Considering IBM's nazi drop and Elon going full protocols-of-zion, I really really wondered if we'd get through a single slog that didn't rely on Twitter links...

But nah

Yall can't give up twitter for a single day

@1 This is a great point. Is sending Twitter traffic supporting hate speech? How can it not be? I thought the Stranger was against homophobia, transphobia, and racism of all kinds. I guess not.

SMUFBAIR on FB and InstaG

Seattle Musicians United For Bay Area Independent Radio!
Stop KEXP Corporate Cubicle Rock from invading Bay Area Independent Airwaves! Save Bay Area Independent Radio!
If KEXP is so overloaded with cash to burn, why isn't KEXP staying home and paying the Starving Seattle Musicians they been exploiting for decades, and on whose backs KEXP has risen to excess?
It's a hostile takeover. KEXP is going to raid Bay Area Independent Radio listeners for cash, and destroy Jobs and Beloved Legacy SF Bay Independent Community Radio Stations.
Stop Corporate Cubicle Rock!
Please follow us and repost!

savebayareaindependentradio

stopcubiclerock

stopkexpcorporatecubiclerock

stopkexpcorporate

stopkexpexpansion

@1 and @2

The Stranger doesn't seem to have a problem with homophobia, transphobia, and racism when it comes from Hamas, so why should it bother them when it comes from Musk and the App Formerly Known as Twitter.

The conflict in Gaza is exposing the Progressive Left for who they really are anti-Semitic tools.

@4 has a point about the hypocrisy.

Hamas are not your friends. They literally are not.

Too bad we can't add here a pic of the IRS 990 salary reporting for the white guys at the top of the corporate ladder at KEXP. At this "community listener powered" radio station, the salaries start at $124,620 and go up to $213,278. Before benefits and bonuses.
That's for the top 9 men. The lone women's salary falls behind at $112,377.
That's some "woke" radio station, always whining for your pledge dollar.
And the top men do not look very diverse. How's that for a station that makes it's money off of musicians of color?
The IRS 990 @022 Reporting can be accessed by plugging "Friends of KEXP" in to ProPublica's free search engine for IRS Non-Profits Financial Reports, that by law, must be disclosed to the public.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/912061474

@4.....Sir Toby, you might want to mention the Stranger being okay with Hamas's misogyny as well.

@4. No, numbnuts, it's you and the other turd brained shitbags who continually conflate the non-Hamas inhabitants of Gaza as all Hamas terrorists. There is no room for distinction or critical thinking, it's either you fully support the IDF's methods or you are pro-Hamas. It's such a shameful straw man and idiotic way of processing the situation, shameless demagoguery that willfully misrepresents the most anti-fascist citizens of this country as anti-semited because they don't want to keep seeing kids get bombed and starve to death or die of malnutrition. But you can't handle that, you don't have the balls to face a reality where your blind jingoistic support for these heavy handed methods could be wrong, so you conflate Progressives with Hamas. Pitiful and disgraceful demagoguery. You're a double plus good duckspeaker you are.

Raindrop said Jewish Lives Matter, as if that were ever in question, but by mindlessly spouting crap like this, you all make it clear that Palestinian lives don't to you at all.

KEXP has a Board Meeting today at 10am. Several folks have mentioned that they work very hard to make sure that Members, Small-Fry Donors, employees, the public, and the media are excluded.

KEXP Board of Directors
The Board of Directors is responsible for KEXP’s financial health and for ensuring the organization meets its community impact goals.
KEXP’s Board of Directors and its committees meet regularly. Meetings will be conducted in person and online. For information on how to attend an open meeting, please contact board@kexp.org

Would The Stranger be able to get access?

Board of Director Members
Chair: Megan Jasper, CEO, Sub Pop
Vice Chair: Scott Redman, CEO, Sellen Construction
Treasurer: Cindy Bolton, Chief Financial Officer, Seattle Art Museum
Secretary: Erika Sanchez, Vice President and General Manager, Venmo
Past Chair: Jill Singh, Community Volunteer
President: Ethan Raup, CEO KEXP (Ex Officio)

Nabil Ayers, President, Beggars Group USA
Jerry Chiang, General Counsel, DistroKid
Alejandro Chouza, Chief Operations Officer, Arrived
Zoe Corneli, Senior Manager, Product Management at Amazon
Will Daugherty, President and CEO, Pacific Science Center
Jon Kertzer, Affiliate Professor, University of Washington and Curator, Town Hall Seattle
Oscar Mraz, Chief Financial Officer, Rec Room Inc.
Erik Nordstrom, Chief Executive Officer, Nordstrom Inc.
Jeff Seely, Chairman, Space Needle Corporation
Jyoti Shukla, Senior Vice President of Listener Experience-- Product and UX, SiriusXM Pandora
Heather Snavely, President and CEO, AAA Washington
Lisa Thomas, Senior Associate Vice President, Advancement Strategy and Campaigns, and Principal Strategy Officer, University Advancement, University of Washington
Nicole Vandenberg, Owner, Vandenberg Communications
Mikhael Mei Williams, Chief Marketing Officer, Seattle Art Museum
Adam Zacks, Chief Programming Officer, Seattle Theatre Group and Founder of Sasquatch and THING Music Festivals

KEXP’s Board of Directors and its committees meet regularly. Meetings will be conducted in person and online. For information on how to attend an open meeting, please contact board@kexp.org.

