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The dishonesty I'm referring to is the denial in the article that there is a political element to it and that it is the same as the kids on milk cartons. It is simply a lie to claim that they expect Californians to assist in the recovery efforts by helping a kidnapped Israeli that they encounter in SF or such.
And I do believe that a lot of what people communicate about 'issues' is biased and is intended to advance an agenda, even if they do not consciously see it as propaganda, but just believe (or 'believe'*) that their very biased views are just correct.
* Lots of people seem to suddenly believe different things than what they initially say, or put on posters, if you question them a little.
I interpreted that differently. The author doesn't say they expect Californians to assist in the recovery effort of kidnapped Israelis, the comparison to milk cartons is that the posters are just as "anodyne". The author says there is "no mention of politics" but I agree that putting up the posters is itself a political act and totally agree that it's driven by an agenda. I see the posters of kidnapped Israelis akin to a memorial of sorts, very similar to the "missing" posters of 9/11 victims. There is no indication that the posters could ever help recover a 9/11 victim from the rubble, but they're likely put up as a way to remember someone lost, and maybe remind the public of the significance of the event.
If someone claimed posters of Israelis posted in Brooklyn somehow helped rescue efforts, I would agree with you that they're dishonest. But if they claimed it was to bring attention to an issue, then I don't see the dishonesty.
I still don't consider it a believable explanation. Memorials have a fairly standard ritual, involving a shrine in a public space where people can go to light candles, leave flowers, wreaths, leave pictures, put up signs, etc. Very often, the shrine is placed at the place of death or a park. I'm sure that you've seen that kind of thing often enough in the news or real life.
It seems pretty clear to me that those aren't memorials, but attempts to find missing people. That is why you put up posters all over the place, or on milk cartons, to find missing people.
I disagree and believe that these were genuine attempts (aside from the handwritten sentence on the wall, which seems more like a prayer to god, and the actual shrine in the last picture that probably had no call to find the person, although the entire shrine is not visible). It seems very common for people to have trouble accepting a sudden death without a body as proof. Denial is one of the stages of grief after all. Arguing that people could not feel this way due to rational fact ignores that feelings do not obey reason.
The common cliche in Hollywood where a supposed death where it is not beyond any doubt that the person actually died, is typically a fake out, may also influence how people react.
The link you gave tells us that one such poster stated: "Please help bring them home alive." So the poster seems to match your criteria for dishonesty, because there apparently was an expectation that people would spring into action to help the rescue efforts. The only plausible way in which Americans could do this are all highly political, one way or the other (pushing for continuing the war, to trade prisoners, to make peace, to abolish Israel, or praying for Jesus coming back to earth, etc). I suspect that the people tearing down the posters make assumptions about what the desired means is of liberating the Israeli kidnappees, if only by what is left off from the posters, which is any mention of Palestinian victims.
At the very least, I consider it unsurprising that if a conflict involves Palestinian and Israeli victims, and someone sufficiently cares about Palestinian victims, they get upset over posters that only name Israeli victims. It can be true that this means that they don't care about Israeli victims, but it can for example also mean that they consider each life equally valuable, especially if they can count. It is not necessarily bias against Israelis when one considers the ongoing killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians of more importance than saving up to 240 people (depending on when the posters went up, the number may be considerably lower). And people can of course also be upset by a disparity in attention in general and it may thus trigger an already existing dissatisfaction with perceived unfairness. I'm sure that as a member of this forum you are familiar with people upset over biases in (sub)cultures or in the media, and perhaps becoming rather eager to interpret new evidence in that light.
In any case, I remain of the belief that your statement that the only plausible explanation for anger at the posters is a Manichean view specifically involving an oppressor/oppressed dynamic, does not speak well about your epistemology, at least on this topic.
Sure, this happens regularly for many issues and it's not a response I respect as it stems from the same cognitive dissonance aversion. If a pro-Israeli activist was tearing down posters relaying the plight of Palestinian people, I would similarly decry them as similarly motivated. You're reading into the actions of the people who tear down the posters and providing your own explanation for their behavior but even assuming your explanation is true, "upset at attention disparity" is a loathsome emotional motivator no matter what issue it's applied to. What would be more fitting is hearing from the people tearing down the posters directly, and the only explanations I encountered were either delusional (paraphrasing: "this is all lies, no one was kidnapped") or vague objections about how the posters are not "helpful". This is how censors act when they encounter facts inconvenient to their preferred narrative they don't want anyone else to know about, and I'll never respect that mission.
And again, I fully agree that the posters are a political act, and that they are driven by an agenda, and that they provide no practical assistance towards rescue efforts except as a political call to action.
You were the one claiming that only your singular explanation was possible. I'm not claiming that my explanation is right, just that is another viable explanation.
You're right, it was unfair of me to criticize you for doing the same thing I did.
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