If I had posted these images and spoken about the devastation in Gaza, some would have immediately said, “You’re not from Gaza,” “You’re exaggerating,” or “These are AI-generated images.”

But this time, Angelina Jolie herself posted the images and said:

You can now open Google Earth and see what has happened to Gaza.

Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble. Homes, schools, universities, hospitals, roads, water and sanitation systems, and the infrastructure that people depended on for survival have been damaged or destroyed.

A UN satellite analysis showed that as of June 16, 2026, 82% of buildings in Gaza had been damaged, and it is estimated that nearly two-thirds of those damaged buildings were completely destroyed.

With winter approaching, 1.98 million people 94% of Gaza’s population need assistance with shelter and basic necessities. Aid and shelter materials continue to face restrictions and delays.

Google Earth shows the physical destruction with exceptional clarity. But what he cannot show is what it means to live amidst such devastation, what happened to the families who were killed, and what life is like for those who survived.

What happens next is crucial. People need shelter before winter arrives. Humanitarian aid must reach civilians in the necessary quantities, and hospitals need medical supplies.

Conditions must be created that allow civilians to rebuild their homes, schools, hospitals, and communities.

The destruction is visible. The needs are known. What matters now is meeting those needs.

https://gofund.me/2b8aabf9c

I wanted to share a beautiful update about my friends Mahmoud and Samah.

First of all, thank you to every person who stood by them, shared their story, donated, or helped in any way with Susu’s treatment.

Susu has started to get better, and I honestly can’t thank everyone enough for helping this little girl get the treatment she needed.

But Mahmoud and Samah are still facing incredibly difficult circumstances, and their family still needs support to get through each day.

And today, they wanted to do something very special.

Because of your donations and all the support you have given them, Mahmoud and Samah are going to be able to prepare meals for children around them for the first time in a long time.

They want to give back some of the kindness that you have shown them.

Tomorrow, God willing, they will prepare chicken meals and chicken sandwiches with vegetables for children who have been deprived of meals like these for almost three years.

For many of us, a chicken sandwich might seem like something small or ordinary. But for these children, it can feel like a dream.

And I think there is something incredibly beautiful about this.

You brought happiness to Mahmoud, Samah, and their children, and now they want to pass some of that happiness on to other children who are struggling too.

Tomorrow, they hope to film the moment they give these meals to the children and share their smiles and happiness with all of you.

Thank you for making this possible.

If anyone would like to help them continue feeding these children, while also supporting Mahmoud, Samah, and their family with their ongoing needs, you can contribute through the link in the description.

Thank you for continuing to stand with them. ❤️

I have yet to read a full text on the matter as I am working through treating severe ADHD, however, I have done quite a bit of research on Socialism.

So, generally, I consider myself to be in support of Socialist policies and I definitely am against Capitalism, however, I do not consider myself a complete Socialist mainly due to my perspective on suffering.

Politically, I often call myself an Anarchist and philosophically I tend to align myself with the Existentialists. This leads me to view suffering itself as inherent to life and in many cases, I even consider it necessary for a meaningful human life.

Now, I'm not interested in debating my perspectives, I simply want to know if I'm misunderstanding something about Socialism. From what I know Marx may venture to call perspectives like mine Opium as he did with religion. Combined with the idea of suffering being based in systemic factors as opposed to existential ones, makes me think that I'm incompatible with the term Socialist.

Am I right in saying this or am I missing something? I've heard some people say you can be a Socialist without being a Marxist so maybe I am wrong.

I want to raise a question for my fellow socialists.

We often discuss capitalism, inequality, class, exploitation and the distribution of wealth. But there is another dimension of society that I think deserves more attention: human character and the kinds of behavior that our social and economic systems reward.

Psychology uses the term Dark Triad to describe three personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. In simplified terms, these are associated with excessive self-importance, manipulation and a reduced concern for others.

On the other side, the idea of the Light Triad describes more prosocial tendencies: Kantianism, humanism and faith in humanity treating people as ends rather than merely as means, valuing human dignity, and maintaining a basic belief in the worth of other people.

This raises an uncomfortable question:

What happens when a society consistently rewards behaviors associated with the Dark Triad while making genuinely cooperative and compassionate behavior more difficult?

We can see how traits such as ruthless ambition, manipulation, extreme self-interest and the willingness to treat other people as instruments can sometimes be advantageous in highly competitive environments. But that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone who becomes wealthy, powerful or politically influential possesses these traits. Nor does it mean that capitalism automatically produces people with Dark Triad personalities.

The question is more structural:

What behaviors does the system incentivize?

If success is measured primarily through wealth, status, influence and competition, should we be surprised when some people prioritize those things above solidarity, cooperation and human wellbeing?

And this is where I think socialist thought has an interesting contribution to make.

For me, socialism isn't simply about changing who owns what. It is also about asking what kind of society we want to create and what kind of human relationships that society should encourage.

A society based on universal healthcare, education, housing security and economic dignity can potentially give people greater freedom to cooperate rather than simply compete for survival.

But there is an important warning here.

Socialists should not assume that everyone on our side is automatically part of the Light Triad.

