The Donald vs Big Tech

[Mower Liberation Front]

Wonder if he'll now change his slogan to Make McLaren Great Again? 

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Will we see a Macklemore effect in Biden's polling? 

Not the most amazing rapping in history, but if I was in my teens now, I'd be all over this:
https://twitter.com/macklemore/status/1787616471738368099

[astfgyl]

What's the crossover between Macklemore fans and Biden voters? I wouldn't have a clue about Macklemore at all or what he usually writes about. Is he suggesting people vote for trump instead I wonder?

I mentioned it here a while back but I'm finding it mildly amusing the disconnect between lauding Biden for supporting the Ukraine efforts and condemning him for supporting the Israeli efforts. To be fair to Macklemore, he does mention that in his tune to an extent as well.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Trinity have committed to fully divesting from Israel. Have to say, didn't see such a blanket success as this coming. Unlikely, but ya never know, it might have some impact on other universities:
https://trinitynews.ie/2024/05/breaking-trinity-to-work-towards-total-divestment-from-israel-in-unprecedented-win-for-bds/

[astfgyl]

I assume they're also condemning hamas as strongly as possible? They should also be giving the same treatment to the US while they're at it

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Trinity can't divest from Hamas as they're not invested in Hamas. I can see you're absorbing some high quality discussion points on the conflict!

[astfgyl]

I assume they're also condemning hamas as strongly as possible?

Whatever about what I'm reading, you haven't even managed to absorb the comment you're replying to....

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

It's a non-sequitur (and, at this stage in the conflict, threadbare and tiresome) comment to make about protests for divestment from companies who profit from illegal settlement that has been going on longer than Hamas has even existed. Some of the companies Trinity will be divesting from even turned out to be internationally blacklisted. But if you want to talk about Hamas, start with Netanyahu intentionally keeping them going even after the Palestinian Authority had pulled the plug on them hoping they'd wither and die. Article from Israel published on October 8th (I may have previously posted this):
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

[astfgyl]

Read that article before. Whatever point it makes doesn't matter now. So everyone wants Israel to have a ceasefire. Great, me and all. So what then, do Hamas leave it off and grant free elections in Palestine to see what the citizens want? Do they fuck. So trinity refuses the Israelis....

...who fucking cares? We're Ireland, we're nobodies on the international stage and if we are going to go this way and do what is (rightly) seen as the right thing then there's the obvious looming spectre of the US, which everyone ignores along with their lackeys in the UK and France to ignore when it comes to making a stand like this so to me it's virtue signalling crap because it's not applied evenly as a principle. So refuse the Israeli 30 pieces of silver great, but it matters not unless the principle is carried out to its conclusion.

As for the hamas comment, well while everyone is condemning things they might spare a thought for the cunts who got it going this time round (however convenient that may have been for the Israelis, we can only guess) on October 7th and condemn those at every opportunity as well because what they did in Israel was equivalent to me throwing my kids in a shark tank and then complaining when they get eaten.

I've read all the articles and seen all the videos for years and have been haunted many a night thinking about the destruction but the minute one stops the other will start again and on into eternity. Support the Palestinian people indeed but I think that should involve helping them to be free of hamas as well as the Israelis.

So there's the opinion I've absorbed - my own. I'm sure many will disagree but sure that's the case with everything.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

This isn't red versus blues. An Israel seeking peace wouldn't end up talking to Hamas, they'd end up talking to the party Netanyahu helped Hamas into power to undermine for the precise reason that they had the credibility to both keep Gaza and the West Bank united and be internationally perceived as a good faith actor: the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu and his cabinet are still doing everything they can to prevent that happening. Here's a must read from a month ago about the kind of Israeli-overseen power structure Netanyahu has already been trying to prepare to fill the Hamas vacuum in post-war Gaza: https://archive.is/m7JUg

