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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • It’s “whataboutism” in the sense we’re interrogating focus. Why do you think white ethnonationalists spend so much time asserting “white lives matter?” Because there’s only so much air in the room, and they know giving air to one cause deprives another.

    I think it’s worth wondering why people spend so much time discussing Israel/Palestine and so little discussing other issues that are at least as large from a “people impacted” perspective. Obviously there’s also an African infantilization (that is to say, racist) double standard here — we simply don’t expect Africa to have human rights. But I would say there is certainly also an Israel double standard, and it is antisemitic in the same way saying “well of course Sierra Leone is a hellhole, there’s no news there” is racist.

    You are not a news outlet. But you choose what you’re spending your time and effort on. And it is this. I think many people don’t interrogate why they get so involved and what their opinions actually mean in terms of what their focus accomplished and what it broadcasts.

    I apologize for choosing you as the vehicle for this message; I don’t mean to attack you personally. There are a ton of people doing this and your message was as good as any other to demonstrate my point.



  • Your second point is entirely correct; see also self-hating gays in the Log Cabin Republicans.

    I think the shield for your first point is pretty narrow these days. About a decade ago that point held a lot more salience, but as my “new antisemitism” link discusses, the position has been adopted so vigorously by antisemites that I think it is indeed very close to antisemitic unless deployed extremely carefully.

    Yes, criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic. But since this canard is so often invoked by idle and ignorant spectators, with no real understanding of Israeli or Palestinian politics, inserting themselves into a fraught and unhappy situation, usually specifically to criticize or delegitimize only Israel… it’s tough to see how that isn’t a special standard applied only to Israel. Or, worse, it’s invoked by real antisemites hoping to get bystanders on-side with actual antisemitism by cloaking it as criticism of Israel.

    As a concrete example of this new antisemitism – in 2017, Hamas altered its charter, which was wildly and outright antisemitic, to specifically state that it doesn’t actually want to kill all Jews as previously stated, but only the occupiers of Palestine. Given their actions, the huge amount of specifically anti-Jewish sentiment in Gaza, and even the incredibly virulent language in their old charter, do you think they actually changed their minds about Jews? Or are they simply cloaking their antisemitism in a package that more people might agree with these days? A new kind of antisemitism?





  • Veraticus@lib.lgbttoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlWhat do you like most about North Korea?
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    1 year ago

    Where to begin! The famines? The oppression? The lack of liberties? The persecution of queer people, or, indeed, any thought viewed as slightly aberrant? The megalomaniacal madman who keeps his people in chains while he lives the life of the ultra-rich? The gasping, desperate poverty of his subjects? Their inability to leave the country? The militarism? The backwardness?

    Oh, wait, what we like?

    Uh…


  • This title definitely makes it sound like this is a Democrat policy goal or that Democrats are actually responsible for this, when actually, as the article gradually makes clear, the people responsible for this are opposed to mainstream Democrat goals:

    Democratic lawmakers and the Joe Biden administration have touted a wealth tax as a way to tackle record levels of inequality and fund programs that slash poverty and expand access to health care and education.

    The people involved are not politicians. They are an advocacy group and apparently unaffiliated with the Democratic organization at large. The main guy seems as “Democrat” as Tulsi Gabbard, since he spent a lot of time and energy defending Trump and his policies on various talk shows.

    Anyway, kind of a disingenuous framing.








  • Yeah I think this is a pretty valid concern. It’s similar but more subtle to what explicitly happened at the Economist.

    The New York Times would never allow op-eds or culture articles wondering guilelessly whether Jews are actually who they say they are, whether they regret their religion, or indeed if Jewish identity exists at all. They’d never pen multi-page articles tenderly and sympathetically exploring the lives of those opposed to Black people’s political and social power. Yet that’s totally okay when it comes to trans people.

    The Gray Lady’s assumptions about the questions that are permissible to ask about trans identity need to shift to match expectations around any other minority identity.