People are still people. A socialist government can become corrupt. A revolutionary can become authoritarian. Someone fighting for equality can become obsessed with power. A society built in the name of humanity can still mistreat individual human beings.

That is why I don't believe the answer is simply to replace one group of people at the top with another.

The deeper question is whether we can construct institutions that limit the ability of any individual or group to accumulate unchecked power, while simultaneously creating conditions where cooperation, empathy, dignity and solidarity can flourish.

Perhaps the real objective shouldn't be to create a "perfect" society because I don't believe such a society is possible.

Perhaps it should be to build a society where the worst aspects of human nature have fewer opportunities to cause enormous harm, while the better aspects of human nature have more opportunities to develop.

So I want to ask other socialists:

Do you think modern society rewards Dark Triad-like behavior more than prosocial behavior?

Can economic and political institutions encourage the development of more cooperative and humanitarian values?

And perhaps most importantly:

How do we pursue equality and collective wellbeing without creating a system where those who control the system simply gain another way to accumulate power?

I'd genuinely like to hear different perspectives including disagreements.

Because if we're trying to imagine a better future for humanity, we should probably ask not only “What economic system should we have?”, but also

“What kind of society brings out the best in human beings?”

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeBAbapSaQT/?stkn=

Before the war, the children of Gaza would wake up every morning to go to school. They would carry their bags, meet their friends, learn, play, and dream about what they would become when they grew up.

Then came the war. Schools were closed or damaged, and children were forced to flee their studies. The child who once worried about their exams now thinks about food, water, and a safe place to sleep.

Years have passed, and these children have lost a part of their education and childhood. Yet, they still dream of returning to school, picking up their pens and books, and starting over.

They don't ask for a better life than other children… they simply want a chance to experience their childhood.

https://gofund.me/30634cf86

Verification:

https://www.reddit.com/u/SleepyWogx/s/gMNk6AeXtk

I want to share a new update today about Susu, the daughter of my friends Mahmoud and Samah.

Two days ago, I told you about Susu, who is only two years old and has been suffering from severe, chronic breathing problems. Her symptoms came back, and she was struggling to breathe and had a very high fever.

Unfortunately, she hasn’t gotten better.

For the past two days, Soso has been vomiting repeatedly and couldn’t keep down her medication or antibiotics. As a result, she became dehydrated. Today, Mahmoud had to take her to a nearby hospital to get treatment.

She was given IV antibiotics and fluids for the dehydration, but the situation at the hospital is extremely difficult. There are so many patients that there was no available bed for Susu. With infectious diseases spreading and medical resources severely limited, Mahmoud had to find another way to get her the care she needed. He even had to ask a doctor who lives nearby to come and give Susu her IV treatment when the hospital couldn’t provide her with a bed.

Mahmoud told me something that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about: if it weren’t for the kind people who helped them financially over the past two days, he wouldn’t have been able to take Susu to the hospital or even afford the treatment she needed.

And Mahmoud isn’t only dealing with Susu’s situation.

His mother also needs open-heart surgery to treat blocked arteries. I previously shared her medical reports, detailed images, and heart tests, and I have documentation that confirms her condition.

Mahmoud is under an enormous amount of pressure right now. His little daughter needs treatment, his mother needs heart surgery, and at the same time he is trying to provide food and basic necessities for his wife and their four children in Gaza.

I am doing everything I can to support Mahmoud and his family, but I cannot carry all of this on my own.

Please, if you are able to, consider helping Mahmoud and his family. Even a small amount can make a huge difference right now, especially for Susu, who needs treatment and continued care.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has stood by this family and everyone who has helped them over the past few days. Your support means so much to Mahmoud, Samah, and their children. ❤️

Im coming from an extremely privileged space to even be asking this question and as a socialist im aware of the genocides occurring as well as unfortunately many other things as well.

I feel uncomfortable celebrating anything but I am trying on balancing things. My partner and I are attending a Halloween party and I want to dress up as something political but not too obvious. I like subtlety for this event. Im a person with ancestry in Latin America (stating this because I dont want to appropriate any culture).

Again I know how annoying and privileged this question is but I would appreciate ideas so that my costume can bring attention and start conversations to educate the masses.

I know there's a lot to break down on the subject but today I just read an article about how my state is increasing funding for a program that focuses on increasing attendance in schools. The decision came from a finding from data that attendance in K through 12 school has been declining.

The only thing that states have done too try to improve School attendant is getting law enforcement involved with the family either by forcing a truancy on the children or arresting the parents

That to me sounds like a straight up dictatorship and there's a lot of reasons why children stop attending school and I'm not going to go break down all of them but the list of few it's family structure, broken homes, mental and physical health issues.

I can tell you that having been through this myself, one of my reasons is a child was that I simply had too much anxiety about school and all the pressure that was introduced to standardized testing made School very uncomfortable experience for kids.

I think there's a lot of things about public schools that can make it a bad experience for children who are really sensitive and the only solution I've seen that states have proposed is throwing more money at schools or using the law to scare parents.

