sickamore
1yr ago
This was an interesting thing, that I was trying to but failing to reference/get at:
In the 1960s, the radical left and black militants engaged in terrorism and mass violence for several years. During that period, a disproportionate amount of money and leadership on the left came from Jews and Jewish organizations. Then the Panthers took the movement by storm and imposed a Third World, anti-imperialist focus on the left, which turned hard against Israel after the Six Day War in ‘67. The Panthers’ anti-Zionism bled over into plain anti-Semitism, and many disillusioned Jews began to back away from the movement. Then, in ‘69, black militants in NYC picked a fight w/the mostly Jewish NYC teachers’ union, and the virulent antisemitism that had been just beneath the surface burst out into the open. The Jewish Defense League was actually formed in the aftermath of the conflict, to protect and retaliate on behalf of Jews who were being harassed and attacked by black militants.
The loss of Jewish support was the end of the ‘60s radical left as a serious movement, and the long march on the institutions began. Now that it’s had a half decade to regroup, it’s back on the streets causing mayhem. As before, Jewish organizers and groups played a disproportionate leadership role w/BLM, campus radicals, and other militant groups, and as before, the movement has turned against Israel and Jews more generally. If the rest of the cycle repeats, turning against the Jews will mark the beginning of the end of this round of left wing madness…
Hopefully we all learn a more lasting lesson this time.
Your points about purity cycles and lack of immunity to leftist narratives also rings true to me
sickamore
1yr ago
Yeah that's why I'm a bit confused about what the students were doing inside the library / why the rally outside was doing this.
Not the same vibe as rallies going into libraries where they seem to draw attention by trying to disrupt people studying.
sickamore
1yr ago
True! I will edit and add that. It is pretty egregious. added link to twitter too. Thanks
sickamore
1yr ago
Apparently fire arms instructor, Army reserve, just recently spent 2 weeks mental institution? https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1717374410795934053
If true, this guy reported those voices, got briefly institutionalized, and then... what happened? Stopped taking meds (if he got them), and then shot up three+ places?
(can move to the Israel/Palestine thread, but thought I'd post here as it's not geopolitics)
Looks like donors of elite schools are starting to pause their donations to schools due to the Israel/Palestine situation.
Well, rather, by the reaction and statements from some students at those schools, combined with the lack of reaction/statement by the school presidents condemning the initial Hamas attack. It seems donors, like Ken Griffin, are either pressuring the school to change tact, or stopping donations altogether.
Just today, apparently [some Jewish students at Cooper Union] were blocked in a library due to a pro-Palestine/anti-Israel rally](https://twitter.com/stopantisemites/status/1717300476524322969?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ). Not sure why the library only had Jewish students (Hillel meeting?), but seems bad if true.
George Washington Uni. got pro-Hamas projections saying things like "glory to our martyrs" (!!) on school buildings (ironically with donors like "Gelman" right underneath the projections). Protests that shout "from the river to the sea" all over every elite school, from Brown to NYU to UCLA, you name it. And on and on...
Social media wasn't that developed, and I wasn't paying attention, last time the large Israel/Palestine hostage situation happened in 2014, or the situation in 2008. Was it always been like this, pro-Hamas/anti-Israel/ and I just didn't notice? Or is it noticeably larger now, more organized, more tolerated? It's not just US either, it's also in UK, it's in Berlin and Vienna and Paris. Obviously there's big protests in Jordan or whatever, as they are closer and have millions of Palestinians, so I'd expect protests there. But it almost seems kind of shocking how brazen many people are, in NYC!?
Seems like influential folks, even sjw/leftist-friendly (?) youtubers, are realizing the changing cultural winds, and perhaps political winds downstream.
