this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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A Boring Dystopia
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We can criticize Israel, while condemning Hamas terrorists
And we can make aid to Israel contingent on future improvements on the treatment of Palestinians.
(And prosecute the IDF and Israeli state in international Court for crimes against humanity)
I like this, we should do this, for sure. Nobody can claim it's unfair.
At this point, I would argue that Israel has done more for Hamas PR and popularity than anything in the last 20 years.
I was pissed off at Israel when I learned that we can't have a single-payer Health Care Program because we are too busy funding the one Israel has. Learning how they treat Palestinians just puts a seal on the fuck Israel deal.
Israel is a little bigger in area and population than the SF Bay Area. We don't lack single payer health care because we are paying for Israel's. We don't have it because our government is in the pockets of those who benefit from us not having it.
Oh I understand that, but I do despise the hypocrisy that America Rejects single-payer healthcare claiming that they can't afford it, but they are willing to fund it for people who are not our people. Charity is one thing, but foreign aid should never come at the expense of One's Own people. While I understand the situation is bigger and more complicated than that, and that most foreign aid is just code for funding military operations and bases, it's still irks me that a single Cent is being given out in foreign aid when we have people who are starving and dying on the streets.
I would be all for America first if it actually meant anything outside of a racist dog whistle.
There is absolutely nothing the US does in regards to foreign policy that comes at the expense of accessible healthcare. The US already spends more per capita than any other country.
Because individual purchases (bandages, pills, hospital bed rental) costs over twice as much in the States than it does anywhere else. And those who do afford it get inferior care.
Breaks your heart doesn't it?
The US actually spends more public money on healthcare per capita than almost any other country. And then Americans pay for private insurance on top of it. And for all that, many Americans don't even get healthcare. Contrary to libertarian propaganda, a publicly funded program is more efficient, as are many publicly funded services over their privatized alternatives.
Well obviously, a public refunded program seeks only to fulfill the goals of the program. Meanwhile a private organization is not beholden to customers or workers, but to shareholders
Fun fact: We also built a single-payer system in Iraq.
We can also condem israel for creating this entire situation
Blame the British and the holy scrolls.
the same israel which offered countless peace offers to the Palestinians(which promptly rejected them) or the same israel that literally pulled out of gaza entirely leaving them the full option to make a thriving city state like Singapore, but instead they decided to buy guns and rockets and make everyone's life miserable?
I mean, I suppose if you ignore all history up until like a few weeks ago that makes sense.
Do you think if Hamas dissappear tomorrow, those who throw garbage will stop?
The reverse. If the garbage throwers stopped, if the Israeli state ensured that Palestinians were treated humanely and were ensured civil rights (say in accordance with the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights) then Palestinians would have no need for revolutionary organizations like Hamas or Hezbollah. But so long as the Israeli state disregards the suffering of Palestinians, so long as Israelis are allowed to commit violence against Palestinians, so long as the IDF seeks to massacre Palestinians, there will be need for militants to fight against them, and so Hamas and Hezbollah will find cause and find recruits among the friends and family slain in Israel's name.
The thing is we all know this. This is COIN 101 material from two to four centuries ago. And short of the threat of nuclear holocaust, humans historically are eager to hate more than they are willing to do what is right to create and preserve peace. Netanyahu and the IDF have demonstrated to be no different, even when the US warned them of its own hard-learned lessons in Fallujah. Gaza is proving to be even worse than was predicted.
And why do you think they hate Jews?
Because of how Israelis treat them.
That conflict may have lasted 70 years, but those citizens certainly haven't.
For the last 2500 years, the Jews have been the bad guys. That's why they're worthy of hatred
Speaking of naïve...
The internet has demonstrated the people of seperate nations don't hate each other intrinsically, but are driven to hate by rhetoric and doctrine fueled by precarity or adversity.
Regardless, my prescription comes from classic COIN philosophy, not identity politics propaganda. Besides, if bullies — those with the capacity to decide whether or not to cast garbage on thosr weaker than they — continue tonharm when they choose to stop, it is their behavior that fuels hatred and justifies their reputation.
Plenty of jews are kind and even protest the IDF offensives. But those who toss rubbish on Hebron Palestinians are showing a different character.
It's not black and white.
If the elements of Hamas, namely the promising of death to all Israelites from Palestinians disappeared, then relations would improve and yes the garbage would stop. But it would still be a process that takes time to build trust between the people.
I don't agree with your analogy.
What I said was more along the line of, "America electing a black president is a major step to eliminating racism, and it wouldn't happen overnight." I'd point out that I'm just fixing your analogy, not that I am making that statement.
Part of the systematic change requires one side to not want the complete elimination of the other.
Remind me how did the the reservations in the US go for people like the Osage even after they signed treaties? Oklahoma is still Indian country, right?
You'd have to be braindead to believe that. This is a 70 year ongoing conflict.
Ted Kaczynski made a lot of really solid points, but bombing people, especially civilians, is wrong.
People still cheer for Luke Skywalker though.
Humans are more tribalistic than rational. They pick sides and justify later.
The Death Star was a military installation that had already shown itself to be aggressive with death tolls in the literal billions. Not a fair comparison.
To be fair, Tarkin misused what was clearly a mining tool. Planets are too valuable a resource to blast into high-velocity debris. The Tarkin doctrine only works if Imperial policy is fair to begin with (which it isn't) otherwise it is the reverse of common COIN theory (hearts and minds).
Tarkin behaved stupidly and provoked a terrorist attack that successfully (and spectacularly) disabled a huge Imperial asset.
Yeah I never understood that about star wars, like why are they so keen on blowing up planets. I know that's an incredibly evil thing to do, but what the hell did they get out of it?
I actually like the sequels, but the fact that every threat had to be a planet destroyer, despite the fact that that makes absolutely no fucking sense to anyone trying to establish long-term dominance over a region, just made no fucking sense.
I think Lucas was simply looking for a nuclear analogy or something comparable to the carpet bombing the U S did in Vietnam and Cambodia. It needed to look like it made sense.
That said, the Death Star is easy to retroactively justify. There are plenty of planets / dwarf planets / large rocks that have tasty minerals in their core, and are not otherwise usable for settlement or even an outpost. A super-laser would be a great tool at lower power settings to crack such rocks open to save on drilling, much the way hydraulic fracturing is used today. If the Imperial government is more inclined towards military spending than civilian projects, it then makes sense to sell it as a Mother Of All Lasers wrap it in a mobile space base.
That's how it goes in my headcanon, but like the IMPS videos, the troops are allowed to put sexy nose art on their mechanized armor.
Yeah but the second time it wasn't even finished yet. They were still under construction.
It was pretty clear what the purpose of it was.
And Luke didn't have anything to do with the second Death Star being blown up. That was Lando and Wedge.
EDIT: I guess he helped getting the shield down. They wouldn't have gotten the Ewoks on their side if Luke didn't levitate Threepio.
I'm just saying, a construction job of that magnitude would require a hell of a lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I'll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing.
We can condemn violence, while recognizing that it didn't come about in a total vacuum as people play it up as to paint Palestinians as evil terrorists.
Correct. Hamas is an evil terrorist group that slaughters innocent people and also Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people and need to stop, or be stopped. But not by killing random people, because this isn't the bronze age anymore.
No, seriously - give me a good reason to condemn Hamas. As long as they are the only ones willing to lift a damn finger against a white supremacist settler-colonialist state they will receive no condemnation from me.