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After our recent discussions about protests by the likes of Just Stop Oil and whether they’re going after the right targets in terms of the disruption they cause, here’s a protest I can really get behind:
Greenpeace protesters drape giant oil-black fabric over Sunak’s mansion
I think it’s a strong image that will capture people’s imaginations and make headlines, and it’s an act which targets the people directly responsible for UK policy – without the PR downside of the negative fallout from members of the public being indiscriminately disrupted.
Well done Greenpeace.
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the new PhilosophyTube video discusses some of the issues around the police that came up here recently, it’s an interesting watch
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On another note, Prigozhin must be one of the dumbest military leaders ever.
So damn true. He should have known that if he didn’t finish what he started a couple of months ago, he was a dead man walking.
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So damn true. He should have known that if he didn’t finish what he started a couple of months ago, he was a dead man walking.
It’s hard to grasp what he was thinking.
Even with calling off the ‘coup’ common sense would say get way out of Dodge, don’t head back into Russia, whatever ‘assurances’ were made.
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So damn true. He should have known that if he didn’t finish what he started a couple of months ago, he was a dead man walking.
It’s hard to grasp what he was thinking.
Even with calling off the ‘coup’ common sense would say get way out of Dodge, don’t head back into Russia, whatever ‘assurances’ were made.
Even going somewhere else would not have guaranteed his safety. Honestly, his only real course was to finish what he started or die trying.
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Even going somewhere else would not have guaranteed his safety.
No definitely not guaranteed, we saw the lengths Putin will go to get his man by sending assassins into the UK.
If it were me though, and Prigozhin had plenty of money, I’d head somewhere very remote and take my chances with that.
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Weird thing is I saw a news report the other day about him being in Niger touting for business for Wagner on behalf of Russia. You’d think they wouldn’t want to kill off the guy spearheading that. Well, you’d think anyone other than Putin wouldn’t.
The News Agents podcast addressed some of this. Wagner is actually just one of many private mercenary armies running out of Russia, the most well known but their thinking is they place a new head on the same body and carry on. Using proxy wars to extract valuable minerals from Africa.
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Apparently the answer to “where the fuck is Nadine Dorries?” is my hometown of Tewkesbury. I had no idea until the other week but she supposedly lives here, rather than anywhere near her constituency. I’ve never seen her around.
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, didn’g know Jon Sopel was so good at very sharp one-liners.
It is a big release that these ex-BBC or other mainstream media peeps can do what they want in the podcast format. Emily Maitliss saying ‘fuck’ is a lot of fun.
I think she likes it more than the other two, she’s first into the swear-mobile.
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Weird thing is I saw a news report the other day about him being in Niger touting for business for Wagner on behalf of Russia. You’d think they wouldn’t want to kill off the guy spearheading that. Well, you’d think anyone other than Putin wouldn’t.
The best bit of analysis I read recently is that we need to stop thinking of Putin as a head of state. We go, “Why would Putin do this?“, on the assumption that he has any interest in doing the right thing for Russia, as you would expect of any other head of state. He’s not a head of state, he’s Vito Corleone. Think of him like that, and everything he does makes more sense.
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He’s not a head of state, he’s Vito Corleone. Think of him like that, and everything he does makes more sense.
Yes. 100%.
The Rest is Politics podcast this week said much the same. The way he removes his opponents could be much, much more subtle but that’s not the aim. Putin is sending messages that insubordination is not acceptable. His opponents have been shot by assassins, poisoned by radioactive materials nobody outside a government would have access to or shot out of the sky by missiles in this case.
If you want to disguise you killed a guy in Salisbury you can knife him, pretend it is a mugging for his iPhone. Irradiating him is sending a message that you don’t have to admit you did it, but you did and don’t fucking mess with me. He behaves like a Mafia boss.
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And I can’t help but wonder if and how “That 90s Show” will address Hyde’s absence.
In a perfect world, they would address it by saying that Hyde became a Scientologist, raped three other Scientologists, and is currently in prison.
