The news thread

[Trollheart]

Good point about the pope. Not him, of course, but if you ever skim or read through my History of the Papacy journal, well, let's just say a lot of popes put the likes of Trump, Putin or even the H-man in the shade! They got a lot of making up to do for the last millennium or so.

I also see what you're saying about Biden's position, but at some point you have to count up the cost. 133 hostages versus over 34,000 dead Palestinians? It's got to stop somewhere, and at this stage I'd think he's very much in danger of being accused almost of state-sponsored terrorism, something I imagine Trump will gleefully capitalise on, even if he knows he would have done no different. Perception, as they say, is all.

[SGR]

Good point about the pope. Not him, of course, but if you ever skim or read through my History of the Papacy journal, well, let's just say a lot of popes put the likes of Trump, Putin or even the H-man in the shade! They got a lot of making up to do for the last millennium or so.

Worse than the H-man?! I'll have to read that thread at some point, it would seem. Reminds me of this classic track from The Damned:

I also see what you're saying about Biden's position, but at some point you have to count up the cost. 133 hostages versus over 34,000 dead Palestinians? It's got to stop somewhere, and at this stage I'd think he's very much in danger of being accused almost of state-sponsored terrorism, something I imagine Trump will gleefully capitalise on, even if he knows he would have done no different. Perception, as they say, is all.

To the point in bold, something I mentioned in a previous discussion on this issue. It feels like, since WW2, Israel has been given much leeway and many passes due to public sympathy and outcry about the Holocaust. It feels to me as if they have used this 'Holocaust chip' as leverage and as an asset to great success in public perception many times in the past. With what's happening now, it almost feels like they're willing to cash in that 'Holocaust chip' completely, because inevitably, in the future, when they bring it up, people will respond with: "Well, what about your genocide in Gaza?". I'm not trying to equivalize the two events, but there's only so many times you can cash the same chip to play the game before people at the table are gonna start whispering to each other: "Doesn't this guy need to buy a new chip?"

The Biden Admin's messaging about this issue, and many others, has routinely been rather poor. In this case, we get a lot of mixed messages:

• "We support Israel, but I don't really like Netanyahu"
• "Hamas is a terrorist organization, but the PLO is fine"
• "We stand with the Israeli people"
• "We stand with the Palestinian people"
• "We're calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, but here are more bombs and fighter jets, pleasure doing business Israel"
• "Stop the antisemitism, stop the islamaphobia"
• "Protesting is our right as Americans, but it can't result in disorder" (isn't that the point of a protest, a state of disorder to call for attention to an issue?)

Unfortunately, Biden has to walk this tightrope (and let's be honest, even without the tightrope, walking can be challenging for Biden), because his electoral chances depend on it. No matter which way he goes, he risks seriously alienating a part of his voter base. It sort of brings to light an uncomfortable truth that we don't often talk about - American presidents do not operate and take action based upon what's 'right' or what's 'morally just'. They are almost entirely self-interested. This doesn't necessarily mean that they'll never do 'the right thing' (as subjective as that might seem, let's consider it an abstract concept), because sometimes that does serve their self-interests. But they take action based on what will be popular with the American people (specifically, the ones they could get to vote for them), their lobbying groups, their international allies, etc. They're woried about their re-election chances, their post-presidential legacy, their personal business interests, etc. If doing 'the right thing' would seriously jeopardize some of these personal interests, more than likely a president wouldn't do it.

And you might think, well of course that's a bad system, because we'd want the president to act completely selflessly and do 'the right thing', no? Republican or Democrat, our federal spending goes up, and our national debt continues to climb. The right thing might be to course-correct such that our future looks more healthy in a fiscal sense. But if said course-correction resulted in financial depression and financial hardship for the average American in the here and now, 99% of them would say: "To hell with 'the right thing', let's keep spending now and pass the buck to the next generation, like the generation before us did".

I've gone off on a bit of a tangent here but yeah, ultimately, I don't envy Biden's position in all this, and I think you could put almost any other president in his position to walk this same tightrope and they'd struggle with how to resolve it just as much. Presidents in the past could have gotten away with all this (in terms of lack of accountability to the American people) because it was much easier to vet/control sources of information - but now with the internet, we're all connected and it's much more difficult for the government to hide what's happening. If the Philippine–American War of 1899 happened today for example, the American public would be completely outraged about what we were doing over there, and there'd be so much international outrage/disgust that our government never would've been able to get away with it.

In a political sense, you are totally correct, perception is reality, for better or worse.

