FBI warns of plans for nationwide armed protests next week

I don't know enough about the incident to have a decent nuonced opinion.

Terrorism is bad, and we should do all we can to reduce terrorism and make it unnecessary.

That seems to be the big split between left and right wing in attitudes about this, the right wing are against all terrorism unless it's their own side doing it, (see the multiple CIA coups around the world) and the left wing concentrate on reducing the need for terrorism, but when it does happen, they can sometimes be a bit too understanding of the small scale stuff, which winds up the right wingers.

I'm probably more in the second camp then the first, I don't at all agree with it obviously, but whilst it exists the better option is to systemically see why it's happening and remove those reasons. Ive seen it work in Ireland, but that was a reasonably simple situation.

If we apply that to the states, what was the reason for the attempted insurrection? Was it that people feel angry about their social economic postition, and trump used that to get elected the first time, the second time he lost, and people who had attached their entire self worth to being "trump voters" felt disenfranchised.

If the country wants to heal, republicans need to acknowledge the Joe won, fox news etc needs to be better regulated, and people need to feel like they have a stake in the country.

The UK is about two to three years behind the US with this, the economic fall out from the pandemic will again fall on the poor and middle classes, and people are getting more and more right wing with it, once the country opens up again, it's going to be a powder keg.

 

I don't know enough about the incident to have a decent nuonced opinion.

Terrorism is bad, and we should do all we can to reduce terrorism and make it unnecessary.

That seems to be the big split between left and right wing in attitudes about this, the right wing are against all terrorism unless it's their own side doing it, (see USA backed Coups worldwide)
and the left wing concentrate on reducing the need for terrorism, but when it does happen, they can sometimes be a bit too understanding of the small scale stuff, which winds up the right wingers (see any BLM event on fox news)

I'm probably more in the second camp then the first, I don't at all agree with it obviously, but whilst it exists the better option is to systemically see why it's happening and remove those reasons. Ive seen it work in Ireland, but that was a reasonably simple situation.

If we apply that to the states, what was the reason for the attempted insurrection? Was it that people feel angry about their social economic postition, and trump used that to get elected the first time, the second time he lost, and people who had attached their entire self worth to being "trump voters" felt disenfranchised.

If the country wants to heal, republicans need to acknowledge the Joe won, fox news etc needs to be better regulated, and people need to feel like they have a stake in the country.

The UK is about two to three years behind the US with this, the economic fall out from the pandemic will again fall on the poor and middle classes, and people are getting more and more right wing with it, once the country opens up again, it's going to be a powder keg.

 

I'm beginning to think "being considerate towards other people" is seen as "left wing" in the US.

 

These waters have been deliberately muddied by the Israeli right and her supporters though, by declaring criticism of the nation of Israel to be antisemitic.

There have always been people unable to separate the Israeli government from Israeli citizens or Jews in general, and that has been weaponised to stifle warranted criticism of the state of Israel.

Just to be clear; that is not the fault of Jews in general, or even most Israeli citizens, but that rhetoric, and measures such as anti-boycott rules in US government, feed antisemitism rather than combat it.

 

It's far more complicated than that. Obama oversaw 3 coups himself. I mean, we wouldn't call him left wing, but most people in the US would.

You also have this very strange brand of anti-imperialism that grew out of 9-11, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and then transformed by Russian propaganda during the Russian campaign in Ukraine and solidified during the war in Syria. People who supported Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein defending Trump as the anti-establishment guy fighting the warmongering DC swamp. They have to perform even greater mental gymnastics in order to justify his actions than Republicans. Their number one target is the Democratic Party, and they bemoan the erosion of civil liberties in their own countries while defending Putin, Assad and Trump. They swallow the whole "Russia hoax" and "stolen election" narratives and generally regurgitate right wing talking points while considering themselves the only truly objective people in the debate. Every criticism of Trump is "MSM propaganda".

It's a really weird phenomenon, and one that requires a lot of cognitive dissonance; Joe Biden is going going to start a war with Iran, even though Trump has been trying to goad them into a war for years, and would probably have succeeded had he not alienated the international community ( Donald Trump's parting gift to the world? It may be war with Iran | Daniel Ellsberg ), has crippled them with sanctions similar to the ones these people criticised when applied to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and completely ignoring Biden's wish to resurrect the Iran nuclear deal. Obama was the evil drone-killer, even though under Trump more civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since the first two years of the invasion (he's killing more civilians than the Taliban he is supposedly protecting them from), and under Trump a new huge drone base is under construction in Nigeria, and the rules on reporting civilian deaths have been changed to hide their numbers. Once Joe Biden is in power the CIA will be up to their old coup tricks again, ignoring Venezuela and Bolivia... the list goes on and I find it fascinating.

 

In all fairness, that "bit too understanding" applies to the big stuff instead of the small stuff. Including the world's largest terrorist attack, 9/11. I've seen many people on the far left argue that basically we deserved it and we should try to understand why Bin Laden and associates were so angry.

I really disagree with the approach of "when there's terrorism, we need to be sympathetic to the anger that drove the terrorism and try to fix the source of the anger." For two reasons:

First, not all anger is legitimate anger. The Pakistani Taliban who shot Malala Yousafzai in the head for going to school? Yeah, I don't want to meet them in the middle. Timothy McVeigh's argument that federal law enforcement actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge constituted tyranny, sedition, and treason? Nope, not onboard with compromising with that worldview.

Second, granting concessions reflexively in response to terrorism teaches people that terrorism works and encourages the use of the tactic in the future.

