mozz

The key part, as it was in Hitler's time just as it was in the original design of the American system way way way back when, is media

When media functions as a means for people to determine and communicate what's going on in the world and in government, voting can serve the people as a way to keep tyrants or bad actors in check and away from the levers of power

When media can be corrupted through sufficient exercise of power, those guard rails stop working, and all the democracy in the world can't stop someone powerful from taking over the levers and doing horrifying things with them

Got it. So it makes sense now -- reading it now it looks there were two reports, one with a general overview of war crimes of all types committed by all sides during the conflict, and one much more in depth with a particular focus on sexual violence committed by Hamas. And, of course, there's not any contradiction between the two or sense in which the one that's an overview invalidates the one that's more specific and detailed. E.g. the overview one says among other things (placed in among of course an absolutely massive list of crimes by Israel):

V. Legal Analysis

5. The Commission found that acts of sexual violence were committed on 7 October in Israel, including at the Nova festival, on road 232, at Nahal Oz military base and kibbutzim Re’im, Nir Oz and Kfar Aza.

VI. Conclusions

10. The Commission identified patterns indicative of sexual violence in several locations and concludes that Israeli women were disproportionally subjected to these crimes. The attack on 7 October enabled perpetrators to commit SGBV and this violence was not isolated but perpetrated in similar ways in several locations and by multiple Palestinian perpetrators. The Commission did not find credible evidence, however, that militants received orders to commit sexual violence and so it was unable to make conclusions on this issue. However, inflammatory language and disbelief around sexual violence, observed with both parties, risks silencing and discrediting survivors, further exacerbating trauma and stigmatization.

... which agrees in literally every particular with the Patten report, including the conclusions it reached and which conclusions it didn't reach (or stopped short of or said it wasn't attempting to analyze.)

I mean, I wasn't really in any doubt that what Linkerbaan was saying was a bunch of made up crap, but I am glad to be able to understand the context of the two reports and what actually happened.

Holy shit

It didn't even occur to me that this might be anything other than a completely real story about a sensible reaction to the still unfolding and worsening consequences of the Tories absolutely goatfucking the economy of the entire country, on purpose and for literally no reason at all, in 2016.

But sure, must be that pesky political turmoil.

Okay, so you don't feel like revealing where you are getting the screenshots or what that report is. Got it. I was just curious in case I had missed something. Carry on.

I know I said I wouldn't get drawn into the back and forth. I really don't want to. 🥲

But I just wanna posit a little thought experiment:

"Hang on -- were you the one sneaking into the shop after hours and fucking the stuffed animals?"

"There's no hard evidence of that! Not that exists in a fully accredited legal document! The follow-up report completely discredited the

I'm still -- completely seriously -- wanting to know what report you are even citing in these screenshots. Like I say, I found a random .doc somewhere that is clearly a draft version of that same document, but it wasn't even immediately clear to me what it was or when it was produced. And, why you say it supersedes the SRSG-SVC report instead of the other way around.

Fair point also

Not really directly related, but one of my favorite takes on it is from "Sky Over Kharkiv" by Serhiy Zhadan, some commentary on the day to day, from an ordinary Ukrainian watching his country full of normal people get dumped wholesale into a sustained hot war. Here's his take on Ukraine's mentality, as compared with the US's and Russia's:

And I'd like to make another point. I was rather skeptical of the current government. I was struck by one particular thing. The elections of 2019 brought a lot of young people to power -- not my peers (I'm a far cry from being young) but a bunch of political youngsters who didn't belong to dozens of parties or hadn't worked for all kinds of shady cabinets of ministers. "But why do these young people," I thought, "act like old functionaries from the Kuchma era? Where did their childish urge to make a quick buck and flaunt it come from? Why aren't they trying to be different?" Thing is, I personally had the chance to do what I still consider rather constructive, useful things with a lot of them -- everyone from ministers to mayors and governors. Nonetheless, I'd look toward the Parliament building and ask myself, "Why aren't you trying to be different?"

Now [in wartime] with the naked eye you can see them trying to be different. Advisers, speakers, ministers, negotiators, officers, mayors, and commanders -- these forty-year-old boys and girls whose generation has been dealt the cruel lot of having to stand up for their country. And this applies no less (and possibly even more) to the millions of soldiers, volunteer fighters, and just regular people pitching in, people shedding the swampy legacy of the twentieth century, like mud falling off new, yet well-chosen combat boots. Young Ukrainian men and women -- that's who this war of annihilation is being waged against. And then, in contrast, are the heads of Russia, Belarus, America, and Germany. The first two are old delusional geezers from the past century who look a lot like old Russian armored vehicles, but they're old. And they're Russian, which, in itself, does little to recommend a vehicle. Then there are the latter two -- they're cautious office clerks, retired capitulators who aren't brave enough to admit that they, too, are involved in what's going on.

Emphasis is mine

(And, I just wanna make it clear that I love that America is supporting Ukraine in the war; I'm not trying to talk any shit about the aid for Ukraine or its genuineness. Just I feel like even now there's still a disconnect between views of the aid on the US and Ukrainian side and I want to stick up for the Ukraine viewpoint in that)

I'm not trying to say they're not giving aid. They're keeping Ukraine alive, and God bless them for it.

