Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 289

Fuck Israel and "siding" with either side. Bottom line, both sides are fighting for idiotic reasons and need to stop the violence/destruction. Israel is causing way more damage to Palestinians than the other way around and simply perpetuating a cycle of hated.

On May 17 2021 02:48 ggplz wrote: Fuck Israel and "siding" with either side. Bottom line, both sides are fighting for idiotic reasons and need to stop the violence/destruction. Israel is causing way more damage to Palestinians than the other way around and simply perpetuating a cycle of hated.

"Both" sides? PLO/West bank did not do doing anything for years against Israel and Israel did not have any major strikes against them. Only the islamic terrorist group Hamas again and again and again...

Israel/PLO even cooperate on a lot of areas, like educating their police force and security. Right now it seems that PLO/Hamas are bigger enemies than PLO/Israel.

I would say there are 3 sides in this conflict now.

So what started these recent attacks? Did Hamas launch attacks into Israel followed by Israel evicting Palestinians from their homes because of the settlers, or was it the other way around?

This is a complex conflict and I don't want to simplify it. There certainly are no easy solutions. Where to retract borders to, what concessions to make, all that is really difficult and there are 'bad actors' on both sides etc. But the one thing that has to stop before any other steps can be taken is that the settlement policy has to end. The settlers are the one group that can't in any way be described as a reaction to something else - they are always the instigators.

There are a few easy solutions actually. You'd be surprised at how easy some of the solutions are to complex conflicts. For example, one of them is that countries like (the US), can stop selling arms to Israel. It's really not hard to do. Just don't sell weapons! SIPRI has now made a search database that allows you to search for all arms sold/bought from nation to nation, quite a useful tool that people can use.

On May 17 2021 19:43 Stroggoz wrote: There are a few easy solutions actually. You'd be surprised at how easy some of the solutions are to complex conflicts. For example, one of them is that countries like (the US), can stop selling arms to Israel. It's really not hard to do. Just don't sell weapons! SIPRI has now made a search database that allows you to search for all arms sold/bought from nation to nation, quite a useful tool that people can use.

So your solution is to disarm Israel? I believe this is called the Final Solution. Hitler approves.

On May 17 2021 22:37 blackjacki2 wrote: Show nested quote + On May 17 2021 19:43 Stroggoz wrote: There are a few easy solutions actually. You'd be surprised at how easy some of the solutions are to complex conflicts. For example, one of them is that countries like (the US), can stop selling arms to Israel. It's really not hard to do. Just don't sell weapons! SIPRI has now made a search database that allows you to search for all arms sold/bought from nation to nation, quite a useful tool that people can use. So your solution is to disarm Israel? I believe this is called the Final Solution. Hitler approves.

Not completely disarm, just reduce to the level where there is a balance of power. They already have shitloads of weapons, and nukes, which is more than enough for deterrence. So yes, it is a good solution. Another one would be for them to follow international law but I guess that's a bit like saying let's have world peace. My own view is that arms sales should only ever be done to help a nation with deterrence. It's almost always the opposite in reality.

There's a direct correlation between selling arms to nations and its ability to commit aggression abroad. Other examples include Indonesia which has terrorized neighboring islands, and Saudi Arabia which are sold more arms than anyone else iirc, which allowed them to invade Yemen. And Russia's support of Syria has allowed them to crush the population for years.

https://armstrade.sipri.org/armstrade/page/trade_register.php This tool is the one I am talking about.

I mean I agree with that but I don't see a balance of power between Israel (and who? 'The arab world'? Iran? Palestine?) solving the greater question of 'where should we draw the borders'. My understanding is that allowing for the zionist landgrab after ww2 was a mistake - but that's 70 years ago, the people involved in that are dead. In the past I've been supportive of reverting back to 1967 status, but I mean, that's already 2 generations ago. Israel ending the settlements is a solution to the escalation of problems. Partially disarming Israel ends their ability to strongarm Palestine/neighboring countries, but it doesn't solve the greater issue of who should live where.

Basically letting either side 'win' isn't an option - Israel 'winning' is what it currently looks like, and it's abhorrent. Israel 'losing' prolly wouldn't be any prettier, we'd just see a different set of victims.. Finding a compromise both sides are happy with seems fairly impossible. But yes, there are things we can do to stop the escalation of the conflict. And here, I hold Israel far more responsible than Palestine.

