TheSanSabaSongbird

joined 2 years ago
[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 2 points 2 years ago

The selective outrage is also very telling. Palestinian civilians killed by indiscriminate bombing? Apoplectic red-faced spittle-flying fury!

Ukrainian civilians or even Syrian civilians killed by the same? Relative silence even though in both cases it was even less provoked. What's really going on here? And I don't mean that as a rhetorical question either; I honestly don't know. I have a theory, but I'm not entirely confident in it just yet.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Terrorism is a tactic, so no, not all "freedom fighters" are terrorists. There are and have been throughout history many guerrilla groups that don't use terrorism tactics but that could still be called "freedom fighters."

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 3 points 2 years ago

Also, even though it was set in Korea, it was really about Vietnam, which seems obvious now, but never occurred to me watching it as a kid.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They did a little more than simply "fight back." They also engaged in widespread and utterly gratuitous acts of violence and torture in ways that can only have been calculated to trigger an overreaction on the part of Israel. They knew exactly what they were doing and what would happen. They obviously don't give a fuck about their own people.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 2 points 2 years ago

It's also because Hamas has its origins in the Muslim Brotherhood which for obvious reasons means that Egypt is very leery of accepting Palestinians from Gaza.

I'm not defending their position, just explaining it; Egypt is basically a military dictatorship at this point and the Muslim Brotherhood is enemy number one for them.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Lighten up Francis.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 1 points 2 years ago

I know it will never happen, but I think he oughta be locked up at ADX Florence.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 1 points 2 years ago

Small scale hunting and gathering societies are universally egalitarian because it's impossible for any one person to accumulate significant wealth or to control resources. The way members of such societies gain influence therefore is through virtue and personal merit. This is the social system that we evolved to live in over hundreds of thousands of years, and it's why we still haven't figured out an equally amenable replacement in the mere ten thousand years since we adopted agriculture.

That said, for better or worse, agriculture is a trap, and once we adopted it, there was never any going back, so we have no choice but to keep trying with what we have.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 5 points 2 years ago

I would argue the opposite; that semi-agricultural societies --pre-columbian California is a good example-- had no way of knowing where an increasing reliance on predictable harvests would eventually take them.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Right. And then there's the fact that agriculture is a trap in that once you adopt it you can never go back and anyone nearby who doesn't adopt it as well will eventually be outcompeted and disappear as a people, or they will be driven into ever more remote and inhospitable environments. None of this requires anything like foresight or intention either.

[–] TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id 1 points 2 years ago

There are different kinds of populism.

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