But that will never happen…
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“Oh typical Hyde. Always causing trouble”
::Cue laugh from studio audience:::Fade to black:
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That Musk is an evil bastard shouldn’t surprise anyone by now but still he has backers despite contributing directly to people getting killed:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/08/elon-musk-committed-evil-starlink-order-ukraine
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And in All Cops Are Bastards news:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/08/us/mark-dial-eddie-irizarry-shooting-charges/index.html
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Do you have a source for this interview, or is this just a Russian propagandist talking point you’ve picked up from somewhere?
Also, it’s pretty funny that people still call the Jewish Zelensky a Nazi. It’s like people have forgotten what Nazis believe.
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Oh, hold on, is it this?
“All processes are becoming more complicated and slower — from sanctions to the provision of weapons,” Zelensky said in comments published on the presidential website.
“The longer it takes, the more people suffer,” he warned.
Because I can see how that can be twisted to mean “You will all suffer,” if you wanted it to mean that (ie. if you were a Russian looking to spread fake news). It takes a second’s thought to realise he really means that more Ukrainian people will suffer from the protracted war, though.
If it’s not that, then I don’t know where your news comes from, I can’t find anything else remotely relevant.
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And in All Cops Are Bastards news:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/08/us/mark-dial-eddie-irizarry-shooting-charges/index.html
I watched that video the other day, it’s just a straight up execution..I’m sure he’ll get away with it😔.
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https://abcnews.go.com/US/danelo-cavalcante-manhunt-escaped-murderer/story?id=102892278
This was in the news for the past 2 weeks. He escaped doing the “crab walk” up the walls (it’s on video).
When he was on the run, he took a rifle from a garage. He got caught, but the photo op the search party
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Wait a minute…You’re saying the guy that called up an old man and bragged about fucking his granddaughter, isn’t a good dude?!?🤨.
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Do you have a source for this interview, or is this just a Russian propagandist talking point you’ve picked up from somewhere?
Also, it’s pretty funny that people still call the Jewish Zelensky a Nazi. It’s like people have forgotten what Nazis believe.
You know, I’d like you to answer Dave’s posts, Arjan. Not to pile on, but simply so you will have to take another look at the information you’re taking in and where you are getting it. It seems like you have just taken over something from a dubious source and without questioning it spread it around. We all have a responsibility to be more careful in this day and age.
Or maybe there is more to this and there is an actual source that’ll show us that. In this case, it would warrant further examination, too.
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Meanwhile the Brand affair has gone in all the horrible ways you might sadly expect and then some, with the usual and not-so-usual suspects lining up to defend Brand.
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I have a close friend who is strongly anti-authority, or maybe anti-establishment is the better word. Doesn’t trust the police, thinks the government is a bunch of crooks, thinks big business is killing the world for profit, thinks the big tech companies are controlling our lives, etc. And to be honest, I think these are all legitimate opinions, and I can’t condemn anyone for thinking them. I pretty much believe them myself.
The problem is, as soon as you take that position, you’re on a slippery slope. It’s a short step from “big business is evil” to “therefore I’m not using a vaccine that’s been developed by big business purely for profit”, and from “the government is evil” to “and that’s why they protracting the war in Ukraine for their own ends”, and so on.
You get to a point where if you don’t trust _any_ information given to you by authority, the only information you _can_ trust is that written by individuals on social media. Which you can believe because these are free-thinking people, not controlled by the government, who are smart enough to see through the establishment lies.
“I don’t trust what our government tells me about Ukraine because governments are evil. Therefore I trust @freethinker947575 , who does his own research and knows the Ukrainians are Nazis.” (The truth: @freethinker947575’s research consists of reading tweets by Russian bot factories.)
“I don’t trust climate scientists, I only trust @climateskeptic666, who has properly analysed the public-domain data and knows the Earth is not heating up.” (The truth: FFS, analysing data is the bread-and-butter of science, I think some of the 10,000 scientists working in this area would have realised that they’re not accounting for that one key variable that this one lone genius @climateskeptic666 claims to have discovered.)