The donors' using their money to cause change is not new, but seems like there is urgency from them to change some of the culture in universities. Will this actually change things, though? My bet is no, Griffin's $300mil will not change how Harvard students think and say. What do you guys think?
edit:
This was an interesting thing, that I was trying to but failing to reference/get at:
In the 1960s, the radical left and black militants engaged in terrorism and mass violence for several years. During that period, a disproportionate amount of money and leadership on the left came from Jews and Jewish organizations. Then the Panthers took the movement by storm and imposed a Third World, anti-imperialist focus on the left, which turned hard against Israel after the Six Day War in ‘67. The Panthers’ anti-Zionism bled over into plain anti-Semitism, and many disillusioned Jews began to back away from the movement. Then, in ‘69, black militants in NYC picked a fight w/the mostly Jewish NYC teachers’ union, and the virulent antisemitism that had been just beneath the surface burst out into the open. The Jewish Defense League was actually formed in the aftermath of the conflict, to protect and retaliate on behalf of Jews who were being harassed and attacked by black militants.
The loss of Jewish support was the end of the ‘60s radical left as a serious movement, and the long march on the institutions began. Now that it’s had a half decade to regroup, it’s back on the streets causing mayhem. As before, Jewish organizers and groups played a disproportionate leadership role w/BLM, campus radicals, and other militant groups, and as before, the movement has turned against Israel and Jews more generally. If the rest of the cycle repeats, turning against the Jews will mark the beginning of the end of this round of left wing madness…
Hopefully we all learn a more lasting lesson this time.
sickamore
1yr ago
Unsure if a “tychoon”, but the Renaissance Technology founder Jim Simmons. He isn’t Terrance Tap either, however.
Bill Gates is probably the go-to answer, but I also say Steve Ballmer. Unsure if either is at the 175 genius level, though.
harder to judge the older generations. Rockefeller had to be smart, but a lot of his success is hard work and ruthlessness. I guess pioneering new things that the government hates does take creativity.
sickamore
1yr ago
yes agreed. To me, it brings all kinds of doubts to other Gaza death tolls too
sickamore
1yr ago
someone did clear the area of evidence. We can assume it’s not IDF since it’s in Gaza and ground invasion hasn’t started, who could possibly have a vested interest here….
sickamore
1yr ago
I think the point is “Israel bombs hospital, 500 dead” and “hospital parking lot fire causes 30 wounded” differ both in scale, blame, and incendiariness
sickamore
1yr ago
bases were overrun, neighborhood watch with former IDF were mostly overrun (some stories of successful Kibbutz defenses, mostly farther from Gaza so they had more time).
I think it would have helped if everyone there had an AR15 ready though. It seemed like those communities only had handguns, which ends up not being powerful in the face of a few dudes with rifles
sickamore
1yr ago
well the King plays a real role in the religions, as the Custodian of Mecca and Medina. Definitely prestigue/power. Unsure about Wahhabism as I thought that came later?
sickamore
1yr ago
Seems like Saudi's leadership / MBS is tasking at least one religious authority (Imam? Ulema? mufti?) to tell people in Saudia to not talk about Gaza anymore (quote-tweeted video on twitter).
Quote tweeter Sam Hamdi writes:
Bin Salman tasks Saudi "scholars" to 'Islamically inform' the population that citizens should stop discussing #Gaza because "leaders know the issue better than you" and "you are not qualified and have nothing to offer", and "your analyses are burdensome". "Trust [Bin Salman]".
The Original video comes from here, with the translated comment is:
Sheikh Ali Al-Shibl, may God protect him For the Saudi people: (( You are a slug with nothing )) Just because the son of the Arabian Peninsula and the son of the Hijaz want to stand with his brothers in Gaza, this respected sheikh (( is a worthless spit )) . But the ruler (( the dashing bear )) only knows what is good and what is bad
It has a #غزة_تستغيث tag, which seems to mean "Gaza is crying out for help", which leads me to think the poster is perhaps against religious leaders prohibiting their congregations from political discourse. I cannot tell if this original poster was being sarcastic, as their follow up tweet says:
The original clip: Perhaps I have wronged the honorable Sheikh. If there is anyone who can explain to the Sheikh, he would be grateful note: Please do not insult or accuse the Sheikh
Taken together, some questions / thoughts:
- Most important thing: does this show MBS still wants normalization with Israel? It seems almost certain that Iran is behind Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia militias that are attacking US interests in Iraq, AND are/were funding Houthis to fight Saudis for all these years, it's natural that Israel and other Arab countries would informally ally against Iran.
