Guy Chamberlin

And some people totally understand the consequences of biting the hand that feeds them.  Props to Zach Galifinakas.

There's also a great case for boycotting all Apple products, but that's a line Apple-addicted social justice warriors can't cross. 

14 hours ago, Archy1221 said:

I mean, you and your twitter peeps assured us the GOP was an arm of Russia now.  How is this possible?  Can’t be! 

Someone looked at the poll numbers. 

So what happens when the facts lean in one direction? 

And by that I mean the body of evidence, not the anomaly that gets people excited. 

2 hours ago, Fru said:

Sorry man, but there’s not. Simping for a terrorist organization that wants to eradicate all Jews and infidels from Earth isn’t the same as a lunch counter sit in from the 60’s. Shaping the conversation with slanted views and deliberately misleading social media propaganda isn’t terribly helpful. 
 

 

 

Of course politicians with no true skin in the game or consequences can make empty requests for a ceasefire. Has any of it worked? Is it a good faith effort or is it empty political posturing? Do they really think there’ll be one or are they just getting a sound bite on record? Did Hamas see San Francisco’s City Council resolution for a ceasefire and say to themselves “Guys, this is what we’ve been waiting for. After millenia of fighting and killing, some nameless faceless politicians from thousands of miles away says we should stop.”
 

Hamas has repeatedly said they’ll never stop committing Oct 7th’s. How can anyone think a ceasefire is a reasonable request when that is one side of the bargaining table? It’s a lazy and unserious position.
 

 

I disagree. 

If they don’t know the difference or need it painstakingly explained to them, then that tells me all I need to know about their position and that they aren’t serious people.

 

Ultimately I think we can just agree to disagree on this. 

It seems to me that you have grabbed the worst possible strain of narcissistic leftist agitator to represent everyone who would protest on behalf of Palestine. That allowed you to ignore the points I was making and common positions I was conceding.

There was a revolutionary Marxist contingent in the Vietnam and Civil War protests, too, and they did hinder the larger movement to some extent. But they were also the folks at the ramparts who forced the conversation, and allowed the more moderate to make the stance more reasonable and ultimately mainstream. i.e. you were an idiot to have a poster of Mao in your room, but you weren't wrong about the Domino Theory. Martin Luther King benefitted from having Malcom X and the Black Panthers to his extreme left. 

Sounds like you don't think the conversation has shifted on Gaza, nor should it. But a disturbing common thread to Gaza, Vietnam and the Civil Rights era are the bystanders in the middle, often women and children, being killed in pretty horrific ways while people debate whether trying to stop those deaths is political posturing. If you know your history you obviously know Netanyahu's history, and why it's lazy, unserious and dangerous to support him unequivocally. It's an easy but false equivalency to think that equates to supporting Hamas. Israel itself is divided on what should happen next. If you don't think protesting college kids really care about the people of Gaza, you have at least one thing in common with them.   

Of course we can agree to disagree, but I still find it a worthy conversation, even with all the laughy emojis I'm getting. There's also a distinct possibility that we agree: the worst possible strain of narcissistic leftist agitator is really irritating. 

Now let's join hands and solve the Middle East!

1 hour ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

NPR's official statement in defense of Berliner's claim was pretty thin and mealy.

So who out there has a news source they like and trust and seems nonpartisan? 

3 hours ago, Fru said:

I don’t think many of the Pro Pal protestors even have or want an end goal or solution. They shriek about a “ceasefire” as if a ceasefire with a terrorist organization is even some kind of viable option. In fact, the more I hear from them, the more I’m convinced that they just want something to be mad at Joe Biden about. Their stances seem to be largely based off social media posts with disingenuous rhetoric and a fundamental lack of understanding about the historical events that have led up to the situation today.
 

They don’t really care about Gazans. If they did, they wouldn’t gleefully gloat “Enjoy Trump, because we aren’t voting for Biden.” They don’t really care about the US selling weapons to other countries. I’m yet to hear a peep from them about the 400k people in Yemen that were killed by weapons the US sold to Saudi Arabia. 

 

Folks can pretend that it’s some kind of romanticized tradition of youths cheering for the underdog akin to voting rights or not wanting to be sent off to die in war all they want. It simply isn’t even close to being in the same stratosphere. 

 

Sorry man, but there are nothing but common threads in this kind of activism and protest. That it hasn't yet reached the scale of Vietnam and the Civil Right movement doesn't change the motives, the players, and the public reaction. You don't have to like it. Folks back then didn't either. But it's entirely possible they've shaped the conversation. 

While you contend they are "shrieking about a ceasefire" they've been joined by politicians of every stripe and nation, who agree it's a more than viable option for stopping the death and starvation of innocents on a massive scale that Hamas clearly anticipated. And possibly avoiding a global escalation. The conversation has changed significantly in six months, and a lot of that wacky left stuff has gone mainstream. 