The problem is, these positions are very hard to argue against. It’s built into the position that any counter-evidence comes from the people who are “known” to be corrupt liars, so you can’t use it to persuade the person otherwise. It’s like trying to convince a fundamentalist Christian that the Bible is wrong. The very nature of their position prevents them believing anything you say that contradicts the Bible.
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You also have to be able to identify your own biases and make sure you are looking as information as objectively as you can.
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Exactly this. Like it’s fine to not trust authority, but without an underlying ideology it becomes little more than contrarianism and you’re vulnerable to radicalisation.
Yes and what’s also quite clear is the ‘alternative’ option (I have an old work colleague that posts this stuff out all day) is strangely a collection of a menu of indentikit views.
I see very few people (actually I do know one single person on Twitter, who leans left but challenges some assumptions) who doesn’t embrace a package of takes and actually challenges anything much. The gender critical also defend Brand and also attacks Ukraine and also don’t like 20mph urban speed limits. While sold as ‘questioning the mainstream’ it seems to be just another package of beliefs. We can never have any nuance. Is anyone pro trans and also slower speed limits? It doesn’t look like it even though the subjects are completely disconnected.
I heard a great interview today with Naomi Klein in her book ‘Doppelganger’ where people confuse her with Naomi Wolf who has shifted from a noted feminist to a radical right wing voice on Steve Bannon podcasts. She points out she doesn’t hate Wolf, has a lot of sympathy that she was rather humiliated in a 2019 BBC interview where she had misunderstood a 19th century oddity of wording that suggested a death sentence. It kind of shafted her credibility with her usual audience so she went for the ‘far right’ package.
Yet Klein was one of the first to point out the big pharma con in her books and also agrees Pfizer made huge profits from the Covid emergency but that also doesn’t mean wearing a mask to protect yourself (or loved ones) is silly. That nobody is critical of the idea that Soros and Murdoch pay money to amplify their views via lobbying and media because they are rich. Just that they embrace one or the other completely.
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I am really looking forward to Klein’s new book.
You also have to be able to identify your own biases and make sure you are looking as information as objectively as you can.
On this point, my brother and his partner are deep into a twitter radicalisation spiral and she told me that it’s important to be self-critical in your beliefs and I managed to not explode or laugh in her face, which was an amazing use of willpower, let me tell you.
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Block ads on your networks now.
The system designed to follow us around the net with ads is now a blinking national security & human rights threat.
By @omerbenj https://t.co/OJaQnZ9gs4 pic.twitter.com/PEi8ITFA2n
— John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton) September 14, 2023
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Now this is an example of a “scare-mongering” story that appears to be true, but also — so what? Yes, this is disturbing, but it’s also not really news. Worms and spyware are as old as the Internet itself, and we have decades of reliable evidence that our governments are spying on us by multiple means. This isn’t a shocking expose of a conspiracy, it’s more of a “well duh” :D
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Speaking of sketchy tech: Elon Musk Floats Plan To Charge “Small Monthly” Payment For Anyone To Use X, Formerly Known As Twitter
Elon Musk said that X, formerly known as Twitter, is moving to a “small monthly payment system” because “it’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.”
In a discussion Monday with Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Musk suggested that it would be a lower-tier pricing structure than its $8-per-month Twitter Blue, its premium subscription service.
“We’re wanting it to be just a small amount of money,” Musk said. “It’s a longer discussion, but in my view this is the only defense against vast armies of bots, because as AI gets very, very good, it’s actually able to pass these sort of CAPTCHA tests better than humans.”
Musk has long complained about X/Twitter’s battle against bots, but he’s also reportedly considered putting the social media platform behind a paywall since shortly after he purchased it last year.
His statements also come as the company grapples with a loss of ad revenue. Musk wrote in July that the company had seen a nearly 50% drop in ad revenue plus a heavy debt load.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, urged Musk to try to roll back antisemitism on his platform. “It doesn’t stop you from coming out as you have in every possible forum and condemn antisemitism,” he said.
Last month, Musk threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League, claiming it was making “unfounded accusations” that antisemitism was being allowed to spread on the platform as Musk has reinstated accounts. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told CNN that “what’s alarming is the rise of antisemitism across the country. Like, we’ve got to see the big picture here. Literally, anti-Jewish acts have reached historic levels in the United States. The highest number we’ve seen in 40-some-odd years of tracking it.”