- If yes, then what happened to the Saudi-Iran deal that China was supposed to have brokered?
- How effective is this, trying to control discourse via religion? Has MBS, or Saudi in general, tried this in the recent past? (I assume everyone's tried this 1000 years ago, but how about after the internet). Or is modern social media so recent and powerful there's no historic precedence for this?
- I thought everyone would have to have a Chinese-like system of internet censorship and blocking/firewall to limit thought and discourse, but can religion do this effectively as an alternative?
- is Saudi secularizing at a rate that this actually doesn't matter?
- Who is this guy in the video, is he important? And was the original poster being sarcastic? Any info there would be super helpful as I have no idea what the Saudi-twitterverse is like.
❌ 70%: The EU HAS taken measures to leverage or punish Twitter for content policies. (Same.)
I thought EU has started enforcing the new Digital Services Act, and Twitter was named one of the big platforms that need to comply?.
Tbf, the changes don't seem that intense. And they target everything from Google Search, Google Maps (?!), to Apple's App store, to Wikipedia (!), to Tiktok, to Amazon's app store... and to Twitter.
Did you mean that it wasn't specifically towards Twitter?
sorta related but I was just in Montreal, some obervations:
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definitely seems like if you are a twenty something there you need to speak French. Communities / friendships seem largely segregated by francophone or anglophone groups, and there are more francophone ones
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Downtown Montreal is full of taller buildings, but definitely seem like they stopped building after 1970s. Seemed to coincide with the first French language laws? My local friend said Montreal was the natural economic engine for Canada, not Toronto, since the former is on the coast, benefited from trade since 1600s, etc.
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Seems like the first french language laws in 1970s are partly a reason for the switch to Toronto. Apparently those laws stipulated that companies headquartered in Montreal needed to have a CEO who has a certain leve of French skills (don’t quote me on this). Seemed to motivate companies and rich Anglos to move HQs to Toronto, spurring Toronto’s growth to now be the premier Canadian city.
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the arguments for the laws were cultural, but seemed that people also think it was economically redistributive from the Anglophone to the Francophone. As my friend said, “yes Montreal lost companies, but it largely worker on the Quebec context, as there was really a trend that the Anglos increasingly economically dominant over Francophones here”. Not sure if that was an explicit reason for these policies, tho.
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You mentioned the schooling language thing. Seemed like you either have to prove you already got anglo schooling or go private school to avoid French schooling. Seemed like more choice before.
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Quebec gives free French classes to anyone, apparently. Plan to take advantage when I am between jobs if I have the living costs
It at least appears to me that Quebec has been able to solidify its status as a Francophone region. I was impressed by how French they are, despite not being part of New France for hundreds of years. Honestly maybe it was confirmation bias, but even the construction workers look French; I swear this older man looked like a second cousin of Charles De Gaul, but like, working class.
From a self preservation aspect for their Francophone culture, language, and identity, these policies all seemed to work. And Im impressed they work so well!
I’m not an expert on Louisiana, but other than their legal system, New Orleans and Louisiana in general does not seem French / Cajun to me anymore. Quebec is the largest province and most or second most populous, so LA and Quebec do not have similar situations. Nevertheless, LA’s current state seems like a possibility for Quebec had Quebec not enacted these policies (and taken the economic penalty for the cultural win. Montreal seems to have the lowest rents of the bigger Canadian cities)
Overall: impressed by the choices made there and the results. Seems like something other places that wanna strengthen their cultural identity can learn from. It would probably work if they have the will to enforce similar cultural / language rules and the unity to endure the economic costs. Maybe more impressed cuz these policies seem driven by the people, not some random Politician making choices thay the people have to endure (though that probably happened too, in the beginning)
oh and fun fact: Canada does border a tiny French territory still.