Portions of each board and committee meeting may be held in executive session due to discussions of individual employees, proprietary matters, information obtained on a confidential basis or matters requiring confidential advice of counsel. Executive sessions are closed to the public. Public notices regarding these sessions are available for public view at KEXP's main office within 10 days of the meeting.
Board of Directors
February 28, 2023 10:00am-1:00pm
June 2, 2023 10:00am-1:00pm
September 28, 2023 10:00am-1:00pm
October 19, 2023 4:00pm-5:00pm (Special Meeting of the Board- closed to the public.)
November 17, 2023 10:00am-1:00pm

KEXP Community Advisory Board

The Community Advisory Board is intended to provide the public the opportunity to be heard on station programming, community service and impact on the community of major policy decisions.

Community Advisory Board Members
Chair: April Jingco, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture
Marina Albero, Cornish College of the Arts
Janine Chiorazzi Hall, Cornish College of the Arts
Dave Dederer, Amazon
Jessica Johnson, Kobalt
Sebastian Mendoza, Student and KUGS 89.3 Music Director
Grant McCallum, Barsuk Records
Tomo Nakayama, Musician
Clark Reid, Seattle Public Schools
Ricky Reyes, Office of Arts & Culture
Drit Shoemaker, Gantry, Inc.

Community Advisory Board meetings will be conducted online. For information on how to attend an open meeting, please contact board@kexp.org
December 12, 2023 5:00pm-6:00pm

Seattle and San Francisco are natural partners.
Both are ridiculously expensive, have huge homeless problems, crime and rampant drug use.

The purchase of the SF station kind of bums me out. Yeah, KEXP travels occasionally to Iceland or NYC or where ever to broadcast, and they obviously stream throughout the world, but the station really belongs to Seattle.

DJs talk about local stuff unrelated to music, like a Sounders match or the crazy rain we're getting at a given moment. Will that translate to a SF audience? Will they start focusing on SF stuff as well? Because that would kind of suck.

I see pro-gay and delightful pro-trans influencer content (mostly mirrored from TikTok) on X all the time. And you see its corresponding adversarial content as well. If you find something offensive, just not follow or mute. Simple as that.

I don't know why people object to being offended. Life would be so boring otherwise.

@8: “…you conflate Progressives with Hamas.”

Don’t look as us Slog commenters. The Progressives pretty much did that to themselves:

‘“…We don’t want two states, we want 1948,” in reference to Palestine’s borders before the violent expulsion of three-quarters of Palestinians, an event known as the Nakba.’

(https://www.thestranger.com/news/2023/10/16/79212000/as-a-ground-invasion-looms-thousands-in-seattle-protest-for-a-free-palestine)

Chanting that Israel shouldn’t exist turned out not to be a very good look. Who knew?

@8: So conversely, then this should conform to your thinking:

"Palestinian Lives Matter, as if that were ever in question, but by mindlessly spouting crap like this, you all make it clear that Jewish lives don't to matter you at all.

@1, 2 Agree. No more "X" links please. Screenshots only.

@3 - Agree - KEXP is, for the most part, safe NPR elevator alternative music. WFMU in NJ blows it to smithereens. Way more adventurous and aggressive in its music.

@15: Do you want to staff to give up their X (formerly known as Twitter) accounts too?

@3 lol. Really? is this some elaborate trolling or do you really have no idea what you're talking about? KEXP is and always has been one of the best parts of Seattle and SF would be lucky to have them. Find something else to cry about this morning.

@14. Yawn.

@1, @2 Straight facts. As long as media outlets keep using X/Twitter Musk's hatemongering will always have a lifeline.

@19: But really it's: "@14. oops!"

@21. Such a crap troll.

But seriously, yall really have to get off Twitter/X and stop linking to it. Elon Musk is a racist manchild loser and you all can find better sources. I know quitting social media is hard and you all have the sunk cost fallacy and your followers, but it's not helping you out. Of course, that doesn't mean you endorse Hamas and all the other ridiculous leaps in judgment being made here, but come on. It's time.

@18: “is this some elaborate trolling or do you really have no idea what you're talking about?”

If the overly-earnest tone and copious helpings of copypasta didn’t answer that question, the nym “SMUFBAIR” should…

A10.....Seattle has always stood in awe of San Francisco and tried to emulate them in every way.

@22: I've never posted Twitter links, mostly because links to news sites met my needs better that a tweet.

Twitter, now X, is the most successful one-to-many communications platform in the world serving businesses, governments, organizations, and individuals. So why are you against that? Oh yeah, because you take issue with its CEO.

I wish Elon had a better moral clarity as well and his most recent blunder proves it, but why should that preclude me or anyone from using X? It's just too entrenched and sacrificing the communications technology simply because of a few uncomfortable political dispositions is pretty tall order and the height of "progressive" arrogance.

@11: Has KEXP said they'll just broadcast the Seattle feed on the SF station? Or will they run a Bay Area-centric 2nd station? Hope it's the latter.

@8, So what alternative method exists for the IDF to use, to get at Hamas when they use mosques, hospitals (allegedly), schools, and non-combatants as shields while they conduct hostilities against the Israeli civilian population and IDF?