In his interview with Netanyahu, Musk said that “free speech at times means that somebody you don’t like is saying something you don’t like. If you don’t have that, then it’s not free speech. That doesn’t mean some sort of negativity should be pushed upon people, because for the X platform, unless it is interesting, entertaining, engaging, then we will lose users. People will not want to use our system if they find it to be unpleasant.”
Netanyahu asked Musk if it was possible to prevent the use of bots “so at least if you get a crazy guy and a hateful guy, let him be speaking for one voice rather than an army of fake millions.”
“Absolutely,” Musk said.
Bots. Uh huh. Sure. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the huge amount of debt you foisted on the company. Absolutely nothing.
Really though, people are leaving Xitter in droves and this would probably push it to complete collapse. Musk is a fucking idiot.
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Now he is in court regarding the charges that he defrauded lenders by
over valuing his properties, exaggerating by 3.6B. He stands to lose a LOT1 user thanked author for this post.
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Now Israel seems to have its 911. Interesting to see how they’ll react.
Some lefties on twitter are cheering on Hamas kidnapping and raping grannies. No doubt these goblins want to see the same in Europe, killing some random whitey for being bad colonizers.
Exactly how many grannies have been kidnapped and raped?
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Arjan, seriously, you need to get off Twitter and never go back. It was never a great place to begin with and they did try to course-correct but since Musk took over and let the trash back in, it has gone full Mos Eisley. It is not worth the aggravation and reading blatant lies. It is pretty much a dumping ground for misinformation and disinformation by governments and radicalized groups. It is a highly toxic place.
Go to Instagram and curate your feed for cute animals, beautiful vistas, and silly memes. It will make you feel so much better. I have done that with my IG account and I look foward to seeing what silly and interesting stuff will come up.
If you want to get pretty unbiased news, here are some good sources:
– The Factual (https://www.thefactual.com/news): While they use aggregated news stories, they show how biased the source is and which way it leans. You know upfront what you are getting.
– 1440 (https://join1440.com/): A daily email newsletter that is edited to be as unbiased as it can be. It gives you the day’s top stories and links to the source material.
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What’s going on in Israel is obviously horrible, and it’s only going to get worse.
Now Israel seems to have its 911. Interesting to see how they’ll react.
I would worry that this will allow Netanyahu to turn Israel into an even more authoritarian/militaristic state, but it’s not like he was having much trouble doing this anyway.
The 260 killed (and the others kidnapped) are a particularly horrible detail. It’s just too easy to imagine yourself in a place like this (or your kids).
But I don’t even want to imagine how bad things are going to get for the people living in Gaza.
On Sunday afternoon waves of Israeli jets were carrying out “intense” strikes on targets in Gaza. Dozens of Israeli armoured vehicles and tanks were heading towards Gaza, suggesting preparations were under way for a ground offensive.
In a televised address on Saturday night, Netanyahu said the Israeli military would use all of its strength to destroy Hamas’s capabilities in response.
“Get out of there now,” he told people in Gaza, who have no way to leave the tiny, overcrowded Mediterranean territory.
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Yeah it’s one of those situations where the reaction is just dismay that all of this is happening (with horrendous actions being taken on both sides) combined with concern as to how it’s going to escalate in the coming days, given the power imbalance and the current Israeli leadership.
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Yeah, it’ll just get worse in every way for everybody. But it’s not like there was any hope things would get better for the people in Palestine, with the way Israel has been going.
It is difficult for me to not just shut down when it comes to Israel/Palestine and stop even paying attention to what is going on. That situation has just kept going down the same terrible road ever since Rabin was assassinated and Netanyahu first got into power. There haven’t been any good news out of that region since 1995, just fighting and suffering, and it doesn’t seem like that’s ever going to change. This time it was Israelis. Tomorrow it will be Palestinians, and then more and more and more Palestinians. And then it’ll all repeat.
