surfrock66

As an American in California that hates everything our current fascist regime is doing, it’s hard not to get defensive when people paint an entire nation and all it’s people with a brush based on the actions of a majority elected government; I want to give people the grace I hope they afford to me.

100%, and I think the adult west bank settlers are valid military targets.

I also think it’s difficult to hold 18 year old kids culpable for mandatory military service; I think mandatory military service should be abolished. I think the people of Gaza should be able to live safe comfortable lives against the oppression of the Israeli government, and I think Israeli citizens should be able to live comfortable safe lives against rocket attacks. I think every country in the region could justifiably go to war with each other with a child-like “but he started it” argument and the only way to get adults in the room is to be truthful about the fact that EVERYONE with any agency is at fault, and pointing at who is the biggest bad guy historically just leads to a perpetuation of the violence.

Your language just did it. You said “Israel” without any nuance for “the government of Israel”, “people who support the government of Israel”, or “Israeli citizens that oppose and protest the government.”

It’s like saying “Americans hate black people and minorities.” Yea, the current government’s actions support that. The current government was elected by a majority. Even those in the minority pay sales/income taxes, in effect supporting the fascist Trump regime. That being said, all Americans do NOT hate black people and minorities, and I would be offended by that classification.

I have personally watched this same mechanism cause people who have agency to oppose the Israeli regime recoil from leftist spaces and embrace apathy, making the situation worse and actually harming Gazans. Language and nuance is critical in preserving allies with agency, even if it doesn’t earn internet points.

Under that logic every single American is fully culpable for Trump’s actions. Everyone who voted against Trump but still pays taxes is responsible. Anyone who protested against Trump and Ice and donated to progressive causes has the blood of Renee Good on their hands.

That view removes the possibility of nuance, and you just conflated all Israelis with their government. This was the election results in 2022:

You said Israelis did this to themselves. That statement is asinine, and is exactly what I was referring to.

Maybe it’s the spaces I’m in, but I’ve seen it extensively. The terms zionist and jew are interchangeable to a lot of people. Gaza and Israel are huge issues, but separating the Israeli government from Israeli people from all Jews has become a quagmire that the average person I think doesn’t have the capacity to separate.

But people also need to acknowledge that antisemitism can still exist despite the genocide that Israel’s government is doing. This whole movement of recoiling any time anyone mentions antisemitism has big “all lives matter” energy, as if it’s impossible for a group to be marginalized when a symbolic avatar of that group has become a justifiable bad guy.

That’s a poor assumption about what I meant; I believe the original framework was a charter that we should be educating our population; the baseline should be an assumption that every citizen has access to education, particularly after civil rights. I think you read my statement to mean “only the educated should vote”, but what I intended was “It’s a travesty that our society allowed education to lapse as a priority, due to conservative attacks, and the result is that snappy headlines and memes carry more weight than policy goals.”

Elections were supposed to be an education population making an educated decision on who should lead…it’s not that. It’s now a popularity contest, and it’s treated like a slightly more serious American Idol. Shit like this is farming popularity contest bullshit, not leadership ideas.

I just don’t get it. Separating the art from the artist is not a black and white thing…Like a lot of people worked on the harry potter movies and many people fell in love with those before reading the books, and when Rowling went anti-trans, you could reasonably argue that the films were a collaborative work that you can still love. But this? A pre-configured Arch made by one guy who makes his headline presence maligning minorities? I don’t see how giving money to him is anything other than a company saying his views are explicitly endorsed by the donor.

I have TSA Pre, and I could see using this if, say, my kid was travelling solo (which is increasingly likely).