You are not differentiating between Hamas and the civilian population. A cessation of hostilities by the IDF to protect the non-combatants, protects Hamas and provides them additional time, space, and resources to increase the effectiveness of their defensive and offensive operations against Israel and the IDF.

So who isn't differentiating? You aren't.

@26: About twenty years ago, KEXP tried to expand into Tacoma, and that proved beyond them. Hopefully SF is easier. ;-)

https://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/kexp-fm-will-end-kxot-simulcast-1186654.php

@25, Elon Musk has perfect moral clarity.

He has a clear idea of what he thinks are the most important moral values and societal norms.

They are different than yours or mine, and far different than those of the Progressive Left, but they are clear to him, and to the rest of us, if we listen to what he says and watch what he does. His moral sensibilities are apparent and clear.

@26 It's the same broadcast. They plan on doing an SF local, Audioasis-type show at some point, but that's it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/17/hamas-benjamin-netanyahu-ceasefire

@31 Maybe an article you and the hateful 3 can agree on.

What is it with KEXP? Didn't they already try this with NYC when John "I get paid $100K while every other DJ gets paid $8 an hour" tried to be bi-coastal? I realize they got a huge influx of money in recent years, so it's possibly less annoying that they're doing this now, but honestly, I never understood how they could literally beg people for money nearly all of the time, pay the CEO and John in the Morning six figure salaries, while every other DJ there was getting around $8 an hour (yes that was 20 years ago, still those are the facts). Why not fully support Seattle and everyone who has supported them since they began instead of expanding to markets that already have their own thing? I mean it'd be one thing if they went into the sticks of middle America and tried to do what college radio used to do, but San Francisco? Please.

The Stranger has another article today actually decrying a tax on corporate developers.

And here they cheer the invasion of California with our 'non profit' KEXP, while KEXP shivs its volunteers and has astronomical salaries for those at the top of this pyramid scheme of a 'non profit'.

Are you all secretly Republicans?

@34 Invasion of California? GTFO with your faux outrage. The interns make $22 an hour and $200,000 salaries are not astronomical in the PNW. Good ol Stranger comment section complaining about absolutely nothing because they have nothing better to do. KEXP is fucking great. They were able to make this purchase after a donor left $10 million to them in their will. Also, no one wants to join a party that is near death.

If there was only -something- the Stranger could do about X/Twitter...

(like not linking to them 2-3x times each and every article?)

@36, Nice to see you are supplying a piece that indicates that there can't be peace unless Hamas is first forcefully removed. Any ceasefire only delays that day and makes it more costly. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/17/hamas-benjamin-netanyahu-ceasefire

Other conditions might also need to occur, such as a change of Israeli government. Let's go with that, for the sake of your argument.

So if Hamas is forcibly removed, we are half-way to meeting the conditions required for peace. Most would call that progress toward the goal. Achieving half the preconditions required for peace is better than achieving none of them. Holding up one, because you can't immediately or simultaneously achieve the other, would be making the perfect, the enemy of the good.

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/11/17/man-forced-out-gaza-city-family-films-journey-karadsheh-ebof-vpx.cnn

I don't get why people publish those fake composite or focal lens enhanced photos of the gigantic appearing moon like that which Nathalie embedded here. I see them all over and guess they're pretty, but it's not really any different than some cool looking CGI shit from a futuristic sci-fi movie or whatever.

@38, Horrific.

Newsflash: Hamas actions turn their base into war zone. War creates refugees and civilian casualties. They are high as Hamas' human shields are caught in the crossfire.

The horrific outcome that would be expected when a country exercises the U.N. Charter guaranteed human right to defend its people by trying to pick through the human shields their attacker has embedded themselves in and behind, to end the combat capability of their attacker.

"The only winning move [for Hamas' human shields] is [for Hamas] not to play."

In every war there have been refugees and non-combatant casualties. It's a feature of War. It's war's nature.

The irony is that the more Israel slows down their counter-attack to protect non-combatants, the more opportunity for Hamas to erect and use more human shields, from better tactical positions. The more Israel delays, the more time Hamas has to divert more humanitarian aid, and rip up internationally supplied pipes that distribute water in Gaza, and turn them into more rockets to bombard Israel, and blow up more hospital parking lots with their own rocket malfunctions.

None of the people shot in that video looked like Hamas human shields to me. That's just a catchall term to dismiss civilians killed by the IDF and remove its agency and to scapegoat Hamas for every mistake or willful kill made by those who pull the trigger. Human shield may be accurate in several instances, but it is also inaccurate in several instances and is just cognitive dissonance. It's so obvious to anyone with real perspicacity. The trauma from this war and the lifelong scars it will have on the traumatized youth cannot just be dismissed as human shields. Stop it. Just stop.

@42: It's not dismissal, it's an obvious fact. It doesn't disparage those held as shields.

@41: “None of the people shot in that video looked like Hamas human shields to me.”

Please describe the obvious visual difference(s) between a civilian in Gaza who Hamas is currently using for a human shield, and a civilian in Gaza who Hamas is not currently using for a human shield.

“That's just a catchall term to dismiss civilians killed by the IDF and remove its agency and to scapegoat Hamas for every mistake or willful kill made by those who pull the trigger.”

Actually, some of us have been very clear from the start about urban warfare inherently killing civilians, whether Hamas is around to use them for human shields or not:

“…the IDF’s military strikes in Gaza kill civilians, just as any military operation in a densely-populated area always will.”

