US Politics, May 2024: They Shoot Puppies, Don't They?

liar liar pants of fire

Noem writes: “Through my tenure on the House armed services committee, I had the chance to travel to many countries to meet with world leaders.

“I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all).”

I have to admit that I have found the whole "from the river to the sea" thing baffling from the start, because like... it's not really about how big the Israeli state's territory is or is not, it's about the Palestinians who are subject to the authority of that state while being denied freedom of movement within that territory. Reading the chant as "Palestine will be free [because Israel will cease to exist]" just seems like bad faith obfuscation.

I think the other one that shows the malleability about how a lot of things are conceptualised by people is that 60% of 18-24 year olds think that Israel is carrying out a genocide, but 70% of the same people think they are trying to avoid civilian casualties which means a significant number of people think both these seemingly contradictory things at the same time

in other news: useless DINO Cuellar indicted

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/03/politics/henry-cuellar-indictment-doj/index.html

Buying a Rep. is so cheap.

i have seen plenty of younger people on social media state that Israel shouldn't exist, sometimes they extend this to 'no borders should exist' which, ok, but please join us in the real world. Israel exists and is unlikely to disappear, so please advocate for a solution (2 state, 1 secular state with equal rights, something)

I am confused…who is obfuscating? There are people chanting this who mean it that way

There are some seriously pissed off people

1 secular state with equal rights is “Israel not existing.”

Who see this as an opportunity for decolonization. … conservatives are shit stirring and being racist but to say that this opinion is made up … idk

Reading the chant as "Palestine will be free [because Israel will cease to exist]" just seems like bad faith obfuscation.

― The king of the demo (bernard snowy), Friday, 3 May 2024 18:24 (eight minutes ago) link

It's really not bad faith obfuscation. I'm sure some people who use the phrase don't mean it that way, but its historical meaning is literally that Israel will cease to exist. Here is an Arabic wikipedia page about the slogan, which you can read in translation.
https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%85%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%87%D8%B1_%D8%A5%D9%84%D9%89_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%AD%D8%B1

From the River to the Sea is a political slogan associated with Palestinian nationalism. The logo refers to the geographical area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea , which includes the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories: the West Bank , including East Jerusalem , and the Gaza Strip . It is also said in Palestinian colloquialism with the expression “from miyya to miyya” [meaning from water to water, i.e. from river to sea].

This slogan has been used by political groups to support Palestinian liberation since the 1960s, and has its origins in the Charter of the Palestinian National Council , which demands a Palestinian state that includes the geographic borders of Mandatory Palestine , and the removal of most of the Jewish population. Although the PLO withdrew this demand within the framework of the Oslo Accords , this slogan remains controversial, as some groups see it as a call for the elimination of the Jewish state.
...
One of the general principles of the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine is that “Palestine, from the river to the sea, is an Arab Islamic land. It is forbidden by Sharia to give up any inch of it, and the Zionist entity is an invalid existence that it is forbidden by Sharia to recognize in any part of it

It is also sometimes paired with the Arabic chant ""Min maa' ila maa', Filasteen 'arabiyya" (From water to water, Palestine is Arab). There were controversies recently at a couple of the university protests over people allegedly being taught this chant as the translation of From The River To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free, but I can't say for sure whether that happened, i.e. have not seen a video of it, it's just something that students reported..

Hamas has also called for Israel to cease to exist since its founding, including in its original charter (which also propounded all kinds of insane anti-Jewish conspiracy theories). The "updated" 2017 charter still calls for Israel to cease to exist but proposes the possibility of a two-state solution, with the implication seeming to be that it would be temporary, although you could read the rhetorical tea leaves different ways.

I don't agree with the take that this makes the slogan "antisemitic" per se, but it most certainly originated as a call for the end of Israel. And I can fully understand why the people who originated it called for the end of Israel, I just don't think there should be any illusions about it.

at the heart of this, from what I understand, is that israel is not a country like most other countries. It is founded on the basis of religious (and I guess, ethnic) identity. IMO that is a bad thing, and I don't think nation states should be founded on these things.

I heard on the news this morning that the university of Minnesota protesters quietly took down their encampment after university officials agreed to meet with them to discuss deinvestment. That was all it took - agreeing to talk about the university no longer profiting off genocide. But somehow other universities felt that sending in cops in to beat up their own students was preferable to even talking to them about maybe making less money off their investments for moral reasons. Sickening.

The argument that it is antisemitism can be bolstered by comparing Israel to Russia … are people demanding that Russia cease to exist… or historically, Germany… like I also know people who see this as antisemitism because Israel is being punished more than other countries

at the heart of this, from what I understand, is that israel is not a country like most other countries. It is founded on the basis of religious (and I guess, ethnic) identity. IMO that is a bad thing, and I don't think nation states should be founded on these things.

The difference is that Israel is a fairly new country…

1 secular state with equal rights is “Israel not existing.”

Uh. This raises interesting questions in my mind. If I was born with the name Aimless and now I in no way resemble the infant named Aimless, does that mean "Aimless does not exist"?

I don’t think you can compare an individual to a state, which is something that doesn’t naturally exist

I feel like the one state solution is ultimately more tenable in the long run, but most israelis are in no mood for a 'melting pot,' especially not now

i found these informative. in an "easy to read" way. ha! i am not as sharp as i once might have been. watching them made me realize how fast i forget history now. it goes in one ear and out the other. and i do read stuff! you know, articles. maybe not big thick books.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-vzy4tYfaI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt3PpqaLfxo

A very sore point at the University of Texas, not just with the Palestinian Solidarity Committee (who organized the original event that got its permit withdrawn) is that President Hartzell refuses to meet with anyone or discuss the matter at all. He won't take questions from the press, won't meet with the Deans or any faculty, never mind having an open forum with students. It's purely one-way communication from his office and it is not going over well, even with people who don't have any particular sympathy with the protestors.

