The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
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User ID: 174
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2hr ago
It is evident to me that one of the strongest bulwarks against these policies changing has been accusations of antisemitism against those advocating such changes.
This is true, but it does not mean that those accusations have been false.
And certainly there are a lot of American Jews who don't like Netanyahu or don't like various actions Israel has taken. There are very few who want Israel to cease to exist as a Jewish state.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2hr ago
Other wall.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
6hr ago
(Israel is a significant outlier in the middle East for having experienced zero civil wars since 1948)
This is a little unfair; as you note, Jordan's civil war was with the Palestinians, and labeling that "civil" while Israeli/Palestinian conflicts are not is defensible but a bit arbitrary.
Anyway, if it's so difficult for Jews to co-exist, it would be great if they could just... have their own country which other people could avoid, right? They could even build a wall to separate them from the other groups so there's no trouble. Of course, we know how that turned out. (and it ignores the Israeli Arabs, who don't seem to be particularly worse off than minorities in many other nations)
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
6hr ago
There's lots of places Israel would have been better off for practical purposes. But it's where it is now, and the particular land IS significant. And in practice, there was no free land; drop them in Northern Australia and aborigine advocates would hate them today (even if there were insignificant numbers of aborigines in the area).
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
6hr ago
Icelanders are a small subpopulation of Nordics, but they and their homeland don't seem to be under any particular threat. Except by their own acceptance of Islamic migrants, I suppose, but I suspect their climate (and the availability of better places) will limit that phenomenon. The Baltics main threat is Russia, which fortunately is occupied elsewhere. The others, like the Icelanders, are doing it to themselves. The Israelis, however, have been under near-continuous attack since the founding of their state. If they have a siege mentality (and they do seem to), it is because they have been under siege. It is true that eliminating Israel as a Jewish state wouldn't wipe out the Jews -- if it happens soon the Israeli Jews will mostly end up in the US. If it happens later, I suspect they'd mostly find places, not because the world's so much more accepting than in Hitler's time but because they're resourceful and will prepare. Unless they start a nuclear war instead; Masada wasn't THAT long ago, by geological standards.
This makes the Israeli situation rather different than any of those others. If the Israelis were inviting Hamas-loving Palestinians to join their polity and risking being wiped out that way, well... it would be sad, but totally on them.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
7hr ago
Current pravda is that the Jews ethnically cleansed the area of the modern Israeli state in 1948.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
What Yglesias stated -- that "that global perceptions of Israel are totally unrelated to Israeli conduct" is false -- is almost vacuously true. The implication -- as you said "the best way for Israel to fix its public relations problem is to change its actions vis-a-vis the Palestinian issue and foreign policy" is false. We're in a situation where Israel is blamed everything it does regardless of reason or justification and many things it hasn't done (in particular, "genocide"). It's opponents are not held responsible for anything they do. Israel changing their actions -- aside from taking actions which would result in them ceasing to exist -- would not fix its public relations problem.
I'm in camp 1.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Maybe I have it all wrong, but I was under the impression that proxy warfare was not graded the same way as direct war.
I thought so too, but then Iran insisted protecting Hezbollah be part of the ceasefire so...
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
The Iranian foreign minister DID announce the strait was open.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Cyberwarfare, yes. Constant terrorism, no. Iran's proxy Hezbollah has been firing rockets at Israel since October 2023, and never stopped.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Pakistan is the country that was making nice with the US for years while concealing Osama bin Laden and harboring the Taliban (same Taliban they're warring with now, ironically). Them causing trouble is pretty much par for the course.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Nevertheless, it's bipartisan and it's coming. We should have full 1984 by 2034, so not bad for a government program.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Then why has the US not said anything about Pakistan, their continued host for negotiations, fucking with the ceasefire?
The US has denied that Israel/Lebanon was part of the ceasefire initially, and suggested it was a "misunderstanding".
From all appearances, this is academic, however; the people the US is negotiating with do not have the power to open the strait.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Then why did the Pakistan PM announce it as such?
Perhaps to stir up trouble. In any case, that Pakistan was the location of the talks does not let the Pakistan PM speak for either party.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
True, but the money is instrumental; they want it because it will help to rebuild their arsenal and finish their nukes.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
I dunno, I'm being told by reliable sources that Iran has in fact been thoroughly honest, aboveboard, and consistent the whole time and everything bad that has happened has been becase the US was deceptive and duplicitous.
(And Artesh has been completely absent the whole time)
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
The United States did not agree to an Israel/Lebanon ceasefire on April 7-8.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2d ago
Also fails to note that the blockade came about after Iran failed to open the strait as agreed as part of the ceasefire. It's conflict theory all the way down, and for many, siding with the IRGC is preferable to siding with Trump.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
That organizing the labor has value, but so does actually performing the labor. There's an entire chain of work to building a rocket, from organizing the labor to designing the rocket to producing the parts to sweeping the floors. Each of them deserves some of the cut of success, but who decides the amount? The answer is the people with resources.
The answer, as it turns out, is "the market". Which is why SpaceX pays hundreds of millions in payroll instead of nothing.
The trick to this is that the contribution of the guy sweeping the floors is anchored by society's expectations.
It's anchored by the cost of replacing that guy with the next available alternative. Since sweeping the floors is a job a lot of people can do, that cost is fairly low compared with the cost of a rocket scientist.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
3d ago
Looking the other events, two dozen ships approached the strait, almost certainly under guidance from iran, only to be turned back right away.
The important thing, of course, is to realize this is all on the US, and Trump lied when he said the strait was open.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
The blockade is working, oil tanker traffic in the strait is up
These 2 statements are contradictory.
The blockade is against traffic to Iranian ports and (more recently) against sanctioned tankers. Not against unsanctioned tankers using the strait to visit non-Iranian ports.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
Mostly I'm pointing this out to say: this market's crazy and whether this affects voters this fall will be decided, mostly, in the last few days before the midterm.
Only if early voting gets banned, which I think isn't on the table.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
Any one of those three is sufficient to cause the problem. Especially the last. It's just a tautology, if they're an 'incel' they must be a 'loser' with poor social skills, or they wouldn't be an incel.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4d ago
In the US, we didn't so much reduce dependence on fossil fuels as we did reduce (but not eliminate) dependence on Middle Eastern fossil fuels. That's why gas is only $4.15 near me in New Jersey, and there's no serious worry about domestic supplies.
If Europe had actually reduced dependence on fossil fuels, they wouldn't be being hit so hard. But they didn't, not nearly to the extent they often claim to have.
Was. The good times for status are over, I think.
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