(https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2023/10/20/79219025/slog-am-ballard-shooting-kills-one-and-injures-three-biden-requests-74-billion-in-war-funds-somethings-rotting-in-this-colorado-funeral-h/comments/17)

Hamas uses the civilians in Gaza as human shields. It does this by hiding terrorists, and infrastructure to support terrorists, in amongst the civilians and civilian buildings of Gaza. Hamas’ intentional policy of using civilians as human shields increases the death toll which warfare in a densely-populated urban area will always cause among the local civilian population. There’s no way to say for certain how many more civilians have died from Hamas’ practice of using them for human shields. All we can do is recognize that more civilians have died as a result, and that Hamas fully intended this result.

“Human shield may be accurate in several instances, but it is also inaccurate in several instances and is just cognitive dissonance.”

No, it’s an accurate description of the reality Hamas has created, by Hamas’ intentional practice of using the civilian population of Gaza for human shields. If you do not want to read these accurate descriptions of how Hamas’ actions have realized Hamas’ intent of killing more civilians in Gaza, then I suggest you not continue to read the Stranger’s comment threads on the topic of war in Gaza. (You may continue to read the Stranger’s headline posts on the topic of war in Gaza, as the chances you’ll there find accurate descriptions of Hamas’ use of human shields remains very, very small.)

The IDF gave them 13 minutes to evacuate and instructed them to hold up white flags along evacuation corridors, whether or not they were elderly, wounded, or otherwise. You can clearly see people struggling to carry their loved ones and following those directions in good faith, and taking bullets to the head and body. When people follow those orders in good faith, and then are shot in the head and dismissed as proximate human shields, that falls outside the scope of proportionality and necessity for the IDF to declare them as human shields. Hamas cannot be everywhere at once. You cannot simply move the goalposts in each instance and declare human shields because the IDF chose to respond in the way they did to Hamas. You cannot take away agency from the IDF and declare that the IDF doesn't kill civilians, Hamas does, in every single instance of needless harm.

“You cannot take away agency from the IDF and declare that the IDF doesn't kill civilians, Hamas does, in every single instance of needless harm.”

Who has “declare[d] that the IDF doesn’t kill civilians”? @43, I quoted myself from last month, explicitly stating, “…the IDF’s military strikes in Gaza kill civilians, just as any military operation in a densely-populated area always will.” How much more clarity could you possibly need on this point?

Hamas attacked civilians in Israel, with the intent of drawing the IDF into Gaza, where fighting between Hamas and the IDF would certainly kill Palestinian civilians. Hamas exacerbated this situation by hiding terrorists, weapons, and other infrastructure amongst civilians. None of this resultant killing required intent upon the part of IDS. Meanwhile, causing civilian deaths is one of Hamas’ goals. Every civilian fatality of Hamas’ 10/7 attacks in Israel, and every civilian death in Gaza since then, resulted from Hamas’ actions, which had the intent of causing those civilian deaths. We need to examine every instance of IDS killing civilians, to determine if IDS had any intent to kill those civilians. We have no need to do this for Hamas, because we already know Hamas bears some or all of the responsibility for every civilian death in this conflict.

@44: Read the last paragraph of @40 about how it's really Hamas who is "moving the goalposts".

Spare me your insipid mental gymnastics. There is no justification for razing Gaza in the name of exterminating Hamas. The fire is spreading.

@47: YES THERE IS. World security and the national defense and the survival of Israel, its people including Palestinians, and the rebirth of Gaza sans Hamas.

@47: Logic is hard, yes. Hamas created this situation, and therefore Hamas bears primary responsibility for it. Tough mental gymnastics, that.

Hamas has clearly stated they will continue attacking Israel from Gaza if they can. From the point of view of Israel, then, preventing another attack by Hamas justifies what IDF now does there. Hamas having (sometimes literally) dug into Gaza means IDF has to destroy more of Gaza to destroy Hamas. Again, primary responsibility for that goes to Hamas.

“The fire is spreading.”

The world doesn’t care that much about the Palestinians. The past 75 years demonstrate that sad truth quite nicely.

A question for all those calling for a ceasefire.

Who enforces it?

Do you visualize troops from Belgium and the Netherlands donning blue UN Helmets and patrolling Gaza?

Surely you aren’t suggesting US troops?

Also what do you suggest the consequences be if Hamas breaks the ceasefire?

@41, Who killed the shooting victims in the video?

The video itself says that they couldn't determine if the civilians had been shot by Hamas or the IDF?

You also equate killing civilians with a criminal (rather than just tragic and horrific) act, or violation of international treaty or norm. The international treaties on the laws of armed conflict make so such linkage. The treaties specifically acknowledge that civilians will be killed as a byproduct of armed conflict when the treaties make it unlawful to INTENTIONALLY TARGET civilians, with no military objective. If you are targeting combatants, the treaties don't outlaw the killing of civilians caught in the crossfire. They never have.

If the international community wanted the norm of outlawing killing of people in the crossfire, they could negotiate treaties to codify it. They don't because there are actually worse outcomes than civilians being caught in the crossfire, like the aggressor being able to prevail in their aggression and subjugation, by erecting human shields so then can attack, but no one can defend against the attack, or counter-attack the attacker.'