Well, it's very hard to invade a country and completely subjugate it, you need a massive military advantage. it's not a reality that any country would invade Israel, but if that were a possibility in some scenario, the country would only require a tiny fraction of the arms they currently have. NK has a more than enough and their military is very weak.

I did not mean it to be a complete solution, it's just something that would drastically reduce the amount of ongoing suffering in Gaza. Political solutions are almost always a continuum of smaller solutions and improvements that add up over time. I haven't invested any time into this conflict so I couldn't say
anything about the borders.

It really is quite amazing how easy it is to reduce some huge amount of suffering on many political problems though. I constantly face skepticism and resistance to this extremely obvious fact.

It's one of the most standard geopolitical theories that has proven to be right in practice. When opposite factions are equal in arms power they de-escalate their aggression greatly. Bismarck was one of the first ones to notice that and is probably the first leader that started decreasing Germany's military power to not provoke conflict. (In reality countries race to arms though, rather than decrease it)

That's why I'm 'pro' Iran having a nuke, that whole region will cool off. The arguments of Iran not having a nuke are weak as fuck. For example, a much more 'savage' country like Pakistan has nukes and they are in constant conflict with India yet it has all de-escalated.

Unfortunately, this is the reality we live in and de-arming is not realistic. I'm all for completely destroying all nukes across the planet, but you know how that will end...

On May 19 2021 08:13 Spitfiree wrote: It's one of the most standard geopolitical theories that has proven to be right in practice. When opposite factions are equal in arms power they de-escalate their aggression greatly. Bismarck was one of the first ones to notice that and is probably the first leader that started decreasing Germany's military power to not provoke conflict. (In reality countries race to arms though, rather than decrease it) That's why I'm 'pro' Iran having a nuke, that whole region will cool off. The arguments of Iran not having a nuke are weak as fuck. For example, a much more 'savage' country like Pakistan has nukes and they are in constant conflict with India yet it has all de-escalated. Unfortunately, this is the reality we live in and de-arming is not realistic. I'm all for completely destroying all nukes across the planet, but you know how that will end...

I agree that Iran and the other weaker nations that have nukes would have the strongest moral justification for them, but I still don't think there is a justification, because places like Iran/NK still have deterrence without nuclear weapons, and by having nuclear weapons they are furthering the risk of nuclear war.

The public doesn't really understand anything about the risks of nuclear war, it's a lot higher than people think imo. There are many military officers that have the authority to launch a nuclear war. Even in Pakistan, military officers who have oversight of these weapons are allowed to launch nuclear weapons without authority from the president. Roughly there are hundreds or perhaps thousands of people with their finger on the big red button. So, realistically on a long enough timeline there will be a nuclear war if it continues this way, imo. Diplomacy towards bringing back the nuclear arms agreements like INF would be a nice step towards international co-operation, instead of the current insanity we are currently at. I don't agree that MAD is making the world more peaceful. In fact if people really beleived in MAD, then we would hand out nukes to every single nation in the world. Good Idea? No.

The US is by far the largest instigator of nuclear terrorism in the world, it has threatened to use nuclear weapons on nations 25 or 26 times since ww2 (according to ellsberg, a former RAND corporation nuclear war planner), so it's basically on them to de-escalate with diplomacy like they briefly did under Raegan and Bush (senior).

On May 18 2021 22:24 Liquid`Drone wrote: I mean I agree with that but I don't see a balance of power between Israel (and who? 'The arab world'? Iran? Palestine?) solving the greater question of 'where should we draw the borders'. My understanding is that allowing for the zionist landgrab after ww2 was a mistake - but that's 70 years ago, the people involved in that are dead. In the past I've been supportive of reverting back to 1967 status, but I mean, that's already 2 generations ago. Israel ending the settlements is a solution to the escalation of problems. Partially disarming Israel ends their ability to strongarm Palestine/neighboring countries, but it doesn't solve the greater issue of who should live where. Basically letting either side 'win' isn't an option - Israel 'winning' is what it currently looks like, and it's abhorrent. Israel 'losing' prolly wouldn't be any prettier, we'd just see a different set of victims.. Finding a compromise both sides are happy with seems fairly impossible. But yes, there are things we can do to stop the escalation of the conflict. And here, I hold Israel far more responsible than Palestine.

