mozz

Casting doubt on the credibility of Hamas' death counts is casting doubt on the credibility of the GHM, because that's where their numbers come from.

I made an edit. Generally speaking, I agree with this statement. It doesn't mean I agree with Hamas. That's the main point I was making in my original comment.

You do realize that I'm the one that posted this not exactly pro-Israel article, right? I.e. I'm on your side on a certain amount of this, at least?

The analogy was of 2 subjugated peoples who resisted their subjugators with violence, and are then condemned for it.

I don't condemn Hamas for resisting their subjugators with violence. I condemn them for doing it in a corrupt, stupid, and counterproductive way, to the point that Likud wants to support them because them being around is so good for accomplishing Likud's mission.

No, you said that Likud supports Hamas because (in your claim) Hamas is opposed to peace.

I made an edit with some backing for my statement that Hamas doesn't support peace, through either violent or nonviolent means.

Peace, to me, means peace. Means 80-90% of people just want to do their farms and raise their children and be left alone. So your aim is to let them do that. If you need to fight to preserve that, because your back's to the wall and you have enemies coming and killing you, taking your homes, then fine. I get that, it makes perfect sense to me. It's necessary, it's standing up for your country. Do your killing and fight your war with it fixed firmly in your mind when on some distant day your families and your community might be able to live and just do their business and all the guns and bombs can be buried. That's the goal.

If you're of the opinion that any peaceful business being done by anybody, any progress whether fake or real, all of that has to go on hold, for your allies and enemies alike, so that you inflame the killing and bring a real war, with the aim of finally reaching this distant day when all your enemies are dead, women and little children, the guilty and the innocent, then I don't support you.

I get the idea of needing to resist the open-air prison that Israel calls "peace," and the unconscionable crime that the West in general is committing by supporting Israel in its apartheid and its slaughter. I don't know what the answer is to that. I wish I did, I really do.. All I'm saying is, killing a bunch of people at a music festival isn't it. I mean, how did it work out? Are things peaceful now?

Hamas and Gaza Health Ministry are two very different entities.

The analogy between the slavery era US government and Likud breaks down for a few different reasons. If the Jackson administration had been funding Nat Turner's organization so that they could escalate a conflict with him and keep him around to provide justification for an all-out war against the slaves in US territories in the Caribbean, at the expense of tankerloads of blood spilling onto the ground from both slaveowners and slaves, then sure, it'd be closer to accurate.

Netanyahu has given Hamas support in order to prevent the Palestinian Authority from gaining power in Gaza in order to prevent a 2-state solution

Isn't that literally exactly what I said in my original message? Yes, I agree with this and the rest.

(Edit: I got curious about this, because Gaza Health Ministry actually is a decent and reliable organization and the point that their figures are generally pretty serious estimates is a valid one. One official said that the 30,000 figure only counts people directly killed by the IDF, and that it's highly dependent on the hospital system which is effectively destroyed at this point. So regardless of whether the scale of Nader's estimate is accurate or not, there are definitely thousands of people whose deaths aren't included in the 30,000.)

(Edit 2: I should have responded to your point asserting that Hamas would accept a 2-state solution. Hamas's position in the recent past is "Hamas would in that case still not recognise the statehood of Israel and not relinquish their goal of liberating all of Palestine from 'the Zionist project'.[70][343] Around 2018, a Hamas finance minister has suggested that a 'long-term ceasefire as understood by Hamas [hudna] and a two-state settlement are the same'.[74] Meanwhile, reports are that in the early 2020s, Hamas leaders occasionally still called for the annihilation of the state of Israel.[344]"

"In January 2024, Khaled Mashal, top Hamas leader until 2017 and now heading the Hamas diaspora office – in contradiction with Haniyeh’s proclamation from November 2023 – repeated his stance from 1 May 2017: a (preliminary) Palestinian state 'on the 1967 borders', that is '21 per cent of Palestine', would be accepted by Hamas but not as the permanent 'two-state solution' which 'The West' since a long time envisions and promotes; 'our Palestinian project' remains 'our right in Palestine from the sea to the river', which Hamas will not give up, therefore Hamas will not recognise the legitimacy of 'the usurping entity [Israel]'.[346]")

"Isn't perfect"?

If you ambush a music festival and kill hundreds of unarmed people, you're a monster, and you're going to hell. I'm comfortable saying that about Hamas, the IDF, American GIs during World War 2, Black Lives Matter supporters, Trump supporters. Anyone. It's not a "sided" thing.

And of course the IDF and the current Israeli government are also currently committing unspeakable crimes in Gaza every day, starving children and the old, and bombing houses with little babies inside.

Anyone who could possibly disagree with either one of those statements, I'm not sure what I could say to you.

In their culture, it is considered extremely disrespectful to challenge someone on their viewpoint or ask probing questions. Like "fighting words" level, or relationship-ending with that person and maybe several others in their same circle.

