ZanarkandAbesFan
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User ID: 2935
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
I think it's more fair to say that the Democrats are a big tent coalition (like every serious party in a two-party system) of which some member groups have the sympathies you described.
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
You’re both describing the same thing
We're not. The difference between an intended and an unintended negative outcome, like harm to a civilian, is something reasonably young children can already intuit. There's a reason most people judge someone who accidentally runs another person over less harshly than someone who actively seeks pedestrians to drive into.
Maybe you think there's some conversion factor i.e. a single deliberately caused death is as bad as 2/5/10 unintended ones, but I'd be very surprised if you think it's 1:1.
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
Europes nakedness probably won’t work here due to many reasons,
For all that people bring up the supposed different attitudes to nudity between the US and the EU I don't really get it. I live in a European country famous for its supposed sexual liberty and you would absolutely not see something like this stunt in public.
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
(You’d better believe that Trump is getting the best colonoscopy. The biggest.)
The deepest. Yuge.
Stop masturbating with words.
Pointing out words have meanings and that the ones you used don't match reality is not "masturbating" with words (curious expression).
If you want to mass murder people have the courage to actually say so.
Mass murder? That type of language is more masturbatory than anything I've said, and seems like an example of the non-central fallacy as it relates to Hamas members. For the avoidance of doubt, I think the murder of Hamas members is a noble goal (unless they surrender), despite the unfortunate reality of collateral civilian deaths. If you have an issue with that, then your issue might be with the nature of war itself.
How many wars are you asking for?
More than one? (Which I'm very dubious was done primarily, let alone entirely, for Israel's sake, but whatever). If the ZOG was "literally true" (and blatant about it, as you claim later on), then Israel wouldn't have 5-10 hostile regimes surrounding it that haven't been overturned.
Manipulating a country into invading another country on the other side of the world is just about the biggest show of control you can imagine.
If this were the case, they'd do it for Iran, Lebanon etc. Like, if your argument were that the ZOG was in power 2003-2009 the claim that Israel orchestrated the Iraq war would at least be in service of your position, but if they've been pulling the strings since and before, you'd expect them to use that control to deal with their current threats.
It's followed closely by manipulating a country into harassing countries on the other side of the world, which we see with Syria and Iran.
So is the claim that the US only has issues with Syria and Iran (which overthrew the US-backed Shah) because Israel keeps dragging them in? But then why would the US not have kept the Israel-friendly Shah in power (the revolution fits comfortably into the supposed ZOG window)? Why would Obama not intervene in Syria after chemical weapons were used? Why would Obama and Biden have been so pro Iran-rapprochement? Etc.
I mean, maybe I'm being autistic and interpreting too literally your earlier claim that
I don't know how it's possible for the word ZOG to be problematized like it's some crazy, loopy theory when in the case of the US, it's literally true.
but again, if the position is that all US interests are subordinate to Israeli interests and have been since the mid 20th century, then Israel wouldn't face any threats at all (or at the very least, far fewer). Is what I just described your position, or have I misinterpreted it?
It is basically impossible to read a flagship Australian newspaper without hearing about how awful it is that we're not favouring Israel enough. Day in and day out.
I'll take your word for it. I'd suggest trying a flagship newspaper in the US or UK, where leftist/centrist publications (so most of them) usually consider it awful that the US/UK/whoever isn't favouring Palestine enough.
There is nothing shadowy about the cabal, it's blatant. Kissinger was right out there in the open sending weapons to Israel. The USS Liberty was immediately swept under the carpet in '67 despite being a very serious military incident. You have all these US officials boasting about how their number one goal is to work with Israel. Pelosi talks about how even if the Capitol were razed, there would still be cooperation with Israel. Trump complains about how Israel used to totally control the US congress and now that control has withered away.
A blatant cabal would be politicians saying right there in the open that Israel's interests take precedence over the US'. No one says that (Trump's statements sort of come close, but he says all sorts of exaggerated bs). The rest of the stuff you described is mostly standard for allies. If Japan accidentally sank a US warship there wouldn't be an immediate cessation of the alliance. If you asked Pelosi about whether the US would still be allies with the UK if the capital was razed she'd probably say yes.
Why did the Arab states turn to the Soviet cause in the first place? Because they wanted weapons to attack Israel with and the US was unwilling to provide them, while the Soviets would.
The Arabs turned to the Soviets for a whole host of reasons, including Arab nationalism/Socialism, anti-colonialism etc. As I understand it the first Soviet arms delivery to Egypt happened in 1955, several years before and orders of magnitude higher in value than the first US military aid to Israel in 1959. So the US wasn't giving military aid to Israel either at the time the Arabs turned to the Soviets.
AIPAC boasting about 95% of its candidates winning their elections is not necessarily good for US interests.
Yeah that's a fair position, as is debating the value of the Israeli alliance generally (fwiw I think Republicans over-value Israel and Democrats under-value, but that's another discussion) but this seems like the Motte to the Bailey of "everything we do is determined by Israeli interests", which is Israel-derangement-syndrome.
Rising temperatures and water shortages might do that work first. Israel is the only nation in the region with the type of HC to deal with these issues.
