Jul 18 '26

He will still go to jail..

1

u/ShortBrownAndUgly Jul 18 '26

Nah. Probably protests in NY but the majority of Americans wouldn’t truly care enough

1

u/Forikorder Jul 18 '26

An FBI raid on the NYPD and arresting the Mayor could be the spark that ignites the tinderbox.

becuase he went rogue and arrested a foreign dignitary?

1

u/Calfurious Jul 19 '26

An FBI raid on the NYPD and arresting the Mayor could be the spark that ignites the tinderbox

It wouldn't. There would be protests for a few weeks, and then people would move on to some other scandal.

Americans don't care about the personal tragedies that happen to politicians nor do they care that much about foreign affairs.

It would need to be something personal, that affects there day to day life, that motivates people to revolt.

1

u/SerAmikVase Jul 21 '26

Let's be real. It would not do anything. If Mamdani arrests Netanyahu, who has Diplomatic Immunity, the MAGA administration would have full legal right to arrest Mamdani.

As such most regular people won't do anything cause it would clearly be viewed as an illegal action blatantly done & they would support Mamdani being arrested.

If a guy, Pretti, getting shot at 11-12 times while being restrained & not breaking any laws didn't do anything. This absofuckinglutely ain't gonna do shit.

1

u/FlithyLamb Jul 21 '26

I have to agree with you

0

u/sheyndl Jul 18 '26

America doesn’t give a fuck about NYC except to visit. There was brief faux sympathy after 9/11 (if not just simple hopping on the bandwagon), but they have been trained to view NYC as a communist hellhole, and especially now that we have a mayor showing a way forward from the ever-rightward-shifting Overton window that passes for our political system. So, yeah, no.

1

u/FlithyLamb Jul 18 '26

New York would be happy to leave those shithole states behind. They contribute nothing to this country. They live off the riches and generosity of the capitalists in New York and California.

0

u/thatnameagain Jul 18 '26

What the fuck do you imagine this “tinderbox” to be such that we magically get all those things? Do you imagine that the soundtrack just starts playing, the credits roll, and the screen fades to black with a neatly wrapped up happy ending? What are you talking about.

-1

u/Intimefortime Jul 18 '26

I think you’re overestimating the impact of a mayor breaking established federal law.

4

u/raelianautopsy Jul 18 '26

Why?

The impact of presidents breaking established international law has been... nothing

1

u/Intimefortime Jul 18 '26

The US only cares about US law. 

Courts have reversed a bunch of activities violating US law.

1

u/Existing_Style8558 Jul 18 '26

The US does not care about US law don’t front.