Or at least until Israel stirs up some new racist murder and needs our backing. They will finish Lebanon and then its on to Jordan.

Pushing them as boogiemen has always been a self-owning take. Maybe they are adversaries but acting as reactionary as we do is counter productive, and they arent stupid people-- they capitalize on our stupidity. They are a great power and a great civilization, and we treat them like they are some third world tinpot tyrants. All that said, there are clearly differences between them and the west that needs respectful discussion that we arent bothering to engage in. If we are going to exercise influence in that area but also globally-- instead of paddling around there like arrogant hick dipshits lets get on with it and be serious about it.

Yeah. Seems to me that the Epstein ring was a world changing operation for Israel. I’m sure they started a new one and didnt just give up the whole method. Theres almost certainly a new Israeli pedo extortion ring running somewhere right now.

Depends on who is in charge after they get deported. From that article: “The administration never misses an opportunity to gratuitously antagonize its allies on the ICC,” said Dicker. “But it’s also true that the new law has more loopholes than a block of Swiss cheese.”

yep, it basically always circles back to land theft and zionist racism.

And the US likes boogieman racism, religion and money, so we ally with Israel.

Ironically the US government has always stated that Iran is a natural culturally similar partner to the US, if we could ever get over our existing bad relationship and the reach of religious extremists in Iran. If Iranian and American commoners all sat down together at a bbq, highly likely we see a lot of similarities and like each other. Pretty effed up state of affairs.

There is no just war (Pope Francis, 2022)

I dont think a lot of people understood what a groundbreaking, radical change this was when Francis made it. Doctrine says clearly that there are a limited number of conditions for a catholic to participate in violence, basically self defense, to prevent others from certain harm, or a just war. Francis removed one of the key reasons cited for catholic to engage in nationalistic warfare without damning their souls.

And given-- Francis was also far from perfect. But he had giant balls and a sense to at least try to do the right thing. Even as an atheist, I miss that guy. What a legendary Chad. (the modern complimentary form of chad).

And stuff like this is exactly why the vatican is generally hostile to popes with a Jesuit background.

(I’m a Gen X ex-catholic)

This sounds pretty reasonable to me. We could even start with some sort of third party impartial place interested in Justice, like the Hague. We deliver them there and let Iran and the world decide how we get to a Just end to this conflict.

Let Netanyahu come defend trump in person too if he wants to. Israel is definitely invited to the trial at the Hague.

Yeah…I upvote like that sometimes when I tiredly agree but dont know what else there is to say. Then I revisit later to see if reinforcements are needed.

agreed, all of politics is not exactly “real”. Its a shared conceptual structure and a “game” we humans keep making up for ourselves to play. We can choose just not to play this game anymore and play by new rules. "The system"is not immortal and immutable, its just a conceptual construct we all agree exists, and is easy enough to follow such that our day runs predictably. If enough of us state that we are playing a new game instead, people everywhere will need to decide which game they want to play: the cruel shitty one that oppresses them or some new one.

As much as I’ve liked AOC in the past, she needs to stay progressive or she needs to go. We cant indulge ourselves with cult of personality politics over issues, we have to stick with issue based stances informed by reputation. If she goes the wrong way on issues she gets her hand slapped and takes a reputation hit. If she does it too many times, she gets the boot from progressivism and she can go try her luck with the centrists. Those have to be progressivisms rules or we will get played, if not now then by some future fake progressive.

I live in the dark dark blue state of Hawaii and the only way to run for office here is on the D ticket, so we see lots of fake dems sprout up, and pretend to be progressive until they can leverage incumbency instead. Voting blue no matter who is definitely a way to get completely played if you vote in elections here, and political strategists understand how to exploit this dynamic very well.

Making it contingent on Vance’s cooperation is a good way to kill it from step 0. Pure theater. Invoking the 25th need not require anything of Vance.

I hope the ICE agent ends up in prison, not with a simple fine.

Bin Laden said it was to wake people up to the evils being done to the Palestinian people.

Vance is lucky the pope is the forgiving type. Anyone else on the planet would rip this couchfucking trump-brownnoser a new arsehole for such an absurd comment. Trying to milk this trumps VP role is only going to land Vance eventually in prison. Cant come soon enough.

Bad pic, Vance doesnt begin to deserve such a fro.

you think “project managers” are the ones who champion the balance of security vs business results? Thats not their job, at all, nor are they typically equipped with enough influence to push on that. This comment shows that you dont work within the system I am complaining about. Its Sr leaders, product people, or sometimes architects who push that balance.

I agree but I also … dont know how. It seems like in the US it has to take the form of some kind of more active reformation than we have managed to imagine. No insult intended to people who are doing things now. What we all do seems like telling critically ill people to eat more salad and then we sort of stop there. It seems to me that our current methods are not going to be enough to get to real change.

I have mostly given up hope on working within the dems, (and the repubs obviously arent worth talking about) We dont seem to have the time for that 2-3 steps forward 2-3 steps back sort of progress we get working within corrupt DNC machinations.

I dont exactly want to be a complainer who cant recommend a better solution, but I also am currently not interested in being a guerilla in the woods. We need to figure out something in between.

If we can show people how, they will do it.

it needs to be smashing the corrupt in the face and taking it, not lobbying slowly for it to change.

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