I'm not going to go so far as to say Netanyahu intimately wanted something of the magnitude of October 7th, but he absolutely paved the way for it. He fueled extremists because they're extremists. Hamas are extremists; the condemnation goes without saying, but it's meaningless without accounting for Netanyahu encouraging their rise to power precisely because they're capable of something so unambiguously condemnation worthy. Add to that, for the mildest possible conspiracy angle possible, all the ignored warnings, internal and external, about Hamas preparing something, the delayed response, the indeterminate amount of friendly fire, none of which is still "deducted" from the overall horrors committed that day, the vast majority of which certainly by Hamas. Something awful happened on October 7th, but everything points to the highest levels in Israel both wanting violence to occur (Hamas' specialty) and when it did to make sure it was as horrific as possible, up to and including propagating fake stories over and above the reality. It had to be enough to get them Gaza back. And if they get their way, they will regain full control over the strip. A win. A carefully prepared win.

[astfgyl]

Oh I've loads of theories about Israeli intentions and how it was all very convenient and how they're cunts for what they're at even though it's exactly what they'd be expected to do in retaliation. It's their 9/11 in that sense, with how well it suited them at the end of the day but why don't the students kick up the same fuss over the yanks for the same results? You're right it's not a red and blue thing because nothing really is unless one is too stupid to actually think about things.

So what now then? Israel stop and then what? Hamas regroup and have another few goes whenever they get the chance and the whole thing stays going again or Israel flatten the place and send us the refugees? Is there any diplomatic solution being offered by other countries like could they all just recognise Palestine officially and hope the Israelis leave it alone from here on in? Could the yanks maybe stop paying them to do it and hopefully they'll fizzle out that way, maybe after getting a gas pipeline built through northern gaza and just annexing that bit?

Say they cease fire tomorrow and let it off, what next when the lads start letting off the next few rockets?

Fuckin students they all remind me of Private Joker's helmet. Dancing for LGB and Palestinian Islamic hardliners that would stab them for being queer and Ukrainian nazi splinter groups all at the same time as saying trump is a nazi after  dancing for Joe Biden last year and standing up for antisemitism until seeing that he's just another compromised evil warmongering cunt like all the rest of the bad guys in the world and now those poor Palestinians are getting shafted by those grubby fucking Jews as well and all because their hardline Islamic paramilitaries ran over the border and tortured and murdered a few of those rotten Israelis sure they were only going to be IDF in the future or already were in the past, killing kids for throwing stones etc etc etc etc etc.

Just the bullshit involved in the whole college reactions to everything like this reminds me of lads occupying wall street with their ipods in their ears

Yknow what fuck this for this evening I'm annoying myself I'll go smoke the peace pipe and I'll smoke one for you and all. I said I wouldn't be drawn into this one and here I am doing it and now I remember why I wouldn't so that's me wrong there

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

So what now then? Israel stop and then what? Hamas regroup and have another few goes whenever they get the chance and the whole thing stays going again or Israel flatten the place and send us the refugees? Is there any diplomatic solution being offered by other countries like could they all just recognise Palestine officially and hope the Israelis leave it alone from here on in? Could the yanks maybe stop paying them to do it and hopefully they'll fizzle out that way, maybe after getting a gas pipeline built through northern gaza and just annexing that bit?

Say they cease fire tomorrow and let it off, what next when the lads start letting off the next few rockets?

I answered this entire illusory dilemma in the post above:

An Israel seeking peace wouldn't end up talking to Hamas, they'd end up talking to the party Netanyahu helped Hamas into power to undermine for the precise reason that they had the credibility to both keep Gaza and the West Bank united and be internationally perceived as a good faith actor: the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu and his cabinet are still doing everything they can to prevent that happening.

And from the article I linked in the post, the first line of the header:

Ready to do anything to prevent the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, the Israeli prime minister...

https://archive.is/m7JUg

[astfgyl]

An Israel seeking peace wouldn't end up talking to Hamas, they'd end up talking to the party Netanyahu helped Hamas into power to undermine for the precise reason that they had the credibility to both keep Gaza and the West Bank united and be internationally perceived as a good faith actor: the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu and his cabinet are still doing everything they can to prevent that happening.

Netanyahu was never not evil. So you think the Palestinian Authority would be able to regain control of things there to any extent at this stage? I think this will only subside when the Israelis get whichever piece of northern gaza that they needed in the first place but that's sort of by the by anyway because there's still no resolution on the table that will work ever and uncle Sam is backing Israel so defeating them isn't a thing either for their neighbours.