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
Over the last several years I've come to believe economics is a more fraudulent field of study than social science. As I'm not an economist, I asked GPT for what economics has contributed to mankind and the best I saw in its list was game theory.
Eh, that's not wholly fair. Plenty of things that just about every economist agrees with, such as rent control being bad in the long term, keep being proved to be true.
The main problem with economics is that you can't run nation-wide, years-long controlled experiments to test theories the same way you can with sciences. That doesn't make the field worthless, just harder to draw conclusions from.
Sorry for discrediting myself by describing killing a couple hundred thousand people out of a population of 2 million as genocide.
Making up numbers in order to describe something as a genocide is indeed discrediting.
Eager to hear more of your genocide-free strategy of starving them instead and bombing those “meat shields”
Feel free to look at any war in history fought against a nation like Gaza that has declared total war on you (and insists it will never stop). To consider it unsporting - whoops, I meant genocidal - of a nation to not want to send thousands of trucks of supplies to its enemy demonstrates a lack of understanding of how war works or a very particular grudge against Israel.
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
European countries have free speech norms (a non-arbitrary example) yet the fact that psychos will semi-reliably kill you for drawing Mohammed has set a new taboo. Meanwhile, other groups that theoretically have more power have allowed the statues of their great men and icons of their people to get torn down and tabooed even when it makes no sense.
I don't see any coherent throughline in a lot of the things that happen, but they happen anyway because one party imposes its will.
I think these examples misunderstand who actually has power and what they want. The will being imposed here is not that of Muslims in Europe (who would have no recourse if TPTB told them to pack this shit in and actually enforced this) but that of the urban/political elite who gain status by openly deferring to the wishes of violent third-worldists. Broadly speaking, they don't identify with the great men of their history and people.
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
I'm not sure what he wants from Canada. Is fentanyl coming in from Canada?
This is my question. Is he just picking a fight for the sake of it?
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
Iraq absolutely, Afghanistan no, Syria partially. There is an entire chorus of ex-US officials and politicians who privately and publicly admit that Iraq posed no threat to America (geographically this is quite straightforward) but did pose a threat to Israel. I've posted about this in the past: https://www.themotte.org/post/56/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/5090?context=8#context
If forcing regime change were evidence of the ZOG being "literally true", we'd have more examples than Iraq (i.e. Lebanon, Iran, Yemen etc). The US wasn't the only country enthusiastically invading Iraq btw - was Tony Blair's government also owned by Zionists?
In what universe is giving Israel free weapons they use to bomb their neighbours good for the US? Make them pay ridiculously high prices like everyone else!
Israel also buys weapons at high prices from the US. Much of the pressure that Joe Biden was applying to Israel came in the form of withholding deliveries of weapons Israel had already paid for. Like, it's fair to argue the US should provide no aid at all, but this isn't the ZOG.
Consider the Arab Oil Embargo - helping Israel can be very, very costly. The US economy suffered enormous damage. No level-headed analysis of the pros and cons would come out in favour of giving Israel a huge amount of military aid to replace their losses in a war with the Arabs where the Israelis had basically already come out on top, considering the Arabs have a tonne of oil/leverage and the Israelis have none.
The US started supporting Israel after their victory in the six-day war showcased their value as a military power in a region broadly aligned with the Soviets. By the time of the oil embargo keeping Israel on their side during the cold war felt like the right bet to decision makers in the US. You may think they were wrong, but that they thought this was the correct choice seems more plausible than that they were being controlled by a shadowy cabal who had between 67 and 73 achieved total control of the government.
No source that unironically refers to the situation in Gaza as a genocide deserves to be taken seriously (so that throws Pasha's entire contribution in the bin) ETA: I didn't realise at first @Pasha was talking about a hypothetical future scenario, so despite disagreements we clearly have I should acknowledge I misread his original comments .
It seems clear that predictions at the outset that “eliminating” Hamas/Islamism as a force in Gaza was not an achievable goal.
It was eminently achievable. Stop insisting on sending aid that Hamas will hoard. A starving population will turn on it's leaders pretty quick. Allow Israel to bomb Hamas targets even if that means more of their meat-shields die etc. Too many people who matter in the west however didn't want Hamas to be eliminated.
As for what all this means for the future, from my limited understanding of Israeli domestic politics it sounds like the two-state-solution is well and truly dead. Which may well be a good thing for Israel's security, as an independent Palestine would most likely mean having another another lebanon on their border (only less functional and more Jihadist). Best chance now for peace is for Trump to succeed in getting Egypt to resettle all the Palestinians, which unfortunately probably won't happen.
I don't know how it's possible for the word ZOG to be problematized like it's some crazy, loopy theory when in the case of the US, it's literally true.
If the theory is that the US government is "owned" by a shadowy group of people actively prioritising Israeli concerns over those of the US, that is Elders of Zion level crazy. You can certainly argue that certain policy decisions in actuality have favoured Israel over the US, but in almost all cases those carrying them out thought they were the best for the US.
The US is surely the most Zionist state in the world besides Israel, they send billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, they defend Israel directly with airpower, intel, diplomatic support, buying off Israel's neighbours and pursuing regime change in Israel's enemies.