sickamore
1yr ago
The Arabic appears fine, but dont have enough of the local knowledge to know if all the words are pronounced the “palestinian” way. Same goes for the diction… :/
sickamore
1yr ago
As a comparison, pictures from car bomb in Mogadishu, October 2022, which killed around 100: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/29/1132604501/somalia-mogadishu-car-bombs-civilian-casualties
July 2016 bombing in Iraq, ~300 dead + 300 injured: https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/middleeast/iraq-baghdad-bomb-toll-rises/index.html
Compared to these two, the Gaza photo looks way less severe.
sickamore
1yr ago
This looks... very minor. Was it just a fuel fire?? Were the videos fake?
sickamore
1yr ago
but israel/IDF had known for years if not decades about these tunnels. You are saying they have prepared for this sort of thing at all, even as an contingent solution?
sickamore
1yr ago
Gaza used to have their own water, and EU/USA etc donate materials for water pipes and so on, but then Hamas started digging up the pipes to use for rocket making.
I also read something about the underground reservoir being polluted which is why they now rely in water from Israel but not sure.
Egypt can always open their border and help Gaza with those things too!
sickamore
1yr ago
China also has substantially more informal state capacity than Israel as well: subduing Xinjiang wasn't a project of the PLA but 1.5 million CCP cadres deployed to control ~20M Uyghers.
FYI Xinjiang has a population of 25M, and apparently Uyghers only comprise 45% of that (11.6M, concentrated in certain areas), while Han comprised 42% (10.9M). Im not sure about the 1.5M number you gave here, but basically the ratio would demand even more Israelis to govern Gaza.
Another thing people forget about China/CCP's towards Xinjiang is that it started basically since Xinjiang was absorbed into the PRC in 1949. Actually the ideas of settling non-Turkic (aka non-Uygher), non-Muslim Chinese (mostly Han) in Xinjiang started in the 1830s during the Qing Dynasty. More of the Han migration into XJ were spurred by the Sino-Soviet split. By 1970s XJ was already 40% Han, and it's only increased since then.
This means China/CCP has had a lot of time to experiment and try different policies etc in Xinjiang. All the while, China was experiencing unrest and protests inside Xinjiang, and terror attacks/bombings/killings outside of Xinjiang. Seriously read through the timeline here, there's a ton of interesting events and stories. I mean, who knew China was training and equipping some of the Afghan Mujahadeen against the Soviets!?
And as China has gotten richer, it has been able to allocate more resources to controlling XJ. Combine more resources with the aforementioned experience, China/CCP has only become more effective at governing XJ and pacifying the population there.
But yeah in the end, Israel is a tiny place and they only have so many people, and a country that is always cognizant of being surrounded by potential/historical enemies. Plus Israel does respect some (?) press freedoms, and Gazans can freely access the internet, so the PR battle can be quite difficult for Israel.
Meanwhile, to a normal Chinese living in Beijing or Shanghai, Xinjiang is this near-mythical faraway place that produces grapes and now is starting to become a ski destination. There used to be more visible Uygher population in big cities, most visible in halal restaurants (and it personally felt like all marijuana dealers were Uygher, apparently grown in Xinjiang. No the weed was not good at all). They are a lot less visible in cities today, from personal experience. Unless a big terrorist act succeeds (2014 train station attack for example), the general Chinese public really doesn't think about Xinjiang. Then you add on information restrictions for internet, and the internal censorship, and the lack of any foreign press in Xinjiang - occasionally some news article can "shed light" but in the end, no foreign journalist would be able to access Xinjiang like they can access Gaza. The PR battle is totally different versus TikToks made by Palestinians showcasing what it's like on the ground when Israel bombs Gaza.
Citadel does hire at all those places, and MIT and Berkeley and every place. Their interviews are pretty intense, so "dumber" people don't usually get in, or most likely don't interview in the first place (in my experience)
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