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I did see one commentator say this whole situation makes Netanyahu look especially bad and may even weaken his position. He has been talking about how he’s made Israel stronger and safer and now this attack has shown it wasn’t true.
This also makes Mossad look incompetent, and that is not a look they want to project.
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And so, in order to salve their wounded pride, they’ll kill even more Palestinians than they already have. And, as usual, the language used by Israeli politicians echoes their would-be exterminators of decades past.
Israel controls Gaza to a near absolute degree – drones everywhere, numerous informers, they dictate the food, water and power supply.. Yet Hamas was still able to put together their coordinated strike.
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I do wonder if Israel did receive some intelligence and dismissed it as they didn’t think that level of attack was actually feasible. I can see intelligence agencies around the world sifting through their data a little bit harder to make sure they don’t get caught unawares like that.
I can imagine that once Netanyahu secures Gaza as best he can, he’ll want to go after Iran. If that’s the case, I hope someone can talk him off that ledge.
Welcome to the shitshow.
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“Secure Gaza” = “kill everyone in it”.
As the world’s most restrained military is bombing the area with white phosphorus.
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Wow, who knew?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/09/x-twitter-elon-musk-disinformation-israel-hamas
“X’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict has come under scrutiny after a “deluge” of fake posts and Elon Musk’s recommendation of war coverage from accounts that have made false claims or anti-semitic comments.
The owner of X, formerly Twitter, recommended two accounts on Sunday. He wrote: “For following the war in real-time, @WarMonitors and @sentdefender are good. It is also worth following direct sources on the ground. Please add interesting options in the replies below.”
The @WarMonitors account told a user in June “go worship a jew lil bro” while both accounts helped to spread a false claim in May that an explosion had occurred at the Pentagon. Emerson T Brooking, a researcher at the Atlantic Council’s digital forensic research lab, said the @sentdefender account regularly posted “wrong and unverifiable things”.
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Wow, who knew?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/09/x-twitter-elon-musk-disinformation-israel-hamas
“X’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict has come under scrutiny after a “deluge” of fake posts and Elon Musk’s recommendation of war coverage from accounts that have made false claims or anti-semitic comments.
The owner of X, formerly Twitter, recommended two accounts on Sunday. He wrote: “For following the war in real-time, @WarMonitors and @sentdefender are good. It is also worth following direct sources on the ground. Please add interesting options in the replies below.”
The @WarMonitors account told a user in June “go worship a jew lil bro” while both accounts helped to spread a false claim in May that an explosion had occurred at the Pentagon. Emerson T Brooking, a researcher at the Atlantic Council’s digital forensic research lab, said the @sentdefender account regularly posted “wrong and unverifiable things”.
Arjan – This goes to what I said above. Stay away from TwitterX.
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And, if you do use X, never look at the For You tab, stick to Following, it’ll cut the amount of crap you see.
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And even then, you may want to review (and possibly rethink) who you follow. Some people who were once sane have lost their damn mind. It is also especially bad now as the blue check system has been compromised due to Musk’s stupidity. Many people refused to pay for them and bad actors paid to create “verified” fake accounts.
TwitterX is really not a good place to be now.
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I did see one commentator say this whole situation makes Netanyahu look especially bad and may even weaken his position. He has been talking about how he’s made Israel stronger and safer and now this attack has shown it wasn’t true.
This also makes Mossad look incompetent, and that is not a look they want to project.
That may be true, but like Ben says, if Netanyahu has been made to look weak, the only reaction we can expect from him is extreme violence. And the state of war will probably ensure a seventh term for him and Likud.
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Reminder we’re in a very long war with Islam that goes back to the 7th century.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-765304
edit: eh article doesn’t seem to work. Anyway it’s a Hamas leader saying Israel is only the first step, they will rule the whole world. Not saying every Muslim is an enemy or anything, but there is a definite agenda by some to extend their rule worldwide.
Well, at least you’ve gone mask off on one of your bigotries now
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You can easily find any religious hardline fuckwit – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu – willing to advocate crap that is opposed to the religion they profess allegiance to.