I think equal military power would escalate the violence and maybe unleash an actual war, stop selling weapons to Israel won't happen since there are many countries selling and they can also develop their own, so the only way would be to arm Palestine and that sounds dangerous as hell.

This is a problem will go on for many decades and there isn't much to be done, the hate runs too deep, maybe Israel stopping his shitty expansionist policies will get a ceasefire for a while but Hamas won't stop until Israel is wiped from the map.

Let's be real, the only reason Israel exists there is because they are more powerful militarily, otherwise they'd be slaughtered probably worse than WW II. The hatred is so deeply rooted there it will take at least a few generations to have something even resembling peace if they start today. Jerusalem is probably the city most fought over in humanity's history. If Israel gets equal and/or weaker at any point and no weapons of mass destruction are involved, the war will just get renewed, except this time with more casualties...

Meanwhile, they have a cease-fire which is great. I'm starting to think Israel is actually doing a good job of avoiding civilians. They've used more than 4000 missiles in 11 days and killed 260 people ... that's 15 missiles per 1 person, they must've completely demolished Hamas's infrastructure

It's got to be hard to put Israel's military power at a level where it's both capable of defending itself and also incapable of subjugating a people armed with stones

The mayor of Chicago decided that on the anniversary of her inauguration she was only going to grant interviews with people of color and would decline any interview with a white person. Excluding people based solely on the color of their skin should be a textbook definition of racism that we can all get behind. It's crazy to think a mayor of one of the largest cities in the country can be overtly racist and people will defend her for it. Tulsi Gabbard called her out on twitter and was basically met with a chorus of people saying "you can't be racist against white people" and "racism = power + prejudice." Some are even saying "If you're offended by this then you're implying that black journalists are incapable of asking hard-hitting questions." Which is akin to saying "You're a racist if you don't let us be racist against you."

Wouldn't the fact that she is mayor mean that she has some semblance of power?

How is this not power + prejudice = racism?

Even if it is something as petty as me going to the not yet gentrified part of town so I can get some Popeye's Chicken and the black cashier tells me to get my cracker ass out of the restaurant before he escalates violence... Isn't that racism?

I mean I guess a cashier making $11/hr still has some power in that situation?

What if it is a black homeless woman in a wheelchair begging for money outside the restaurant?

She tells me to get my honkey ass back to Niceville suburbia so I can suck country club cracker cock for cocaine.

I don't even think I would have a problem with this if this Chicago mayor was doing it for the sake of activism to progress the idea of fair reparations but I have no idea what her motives are. I also don't know where to begin with fair reparations. Someone on Earth probably has an idea of what to do but they will always be drowned out by the corporate media, neoliberals and message board chuds.

If this is the same woman who dressed up as a Covid superhero to solve Covid I have no hope for Chicago or the USA.

We all know the prosperity gospel neocon fascists are the fucking worst (maybe not on this forum) but seriously these NYC, LA, and Chicago mayors have been fucking terrible for as long as I can remember. The USA is crumbling and it is probably too late.

On May 22 2021 20:15 blackjacki2 wrote: The mayor of Chicago decided that on the anniversary of her inauguration she was only going to grant interviews with people of color and would decline any interview with a white person. Excluding people based solely on the color of their skin should be a textbook definition of racism that we can all get behind. It's crazy to think a mayor of one of the largest cities in the country can be overtly racist and people will defend her for it. Tulsi Gabbard called her out on twitter and was basically met with a chorus of people saying "you can't be racist against white people" and "racism = power + prejudice." Some are even saying "If you're offended by this then you're implying that black journalists are incapable of asking hard-hitting questions." Which is akin to saying "You're a racist if you don't let us be racist against you."

A quick search shows Chicago population is basically 1/3rd Black, 1/3rd White, 1/3 Hispanic

smart political move to gain 2/3rds of the vote, hopefully she gets kicked out of her party instantly though cause that is a joke

As usual, context is everything. It's not a simple case of "there is right and wrong and she is clearly wrong". The media outrage over this is spreading misinfo. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lori-lightfoot-interviews-white-journalists/. A reasonable person would be more offended at the crowd that compares this person to Hitler than the Mayor who is trying to raise awareness about a legitimate issue most people aren't aware of. You can make a case that it's not the best way to do it, like the NABJ did, and that is far better than joining in the right-wing media outrage who are always on the hunt for these "insane racist people of color" while avoiding to say a single word about the actual issues.