The argument that it is antisemitism can be bolstered by comparing Israel to Russia … are people demanding that Russia cease to exist… or historically, Germany… like I also know people who see this as antisemitism because Israel is being punished more than other countries

― sarahell, Friday, May 3, 2024 1:56 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think the best analog is actually Pakistan. Not a perfect analog. But a country created by a British partition along ethno-religious lines that had ethnic cleansing as part of its creation.

And also at virtually the same time

I heard on the news this morning that the university of Minnesota protesters quietly took down their encampment after university officials agreed to meet with them to discuss deinvestment. That was all it took - agreeing to talk about the university no longer profiting off genocide. But somehow other universities felt that sending in cops in to beat up their own students was preferable to even talking to them about maybe making less money off their investments for moral reasons. Sickening.

Here's an article about how the protests ended at certain schools:

https://www.axios.com/2024/05/03/campus-protest-universities-student-arrest

as someone who was heavily involved in the "divest from South Africa" college protests from spring 1986 to fall 1987 m/l, and was on the front lines of an encampment, I have been having a very strong sense of "same shit different decade", except the contrast between how we were treated then (at Indiana University) and how they have been treated now is stark and brutal. Back then, the police and administration were largely hands off, but the harassment came from rural KKK types (not kidding) who firebombed, teargassed, and otherwise harassed the encampment. Today, the admins won't even talk to the kids, and I wonder how many of the racists who fucked with us back then are now on the same police force that came down on the new kids this week.

The thing i realized the other day is these shitheels in charge of… most things… are no longer boomers but x-ers

Yeah. Who came of political age under Rush Limbaugh etc.

Why do the protesters wear masks outside

What’s the deal with protesters wearing maaaaasks

maaaaan

those posts are condescending

I've become unsympathetic to the protesters. There seems to be a significantly increasing aggrandizing amount of antisemitism within the protests and here on ilx, really. I wish it would stop

I've become unsympathetic to the protesters.

quelle surprise

I haven't detected much antisemitism here... i.e. against Jews or Judaism. Loads of critiques of Israel's governmental policies, but not of their larger population's ethnicity or faith

Maybe you see something different

Maybe not here, but all I can see with the encampments and skirmishes is that it's kids acting out, and it seems very chaotic and antisemitic and frankly childish to me, sorry. They want people to look at them, they want to be the center of attention, but it doesn't seem to me they know anything about gaza or what the issues are or how to solve them except to encourage university divestment and speak badly of Jewish people

I also think there are a lot of outside agitators on all campuses

ok boomer

plz read one summary of one article on the history of "outside agitators" ffs

yeah caping for white supremacy by using a phrase originating in white supremacist organizations is not a great look, step back Dan S

well the dude cosplaying a hamas fighter at Stanford was not going to win any friends or influence people, but that's one campus kook

ok

Gfy

Dan S, there was in fact an excellent article on this topic published— TODAY!— in the Nation. Here it is: https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/outside-agitator-false-narrative/

and here is a choice excerpt:

College students are not stirred up because an adult shows up, bullhorn in hand, telling everyone to gather in the quad with tents to risk arrest, future career prospects, and state violence. They are stirred up by mass graves in Gaza; the killings of civilians, journalists, and children; and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. They are repelled that this genocide is being underwritten with our tax dollars. That’s what pushes people into action, not some imaginary outside agitator.

What the media elites and DC warmongers cannot compute is that they believed this generation was apathetic at best. Now seeing them rise up on college campuses across the country is causing them to malfunction. When Biden proclaims, “We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent” while professors are being thrown to the ground and led away in handcuffs, it doesn’t take an “outside agitator” for students to see that something is rotten in our democracy.

I’m sorry , but that just seems like a lot of purple prose to me. I agree with the protests fwiw

You just said you’re ur unsympathetic

what’s that tweet that’s like I hate problems but love their causes, anyways that’s a good tweet

I will gladly defer to people with more history in organizing, however, in my limited experience… it’s more like the sincere organizing attracts kooks and “extremists” who are drawn to the excitement and energy.

I have sat in too many meetings about organizing “a thing” where some rando shows up who says things that are kinda wtf but there is an impulse to inclusion and building momentum/people power so they stick around

Protests are for idiots and achieve nothing. Terrorism doesn't work as well as you'd hope, either, and outcomes are unpredictable at best. Political goals are most often achieved through bribery, extortion, and occasionally assassination.

Some of them develop a toxic dependency and end up being “helpful” and “valuable” so there is an aversion to kicking them out even when their behavior is alienating… sometimes there are cops/infiltrators, but I feel like it’s usually kooks

Protests are for idiots and achieve nothing. Terrorism doesn't work as well as you'd hope, either, and outcomes are unpredictable at best. Political goals are most often achieved through bribery, extortion, and occasionally assassination.

The reason people are still talking about the Civil Rights Movement 60 years later is that it was the one time that protest marches and sit-ins and whatnot actually fucking worked. It's been diminishing returns ever since.

And even then, everybody hated those people at the time. Martin Luther King had like a 25% approval rating in polls while he was alive.