Quit doomscrolling Arjan, it’s no good for you.
The whole “clash of civilisations” bollocks has been doing the rounds since 2001.
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The whole “clash of civilisations” bollocks has been doing the rounds since 2001.
Oh, it predates that by a long way.
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The whole “clash of civilisations” bollocks has been doing the rounds since 2001.
Oh, it predates that by a long way.
Remember the Crusades and the Inquisition? Man, those were the days!
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Eh, you’re all wrong, but whatever.
A compelling counter-argument, to be sure.
I’ll tell you this, as much as I hate any Hamas cunt and little smelly Western shit for brains that supports them, my hatred for the current Israeli leadership is at least equal. Fucking warmongers.
And yet, you’ve never once spoken out on here about Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
As with the Ukraine conflict, blessed are the peacemakers.
Another conflict where you align with the side that has overwhelming military power while demonising the smaller side.
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So, in a turn of events that should shock nobody, the Israeli government has begun to admit that the most shocking and extreme atrocities attributed to Hamas in their attack did not in fact happen. Not until after western leaders including Joe Biden claimed to have seen non-existent photographs of beheaded children.
At the same time they’ve engaged in collective punishment – a war crime. They’ve cut off power to the people of Gaza – a war crime. We have credible reports of White Phosphorous being dropped on Gaza – A FUCKING WAR CRIME. When asked “what about the Palestinian people in hospital on life support and children in incubators who will die as a result of the power cuts”, former Israeli PM Natali Bennett responded with “Are you seriously asking me about Palestinian civilians? What’s wrong with you?” Kier Starmer, allegedly a human rights lawyer has said that Israel are fully justified in their actions.
I’m not going to try and defend Hamas’ actions. They are clearly reprehensible, but they are also the actions of a people who are cornered and desperate. You cannot take their actions in isolation, you have to account for why they act.
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So, in a turn of events that should shock nobody, the Israeli government has begun to admit that the most shocking and extreme atrocities attributed to Hamas in their attack did not in fact happen. Not until after western leaders including Joe Biden claimed to have seen non-existent photographs of beheaded children.
Yeah, unfortunately with the way things are you have to be somewhat sceptical around some of the specific claims being thrown around, regardless of the fact that what is happening is still horrific.
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I’m not going to try and defend Hamas’ actions. They are clearly reprehensible, but they are also the actions of a people who are cornered and desperate. You cannot take their actions in isolation, you have to account for why they act.
You don’t even have to do that, as far as Hamas are concerned. They can go to hell. But this is about the civilians living in Gaza. Yes, sure, I can understand why emotionally the Israeli people don’t give a shit right now, after seeing the images of Hamas celebrating their slaughter in the streets of Gaza. But that’s the same reason why Hamas don’t hesitate to kill Israeli civilians, either. By ruthlessly killing civilians in Gaza, Israel is currently ensuring the recruitment for Hamas and Hisbollah and so on for the next decades.
Politicians and journalists internationally should be able to see the difference between Hamas and the people of Palestine whose punishment right now is no less brutal than the original attacks. And right now it doesn’t seem like that, but rather like the only way to support Israel is to support their committing war crimes against innocent people. But even hinting at that perspective is going to get you shouted down right now.
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It’s gone even more fucked up now:
Israel to Gazans: LEAVE!
Hamas to Gazans: STAY!
Gazans: What the fuck are we supposed to do?
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You don’t even have to do that, as far as Hamas are concerned. They can go to hell.
They are essentially a death cult. What they did would be the equivalent of a handful of us idiots breaking into an army barracks and hitting the sleeping soldiers with soap in socks. There is no other outcome than you will get fucked up. It’s not just suicide run for their fighters but thousands of their citizens.
This is just a downward cycle of shit with all responsible as they gave up on peace talks in the 90s.
Having been to Israel/Palestine (and I use the combined nomenclature there as when you travel around it is is hard to know which ‘state’ you are in) it’s a very strange place of contrasts.
