mozz

How do you feel about American foreign policy in Central and South America?

I think they’re almost all trolls. There tend to be little weirdnesses or inconsistencies in their stories if you really look at where they say they’re coming from and compare it to what they’re doing and saying. And their heart’s not really in it. There tend to be like 1 or 2 things they like to say about any given situation, and then once they’ve got their talking points in, it’s just content-free rudeness or sudden silence or them changing the subject to something else. Usually people who are interested enough in politics to talk about it to strangers on the internet have some sort of learned knowledge base in it even if it’s a little shallow or one-sided. With them it’s literally “Rail strike, union buster, QED, next topic pls.”

Trying to “win” a debate with them is obviously pure futility but I actually think it’s good for the discourse to have them around spouting this stuff for as long as they’re going to do such a crappy job at it. It’s like a politics version of Cunningham’s Law.

I don’t know but it’s clearly the opposite of tankie

You're talking as if Biden is doing something to stop the genocide in Gaza rather than literally funding it

https://time.com/6591139/biden-israel-executive-order-sanctions/

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-791654

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/13/1237616100/israel-hamas-war-gaza-aid-un-food-ships

https://www.axios.com/2024/03/12/biden-netanyahu-israel-gaza-war-red-lines

Is it enough? Fuck no. I'm not happy about him funding the Israelis before during and after all of that either. In particular, the line "impose restrictions on the use of U.S.-made offensive weapons by the IDF in Gaza" jumped out at me pretty much as I'm sure it did to you.

On most things I'll defend Biden; on Israel and Gaza I won't. He's the latest in a long string of leaders who's okay with arming the Israelis so they can kill innocent Palestinians, and blocking any attempt to stop them. I'm fine with clinging to a small hope that he's planning on changing for the better. A lot of un-heard-of things have been happening in the last few years: Big climate change legislation, student loan forgiveness, a bill for federal marijuana legalization, stuff that was way beyond the limits during the Obama years. If Israel is the next one of those, then great. But I'm not holding my breath and I don't think it excuses four months of death and allegiance to the worst country in the mideast. I'm only bringing up those small examples above to say, that's more than most US leaders and way, way more than Trump would do for Palestine.

The absolute nerve of trying to wave Palestinian lives around as if that serves as some kind of a defense of the people actively funding their murder at this very moment. Absolutely detatched from reality. To try and guilt people because they won't vote for that is unconscionable.

Okay, let me do it again: Trump's said he wants to "finish the problem" in Gaza. Personally, I believe he means it and that's how he plans to wield power with a second term. If you bring that to power, instead of someone who's merely on the grim neoliberal a-little-genocide-is-okay-but-maybe-let's-do-better-in-the-future trajectory, then all those dead people are on you.

To bring Hitler to power, because Germany's colonial adventures before that created enslavement, starvation, and slaughter (because they did), and so you can't see a difference between Hitler and the establishment Germans, is unconscionable. That's you. That's what you're doing.

Yes, I'll hold you partly responsible for all the dead Palestinians, Ukrainians, Americans, and whoever else at the end of whatever Trump does if you think there's no problem with actively bringing him to power and don't want to actively work to stop it.

So in summary because 70,000 Palestinians died... you think the lives of the million people sheltering in Rafah are forfeit?

Yeah that jumped out at me too

Like fast forward two years, Trump is giving on-the-ground military assistance to Israel instead of whatever milquetoast diplomatic resistance Biden is doing so far which is still better than the American average. The second war has started, and there's carpet bombing of Palestinian cities with American intel assistance, all the food aid has stopped, and we don't even attend UN meetings anymore.

And then go to Palestine and say "Sorry about all this. You could have had the status quo, but I could never vote for someone who supports a genocide, period. So don't blame me for it. Fuck gradual change."

I don't think the app is designed to try to convert people. Filtering by immigration status is the giveaway.

Oftentimes, American-style authoritarian organized religion equips you with a very particular type of doublethink which makes it possible to promote an app like this and wholeheartedly believe that it will be used for good things because you and all the people around you are the best type of people that exist, while being aware and planning for it to maybe be used (and making sure it's useful) for something totally different.

Because the news misleads them, all the time and constantly

I edited it, it's just not federating for some reason, and now everyone's making fun of my title

Has the weird goulash of overwhelming profit-driven chaos that is the modern news media produced in you a vague emotional sense that things are getting better, or worse, since you're too exhausted with simply having to survive in our ever-more-hellish reality to have a second to take stock of where we're at and think back, even if our educational system had equipped you with enough critical-thinking tools to take the question seriously and produce a reasoned response?

• I support Trump so I will say "worse"
• I don't know, maybe better, I just don't know
• Please don't ask me questions, I'm so tired, please can I just have a day to rest or something

"I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."

Looks like the guys who like to have the existence of "the line" just found the essential flaw in that system: There's no way to tell when you suddenly might find yourself on the wrong side of it.

in reaction to the annual Threat Assessment report which warned that Netanyahu’s coalition could be replaced by a more moderate one.

Shit happens, and in this case far far too late if this is accurate. Any reaction by the US which involves you still being involved in Israeli politics instead of in custody in the Netherlands awaiting trial, you should be thanking all the neoliberal gods for, and not complaining about. There's about 95% of the world that is horrified and furious about all of this for very different reasons than that you might not get to be in charge anymore.

I may not agree with which of your icons is on which side but I will defend to the death how accurate this is in general