The existence of Nazi Concentration Camps became known in 1943 to the Allies. Jews in the U.S. lobbied for carpet bombing of the camps, because they knew as long as the infrastructure of mass killing remained, even more Jews would die. They did so knowing full well, that the Jews in those camps, surrounding towns with German civilians, etc. would die by allied action. Those would be innocent people killed at their request and by allied agency. As horrible as that was, it beat the alternative.

To allow Hamas to continue, as one of the stories you provided, has been agreed to be the worst of a bunch of really awful alternatives. When one party launches a war, there aren't any good alternatives left, just least worse ones.

To codify the killing of all civilians as unlawful, would be to outlaw the right of individuals and nations to self-defense.

Existing treaties also outlaw, as Hamas does intentionally, making protected places (hospitals, schools, homes, etc.) into lawful targets by using them to prosecute armed conflict.

Back to the first question. To the dead, it doesn't matter if it was a Hamas or IDF bullet (or other munition). The international norm, enshrined in treaty, is that the right of self-defense against an unlawful aggressor is so important, that non-combatant death and destruction are the fortunes of war, not a crime, and being able to resist the aggressor, is the greater good, even when that is the cost.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

so
when
HAMAS
don't GAF
about Gazans

then Israel
needn't Either?

my oh my how Convenient
for those wanting
MORE LAND

oh and
have ya Heard?

they're shelling the West Bank now

all's they Want
is for Palestinians
to get the FUCK OFF
ISRAEL'S LAND. ethnic
Cleansing courtesy of US.

our
Morality's
taken a Back
Seat to Ideology.

sad.

@52,

"There has to be a better way," is your constant refrain. If there was don't you think the international community would be demanding it and spelling it out with specificity?

Yet everything you suggest benefits Hamas, strengthens their ability to continue the conflict, at the cost of even more lives, and gives them back the initiative to attack the IDF and Israel with all that misappropriated foreign aid.

So name the better way, that does not benefit Hamas. Cite the better way named by the international community that does not benefit Hamas and strengthen their ability to wage the conflict over the current state of the conflict. We'll wait.

@53: So "genocide" lost its punch? It's now "ethnic cleansing"?

@1 Bingo. TS sucks.

nyt:
More
Advertisers
Halt Spending on X
in Growing Backlash Against Musk

Warner Bros. and Sony have joined other companies in pausing spending on X, formerly Twitter, over Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic post.

More major advertisers have paused their spending on X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter, as the backlash continued over Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X.

The entertainment company Warner Bros. and Sony have joined other prominent brands in halting their spending on X. IBM cut off its advertising on X on Thursday, while Apple, Lionsgate, the entertainment and film distribution company, and Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS, all paused their ads on Friday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/technology/elon-musk-twitter-x-advertisers.html

Cuz
Breaking Up
is soooo very Hard to Do

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/technology/elon-musk-twitter-x-advertisers.html

@dewey your
pedantry is
showing

speaking of pedantic
Tone Policing:

Really this is all just garden variety manipulation by the western empire to shut down opposition to the political status quo. Any time a large movement emerges in opposition to the agendas of the ruling power structure you see the information ecosystem flooded with highly amplified concern trolls wagging their fingers at the tone and tactics of the movement to try and kill off the energy and drag the whole thing into inert pedantic quibbling.

That’s what you’re seeing with all the concern trolling about the popular chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” by the way.

Palestinian rights activists will tell you the phrase means they want all Palestinians to be free from tyranny and abuse, and at most that they support the dismantling of the apartheid regime of Israel, but Israel supporters will look you dead in the eye and insist that the chant is a call for the genocide of Jewish people.

In reality it’s no more a call for genocide than supporting the end of Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa was a call for genocide, but they re-interpret the slogan in the most negative way possible to mean something the people saying it have never intended, and then the powerful institutions of the western world start treating it like a hate crime.

It’s all designed to divert attention away from the actual crime that is happening and get people shaking their fists at the specific methods of the people who oppose that crime.

The whole objective is to grind the conversation down into insignificant quibbling about manners and decorum [@dewey] so people stop drawing attention to the blood-spattered elephant in the room.

And of course another reason the powerful place so much emphasis on politeness and etiquette whenever they are confronted is because they are all acutely aware that there are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and that people can decide at any time to stop playing by the rules and simply tear down the ruling power structures which commit mass atrocities in their name.

As long as everyone’s worried about being perceived as sufficiently well-mannered, the people will never awaken to their true power.

tonnes more:
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/tone-policing-opposition-to-genocide?publication_id=82124&post_id=138851156&isFreemail=true&r=k7ee3

@58 (copypasta): ‘That’s what you’re seeing with all the concern trolling about the popular chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” by the way.

‘Palestinian rights activists will tell you the phrase means they want all Palestinians to be free from tyranny and abuse, and at most that they support the dismantling of the apartheid regime of Israel, but Israel supporters will look you dead in the eye and insist that the chant is a call for the genocide of Jewish people.’

So, Johnstone knows nothing about Hamas?

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.”

(https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp)

You really should do her the kind favor of informing her that she’s not actually an expert on all of the topics for which she’s claiming expertise.

@56: No. DJT, a.k.a., The Orange Turd, Twitter / X, and Elon Muck are what sucks.
Tey to keep up.