I don't agree with coddled self-satisfied cosplaying college protestors on plenty of things, and I go out of my way to de-romanticize their melodrama. But I do have to bring my A-game because they actually are well-versed on the history of the region. More than most. Forced to do my homework, I realized how much s#!t I'd forgotten. Or had wrong. And yeah, they didn't hesitate to bring up Yemen, either. I implore them to understand that the difference between Biden and Trump remains just massive enough to deserve their vote. It's a tough sell. 

Seems to me they actually do care about the Gazans, but your mileage may vary. If you think a cease fire isn't even viable, there's nowhere to go but down. 

1 hour ago, Fru said:

Ha I’m sure I’ll get the same lecture.

You'll each get your own lecture, customized to your previous posting history, delivered in a PM with emojis. 

4 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

What needs to be noticed in the NPR situation is, this is coming to light BECAUSE they used to not be nearly as biased.  Historically, they have been a good source of balanced and reasonable coverage.  This is more of a recent development that hopefully can be corrected by these people speaking out.

I think Election Night 2016 broke a lot of people's brains. I no longer trusted my own opinion. 

Donald Trump had already declared war on journalism, and it was probably hard not to fight back. You can find tons of historical precedents for White House vs Journalist adversity, but I don't think it was ever this clear cut or dangerous.  

If we're comparing Fox News to CNN, would we compare NPR to Newsmax? Joe Rogan? Infowars? In terms of both bias and integrity, it doesn't seem like an equivalent. Maybe it's more like the Wall Street Journal, generally solid reporting, but leans right in what it chooses to cover. 

In the early days of lazy 24/7 news reporting, you just grabbed a spokesperson from both sides and gave them air time. Voila --- fairness.

But you can't presume both sides are making an equally good case unless you research their claims, a job that reporters are paid to do on behalf of the average less-informed viewer. If you have a partisan agenda --- and I'm assuming every journalist casts a vote -- you have to be ready to report some inconvenient truths. But....if you uncover some shoddy intel on Russian collusion or a legitimate theory of a Covid lab leak, does that wipe out the larger stories about Russian electoral influence and pandemic response? It shouldn't, but of course it does. There are even people on this board who think Donald Trump was exonerated by the Mueller Report, even when Mueller went to the trouble of literally declaring the opposite. 

Kinda makes me think of the steroid era in baseball. The drug-free players watched the roid heads elevating their stats and salary, apparently facing no consequences from the league. Until some said f#&% it: if we're not playing fair, and I'm getting no love for playing clean, I'll take the short cut, too. Fox was tv news on steroids, and CNN and MSNBC realized they better juice, too. 

Geez, I thought I was supposed to be the crabby old man here. 

1 hour ago, Fru said:

American teenagers protesting for their right to vote or to not be drafted into war is hardly comparable to today’s youth protesting in support of Hamas/Palestine. I’m failing to see any parallels. 
 

You're presuming the young peson's interest is entirely self-interest; motivated to avoid being drafted rather than drawing attention to the immorality of the Vietnam war itself, waged by people they couldn't vote for.

It's comparable to every social justice movement where young people have a natural and often knee-jerk rejection of authority, and align themselves with the underdog. In terms of foreign conflicts it's always about anti-Western colonialism, Palestine being the latest in a long line. Some of the protesters are just anarchist d******ds larping out. Many are not. The d******ds will always get the camera time. 

People used the same disgusted language to describe white kids attending sit-ins with negroes and being arrested protesting the Vietnam war in the early '60s. Now those same kids are celebrated in black and white retrospectives. Gaza could be a blip on the radar, neither Civil Rights nor Vietnam, but the way the narrative has flipped in six months and the potential for a full scale Middle East reckoning suggests the young protestors may have a case.   

2 hours ago, Fru said:

I would argue that selective and curated social media content is far more responsible for their “message” gaining support than these kinds of protests. 

Sure. But that's the case with most social movements, including Civil Rights and Vietnam. The original message was also considered extreme, naive, and/or unrealistic until it started getting echoed by more establishment sources. People block traffic and bridges and take over lunch counters insisting their cause can't be ignored. Because, in truth, it's pretty easy to ignore. People still mock the protestors, but chances are they are now using language the protestors introduced to the Gaza debate.    

I have to use the Golden Gate Bridge Wednesday.  Let's see if I remain forgiving. 

2 hours ago, teachercd said:

I hope they keep doing these stupid protests.  The more people they annoy the less support they will get.  

 

 

 

 

Again, while everyone hates their methods, their key messages have been gaining a lot of support from mainstream sources. It happens without you even noticing. 

3 hours ago, teachercd said:

No kidding.  

 

But I am sure they will get it all worked out soon!

Yeah, as soon as you get off your a$$ and start blocking traffic. You can spell Sunni without "u" Teach. 

On 4/13/2024 at 12:58 PM, BigRedMax said:

 

Should be fixed now. 

Appears to be. Thanks.

If you hate Donald Trump and love wordplay and memes, this is the most glorious time of the internet. 

16 hours ago, Dr. Strangelove said:

Because they faced Obama who ran on a considerably less progressive policy goals.

Uhm......regardless of what policies Obama proposed and pursued, he was the same radical community organizer and socialist who couldn't wait to take your guns away. Just like any other Democrat the Republicans would face.

Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are cut from the same moderate and willing-to-compromise cloth as Barack Obama. That's how the Dems held their center. I doubt many Americans can list, much less compare the difference in their policy goals.

I think you can trace the GOPs lurch to the right to 2009. A group of leading Republicans gathered to do the post-mortem on the 2008 Presidential spanking and decide what the GOP needed to stand for moving forward. IIRC, someone like Mitch McConnell emerged from the meeting and told the press that leadership could reach no conclusion, and would for the moment reject whatever Obama proposed as they reconfigured their platform. Pretty soon Republicans realized the opposing whatever Obama proposed WAS their platform, and it was working pretty well. Because the semi-organic local resistance to Obamacare had created the Tea Party, which solidified and energized the GOP base. The GOP establishment was thrilled at the time, never quite realizing that the unsophisticated base they were exploiting was about to take over the party itself.

21 hours ago, Archy1221 said:

Justifiably so! 

This should go on another page but.....there's a lot about student loan forgiveness that offends the sensibilities, including mine. It would appear to play to an already entitled segment of America and ignore others more worthy of relief. And it's only part of a much larger issue of higher education that has multiple culprits and demands an almost complete retooling.

But it's also not a simple pandering handout -- if left untreated this unprecedented student loan debt is going to have a negative impact on the larger economy for years. And it's not like these students haven't been repaying their debt: in most cases they've been paying in tens of thousands of dollars in interest without touching the principal, a ridiculously predatory practice also plied on underclass borrowers. If you've got the time and can handle a host with a liberal bent, John Oliver does a good job walking through this with vetted numbers and jokes. 

6 hours ago, teachercd said:

I don't know what most of the words mean but yes.

So you could provide the additional context Knapple wanted, at no risk to real person. 

1 hour ago, Archy1221 said:

Just to get this out in front, my post here has nothing to do with US getting involved with personnel.  
 

People are telling Israel to let it go with Iran and get over it since no damage occurred.   Don’t escalate the situation.  What would the response be if the Iron Dome wasn’t so effective and Israel sustained damage from that attack?   Would they then have the right to counterattack Iran?  
 

it seems that Israel is in a weird situation in that their defenses are so very good that so many folks just expect them to continue to take incoming fire and not be aggressive back because Israel doeant get demolished.  

Everyone is in a weird situation. Nobody wants to see a full proxy war between the allied Middle East and the West, and deep down Iran knows it can't win. Iran's proxies were just attacked and pride dictated a calculated response -- likely with the understanding that the Iron Dome would prevail. 

It's such a literal and political minefield. Many of the countries that hate Israel also hate Iran, and tribal allegiances divide the Muslim world as they do the U.S. The SOP for terrorism is to get your vastly more powerful adversary to over-react and unite opposition, and escalation would serve Hamas' original motives for October 7. 

5 hours ago, teachercd said:

You don't want to be running for reelection and have a huge "anti-war" or anti-fighting rally going on while you are fighting or helping a fight.  It is bad for votes.

 

 

True, but if you in any way involve American lives in an unwinnable war, it only fuels the Republican drumbeat that the world is going to hell under Biden and none of this would have happened under Trump (lacking a war, they will do the same with gas prices).  The far left sides with the underdog, as they typically do, but it's not like they're fans of Iran or fundamentalist Islam.

I mean, wouldn't it be weird if there wasn't an anti-war argument out there? 

There's not really a "pro-Hammy" crowd as you keep insisting, but there is a growing willingness across parties and interest groups to stop Netanyahu, question Israel's aims, and support relief for the Palestinians. You want to keep laying this at the feet of entitled college students blocking bridges, much like you view Kent State as a frat party gone sideways. Again, zero people who think peace in the Middle East is as simple as a cease fire, but it's the one thing that can save some lives and chaos right now.

The classic move here is a calculated show of force to counter Iran's calculated show of force, followed by the kind of diplomacy practiced by two sides that want to save face without escalation, creating a long boring process where vengeance loses steam and everyone is free to ignore the root of the problem.

If Biden handles this perfectly, the GOP can resume its outrage over student debt forgiveness.  

2 hours ago, teachercd said:

Not here, feel free to DM/PM me if you want.  I don't want to make it bad for someone just in case more people know about it.  

 

 

You mean the anonymous person in the anonymous anecdote under your pseudonym on a message board?

2 hours ago, teachercd said:

But remember, the US also has a HUGE Pro-Pally and Pro-Hammy crowd.  

 

That is a HUGE problem.

How so? Show your work, Teach. 

2 hours ago, teachercd said:

Oh I agree!  

 

But, sadly, our nut-jobs here in the states MIGHT start blocking bridges if we "help" Israel take care of Iran.

 

s#!t, there are people that think the bridge-blockers forced "peace"!

 

We just gotta wait 7-8 months, that is it.  Just make sure JB wins

If the U.S. helps escalate the war by attacking Iran, do you honestly think the blowback on Biden will come from the students? 

Can you think of anyone else who might advocate against U.S. troops engaging in a Middle East war?