[Trollheart]

Thanks for your usual thoughtful and insightful reply, SGR. I'm not a great debater, but it's always a pleasure reading your replies. In terms of the popes, well, that journal being only one of about fifty (no joke!) I've only gotten to maybe the first three popes, so it'll be a while before I get to write about the really bad ones, but I'm sure you know about the Borgias, and let's not forget it was various popes who authorised - demanded in fact - several Crusades, "taking back" what was never theirs in the first place and allowing, even encouraging the slaughter of men, women and children. Then there are the various inquistions (nobody expects one in particular!) where the choices were a) repent your heresy or we'll torture and burn you or b) don't repent and we'll torture and burn you. Popes held private armies, private fortunes, indulged in all sorts of affairs both sexual and political, supported or even deposed/excommunicated monarchs, and generally made sure their secular nest was feathered, and let the hereafter look afer itself. Nice people.

Yeah I get what you're saying about Biden, and as I said, Trump or Clinton or hell, even Gore maybe might have done the same: they are driven by outside forces and the fallacy that POTUS is the most powerful man in the world is ironic, as sometimes - most times in fact, as you point out - they're all but slaves to the times, prevalent politics, mood of the people, financial markets and defence policy (why is it always defence and never attack? Shouldn't there be a Department of Attack?) so I guess I can feel for him in one way. In most ways though, the man's a terrible hypocrite, and whether that's on him or on the office in general I guess history will decide.

But you're right about Israel. It's hard to even criticise their policy without someone shouting the A-word, and I think in this they do a terrible disservice to those who perished in Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz, Dachau and the whole hellish death machine of the Third Reich. Those people just wanted to live, not conquer, and certainly not perform state murder of the innocent. I do wonder what their ghosts would say now, could we hear them? And, too, I wonder if Netanyahu and his ilk would even pay attention to them?

[DJChameleon]

In other news, is Biden just really that thick? We have camps being dismantled as students protest against the Gaza War, and all he can say is that there's no room for anti-semitism in America?? He's assigning a reason for these protests that has, largely, nothing to do with what they're about. If this were let's say Syrians attacking Gaza would it be seen as anti-Islamic to be protesting? And almost nothing about Palestine. The guy is sticking to this "Israel has a right to defend itself" shit. Well, it looks like Israel might defend itself right out of Palestine's existence. Can the Biden administration be that thick, that immovable, that blind?

Whenever a politician comes out against anti-semitism. They never address the anti-Islamic things that are happening. They know which way their bread is being buttered. Over years Biden has received 11 million dollars from AIPAC. It's a pro Israel super PAC so he's not gonna ruffle their feathers. A college pretty close to me had their encampment dismantled in 24 hours with police in riot gear coming to take it down and dragging students away. 133 students got arrested.

I should have waited a bit because SGR covered some of my same points but I would like to add the casualties numbers is more in the 100k range for Palestinians and 70% of them are women and children

[Psy-Fi]

Legendary treasure that apparently belonged to notorious 18th-century conman unearthed in Poland

[SGR]

If any of you Europeans wonder why the US Congress can't hardly ever get anything useful done, and why it has such low approval ratings, I present to you, exhibit #10547374:

[Psy-Fi]

[Trollheart]

Did anyone seriously not expect this? The moment I saw it I thought, "that's going to be abused." And the creator seems surprised?   

NYC Portal artist appeals for people to "behave"

[SGR]

Did anyone seriously not expect this? The moment I saw it I thought, "that's going to be abused." And the creator seems surprised?   

NYC Portal artist appeals for people to "behave"

Hey Trolls, you're near Dublin right? Do you happen to have the other view of the picture? 

[Trollheart]

Fraid not. They don't let trolls near portals; something to do with damned witches or something. I call it ethnic persecution personally.

[Psy-Fi]

Vatican tightens rules on supernatural phenomena

[DJChameleon]

If any of you Europeans wonder why the US Congress can't hardly ever get anything useful done, and why it has such low approval ratings, I present to you, exhibit #10547374:

The UK Parliament is worse than this though and Taiwan Parliament actually let's them go to blows.

[grindy]

Vatican tightens rules on supernatural phenomena

We need to be very careful and have proof and evidence for supernatural shit. New shit, of course, the old, established shit our whole system is based on is golden and unquestionably true.
(c) The Vatican

[Lisnaholic]

^ Excellent summary of the Catholic church's position !!

The UK Parliament is worse than this though and Taiwan Parliament actually let's them go to blows.

^ I was intrigued by this comparison, and it's not wrong: the  US has a long way to go before it reaches the levels of routine chaos we see from UK Members of Parliament:-

[SGR]

The UK Parliament is worse than this though and Taiwan Parliament actually let's them go to blows.

I like this idea. Might mitigate some of the shit talking. But, I don't want there to be any discrimination based on age. If you're not too old to be serving in congress, you're not too old for a Congressional dustup.