I think a polite congratulation and a continued offer to cooperate is fine. I was just disappointed that Biden through Modi a state dinner. That’s kind of crazy.

I believe he did it because everyone in Washington worries about the big recently industrialized countries embracing China more than the US, but I don’t think that’s ultimately a good use of our influence in the long-term.

Are you saying that if the turkey that I mailman is frosty it could jujubee the training data microwave?

Thank fucking God.

I’m not totally surprised. There was so much artificial strength projection, and a more desperate air to the late stage of the campaign that looked to me like a campaign that was seeing different info than what they were saying.

Hopefully, a lack of a super majority might limit the damage he’ll cause.

Also, I don’t want the US to meddle in foreign countries’ affairs, but I’d like our leaders to refrain from flattering and supporting nationalists and authoritarians.

The impression is surprisingly bad.

Still weird, though. But I guess this is what we’ve got to get used to. Eventually, they’ll probably sound much more convincing.

To add to this, I’ve been using GIMP on and off for a decade and I’ve never given any thought to the name. It’s all capitalized. I didn’t think it was a backronym, I thought it was just an acronym.

I’ve used this in professional settings (I used to work in academic molecular bio), and I was very evangelical about it. Especially because we’re not doing high-level artistic work, we just sometimes need something for processing microscope images or making graphics for scientific publications.

I’d say to any and everyone, “You know, you don’t have to pay an annual subscription fee for Photoshop: there’s this free, open-source program called GIMP that does most of what you need and you don’t have to pay a thing! Want me to install it for you?”

I didn’t even think to be embarrassed about the name, and no one ever seemed to care in conversation. As others have said, the bigger impediments are people’s attachment to commercial software and interface challenges. This is just an absolutely silly complaint to make.

This is a good question.

My analysis:

First and foremost: It is not a demand that Israel accept a ceasefire, it is a demand that Hamas accept the terms of a ceasefire. Sometimes this is a very subtle difference, but one the key elements of a ceasefire negotiation is that each side is trying to continue fighting while making their adversary look like the aggressor. So far, it looks like Biden has moved slightly, but he still is not applying pressure on Netanyahu to end the war.

Second: Continuing on that last point, there is no leverage. Biden has persistently chosen not to do anything that would actually apply pressure. He has deferred to Netanyahu’s judgement and supported him while gradually shifting in tone, but it’s become 1000% clear that Netanyahu will stop when he is forced to, and not a moment sooner.

Third: The focus is constantly on micromanaging the situation. Debating how many civilians can get killed, what fraction of the homes can be demolished, how much territory Israel can appropriate in Gaza. None of this actually addresses the foundational issues: one side is imposing apartheid with genocidal intent on a neighbor that is largely powerless, and the other side’s only real avenue for expressing itself is through terrorism. Which is bad for both sides. If these realities persist, then the cycle that has governed nearly three generations is allowed to continue. There must be a breaking point in that cycle, and referring back to point 2: it’s going to have to be imposed on the leadership in Israel. They WILL NOT accept it willingly.

In summary, this is a very welcome change in narrative for Biden, but we are far past the point of fiddling with narratives. We need policy action, and it’s incredible that he’s still dug in like this after another state department official just resigned because she said that she was being pressured to be an accomplice in breaking US law against knowingly aiding war crimes.

My frustration is that I think terms like “settler violence” misinform people:

1. the violence isn’t coming from a handful of lone-wolf settlers. It’s state sanctioned.

2. this isn’t just violence like a bar flight or soccer riot. It’s deliberate, methodical, ethnic cleansing. It is a purposeful atrocity.

We need to hold the whole Israeli government and a bunch of specific NGOs accountable for all of this.

I just want to say that the most disturbing part of this is not that she did this. It’s that this is the message and image that she has carefully decided will help her achieve her career and personal goals.

Perhaps what could be worse is if she’s right.

I don’t think she is. I see a lot of signs of the left failing in ways that make me nervous. but recognition of the senselessness of imperialism is not one of these. I think there is a very strong, clear, growing consensus that our foreign policy is terrible. Many people don’t care that it’s terrible for people in other countries, only that it’s terrible for them, but that’s still a win.

I don’t love the concept of “isolationism” per se, but between that in empire, I’ll choose isolationism every time. I know there is a liberal establishment that finds isolationism more shocking that defunding the police, and I’m glad that they’re upset. This whole global domination thing that Haley and Biden and Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi and Hilary Clinton are obsessed with is just fucking terrible.

God, I will freely admit: it can get so much worse than Biden.

I want to add a word that I never see that needs to enter the mainstream lexicon:

“Pogrom”.

Apparently, this isn’t a commonly known term, although it’s less obscure to Jews. A pogrom is a form of terrorism in which a population decides to get rid of or inflict their hatred on a marginalized ethnic group by routinely rolling through their towns or neighborhoods dolling out unrestrained violence. It is often accompanied by warnings and demands that the population relocate or face constantly escalating barbarism. It’s a form of persistent mass terrorism, usually sanctioned by the state.