@60, re @56: DAMMIT! Correction: "No. DJT, a.k.a., The Orange Turd, Twitter / X, and Elon Musk are what sucks.
Try to keep up."
I blame this typo on !@#$ing AutoCorrect and not enough red wine.

@59 -- obviously
she's got You
pegged wor-
mtongue

your
pathetic
& pedantic
'Justifications'
for War Crimies
notwithstanding.

“Nobody starts out as the sort of person who would support a genocidal bombing campaign that murders children by the thousands. It’s something you come into gradually over the years, one moral compromise at a time.

Again and again over the course of their lifetime, a supporter of Israel is given the choice to either kill off a piece of their conscience or abandon their support for Israel.

They are presented with this choice any time they see Palestinians being treated in a way they’d never want themselves or their loved ones to be treated — whether it’s bombs, protesters shot by snipers, people being driven out of their homes, human rights organizations ruling one after the other that Israel is an apartheid state, tales of the racism and abuse suffered by Palestinians in the West Bank, or testimony about how horrific life in Gaza had been made for the people who live there, long before this latest round of killing began.

This information is unavoidable in modern times. You can avert your gaze, you can try to insulate yourself from it in an ideological echo chamber, but it will inevitably find its way into your field of perception once in a while.

And every time you are confronted with it, you have to make a choice whether to compromise your personal sense of morality a bit further than it was already compromised, or abandon your support for Israel.

You carve off pieces of your own morality one at a time, mostly in order to avoid the psychological discomfort known as cognitive dissonance which necessarily goes along with any drastic change in worldview.

Then before you know it you find yourself opposing a ceasefire to a murderous onslaught that has killed thousands of children.

Deep down you know you’re on the wrong path.”

--Caitlin Johnstone

More:
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-doesnt-have-a-gen-z-problem?

we SEE you.

can You
not see
Your-
self?

Daily Kos:
Israel and Hamas
reach tentative deal to
pause conflict for 5 days, free hostages. Thanks Biden.

Israel and Hamas have agreed to are close to a tentative deal to pause the ongoing conflict and free dozens of hostages. The plan, engineered by the Biden Administration, has been in the works over weeks of talks in Doha.

Israel, the United States and Hamas are close to an agreement that would free dozens of women and children held hostage in Gaza, in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting.

The release, which could begin within the next several days — barring last-minute hitches — could lead to the first sustained pause in conflict in Gaza, according to people familiar with its provisions.

Under the terms of a detailed, six-page agreement, all parties to the conflict would freeze combat operations for at least five days while an initial 50 or more of what are believed to be a total 239 hostages are released in batches every 24 hours. Overhead surveillance would monitor movement on the ground to police the pause.

The stop in fighting is also intended to allow a significant increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance, including fuel, to enter the besieged enclave from Egypt.

However, www.timesofisrael.com/…reports that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was no deal yet to secure the release of some 240 hostages held by Hamas ‘as of now’.” So, there are probably some last-minute negotiations over the agreement.

This is a welcome development, at least for the short term. Yes, it should have been done earlier. No, we don’t know what will happen during or after the 5 days.

But the Biden administration is doing its job in the face of enormous difficulties and political pressures, and a rabid republican party and its billionaire backers who will trash Democrats no matter what we do. Now let’s beat up on republicans for a change 😄

by AKALib
Saturday, November 18, 2023

(This content is not subject to review
by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/18/2206727/-Israel-and-Hamas-to-pause-conflict-free-dozens-of-hostages-Thanks-Biden?

way to GO
Smokin’ Joe!!!
perhaps your Presidency's
gonna have a decent shot yet again!

now
about
that Age thingy...

@64: Forcibly invading another country, kidnapping civilians there out of their homes at gunpoint, dragging them across international borders, and holding them hostage, are all now becoming accepted practices of international diplomacy. I can easily understand how someone like you would regard this as a great victory. Just one question remains:

Why endure the arduous labor needed to “carve off pieces of your own morality” when you can just shoot it in the head — you know, like a kidnapped hostage?

You and Hamas, in the new Dark Ages: perfect together!

oh
Wormtongue
how you Schweep
60 YEARS of Israeli
Oppression Under the
Rug as if it never Existed.

you and your type
are bringing US the
Darkest of Ages gleefully

bugger
off.

@66: No such thing as Israeli oppression as Arabs in Israel have more freedoms than those living in Jordon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or other middle east nations.

How come those countries are saying no Palestinian immigrants fleeing Gaza?

Always casting Israel as being in the wrong. You're getting dangerously close to appearing as an anti-semite. I suggest caution in spewing your rhetoric.

@67. Yeah kristo, you might make the same mistake the greaf self-professed Christian Raindrip did by deciding who is and who isn't a real Jew and picking and choosing what parts of reality to deny ever happened while advocating for the razing of Gaza and concentrating its entire population into an inescapable cage of starvation and death. Keep posting, Raindrop, it's really telling how much of an anti fascist you truly are.

Agree infinity percent that Slog should dump X. I block all X links with a filter but it's not just about me and not just about other readers of the Slog. Simply "muting" what you don't like does nothing to influence the platform or its remaining advertisers. Every second spent on X in any capacity by any account is the calculation they base their value on: mDAU (monetizable Daily Active Users). It doesn't matter what you look at. If you log into X, even for a few seconds, you're an mDAU (a.k.a., a tool).