What is "mostly false" about this story? Who is saying that she is eternally banning white people? It references Tucker Carlson but after watching his segment I'm pretty sure he clearly stated that it's for the anniversary of her inauguration. Most people have enough sense to know that an anniversary is 1 day and not an eternity.

From your post I had no clue it was for 1 day.

I may have jumped to conclusions in my post with out checking any sources but I am just so sick of political theatre it gives me nausea. Whether that is Ted Cruz, AOC, Joe Biden, et al.

"Kamala Harris sits down with Bill Clinton to discuss ... Women's Issues!" (???)

Bill Clinton was on Epstein's jet 27 times. As Rose McGowan pointed out: "What? He just sat in the plane on the tarmac???"

Seriously, what are the odds that Bill Clinton took advantage of some trafficked girl on Epstein's island?

Trump is no different. I read the court documents about the girls in Wexner's (Epstein's) condo in Manhattan.

Furthermore, I believe Tara Reade. Biden gets a pass because the shit lib locomotive was fucking strong. Biden administration just recently dropped a spoiler about the budget that nothing will fundamentally change and they don't give a fuck about anything they promised on the campaign trail to "We The People." Corporate donors will be very pleased. I and likely many others will be sad face with the monstrosities elected to office in 2022 and 2024.

I like the fact that I saw video footage of Bernie sticking up for Palestine which he would never do in his presidential runs but he has been mostly full of shit too. Bernie makes an appearance at a union event or writes a spirited tweet about McDonald's labor situation and then totally capitulates when it really matters.

I recently realized that I can't get into Canada and probably not France and I don't know if I want to go to Taiwan but that I could probably get into México at some point. I love Monterrey but all these people in the USA that have probably never even been there tell me it is too dangerous. I love Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta too. I was thinking Chiapas to be with my EZLN homies but that could be tough. I recently read an article about how there is an area in Chiapas that is home to a giant Coca-Cola plant. The Coca-Cola plant uses up all the fresh water in the area so it is actually cheaper for residents to drink Coca-Cola versus water so that is what most of them do. I remember when I read about Coca-Cola outsourcing a solution to union activity and that ended up in union leaders getting murdered. I was like, "oh shit, how could that have actually happened?" Then, I found out that it happened in Colombia in 1996 and was like "oh... yeah... that makes sense." I feel like that reduces Coca-Cola's accountability in the situation but it shouldn't. I don't know a lot about Colombia but even recently I saw a story that the USA backed government soldiers went to some remote small village and killed 100 peasants that were mostly farmers, put bad guy uniforms on them, and then took pictures to show the USA and USA backed government what a good job they were doing. Most of this due to the USA's desire to control Venezuela and Venezuelan assets.

Maybe this is what I will do. Get a 1 bedroom shack walking or biking distance to important places in Mazatlán. Fuck it. Maybe I start drinking again. Pacífico cerveza on tap and stock pile Don Julio Añejo. I am unsure if the politics are any better down there though...

On May 17 2021 14:20 Liquid`Drone wrote: So what started these recent attacks? Did Hamas launch attacks into Israel followed by Israel evicting Palestinians from their homes because of the settlers, or was it the other way around? This is a complex conflict and I don't want to simplify it. There certainly are no easy solutions. Where to retract borders to, what concessions to make, all that is really difficult and there are 'bad actors' on both sides etc. But the one thing that has to stop before any other steps can be taken is that the settlement policy has to end. The settlers are the one group that can't in any way be described as a reaction to something else - they are always the instigators.

As if Hamas cares about west bank settlements or the high court case against a few palestinian families in Jerusalem. They hate PLO/Assad almost as much as they hate israeli/jews. They do not care at all about their own people in Gaza but they would care about a few families getting throwed out in Jerusalem for not paying rent over several years? I dont believe it.
They also know that they will lose every war against Israel.

They will use anything as an excuse obviously, but the real reason is probably lack of money. Now the world will send their money to Gaza(Hamas) again and Iran will refill their rockets.

Even if they for some reason really cared and/or had an acctual legitime reason to be angry, how can it justify firing 3000 rockets towards civilians? Btw, a lot of those rockets hits inside Gaza and kills civilians on Gaza as well. So again... it shows how little they really care about their people.