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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • I understand that a line has to be drawn somewhere, and frankly it doesn’t matter how far back either’s claim goes - there are significant numbers of Palestinians and Israelis who have only known the current boundaries and any changes fundamentally alter their identities. Sure, we can go into the genocides committed against the Jews in the region over the past 2000 years that expelled them from the area and gives cause to antisemites that call Jews “white”, or violence perpetrated by Europeans when breaking up the Ottoman Empire and stoking ethnic violence over the past 100. But those claims only matter to the extremists as wedge issues used to divide.

    Extremists shouldn’t get to determine the future of millions who clearly want to live peacefully together. No one can bring back the murdered, but Israel, regional powers, the US, and European countries owe it to humanity to rebuild the destroyed cities in the same fashion that we intend to rebuild Ukraine.


  • Israelis and Palestinians aren’t monoliths and both groups generally want to coexist peacefully in a region they both have legitimate historical ties to. Yes, to stop the current fighting a ceasefire is needed. However, a ceasefire is not going to solve the problem of the IDF’s unrestricted killing of civilians as bystanders in response to Hamas directly targeting civilians as part of their genocidal aims towards Jews (in general).

    Just because the Israeli government has more power doesn’t suddenly make Israelis the “baddies.” There’s a reason why Palestinians, and other regional groups, want Hamas gone and look to the West Bank for the PLO to lead the future of a Palestinian state. Hamas takes actions without caring what happens to the people of Gaza as long as they get to kill some Jews (and inspire their killing globally) and provoke disproportionate retaliation from Netanyahu to feed back into their system of civilian oppression.

    The moment lasting peace settles in the region, Netanyahu can’t continue to avoid his personal legal problems, Hamas can’t reach their goal of a global Jewish genocide, and Iran can’t continue to destabilize the region and avoid its own internal instability. The fact that weapons manufacturers don’t get to profit from this stability is also a global win.

    The goal is to prevent the killing of Palestinian civilians and to restore their self-governance where they’re settled- also to rebuild. It should be fairly obvious that Hamas is the biggest roadblock. The IDF can then focus on right-wing settlers breaking Israeli law and restore those settlements back to Palestinians in their new state.




  • No, Romney made that rhetorical statement and Blinken looked flabbergasted that the statement was even made.

    Romney’s statement was made in the context, ironically, that certain social media “news” is made in the absence of any historical context as appeals to emotions instead of facts. The fact that the Twitter poster made an obvious cut to give “context” to Romney’s strange claim is an example of what Blinken said is wrong with certain social media news “sources”.

    TikTok ban discussions have been going on for a long time, well prior to Hamas’s October attack, and it’s a distortion of reality to claim motives otherwise.

    Romney should not be a role model for anything other than uncompassionate conservatism. If this type of “news” article is indicative of how many people get their information, then reality really is fluid for a whole lot of people and that’s scary. Though it’s hardly unsurprising with the amount of obvious propaganda sites posting “news” about the conflict that people take as gospel.



  • Except these warrants aren’t granted for “any reason” and I’m fairly sure you know that as well. Like I implied in my comment, the government is not some monolithic entity where all government employees conspire to deprive you, John Q. Public, of all of your rights.

    My claim is only that no matter how well implemented a program may be, certain individuals will still claim corruption where none statistically exists. The whole point of our society is to implement laws, execute those laws, evaluate if those laws are having a positive affect on mitigating the problem it’s meant to solve, and change the law to address shortcomings or unnecessary bits.

    Of course we should all be skeptical of the process, but arguing against change because we don’t feel like the results are going to be what we like is irrational. Past behavior is important to keep in mind but let’s not exaggerate and wax hyperbolic. It’s simple: If our elected officials aren’t implementing and reevaluating laws based on evidence/results, then it is our responsibility to remove those officials from power. If the roadblock to removing those in power are your fellow citizens, it’s your responsibility to help gain consensus in your community.

    Tearing down, or dismissing, the system is not reasonable; that’s partly how in US politics we’ve become so polarized. People don’t have patience anymore for conversation or debate; they want immediate and immaculate change with 100% certainty and that’s unrealistic. Change is gradual and is never going to get it right out of the gate.

    So come on, if you’re French, engage with your community and your elected officials to ensure that this law is implemented (or retracted) as honest as possible and stay engaged. Opinions without reasonable action is how fascism takes hold. I’m not sure how this law will turn out but I’m willing to be surprised that it gets implemented honestly. And if you’re not French, well, then I’m pretty sure yours and my opinions on how that citizenry chooses to govern is none of our business (outside of gross universal human rights violations and this is nowhere near the same galaxy).