It is underestimated how much the ‘settlers’ are religious fanatics. There is no logic to their actions, the country is split between the verdant Mediterranean side and the harsh and dry western bank. I went to Haifa, a lovely coastal city with a roundabout just outside that had a Jewish menorah, Christian Christmas tree and an Islamic crescent on it. Everyone just got on with their lives in a mixed society. They could do that across the whole area but they don’t want to. No normal person would move from there to a fucking desert area with threat of harm every day unless they are making some stupid point.
It’s so frustrating to watch again and again taking the path of hate and violence over what could relatively easily be space for everyone.
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The video is two years old but provides a great summary of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
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What is frustrating for all is there is a relatively easy solution to this really. Like I said the West Bank is not desirable territory, it’s mostly a desert and has no resources of any note. Nobody here would choose to live there. The water from the Dead Sea and Sea of Galilee is being sucked dry, the reserves lowering every year.
A two state solution would leave Israel with the nice bits and Palestinians accepting rule over what is left. The Gazans are more extreme because they live in more extreme circumstances. One begets the other and there is no security method that can ever make people safe over thawing of relations. In Northern Ireland they had fences, they had watchtowers, they had roadblocks and tanks on the street – they had more violence than when they removed them after talks.
You can’t provide security via strict controls, there is no precedent for it. The more desperate they make the lives of people in the Gaza strip the less they’ll care about repercussions. It’s a vicious cycle. One violent act produces the next.
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It also shows Northern Ireland deserves more credit for the Good Friday agreement. It didn’t solve everything, how could it? But it reduced the violence and held despite the Omagh bombing a few months later. In the face of politicians being stupidly dangerously cavalier for the last few years, it remains just about intact.
Enough people decided they didn’t want to keep it going then, nor now. Yet transfer this and render through an Israel-Palestine lens? Impossible to uphold conditions would have been applied and it would have gone up in smoke in less than six months.
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It also shows Northern Ireland deserves more credit for the Good Friday agreement. It didn’t solve everything, how could it? But it reduced the violence and held despite the Omagh bombing a few months later. In the face of politicians being stupidly dangerously cavalier for the last few years, it remains just about intact.
Enough people decided they didn’t want to keep it going then, nor now. Yet transfer this and render through an Israel-Palestine lens? Impossible to uphold conditions would have been applied and it would have gone up in smoke in less than six months.
Yeah, and the Real IRA were basically hoping that Omagh would reignite the fighting, that it’d spur the INLA or one of the hardcore Loyalist groups to retaliate with even greater force. They didn’t count on how tired everyone else was and how appealing peace was.
The Real IRA are still around, they merged with a number of other Republican groups in 2012 forming the New IRA and continue to engage in terrorist acts, this year they shot a senior PSNI Detective (he survived), and attempted to set off a bomb during Joe Biden’s visit to Belfast
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“We'll find the Jews here, we want the Zionists, we want their BLOOD!” London today. Everything is about to change in the West. pic.twitter.com/KxImueGoQe
— Stephen Chavura (@ChavuraStephen) October 13, 2023
Incredible that this is allowed. (Community notes says this is from 2 years ago, but that’s not relevant)
You’re literally supporting genocide right now Arjan, come off your high horse.
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Incredible that this is allowed. (Community notes says this is from 2 years ago, but that’s not relevant)
Arjan, the Twitter algorithms are currently obviously shooting this kind of stuff towards you 24/7. As others have said before, you need to get off this.
Yes, islamism and anti-semitism have been a problem in many countries. That is not news.
Yes, in the wake of the current attacks, it’s been a challenge as to how to encounter demonstrations in support of Palestine, especially as they may escalate towards anti-semitic hate.But if you’re digesting a steady diet of every incident of Arabic anti-semitism right now, and exclusively that, it’ll drive you crazy because you’re getting a skewed picture and you’ll start to mistake radicals for basically every muslim or Arab out there. And remember that on the other hand, there is also a long history of peaceful protest in Western countries against Israeli discrimination and violence against the Palestinian people. And the vast majority of those protests didn’t spin into anti-semitic chants and violence, even though they were often in the wake of devastating attacks that killed hundreds of people in the Gaza strip. Whereas on the other hand…
JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of Jewish nationalists, some of them chanting “Death to Arabs” and other racist slogans, paraded on Thursday through the main Palestinian thoroughfare of Jerusalem’s Old City, in an annual display that caused new friction between Jews and Palestinians in the tense city.
