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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   21271 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 9, 2023

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Vibe shift?

I lost count of how many anglos, jews and anglo-jews on the center-left/left that, in the past days, had a "Conversion on the road to Damascus", openly admitting on Twitter that their views on the Left were utterly wrong and that they had no idea their side was so full of apologists for jew-slaughter. And I am talking about big figures, including some of the loudest neoliberal mouths, admitting grudgingly that the Right-wing view of academia had some points.

Let's say that this reckoning mood last more than two weeks and the inevitable Israeli reaction on Gaza; It is possible that we are beginning to see a realignement from the upper middle class on immigration in general and on inclusion and diversity in particular?

In my view, there are still some enormous obstacle to shift like these, primarly the enormous influence of academia on journalism and èlites policy and opinion-making in the west, and the machine of the anglo-left working in case of another menace from Trump, that can rapidly rebuild the ranks. Another interesting side of the discourse is what will happen in Europe, where it is true that there are way less Jews, but the Right has way more influence between young and important people. By tasting the environment, almost everyone apart from the aggravated minorities and feminists groups are very, very angry about all of this.

I do not know if it is ok to post this here or in the Gaza thread, if it is wrong I will move it there.

I wonder how Jewish academics are going to handle this. Will they update their believes about their woke colleagues and students, and if so will they work to change hiring and admissions policies?

Many Jewish academics I know are very anti-Israel. I knew one who specifically asked, "Where can I find a pro-Palestinian synagogue?"

Will that not be reevaluated with Hamas being revealed to be the savages the IDF always said they were?

For my part: Islamist Jihadists are assholes, who knew? Sure, kill them, whatever. I don't care.

The collective punishment by a superior force on a group that are not allowed to leave seems bad though.

Do I have suggestions? No. Do I care about that? Also no.
All I can do is point at the latest "collateral damage'd" picture of some western journalist that stopped a stray bullet with their forehead in an empty field or the latest video of a settler executing a Palestinian family while the IDF watches and say "Less of that please".

What "revealed"? Hamas never hid it. The apologetics ranged from "But Israel was worse", "Israel made them do it by oppressing the Palestinians", "Israel had it coming because they oppress the Palestinians", "But what about the settlements?", "mumble mumble Irgun" to "Israel is a sovereign nation and should be held to higher standards", "Israel is a US ally and should be held to higher standards", "Israel is a strong country and should be able to solve all the problems unilaterally without actually using that strength, Hamas is weak and must do what they have to" etc.

Revealed means ‘denial becomes much more difficult verging on impossible’. Agree that the information was always there, but now you don’t need to listen to icky red tribers to hear it.

Hard to say. I have noticed that a lot of "peace" movement people have already started dealing with cognitive dissonance on this point by amping up their focus on Israel's actions.

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