This one time on national prime-time TV may genuinely be the first time someone's sat them down and asked them serious and challenging questions about what the hell they're even talking about, where they can't choose to just end the conversation in some fashion or other.

They are, for real and entirely with their whole souls, convinced that Trump did nothing wrong, Biden's a crook who stole the election who's going after him in a dangerous and undemocratic move almost akin to Putin's, etc etc.

The people at the top, who are producing the extremely convincing propaganda which they consume, are guilty as sin and for-real should be in prison for it. But a lot -- the majority, I think -- of the people who buy into the propaganda, for as genuinely fucking dangerous as they are, aren't actually doing anything wrong. (Aside from not being sharp enough to see that they're getting suckered.)

How do they rise up rise up high

“Let’s just say, children in America cannot read,” co-founder Tina Descovich responded, referencing the group’s effort to sharpen its focus on literacy issues, before Pelley’s voiceover narration interrupted to note that the co-founders “often dodged questions with talking points.”

“You’re being evasive,” Pelley shot back.

GREEEEEAT

Now do people in power the same way pls

I take it seriously enough that I watched the whole thing. Quick reactions point by point:

1. Difficulty of replacing Biden and who would replace him - Yeah. 100% agreed. I have no idea about the procedures. I'm just saying as a non political expert how I see things. Part of what I keep asking about this is, is there anything actually productive I can do at this stage as a Democratic voter.

2. 1968 - This is the one element of what he says that bugs the hell out of me. My copy of "Playing With Fire" is less than 10 feet from me as I write this. I know how seriously Lessig takes this. But his take on it here is wrong. The DNC's original sin in 1968, which they repeated in 2016 with Bernie Sanders, was not "well we can't let these people in the door, because if we do they won't shut up and we'll have to break the rules to keep them in line, and that'll be messy and lose us their support." I'm not saying that's Lessig's point precisely, but it's not wholly at odds with how he's extrapolating from 1968 to the present day, either.

The DNC keeps insisting on center-right policies. In 1968 it was Vietnam, in 2016 it was economic justice, and now it's Gaza. And then, when this massive groundswell of left wing activism that would be otherwise be theirs for the taking gets mad at them, they can't figure out why that happened, or why they're now in a dead heat with the world's worst person for president. And their solution is to turn their back on the activism.

Like I say I'm not a political pro. I don't know that a contested convention wouldn't be a bad idea for all the reasons Lessig lists, and I definitely can respect his insight on the realities and his point that it's uncharted territory. But I think it's also fair to point out that with the advent of Trump we're in pretty much uncharted territory anyway, so we might as well start trying to do what seems right and not just what we've traditionally done before.

3. The important work isn't televised - John Stewart actually dealt with this pretty head-on. I agree, by any metric, Biden's actually done a great job with what was handed to him. Stewart's point was, Biden's job is not just to be a great president, but also to win the November election, and significant weaknesses he has on that score are worth talking about.

I'm not trying to take any kind of rabid anti-Biden stance on it; I'm planning on voting for the Democrat regardless in November, because Trump winning will mean hell comes to earth. I've also spent a decent length of time arguing with anti-Biden trolls so far. But I have to say that Ezra Klein and John Stewart actually did convince me to a certain extent that this is worth talking about.

As was the case in the 2018 presidential election, the most prominent member of the Russian opposition, Alexei Navalny,[18][19][20] was barred from running

In what possible world is Hamas this careful entity that's concerned about their credibility and standing on the world stage

Along with Likud, Hamas is one of the primary entities ensuring the continuation of the decades-long slow genocide of the Palestinians. That's why Likud has historically given them so much aid and support. They're two peas in their own little murder-pact pod, and millions are starving or dead now as a result.

(Edit: My criticism of Hamas doesn't mean I'm criticizing the effort the Gaza Health Ministry puts into getting good and accurate numbers. This article touches on at least a little bit of where the undercount in their figures might come from, despite how hard they're trying to report accurate numbers. Among other things, it says that 30,000 is only the estimate of people directly killed by the IDF, not anyone who dies of starvation, disease, or injury. Maybe that's part of the difference, or maybe Nader is simply throwing ballparked numbers around without nearly as much rigor as they put into it.)

I wrote in Bernie Sanders.

I have no idea if that's even legal or something that counted in my primary. To me, it's not harmful; he's obviously going to win the primaries, so who cares.

I actually like Biden, and don't at all agree with the talking-point pretense that he's not helping the working class or that Gaza is his fault. But he's also old; that's pretty much the only reason I would want to see some other candidate. I'm going to vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is in the general election, because I don't want the end of the world, but yes I would prefer it to be someone younger.

As somebody said, and im loosely paraphrasing here, most of the intelligent work done by ai is done by the person interpreting what the ai actually said.

This is an absolutely profound take that I hadn't seen before; thank you.