The marchers, who were overwhelmingly male Orthodox teens and young men, were celebrating “Jerusalem Day,” which marks Israel’s capture of the Old City 56 years ago. The Palestinians see the event as a provocation. Two years ago, the parade helped fuel an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
Throughout the afternoon, dozens of groups hoisting blue and white Israeli flags streamed through Damascus Gate – the entry to the area’s Muslim Quarter – as they made their way across the Old City to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray. The area is normally bustling on Thursday afternoons with Palestinians doing their errands ahead of the weekend.
The boisterous crowds danced and chanted Jewish religious songs outside Damascus Gate as scores of Israeli police stood guard. In several cases, groups chanted slogans such as “Death to Arabs,” “Mohammed is Dead” and “May Your Village Burn” as they stared at Palestinian onlookers. Some of the youths wore clothing identifying themselves as members of Lehava – a far-right Jewish supremacist group that opposes assimilation or romantic relationships between Jews and Palestinians.
And the point isn’t whataboutism here, but rather that you’re currently being convinced that one party in this war is the innocent attackee while the other is the unprovoked attacker. And the thing is that Arab media paint the whole thing the other way around.
It is important that at least observers who aren’t directly involved in this conflict recognise that this is a situation in which both parties regularly attack the other one and where there are large segments of their society that would like to just wipe out the other side in a genocide.
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It’s the barest glimmer of hope amidst a lot of terrible crap, but the pushback against Israel’s actions, including a good few Jewish groups, along with what looks to be increased media savinness, is encouraging. There seems to be more scrutiny and challenge of the narrative Israel wants to stick. Don’t recall seeing this happen before and certainly not so fast.
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The video is two years old but provides a great summary of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Good video. Also:
What is the narrative of this situation in the media outside the US? Is it “good guys vs. bad guys”?
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The politicians are definitely being very reductive in claiming Israel can do anything it likes, but the media reception is a bit more mixed, with Israel’s narrative being challenged due to how their actions are punishing everyone in Gaza. There was also a major march in London over the weekend.
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Yeah, in Ireland the commentary from the pundit class and politicians outside of our left wing has been condemnation of Hamas and and meekly asking Israel to kill fewer people, pweeeese. But Ireland has a long history of solidarity and support for the people of Palestine – like BDS is almost a default position here once you go vaguely left of centre, it’s nowhere near as controversial as in the US or UK. So most people are supportive of the people of Palestine in general.
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The politicians are definitely being very reductive in claiming Israel can do anything it likes, but the media reception is a bit more mixed, with Israel’s narrative being challenged due to how their actions are punishing everyone in Gaza. There was also a major march in London over the weekend.
I’m amazed that protest was even acknowledged on the TV news.
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McDonalds Israel donated to the IDF, and in return, McDonalds Oman donated to Gaza. Corporations are fighting proxy wars with themselves. I love living in the future so much
— Basil☀️ (@LinkofSunshine) October 14, 2023
Corporations talking out both sides of their mouth is nothing new. They will publicly support left-wing causes in their marketing yet make campaign contributions to far right candidates who are against everything they are advertising.
But you are assuming that that tweet is true. The fact that you are still getting your information from TwitterX shows that you only want information that confirms your bias. It was always sketchy to begin with but since Musk took over, he has fired fact-checkers, allowed banned people back, changing how news links are presented, and changed the verification to a pay process, anything posted there purporting to be news should not be trusted at all. Using TwitterX as your source means your evidence is highly dubious. I personally ignore claims made on that site. I have given you some sources that are reliable.
Seriously, using TwitterX does not help the credibility of your arguments.
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And just to take things to an even worse place, in Chicago:
- A 71 year old man attacked a kid and a woman, presumably, his mother for being Muslims
- He stabbed the six-year old child 26 times!
- And the woman 12 times.
There’s no words for this.
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