Pogroms as a familiar concept emerged as a practice in Russia in the 19th and 20th century toward Jews, though they’re well known to have been used throughout history. Traditionally, Jews have been the historical target of pogroms for centuries, and it’s not a coincidence that Israeli Jews are using these tactics. These are familiar to them. They know exactly what they are doing. This is NOT independent acts of violence, this is a reenactment of atrocities faced by the grandparents and great grandparents of many Israelis Jews.

Pogroms are always horrific and depraved on their own. But the added context that these people are appropriating the weapons of extermination that they know well from the receiving end, it’s just… I don’t quite have the words to capture my horror.

These are pogroms. They are a relic of the medieval era and of the atrocities of the 1800s and early 1900s. They should stay in history, but they are being dusted off with deliberate intent by Itmar Ben-Gvir and the exterminationist wing of mainstream Israeli society.

These are not “Rising tensions” or “Settler violence”, they are POGROMS. We all need to say it.

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom

I’m shocked more people aren’t already better prepared for this, but it’s actually the same thing we should be doing now, and continue to do if Biden actually wins:

Organize locally. Get hyperlocal. Organize your city, neighbors, block, building, workplace, and friend group. Establish mutual aid networks, take back city councils, county boards, and school boards from the stewards of landlords and big employers.

Establish protection for those who need it, and plant the crop of future national leaders who will do the long overdue work of putting government to work for the masses. Make it harder for any president or governor to exercise state violence by getting our people in prosecutors offices and judgeships.

The Democrats are not going to save us. Biden is just planning to go down with the ship. Absolutely vote for the lesser of two evils if you live somewhere where your vote matters, but recognize that the Democratic party is not an ally to the antifascist movement, because combating fascism conflicts with the interests of capital.

That can change, but until it does, don’t put faith in them. Anything positive they do will be because power-players were replaced. And that starts in your own neighborhood.

Edit: Since this has been well received, I want to say a quick word on third parties: don’t be afraid of them.

Without getting into a lot of details, there are a lot of myths about the risks that third parties present, but before we parrot all of that, we should just acknowledge that there is no harm in listening to their platforms. It doesn’t make you a kook to hear ideas that often get suppressed by the mainstream, or to use third parties as a way to network and meet people. I think Jill Stein has a lot of useful things to say, and if a pollster asks me, I will gladly try to bump her numbers up so that she is harder to ignore. Don’t be afraid to do that.

This is a great article.

Can you explain this reference? Everyone keeps mentioning a Harold, and I see that it’s getting upvoted a lot, so I think I’m the only one who doesn’t know what this means.

I think it’s fucked up when people create ideological conditions for personhood. The whole point of fundamental human rights is that we afford them to everyone. It’s not like it’s an accident that we give them to the very worst people. That’s kind of the core concept.

If you’re opposed to the concept of universal human rights, I don’t love it, but I can accept that. I think that’s probably a majority opinion, honestly. But I just feel like whenever someone says that a group of people “aren’t people”, I think we should make sure we’re not tip-toeing around that. It should be out on the table.

It’s true, but it doesn’t mean I can’t feel badly for these people too.

My empathy is not a finite resource.

I had a recent conversation on Mastodon with an Israeli American who was complaining about the rampant increase in antisemitism he’s experienced, and then the devastation and sense of abandonment he and other Israelis feel… and it was tragic.

It’s a country that has been traumatized, but is also now addicted to unhealthy coping strategies. A lot of these people feel constantly victimized, and its a legitimate feeling, but they don’t seem aware of the degree to which they’ve formed a society designed to maintain a permission structure for constant fear and hate.

I feel so badly for these people. But unfortunately, the situation demands that we stop them from continuing this atrocity.

That sounds like a good start.

I don’t think Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben-Gvir will like that, because they really hate it when the UN tries to do UN stuff at them, but that sounds like a very appropriate request.

It’s going to be awkward to listen to John Kirby explain into a microphone why having peacekeepers from the unarmed peace force standing in the vicinity of a lot of women and children in the area that Biden has insisted the IDF not kill everyone is helping Hamas.

Sorry, I think I had a different comment open in a different tab and got confused before I had to run off to do something.

I’ll leave it up, because I don’t like to delete comments that have been replied to.

I find it helps to name check the position you’re describing, which is “a one-state solution”.

What are you talking about? The occupation includes the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It predated Hamas, and continues – brutally – in regions in which Hamas doesn’t operate.

While the war in Gaza draws attention, folks in the West Bank have had homes firebombed with children inside and watched lynch mobs run whole towns off their land with military escorts. And that doesn’t even get into how Palestinian citizens of Israel are treated inside Israel. They’re legal citizens, but live with curtailed rights under a literal second-class of citizenship in a police state. They get disappeared, raped, and killed in prisons without charges over social media posts criticizing the government. What the hell does that have to do with Hamas?

We need to acknowledge that all these people are living under a military apartheid system, and demand negotiations for the formation of a democratic one-state solution. We already live in a one-state reality, just without civil rights for half the population.

I would amend that to say that this is about the future and eventual end of the occupation. I think it’s more material than you describe, but it’s a slow process.