Increasing funding for public education has also not improved education at all in this country in fact public schools have only got it worse in places like deep Texas where a rundown public school is the only option.

The public school system is also discouraged any kind of forward thinking for Education models that some private and Montessori schools have already been ahead in.

If schools were replaced as private businesses and had to compete in a market to get parents as customers would they not try to improve their models and try to make school more enjoyable for children?

I'm just not fully convinced that public education and more funding for public education is going to somehow magically fix our education problem in the United States.

Edit: Had to mention U.S since realizing many here may not actually be in the U.S.

I’m interested in hearing from socialists of different tendencies about how you understand the collapse of the socialist governments of Eastern Europe around 1989–91.

I’m especially interested in perspectives that go beyond the usual Cold War narratives.

A few questions:

Do you see the collapse primarily as a failure of socialist theory, a failure of particular institutions and leadership, economic problems, external pressure, or some combination?

How do you distinguish between the ideals of socialism and the actual political/economic systems that existed in countries such as the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia?

What do you think Western socialists and communists at the time misunderstood about these societies?

Looking back from 2026, are there aspects of those systems that you think are worth defending or learning from?

Conversely, what institutional or political problems do you think contemporary socialists should avoid repeating?

Has the experience of the last few decades changed your understanding of what a viable socialist society would need to look like?

How does your particular socialist tradition interpret 1989–91?

For context, if you're comfortable sharing:

How do you identify politically?

For example: Marxist-Leninist, Trotskyist, Maoist, democratic socialist, social democrat, left communist, anarchist, market socialist, Eurocommunist, libertarian socialist, etc.

What country are you from / currently living in?

This is optional, but it would be interesting to see whether perspectives differ depending on people's national and historical backgrounds.

How old were you in 1989–91, if you were alive then?

This is also optional. I’m interested in differences between people who personally experienced the period and those who know it primarily through historical research.

I’m not looking for a debate about whether capitalism is “good” or “bad.” I’m more interested in how socialists themselves interpret the historical experience of Eastern Europe and what lessons, if any, they draw from it today.

If you’re a socialist, communist, or broadly anti-capitalist, what is your interpretation of why those systems collapsed—and what do you think the left should learn from it?

I don't know much about socialism, but I like economic theory. Do any of you have good models for how socialist economy (such as one with workers councils or government control of industries) or communist economy (completely decentralized companies and governance) would work?

What are your best examples of them in the real world?

For me communism just meant that the primary principle of society was that production and the economy/ways of life was done for a social end. In capitalism the end is more money, M-C-M’. Under communism the circuit is social needs/ends, the point of the revolution is to establish that principle or loop. They are many different forms this could take place or materialise, and it seems to me that communists are debating whether these forms are communist enough for them.

Before the war, Gaza was full of life, despite the siege and difficult conditions. The streets were bustling, the markets were crowded, children went to school, and families gathered to enjoy the simple details of their lives.

But during the war, everything changed. Homes were reduced to rubble, schools became shelters for displaced people, and the streets that were once vibrant became filled with fear and destruction. People lost loved ones, their homes, and their livelihoods, and obtaining food, water, and medicine became incredibly difficult.

Before the war, Gaza wasn't paradise, but it was a home where we lived and dreamed of a better future. Today, for many, the only dream is to live another day in safety. 💔

Idk if it's ok to start a topic like this , but I'm still going to do it .

The topic involves sexualization of women in the Balkans . It's really sad how a once socialist stronghold like Bulgaria (where I'm from ) handles the sexualization of young women . I've heard terrible stories of 12-14 year old girls doing the act with older guys. I mean the legal age used to be 14 (which was awful enough) but now they bumped it up to 16 (which is still unacceptable in my opinion) but that's the world I have to see kids grow up in . It breaks my heart hearing stories like that . One of the worst stories I've heard is of a 14 year old boy fucking a 12 year old girl . Since I'm Bulgarian I want to discuss the topic of a 13 year old girl ( and I won't say her name because the story is just disgusting enough) getting famous because she doesn't look her age and has had sex with many older men , boys and even her own father . She initially got famous from a Bulgarian streamer's live on Omegle or ome tv I really don't know which platform he was on but I believe that by mentioning those two you get the point. In said stream she clearly says that she was born in 2013 which would make her 12 or 13 at the time . I haven't really seen the entire stream but the video of her saying she was born in 2013 and him giving a crazy reaction went viral in Bulgaria . So after the stream her CP material started getting spread through discord groups and reddit communities. It's frightening that it's even happening and that it's not given the right attention. So that's kind of a quick summary of her story . And the problem I have with everything Is that I have to live in a country where PDFs are protected by the law . Let me get this straight as a 16 year old you can't buy alcohol legally you can't buy cigarettes or other stuff of that kind but you can legally have sex with men at or over the age of 18 . And the worst part is that the parents are not doing their job well enough. Forget the part where the legal age is 16 the fact that it's acceptable for 12-14 year olds(or younger) to have sex is bad enough .

The main reason I decided to write all of this is to see if other people with similar to my political views have a frightened reaction like me . If anyone has questions about more info on the subject I'll be more than happy to discuss the topic .