Jump to content

Blotto

Certifiably Surly
  • Posts

    12055
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Blotto

  1. 1 hour ago, bolverk said:

    Same. I watched 3-4 hours of the protest and never heard the "river to the sea" chant coming from protesters at UT-Austin. Elsewhere? Yes, including UT-Dallas yesterday.

    I did hear one "river to the sea" chant at the UT Austin protest on Monday(?? I think??), but it was short-lived and limited to probably a dozen people. Its certainly inflammatory rhetoric, but lets not pretend there aren't elements within the Pro-Israel movement openly advocating for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza.  In any case, I hope I can get down to campus on Sunday for a first hand appreciation of what's going down. 

    An interesting article I stumbled across today. From what I read, Haaretz represents the more liberal Israeli viewpoint, and i dont know much about the Jewish Federations of North America. But I agree with the bolded part, we don't do nuance very well in today's political climate in the US. Everything is black and white, Israel (or the Palestinians) are 100% right (or 100% wrong). But if that is the sentiment within the Jewish American community, the notion that any criticism of Israel or Netanyahu's government is antisemitic by default is ridiculous. 

     https://archive.ph/dFT7z (from Haaretz.com - Majority of U.S. Jews Uncomfortable With Actions Taken by Israeli Gov't Survey Finds)

    Quote

    While American-Jews overwhelmingly support Israel, nearly two out of three say they are uncomfortable with actions taken by its government, according to a public opinion survey published on Thursday.

    Commissioned by the Jewish Federations of North America, the survey found that 62 percent of Jewish-Americans "sometimes find it hard to support actions taken by Israel and its government."

    Nearly a third said they did not feel comfortable supporting Israel in public, the primary reasons being discomfort with the actions of its government, concern about sparking antisemitism and the difficulties of having "a nuanced discussion about the conflict."

     

    • Hook 'Em 2
  2. 18 minutes ago, CoTex said:

    Ok, I'll bite.

    If there was a pro-nazi protest at UT, and I went and joined the protest and screamed and waived flags and fucked with people, what would you call me?

    and then

    If there was a pro-Putin rally at UT, and I went and joined the rally and screamed and waived flags and fucked with people, what would you call me?

    and then

    If there was a pro-Kim Jong Il march at UT, and I went and marched and screamed and waived flags and fucked with people, what you you call me?
     

    I'm guessing I wouldn't survive that stretch without being almost uniformly labeled a nazi, fascist, communist, geoncidist, war criminal, and probably some other shit.  Rightfully so.  You march with the nazis, I'm calling you a nazi.

    So, if you go and protest and what not and you're protesting for a group of people that voted for leaders that say things like "Israel has no right to exist," (and I don't have a citation but it's out there), I think it's fair to say you're "anti-those people."  If you don't want to call it "antisemitic," then why don't you try on "anti-jewish" or "anti-Israeli." 

    From where I'm sitting in Texas, there's not much difference.  You want the people that won the war and got the land to give back the land and go the fuck away, or die, and you'll protest and maybe more to accomplish the goal.

    I actually don't have an objection to protestors being labeled as "anti-Israeli" as  long as its understood the objection is to the actions of the Israeli government.  The notion that the Israeli government can never be criticized for their behavior is as absurd as the notion that a US president can never be charged with a crime, regardless of his actions in office. All countries are capable of poor policy decisions. 9/11 was a horrific episode. Invading Iraq as a response was equally horrific. And yet those who criticized our decision to invade Iraq were often labeled as anti-american at the time. That was a bullshit argument as well. 

    One additional comment is that I did not attend the protests on campus first hand. My exposure was limited to what I watched online, and what I heard was calls for and end to Israeli aggression in Gaza, calls for an end to US assistance in that aggression, as well as calls for a free Palestine. Those are not antisemitic positions in my mind. If everyone was screaming death to Jews, I missed it.  If its not pissing down rain  on Sunday I may ride down to observe the shitshow, and see if the rhetoric is significantly different than what I have understood  it to be to this point. 

    • Hook 'Em 4
  3. 23 hours ago, Cairn Horn88 said:

    Remember the aggy journalism bru haha hiring and firing scandal…?   Well…

    Texas A&M hires new journalism faculty members…

     

    https://tinyurl.com/287rtc8d

    Quote

    Texas A&M University will double its full-time journalism faculty ahead of the fall semester, forging ahead after a hiring scandal tainted the program’s much-anticipated revival and raised major concerns about recruitment at the institution.