Just stop using Twitter, people. Kill your account and spend your precious eyeball time elsewhere. If the Slog keeps doing The Laziest Journalism by continuing to feed mDAUs to Musk every day, deprive them of your eyeballs too.

@62: As Hamas’ slogan, “From the river to the sea,” simply wasn’t baldly eliminationist enough for you, you could try the slogan Seattle’s “Pro-Palestinian” protesters chanted:

‘The protesters made their demands clear in their rallying chants: … “We don’t want two states, we want 1948,”’

(https://www.thestranger.com/news/2023/10/16/79212000/as-a-ground-invasion-looms-thousands-in-seattle-protest-for-a-free-palestine)

Don’t think about it too much (by which we mean, at all); Johnstone can create a comforting lie about this eliminationist slogan as well, just another lie which you will then obediently swallow and regurgitate here. (Because nothing fights fascism better than excusing eliminationist slogans — especially ones made by armed reactionary gangs! — against Jews.)

@68: Congrats, Garb: on this topic, you’re been wronger than raindrop. That does not just happen by accident; indeed, you’ve put great time and effort into not understanding Hamas’ great culpability in causing the humanitarian crisis you’ve here decried. Now you’ve succeeded in getting Hamas a breather (along with whatever percentages of incoming international aid Hamas will appropriate and pilfer from Palestinian children), they can get back to planning and executing more killings and kidnappings in Israel. Just like they’ve already said they would.

After which, they will flee back into their well-prepared hideouts behind and under civilians in Gaza, and another humanitarian crisis will ensue. (You didn’t really think giving Hamas what they wanted would somehow deter them from trying all of this again, did you?)

I’ll leave you guys to celebrate how killings, kidnappings, and hostage-takings are now part of international diplomacy, and how rampant use of human shields to protect terrorists from the consequences of their terrorism has worked so incredibly well. From now onwards, I’ll limit my conversations here to civilized persons. Good-bye, good luck, and may anyone you care about never be kidnapped and held hostage in the name of whatever it is you believe you’ve accomplished here.

Why does this conflict bring out so many keyboard warriors over others? Why don't the other six ongoing wars (see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts) produce the same volume of back-and-forth commentary?

Imagine a world where the sheer volume of words being traded back and forth actually had a tangible impact on such conflicts. A few people here seem to have convinced themselves that we live in such a world.

@70. Put a sock it in tensor, you speak poison with two tongues.

@72: Oh dear, after weeks of thoughtful rebuttals, you've regressed into volleying insults.

@Garbby
he was Great
in LOTR but his
Day's long since past.

@69: Let me see if I'm understanding you correctly. You're against X because it has content that offends you? Is that right?

Next, in what personal ways does offensive content on X negatively impact your life?

Finally, because you deem it offensive you don't want anyone else to see that content. Is that right?

As far as Elon Musk's comment goes, it was a convoluted response to a convoluted tweet.

"You have said the actual truth," in response to an X post that claimed Jewish communities support "dialectical hatred against whites." (Axios)

The supposition doesn't even make any sense. A significant percentage of Jews are white. Elon's response doesn't make sense.

But that's enough of a blunder to make the mainstream media to go full anti-Musk. But barely a peep from them about actual hard-core anti-semitism you see by every day in the streets of our cites with chants of "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" and the tearing down of posters of kidnapped Israeli hostages. I wonder they're going to stop driving there Teslas if they're so steamed over X.

Mux
is a Fascist
he Supports
Fascism & if You
support Mux well then

YOU SUPPORT FASCISM.

it's like
the HAMAS
Catch-22 if you
can Catch my Drift.

see
how that
"works" dewey?

they Love ya
tho ya
wank-
er.

So, now that Hamas got the cease-fire it demanded, what happens to CM Sawant’s “Pack City Hall” event to demand appeasement of Hamas? Her opportunities for performative nonsense on the public’s dime now rapidly dwindle, so not holding this one would seem not an option. Also not an option would be any praise for Pres. Biden, as he’s a Democrat. I’m guessing she’ll just hold the event, give all credit for appeasement of Hamas to herself and her followers, and use it to advertise her upcoming “Workers Strike Back” grift.

And the Stranger will slobber lovingly all over the event, and her.

@77: No dear. Your drift equates to the mentality of "if you voted for Biden you support everything he says or does".

who was it what Said:

if there's a Ceasefire
then the TERROR-
ISTS WIN. cut
And Dried &
NO bones
about it!

so
it's
Over?

whew!

so NO
WWIII!
NO Arm-
ageddon!
Israel's just Gone
with the Kadim or as
I Like to call it: the קָדִים ?

let's see
how well your
Prediction holds out

if it's anything
at All like the
rest of 'em
then the
Geno-
cide
is

far from Over.

@80: Looks like your text almost made a point at the end but didn't.

@71: “Why does this conflict bring out so many keyboard warriors over others? Why don't the other six ongoing wars (see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts) produce the same volume of back-and-forth commentary?“

Well, here at the Stranger, headline posters have routinely abused the word “genocide” for weeks in their ‘reporting’ of unverified casualty figures from Hamas. Commenters here (myself included) have been pushing back against this abuse of language, so there’s something of a local fight ongoing.

“Imagine a world where the sheer volume of words being traded back and forth actually had a tangible impact on such conflicts.”

That statement could be true of just about any topic, discussed anywhere, ever.

