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Cake day: May 3rd, 2024

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  • This is illustrative of why I have no faith in Israel to actually behave as a liberal democracy the way its allies pretend it is.

    It’s not just that they temporarily have a far-right administration as part of some cycle between liberalism and conservativism, the population itself is overwhelmingly far right and supports apartheid. The only thing that upsets them about what’s happening in Gaza is that the Israeli government clearly doesn’t care about getting the hostages back. The wholesale slaughter of innocent people does not bother most Israelis in the least, many of them see it as a positive.

    There is no internal opposition to the far right in Israel, and the country should be geopolitically categorized the same as we categorize Russia, China or any other hardcore authoritarian state. It’s not a democracy.


  • The contexts are really different. Boris played up his “harmless eccentric” facade, but Trump isn’t going to benefit from looking whimsical or whatever, no one would buy that from him. No one sees him as some mad genius.

    Reality is people are pretty tired of weird in their politics, which is why in this context I think it’s potentially a good approach.

    My sense of the general sentiment is that people don’t have time for weirdos at this point, we’ve had 8 years of weird and now we’ve got real problems facing the nation and the world and can’t be mucking around with a bunch of troglodytes like Vance who think only married people who own property should be citizens or whatever bizzarre Gilead type ideas conservatives have for the country.



  • Some talking heads on NPR were discussing the economy and how this was “the first time Millenials were seeing inflation” and how the economy is just waiting for consumers to “adjust”. This in the context of them also basically saying there needs to be more unemployment so wages don’t get higher.

    It’s like victim blaming or something, corporations went on a price gouging spree during the pandemic and now we all have to learn to deal with it so Wallstreet can go back to business as usual, and they’re getting all pissy that people’s response is simply finding ways to spend less, instead of giving up their last nickle.

    Funny how they never talk about corporations needing to tighten their belt or “adjust their expectations” to paying higher wages.





  • I think what Trump’s following kind of reveals is a sad truth about humans generally; about a quarter of people are very stupid and very susceptible to cult-think. It doesn’t always manifest as support for a politician, it could be anti-vax beliefs, or racism, zionism etc.

    Wherever you are, about 25-30% of people are simply not equipped to think critically, and that stupidity is activated or weaponized under various conditions, most often during times of economic stress or social chaos. People who can’t understand the complex causes of a problem are easy to manipulate – you give them a simplistic answer.

    “It’s the jews” or “trans people are the root of your problems” etc.

    It can happen anywhere because a certain demographic of people are just dumb, and there’s no way around it other than trying to reduce human suffering across the board and making it less likely that anyone is struggling.


  • Being opposed to genocide supporters is not a “talking point” it’s not a “trick”. Genocide is simply against the very core of my belief about how we’re meant to treat other human beings.

    So when a Democrat supports genocide, I want them out of the party and I see those who choose to ignore that candidates genocidal views as complicit themselves as well since they are responsible for putting that person into as position of power despite knowing the ugly truth. Hopefully that’s clear enough for you to allow yourself to understand. It’s very odd to have to spell it out like this for you though.

    Harris is not a zionist afaik.

    Harris does not appear to be ideological like Biden, that is true and a promising sign, but that’s not really related to the point I’m making – while zionists like Biden and his supporters do obviously help keep the slaughter going, one doesn’t necessarily have to be a committed zionist to help fuel the genocide. One could choose to do it for any number of reasons (ex. cowardice, political convenience etc.), we will see if Harris’ actions match up with her rhetoric. She doesn’t get an automatic pass on being a moral human being, this isn’t a cult of personality like the GOP.







  • Yeah, the Knesset has signaled in no uncertain terms that they will never support a two state solution.

    A two-state solution is something that sounds good to people who don’t understand the history and the geography, but the reality is that Israel will always be looking to take over the remainder of Gaza and the Westbank. The already have to a huge extent, I don’t think people realize just how much Palestine has been made into swiss cheese. You can’t make a state out of that.

    It’s the apartheid state that needs to end, Israel cannot remain an ethno-state if there’s ever going to be an end to all this. Theres nowhere else on earth that we’d be arguing that it needs to be ethnically “pure”. Palestinians have been in that region as long as anyone, they need to be equal citizens with equal rights.

    Its not a pipe dream, the world pressured South Africa to end apartheid, they can do it with Israel if world leaders actually show some backbone.


  • I feel that, but to be fair she’s not in a position to do much more than promise at the moment.

    I think it’s an encouraging sign that she’s not trying to duck the issue, the way she could. That’s not a guaruntee she’ll take real action, but if she’s distancing herself from Biden on this even before she gets the nomination it’s a good sign.

    I think it’s easy to forget just how extreme Biden is on this issue. Harris is your average democrat, but she’s still not ideological like Biden is, most aren’t. Biden went so far as to go around Obama to make promises to Israel when he was VP, I don’t see Harris having that kind of unquestioning desperation to help the right-wing Israeli government.