    Mariano Castillo and Flora Charner of CNN and Paul O’Donnell of The Dallas Morning News will join the journalism program as professors of practice, A&M officials confirmed.

    Oh boy. Once words gets out aggy hired the fake news media, I know a couple of people who will be getting that $1M bonus before signing on to a gig somewhere else. 

    • Hook 'Em 1
    • Like 1
    • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
  4. 1 hour ago, Mikey4 said:

    I was responding to the contention that protesting against Israel is not necessarily anti-semitism. Perhaps not every protester is an anti-semite -- hell, some don't even know what they're protesting -- but it's damn hard to draw a line between wanting to annihilate Israel and wanting to subjugate or annihilate the 7 million Jews who live there.

    To your point -- Isreal was fine with the 67 borders and Palestinian self-governance until attacked. Israel was fine with Palestinian control of Gaza until attacked. Isreal has repeatedly offered a two-state solution only to be rebuffed every single time, including by bloody intifada. Don't act like mainstream Israelis are set on annihilation of Palestinians. They want to be left alone.

    I'll gladly concede that a non-trivial number of the protestors don't have an informed viewpoint on why they are protesting and are simply protesting to protest. That's been the case on the west mall and other college campuses for decades. Young people are always pissed off at the government for a variety of reasons, so when given a chance to protest the government, they will jump right in. Hell, some of them are probably protesting for no other reason than a hot chick they know said she was going to protest. 

    But I would also argue that claiming the majority of these protestors  are antisemitic is fucking laughable. There's one side currently subjugating/annihilating the other right now, and it ain't those poor folks in Gaza. That's what people are protesting. They weren't all out there last June. And while there are almost certainly  some antisemites in the  group, simply protesting Israel's annihilation of Gaza is by no means antisemitic. That's bullshit. You may agree or disagree with Israel's tactics, but you should be free to voice those beliefs without threat of arrest. I get very uncomfortable when the government starts defining what you can and cannot criticize. You should be free to criticize Israel or free to criticize the Palestinians/Hamas. 

    I had a reply to your second paragraph (why start at 1967 rather than 1948, etc...), but deleted it as there are threads on this board for discussing the greater Israeli/Palestinian conflict and this thread already suffers from some unfortunate hijacks rather than the protests at UT (see the recent effort at Jewish Taxonomy). I'll just say, I fully expect that region to be a fucking shitshow long after I'm gone from this world. And hopefully students will be free to voice their opinions on the matter without the blessing of whomever happens to be sitting in the governors mansion. 

    • Hook 'Em 4
  5. 4 hours ago, Mikey4 said:

    The problem is that people chant "from the river to the sea," which basically rules out a two-state solution, but do not explain what will happen to the Jewish people who have inhabited that land for 3+ generations now. It sure sounds like a masked call at best for subjugation of Jews, and at worst for genocide. 

    And Netanyahu himself has ruled out a two-state solution clearly stating that Israel aims for full control of "all territory west of Jordan" and his directives have already resulted in 40K Palestinian deaths. Its two sides of the same stupid fucking sky daddy coin. You may find chanting "from the river to the sea" a horrific offense, and many others feel the same way about slaughtering Palestinians and subjecting the rest to a horrific standard of living.

    So lets not clutch pearls over a pithy chant while pretending  Netanyahu doesn't plan on subjugating Palestinians (he has stated exactly that) or that he hasn't taken a pretty big lead in the genocide category as well. Its a shitshow over there and I expect that to continue as long as the hardliners on both sides call the shots. Jailing protestors in the US for expressing support for the Palestinian cause is just politically motivated horseshit. 

     

    • Hook 'Em 4
  6. 30 minutes ago, Keef said:

    The most surprising thing in the last couple of pages is that there is apparently vegan food now in Milwaukee

    based on my two years living in Milwaukee, that dumb bitch has a great jump on filing for her 4th bankruptcy. She selling any of that non alcoholic beer to wash down all that vaigan deliciousness? 

  7. On 4/24/2024 at 4:17 PM, Underdog said:

    Rams on Line-1

    Agreed. The rams look like they gave a 6th grader a laptop with power point and told him he had 10 minutes to finish the design. Extra fruit roll-ups if he worked in that fancy gradient effect. 

    23 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

    Hey now:

     

    Ive seen enough, Broncos about to go on a Patriots/Brady like run. 

  8. It would have been  pretty funny to see that fat shitbucket attempt to storm the capital with the secret service in tow. And then realizing it was a long way off, and just getting back into his limo to swing by the golden arches on the way back to the WH

×
×
  • Create New...