To bring it back to the siege on the capital, the anger isn't legitimate. The allegations of election fraud and a "stolen" election are categorically false. As are most of QAnon's assertions (Obama, Clinton, etc are part of a child sex ring, etc). The economic insecurity argument doesn't make sense to me either. Most people at the capitol weren't poor (poor people can't afford to fly across the country in the middle of a work week), and frankly, rural areas receive more federal tax dollars than they pay thanks to farm subsidies. And the people claiming to be politically disenfranchised...aren't. Not only do they have a vote, rural-state votes are actually given more weight than urban-state votes in America's electoral college system, and the Senate's two-votes-per-state system heavily favors rural states. And in fact, just four years ago, Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the Presidency, proof that they can win in practice as well as theory. And if we try to compromise with the sort of violent militants who stormed the capital and grant concessions to their illegitimate grievances, we'll have more of these violent attacks on democratic institutions going forward. Hell, in December 2020, an armed mob stormed the Oregon state capitol, injuring several Oregon State Police officers in the process.

 

Can't go down that road with you. If someone is called out for saying something anti-Semitic, they need to take personal responsibility instead of blaming their own anti-Semitic rhetoric on the state of Israel.

What would you say to someone who, when called out for anti-Black comments, blamed their own statements on Louis Farrakhan or other similar figures? Basically telling some random Black person on the street that they weren't going to take responsibility for their anti-Black comments until all other Black people somehow "silenced" or "controlled" Louis Farrakhan? What would you say to a Muslim grocer in your neighborhood who complained about anti-Muslim sentiment, saying that the anti-Muslim assertions someone was making to their face was just a result of rhetoric from Hamas or al-Qaeda? In neither case would liberals/progressives be remotely okay with those deflections when a person making offensive speech against a minority group was confronted about it. This is no different.

As for whether criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic or not, it depends on the specific criticism. Some is, some isn't. Just like some criticism of China is based on ethnic stereotypes but some criticism is legitimate policy criticism. Just like some criticism of Egypt is based on ethnic stereotypes but some criticism is legitimate policy criticism. Of course not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. But at the same time, there are indeed some criticisms of Israel that are genuinely anti-Semitic because they tie into stereotypes of Jews or anti-Semitic conspiracy theories (blood libel, control of world banks and media, etc).

 

Trump could label Oxfam and Amnesty antisemitic over criticism of Israel

Accusing Bernie Sanders of antisemitism? That's a new low | Kate Aronoff


This and things like it are what I took that comment to mean.

 

Jeremy Corbyn apologises over 2010 Holocaust event

This is a good example, the press label a Jewish holocaust survivor as anti semetic because of his views on Israel, and then use it to smear a politician who was also there.

However you feel about his statment, Hajo Meyer should be allowed to express his views, without being labeled anti semetic.

 

Sorry, I thought I made it clear that Israel should not be conflated with Judaism. My point was that some pro-Israeli lobby groups and governments make that harder to fight against by perpetuating that idea.

If the death camps returned, my children would be likely candidates for them, just like the branch of their family that was all but wiped out in Holland, three generations before. So I'm not exactly cool with making excuses for antisemitism.

 

Edit: this post was simultaneous to the post directly above it, and not a response to that post directly above it.

I'm not denying that certain people have said certain assertions are anti-Semitic when they're not. Instead, I'm saying that when someone says someone says something that ACTUALLY IS anti-Semitic, they need to take personal responsibility for their comment instead of blaming Israel for "muddying the waters."

Remember, I said:

To which David responded:

I'm not saying that the right has never misused the term "anti-Semitic." I'm saying that's no excuse to say "but whatabout Israel" when a French rabbi gets stabbed in France.

 

I don't know the exact details of what that speaker argued, but the idea that if a speaker is Jewish, nothing they say can be anti-Semitic, is simply not accurate. It's like the Trump supporters who say that nothing Candice Owens says can be racist, or supporting white supremacy, because she personally is Black.

As for "smearing" Corbyn, I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone who publicly honored the perpetrators of the Munich massacre.

 

As far as I know at was an opinion of Israel not of Judaism. So not anti semetic, and comparing a holocaust survivor to Candice Owens is pretty low.

And again as far as I know Corbyn didn't publically honour the perpetrators, but....

"The Labour leader has said he visited the cemetery to honour innocent people killed in a 1985 Israeli air strike.

But he has faced criticism because the event took place near memorials for people who were accused of having links to a terrorist attack at the 1972 Olympic Games "

Jeremy Corbyn wreath row explained

So again not anti semetic, see how right wing tabloid smears work.

 

I shouldn't have opened that can of worms about Corbyn. I don't agree that the memorial event he attended was strictly about noncombatants instead of Black September militants, and I don't agree that all criticisms of him are unfair "smears" from "the right," but it's all pretty off-topic.

 

Candace Owens was an example to illustrate that personal demographics don't make the speaker's speech more or less offensive. If you think a speaker's speech isn't offensive, demonstrate it based on the content of their speech and not the speaker's demographic.

If all you got out of that was "I compared a Holocaust survivor to Candace Owens," you're totally missing the point.

After the last dozen posts, I'm leaving this thread. Have fun, y'all.

 

I didn't say all of them were smears, you don't need to move the goal posts of the debate.

But it's a good example of the issue with a polarised media isn't it. We're both reasonable open and intelligent people, (well I know you are at least) but here we are arguing over whether a dead Jewish holocaust victim is anti semetic for having an opinion about his experiences in Germany and in Israel.

 

No problem, I hope this week goes well.

Thanks for the debate.

I always learn a lot from you.

 

I'm happy to drop this thread drift and go back to the original topic.

 

Agreed!

 

Donald Trump 'kept book of Adolf Hitler's speeches in his bedside cabinet and may have read it for inspiration'

Well this is certainly an insight into his mind.