Let's not forget also, while we're looking at pictures of suffering Palestinian children (and these genuinely disturb me, seeing these horrors visited upon the poor kids and the indeed the mothers and the fathers and I've been reduced to tears many a time just by thinking of it and thinking of what depraved animals humans really are never mind looking at pictures and videos of it, and that's for all wars/invasions not just this one) that decades and decades have passed with successive Palestinian representative groups backed by Arab states and popular local support refusing peace terms and agreements. If they'd been stronger in military terms than Israel, what would they have done, just left it alone I suppose? No you'd just be hearing about the horror they're inflicting on the poor Israelis and we could all wear little Jewish hats instead of Palestine scarves. Does that give right to the Jewish settlements? Well no obviously.. but anyway all of this predates 2023 by a long shot and will outlast it by a long shot too.

Will hamas give themselves up? Not on your (or their fellow Palestinians) life. So is the best thing for Israel to leave it off now or stay going until they get rid of Hamas (whether it suits them or not, this is the public face of the invasion at least) and would that then give the people of gaza the best chance of () democracy in a few years with maybe the return of the Palestinian Authority? Would probably still end up with a sort of RIRA version of Hamas, backed by Iran. And let's just say Israel get out of there and stop blockading the strip, we'll we've seen how that would go after they ignored the intel from the Egyptians and coincidentally left the border unguarded for about 6 hours last October.

I just don't see any solution that will actually happen. Well I do actually: there will be much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth until there's nothing left of the place and Israel will occupy whichever bit is most useful to them in the name of peace etc and maybe throw in a few settlers here and there and the money for the weapons manufacturers will keep rolling in.

Hey why don't a few countries get together and give the Palestinians a new land to live in, like what was done for the Jews? That might work. Or failing that, we could maybe stop a few tourists from looking at the book of Kells for a week while drowning in the usual sea of contradictions and silver spoon student ideals of world peace and imported American culture with colourful hairstyles and the sort of liberal attitude to sexuality and gender that our Muslim brothers in gaza can really get on board with.

On second thoughts, maybe send some food and medical supplies and some extra multinational peacekeepers and hope it sorts itself out in a millennium or two.

Look, it's a rambling and at times incoherent post I've just made there but I think it illustrates quite well why I didn't really want to talk about this one. I'm just going to leave it there and let's say I'm convinced of whatever argument anyone makes of it, including myself

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Your problem here, as sometimes with other complex issues, is that instead of trying to draw a clear narrative out of what is actually happening and what has actually happened, you instead choose to throw irrelevant noise at it, like possible TCD student hypocrisy (irrelevant, their campaign was a resounding success, wouldn't matter if they were all literal aristocracy, the concrete result is that Trinity is divesting from firms linked to the illegally occupied territories), or how LGBT pro-Palestine protesters would be treated by Hamas (irrelevant, they're primarily campaigning for a ceasefire because they don't think children or civilians should be indiscriminately murdered, regardless of the beliefs they were raised under... not to mention it's generally speaking been homophobes I've seen spreading this angle, surprise, surprise), etc., etc. It's all just so much shit thrown at the fan, and that absolutely includes replying to the TCD divestment news with, "I assume they're also condemning hamas as strongly as possible?" Wholly irrelevant.

Less noise, good. More noise, bad. The solid analytical sources I'm borrowing everything I say from (and can provide you with) all aim at reducing noise, as all good analysis does, whether that be in science or politics. Not inventing simplistic narratives, but recognizing what is irrelevant to a given question and silencing rather than amplifying it.

[astfgyl]

Nah man, I'm just not up for this one at all. Noise? The whole lot of it is noise, and each bit as convincing or unconvincing as the next. The trinity thing to me is noise because it's bullshit, and frankly it could be painted as antisemitic in its application.

There's bound to be plenty of Israelis who disagree with the actions of their government and military but guess what, they're tarred as well now.

When will Trinity divest themselves from the US? Until they do, which they won't, then they are officially full of shit. Is that noise? Yes I think it is