The point that I'm making is they have a habit of waiting months or years before they give the type of aid that's required, and don't really seem to be making a crash priority about it, in the way they would if Americans were dying by the thousands and cities being destroyed. Zelensky actually specifically said that they didn't seem to want to give enough aid to "win" particularly, just enough not to lose, and sometimes specific types years after it was the specific type that it was needed (F-16s being an example).

Looking at American politics, I can kind of understand it, in that we have one wing that's specifically trying to sabotage Ukraine and make sure they lose, and one wing that's trying to fight to get them the aid that's needed, and they're fighting a pitched battle. On the other hand, looking from the Ukrainian side, I can sympathize quite a lot with the viewpoint that fuck all that, IDK what you're talking about, we're dying out here can you please just fucking help us.

I just looked around a little bit for some kind of indication of how the Patten report relates to the report that has the screenshots you're sending, and I honestly couldn't find anything.

What report are you even linking here, that you're calling the legal investigative UN report? I was able to find a draft version which I linked to down below, but I'm not even sure what you are referencing here, when it was created, or how it relates to the Patten report. It looks from reading the first bit, though, like it was gathered from open sources, remote interviews, and asking Israel's government for information which obviously wasn't very productive. I.e. a lot less thorough than what they did for the Patten report.

Why are you saying the Patten report has been surpassed by the report you're sending screenshots of?

Edit: They didn't want to answer, for obvious reasons, but someone else figured it out

Do you have some kind of superpower that involves looking at documents and seeing only the parts of them that you want to see

I'm not interested in a back-and-forth, but as one last comment, I'll quote excerpts from the lengthier of the reports:

12. Based on the information gathered by the mission team from multiple and independent sources, there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks in multiple locations across Gaza periphery, including rape and gang rape, in at least three locations.

17. With respect to hostages, the mission team found clear and convincing information that some have been subjected to various forms of conflict-related sexual violence including rape and sexualized torture and sexualized cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and it also has reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing

I wondered why you linked to screenshots instead of the actual report, so I found what I think is what you're linking to. Here's the context of your screenshot:

The Commission found indications that members of the military wing of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed gender-based violence (GBV) in several locations in southern Israel on 7 October. These were not isolated incidents but perpetrated in similar ways in several locations and by multiple Palestinian perpetrators. The acts documented by the Commission reflected clear abuse of power by male perpetrators and a disregard for the special considerations and protection of women’s integrity and autonomy granted by international law.

Hamas military wing rejected all accusations that its forces committed sexual violence against Israeli women. However, the Commission documented cases indicative of sexual violence perpetrated against women and men in and around the Nova festival site, as well as the Nahal Oz military outpost and several kibbutzim, including Kfar Aza, Re’im and Nir Oz. It collected and preserved digital evidence, including images of victims’ bodies displaying indications of sexual violence, a pattern corroborated by independent testimonies from witnesses. Reliable witness accounts obtained by the Commission describe bodies that had been undressed, in some incidents with exposed genitals. The Commission received reports and verified digital evidence concerning the restraining of women, including hands and sometimes feet of women being bound, often behind the victims’ backs, prior to their abduction or killing. Additionally, the Commission made assessments based on the position of the body, for example images displaying legs spread or bent over, and signs of struggle or violence on the body, such as stab wounds, burns, lacerations and abrasions.

The Commission has reviewed testimonies obtained by journalists and the Israeli police concerning rape but has not been able to independently verify such allegations, due to a lack of access to victims, witnesses and crime sites and the obstruction of its investigations by the Israeli authorities. The Commission was unable to review the unedited version of such testimonies. For the same reasons, the Commission was also unable to verify reports of sexualized torture and genital mutilation. Additionally, the Commission found some specific allegations to be false, inaccurate or contradictory with other evidence or statements and discounted these from its assessment.

I also linked to a much more complete UN report elsewhere in this thread. I don't know how the two reports relate to each other though.

UN report about sexual violence on October 7th, Haaretz isn't exactly the best source to use for this

TL;DR Although it doesn't in any way excuse the currently occurring genocide, and honestly I also wish she was as upset about 100 things from Israel's side that we are supporting instead of 1 thing from the Palestinian side that no one is supporting, she's not wrong.

"War crimes are wrong no matter who does them" shouldn't be a difficult moral dilemma

That's honestly a pretty fair point. I've done the same type of thing during times in my life when I interacted with a ton of different people.

Side note, I have heard that part of what's required of a person for them to have success in politics (at least during the pre-Fox-News era; IDK if this still holds true in today's wholly blow-dried artificial electoral landscape) was this: You have to actually care about the people you meet. Like on this unnatural level; to want to get to know them, remember their kids and their favorite sports teams, be excited to talk with them and remember the connection you had with them even if it's been years since you've seen them. And you can't fake it. It has to be just genuinely because you're that type of person.

John Mulaney told a story about how his mom went to school with Bill Clinton, and met him one time and interacted with him, and then went up to shake his hand at a campaign event literal decades later when he was running for president, and he instantly said, "Hi, Joan! Good to see you" etc etc something like that.

Like I said, to like an unnatural level