“A few people here seem to have convinced themselves that we live in such a world.”

Again, it would be a lot more than just a few people, it would be true far beyond just here, and it could apply to almost any topic.

"Commenters here
(myself included) have
been pushing back against this abuse of language"

nah.
you've
been Demanding
we toe your pedantic line
and not even Think about the
Horror of answering one War Crime

with ever More War Crimes.

your
morality's
been over-trumpfed
by an ideology immune to
introspection but still you're

the Victim

poorly-
Played.

"Gaza is a humanitarian disaster.
No more aid to Israel without strong conditions.

The horrific war in the mid-east continues.
Here is a statement I released yesterday with
my thoughts about a constructive path forward:

Hamas is a corrupt terrorist organization which began this war by slaughtering 1,200 innocent Israeli men, women and children and taking over 200 hostages. Hamas has made clear, before and after October 7, that its goal is to destroy Israel. Under those circumstances, Israel absolutely has the right to defend itself.

While Israel has the right to go after Hamas,
Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist government does not
have the right to wage almost total warfare against the Palestinian people.

That is morally unacceptable
and in violation of international law.
Displacing 1.6 million people from their homes,
cutting off food, water, medical supplies, and fuel, and
killing some 12,000 Palestinians - nearly half of whom are
children - is in violation of every code of human decency. It must stop.

The U.S. provides $3.8 billion a year
in aid to Israel and the Biden
administration wants
$14 billion more.

The Netanyahu government, or hopefully a new Israeli government, must understand that not one penny will be coming to Israel from the U.S. unless there is a fundamental change in their military and political positions.

Among other conditions that must
be imposed upon any aid to Israel are:

an end to the indiscriminate bombing which has taken thousands of civilian lives and a significant pause in military operations so that massive humanitarian assistance can come into the region;
the right of displaced Gazans to return to their homes;
no long-term Israeli re-occupation or blockade of Gaza;
an end to settler violence in the West Bank and a freeze on settlement expansion;
a commitment to broad peace talks for a two-state solution in the wake of the war.

Thank you for reading.

In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders"

@84: Next time, just provide the link so that we're actually reading the commentary that Bernie Sanders wrote, instead of text that we're to assume was written by Bernie.

@85
more
Pedantry.

ZERO
words
for the on-
going War Crimes

as per
Usual.

@86: Here you go:

On October 7, 2023, Hamas broke international law and started a war.

@86, Accurately cite the international treaty language being violated. Hint: Refugees and civilian injuries and deaths do not equal a war crime, by themselves. Additional elements are required.

The history that you Garb cite is informative (if incomplete because it neglects who called for and instigated violence against which group first - the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and surrounding Arab countries called for and initiated hostilities first, when the U.N. cleared the way to recognize Israel as a nation); however, on October 7, the history that preceded it was unchangeable by either of the parties. Neither could step into a time machine and go back.

So given the events of October 7, that proved Israel's policy of containment of Hamas, hadn't worked, and wouldn't work, what would you have Israel do? Leave Hamas free to continue to divert international aid into weapons for the next surprise attack? Leave all countries but Israel with the U.N. guaranteed right of self-defense, up to and including, counter-attacking their attacker to the point they surrender or can't resist? That is the outcome that your suggestions result in on the ground.

What would you have the IDF do? Not attack command and control centers, wherever Hamas may place them.

If the attacked nation faces a restriction on attacking the command centers, personnel, logistics, power generation for military purposes, and other military capabilities if they are placed in certain locations, then that is where the attacker will place them. In this case, that is what Hamas has done, or allegedly done. International law is clear, if the attacker puts it power generating capability, command and control, weapons manufacture, weapons storage, or attack points in a hospital, in terms of the Laws of Armed Conflict, its a military installation, not a hospital. That is the only way it can be, for their to be a right of self-defense.

It would be a dual, not warfare, if there were no refugees and civilian casualties. The U.S. and U.N. have passed laws making the use of warfare to resolve disputes unlawful. It's utterly unenforceable. That's why they were repealed from U.S. Law, and the U.N. recognize the right of warfare in national self-defense, it just regulates that civilians may not be intentionally targeted without an attempt to hit a military objective near or intermingled with those civilians.

When the Russians, Chinese, or North Koreans kill hundreds of thousands of Puget Sound civilians with nuclear missile strikes on Bangor, Everett, NAS Whidbey, and the Jim Creek radio array, that won't be a war crime. Those are legitimate military targets. We will be all be dead, but it won't be war crime. Target downtown Seattle, knowing that Bangor and NS Everett will still be intact. That's a war crime.

@Ahab -- What Would I DO?

well for Starters
I'd have you Read Sen.
Sanders comment above.

do that
then get
back to us?

@89, So you would let Hamas remain un-bombed, un-shelled, and free to continue hostilities as long as they have erected human shields by using a hospital, schools, home, with non-combatants in it.

So you are for Hamas being able to continue to attack Israel at-will, without Israel being able to strike back.

Got it.

The conflict in the Middle East has been going on my entire life, and there has never been a shortage of finger pointing and division outside the conflict. When I read people's angry posts, they all seem to agree about one thing: innocent people are dying. I don't care what (fake--all religions are fake) religion you follow, if you can't have compassion for all of the victims, then you are just a sad, sad excuse for a human being.