This is sensationalist. Supporting Israel with modest amounts of airpower (they helped shoot some missiles out of the sky, which I'm sure the Israelis appreciated, but it's not as if the USAF was carrying out airstrikes on Beirut), diplomacy and intel (which the US gets massive amounts of from Israel in return) falls under the general category of the sort of thing you do for a close ally. I'm also not sure what you're getting at by suggesting they're defending Israel by buying off their neighbors. Do you think Jordan or Egypt would attack Israel if not for US aid? And do you think the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan (as the only examples of regime change I can think of) were done primarily for Israel's sake?
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
Much like every other website, and especially themotte.org, they post almost exclusively during working hours.
LOL
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
On the other hand, you seem to always just be biding your time until you can unload more sneering at "mayos." I am not fond of people who are only here to shit on the people they hold in contempt, who are just itching to let those people know how much contempt they hold them in.
People say far worse things here about Jews all the time. Not that I'm asking for such posters to be banned but I'm not sure why calling whites "mid" (not a statement I personally endorse) is crossing the line while far more extreme statements about other groups get a pass.
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
But I want to go back to the days when diplomacy was conducted by professionals and genuine experts (not whatever neocon idiot can grease enough palms).
Was there ever such a period, and did it ever produce better results than what we see now?
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
Deranged ranting on Twitter can make you a whole-ass US president
Deranged ranting can make you a national leader generally.
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
That's just how people talk.
Conversationally, sure, but news broadcasts that are going to be seen by millions are carefully scripted beforehand. Substituting the word "Jews" with the the vaguer category of "people" is a deliberate choice that's quite hard to find a good reason for (what would they even gain by being vague about this?) and also one that would have been authorised by a separate person before going on air.
I don't think this is a huge scandal or anything like that, nor do I think the median leftist is going to start claiming tomorrow that no Jews were targeted by the Nazis. But larger trends start with small steps, and I'm interested if that's what we're seeing.
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
Part of the degeneracy is the availability. The median straight 20yo is less degenerate because pussy is less available. Many straight men could be more degenerate if they had lower standards for pussy.
That's exactly my point. I'm not sure how you could separate proclivity for degeneracy from opportunity to be degenerate.
The median straight is less degenerate than the median gay.
Until the above issue is addressed I don't know how this can be established. You could point to guys at pride parades wearing gimp suits, but again I'm not sure there aren't a significant number of straight guys who would engage in equivalently public heterosexual displays if it were socially sanctioned.
Is the progressive left developing it's own form of Holocaust denial?
I came across this video on Twitter where an ITV presenter informs us that:
"Six million people were killed in Nazi concentration camps during the second world war, as well as millions of others because they were Polish, disabled, gay or belonged to another ethnic group".
This reminded me of something similar I saw last year, where then Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf talked for several minutes about the victims of the Holocaust without mentioning the...distinguishing ethnicity of who exactly was most targeted.
The above examples might just be two cases of human error, although I find it hard to imagine how such an oversight could have taken place in the ITV situation. And while this sort of thing stands out less in tweet format, where you don't have many characters to begin with, it still seems strange that Angela Rayner can't find space to mention Jewish victims when Keir Starmer manages to.
Does this point to the emergence of a longer term trend? Despite proportionally being the victims of most hate crimes, Jews are too pale and too successful for the left to care about advocating for (unless it's for the purpose of making dubious claims of fascist sympathies against right-wingers). Given that for many on the progressive left being anti-Nazi is the primary sources of their moral legitimacy, I do wonder if many of them feel the need to find more sympathetic victims of the Holocaust whose future wellbeing they can claim to be the only reliable safe-guarders of.
With the broad racial nature of the progressive coalition, it's also impossible to rule out straightforward antisemitism from many of the far-left's more diverse members. I wouldn't be surprised if the ITV staff member responsible for writing the script was from a Muslim background.
It is of course impossible to divorce this issue from Israel. Despite strenuous claims that anti-Zionism != anti-Semitism (which can technically be true), I imagine that even some committed progressives struggle with the cognitive dissonance of claiming to care about Jewish well-being while simultaneously advocating for the massacring of 50% of their remaining global population. It could well be just too tempting to give up this fig-leaf and instead aim to eventually shift the perception of Jews towards never having been serious victims of oppression in the first place. This comes with the bonus of being able to credibly claim that Israel is the modern day equivalent to Nazi Germany.
Is there something there? Or am I reading too much into a handful of small cases?
ETA: 15 upvotes and 13 downvotes. This is most likely my most polarising post in the short time I've been active here. I wonder what that says.
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
Most of the giants of humanity (Einstein, Tesla, Hawking, any "great person") were white
Classifying Einstein as white is somewhat controversial (at least around these sorts of places)
ZanarkandAbesFan
3mo ago
Another (probably irrelevant) plea for some degree of clemency when it comes to BC, if only because while provocative he adds some interesting ideological diversity IMO. OTOH I recognise that being a mod is a thankless task and you've had to put up with him for longer than I've enjoyed him.
Is there a motte policy on this?
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