U.S. Politics

AceofKnaves said:

Of course, even that is a slippery slope.

See also: “culture war”.

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Communism, as usual, was just a red herring.

Wicker_Basket said:

I know a lot of this winds back to the memory of the Holocaust and the need for Jews to feel safe and not allow themselves to be victims; I know they do not want to hear any opinions from a goy like me about how they should feel as a Jew living in 21st century America.

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I think this is what makes it so disgusting. The Israeli government is the one government on earth that should fucking know better than this. Through all this, I have yet to get my mind to wrap around how a Jewish state can defend perpetrating war crimes and genocide.

Wicker_Basket said:

I know they believe that defending Israel

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Even if I agreed with that (I don't), those people need to explain to me how making a game of target shooting babies defends Israel. The Israeli military has quite literally become THE thing it was created to defend them against; fucking racist monsters. There is no defense. If there was any justice in this world, the entire Israeli government would be in chains until the end of a very short war crimes trial where every last one of them would be executed publicly -- swinging from nooses under a 'Never Again' banner.

AceofKnaves said:

The whole Palestinian genocide issue is a great example of why, regardless of which nation or why it exists, nationalism itself is absolutely always evil and must always be opposed. There is no “good nationalism”. And there never has been. If you are “I support [insert country] no matter what and believe in its [symbolic or actual] superiority”, you are already fucked. I don’t care if that country is Israel, the U.S., or fucking Canada.

If you are a nationalist, you are the Bad Guy.

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Yup.

AceofKnaves said:

They need to find a better name, then.

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They do. But as was kind of pointed out here - Irish Nationalists don't believe (as a group, at least) in like.. a pure-blooded Irish-only nation or Irish superiority or anything. It's more the idea of cultural self-determinism; The people from a place should be largely in charge of that place. I.E. Anti-colonialism. Which I absolutely get behind. It's basically the next best thing if we have to just accept a world with a lot of artificial borders. Obviously, Ireland still struggles with elements of xenophobia that they'll have to reckon with. But that's a whole different story.

Chooch555 said:

I really can't wrap my head around the folks that feel that if you criticize the government than you're criticizing the country. At least in the U.S. no one can say they've been behind all the actions the government took for the past decade as it has flip flopped, but somehow people cling to the idea. Adding religion and ethnicity into the mix is beyond bizarre to me. There's no way to be critical of a person in government without also being anti-nation-ethnicity-religion? It's bonkers.

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100%
The most dangerous thing happening on a world scale right now is the outright absolutism that if you criticize the Israeli government, you are criticizing Jewish people everywhere. Because of sensitivity to anti-semitism, they're the ONLY country that has decided criticism of their government is criticism of every member of that society and religious group, all at once. It's absolutely fucking vile the way they hide behind 'don't be mean to us, we're Jewish' as an excuse to be allowed to do whatever the fuck they want. As if me saying 'you're a fucking war criminal for shooting babies' is somehow in any way relevant to how I feel about a Jewish lady in Brooklyn. Or even a Jewish lady in fucking Israel. I absolutely will not tolerate it. We should all openly and loudly reject the idea that it is anti-semitic to criticize Israel's government and/or military.

Great more wasted taxpayer money. Sure donors are paying to "build" it but who gets left with the bill after and the future upkeep?
and if people still believed all he was going after were criminals...

Damien said:

I think this is what makes it so disgusting. The Israeli government is the one government on earth that should fucking know better than this. Through all this, I have yet to get my mind to wrap around how a Jewish state can defend perpetrating war crimes and genocide.



Even if I agreed with that (I don't), those people need to explain to me how making a game of target shooting babies defends Israel. The Israeli military has quite literally become THE thing it was created to defend them against; fucking racist monsters. There is no defense. If there was any justice in this world, the entire Israeli government would be in chains until the end of a very short war crimes trial where every last one of them would be executed publicly -- swinging from nooses under a 'Never Again' banner.

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it's a very crude way to analyze this but we all know that being a victim does not prevent one from victimizing others. which is why I don't think it is very useful to conflate Zionism with Judaism.

like I said earlier, because I am a non-Jew if anybody is going to effectively talk my friends out of their bunker mentality it will likely not be me. in the past my friends have made comments that make me believe that that they believe the pogroms could happen again, that further acceptance of Jews into new facets of American culture is just setting the stage for the eventual scapegoating.

now I don't know if this is a good-faith assumption to make, I want to think it is a better assumption than "Jews that support Israel because they have an atavistic desire to dominate/kill Palestinians" and it is why I assume there is so much desperation to retain Israel's innocence. that everything that happened was done out of a frantic need for survival/safety. which would also justify the initial settling (The Nakba). it's that part that makes it a complicated situation for me but it's also not the 1940's anymore either.

I think if I told any of this to my friends' faces they would find me patronizing and admonish me for my non-Jew privilege or something.

and obviously I know the US's support for Israel is not contingent on the support of its Jewish population. Joe Biden is not Jewish, Kamala Harris is not Jewish, Donald Trump is not Jewish, etc. you all know what I'm saying.

Wicker_Basket said:

being a victim does not prevent one from victimizing others

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Indeed, it is one of, if not THE biggest determining factor of abuse/harm to others/etc.: abused people tend to abuse others, hurt people tend to hurt others, and it takes TONS of work and major self-examination not to fall into that trap. Generational cycles of violence work on an individual level, a family level, and yes on a national/cultural level.

To be clear: EVERY SINGLE violent offender I have ever worked with was a victim of violence themselves. Every. Single. One.

Just a quick shout out to my mom for breaking that cycle. Some of her siblings didn't, and a couple didn't make it out alive, but she went possibly too far in the other direction, heh. But no, she is a great mom.

It is HARD to break the cycle, man.
SO HARD.

And it takes so much humility and self-awareness; two things that, unfortunately, neither the governments of Israel nor the U.S. possess in any capacity.

I'm not sure many in governments around the world have anything resembling humility or self-awareness. I know here in Texas I see all of our politicians lacking those traits, along with compassion and dignity.

When will the left learn that without armed goons, the law means nothing?

If you've got 30 minutes, Dom's review of the adaptation of V for Vendetta is a nice listen at the moment.

It's always an appropriate time for Alan Moore.

Republicans know that they will be trounced at the mid-terms so they need to cheat now. Even Floriduh is going to try it.