Schools still face closure: Since Seattle Public Schools’ budget deficit isn’t going anywhere thanks to a historic underfunding of our schools here in the Evergreen state, Superintendent Brent Jones will still need to close some elementary schools next school year. By the end of the month, he’s going to announce the up to five schools that will close—which, while still bad, is a tad better than the between 17 and 21 school closures initially proposed. Jones will also release the rest of his financial plan so SPS can “regain its financial footing.” More school closures could be on the horizon beyond just this year. It will be fun to go to school with the threat of closure hanging over head like a budgetary Sword of Damocles.
Deadly downtown crash: At around 1 am Friday morning, a black SUV barreling through Westlake ran a red light and smashed into a white sedan at 4th Avenue and Pine Street before striking a street pole. The driver and passenger in the SUV were killed. The sedan’s driver and passenger survived unscathed.
Mystery bullet: A bullet went through a second-story window at Nova High School in the Central District on Thursday. It’s unclear where the bullet came from or whether the second-story Nova window was its intended target. Please refrain from shooting in or at schools.
Seahawks keep sucking: Bad news, Seattle’s football team doesn’t seem to be faring very well. Despite starting the season on a winning streak, the Hawks are now on a big fat losing streak with their loss last night to the dreaded San Francisco 49ers.
A bit of borealis: Did you catch the Northern Lights last night? Or were you a loser like me and didn’t see shit?
We’ve got some low clouds approaching the office so our views might be gone soon. But this flare up of the the #aurora was easily spotted without any optical assistance around 12:45 AM PST. #wawx pic.twitter.com/bfwClFilal
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) October 11, 2024
Another Bruce Harrell budget victim: Harrell and the Seattle City Council could slash funding for tenant services in half based on the proposed city budget. Those services fund tenant hotlines, counseling programs, and legal aid services. In case you needed another reminder, this is not a city government that cares about renters.
Oh, I bet he hates this: A judge has ruled that redacted evidence tied to a brief in Donald Trump’s federal election interference case can be released. Trump and his team have seven days to try to block the disclosure. Trump has so far been doing an effective job of keeping his multitudinous federal indictments from progressing until after the November election. This disclosure could throw a wrench in that.
Foggy for now: A spooky little fall fog will cling to Seattle this morning. The rest of the day should be boring and cloudy.
We’re seeing some dense fog on some of the higher hills around Puget Sound this morning. This will stick around through much of the morning. Take it easy out there and plan some extra time to get to your destination. #wawx pic.twitter.com/gm6RjPcuEX
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) October 11, 2024
A miner problem: An equipment malfunction at the historic Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine near Cripple Creek, Colorado killed one person and stranded 12 others 1,000 feet underground for hours. The mine, which regularly hosts tours, said the issue involved the elevator, which malfunctioned at the tour’s midway point. It’s unclear exactly how the elevator malfunctioned or how the one fatality occurred, though four people sustained minor injuries related to back and neck pain.
Icebox icon: Coast guards rescued a man clinging to an icebox 30 miles off the coast of Longboat Key, Florida. Hurricane Milton stranded his boat and he clung for his life on the icebox through the night in the middle of the ocean, withstanding winds of 75-90 mph and waves up to 25 feet. “This man survived in a nightmare scenario for even the most experienced mariner,” coast guard official Dana Grady told The Guardian. At least 13 people have died in incidents related to Hurricane Milton. Millions of people remain without power.
Do not go gentle into that good night: A crew with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration dropped the ashes of climate scientist Peter Dodge directly into Hurricane Milton. Dodge flew into the eyes of hundreds of hurricanes through his work.
Wildlife in decline: It’s bleak out there for global wildlife populations. Recent reports say critters worldwide have declined in population by 73% on average in 50 years. Certain places in the world have much steeper wildlife declines. In Latin America and the Caribbean, for instance, there’s been a 95% reduction. Humans, and our encroachment on the natural world, are to blame. The good news is that scientists are optimistic that nature can recover given the chance.
Get their asses, Multnomah County: Oregon officials in Multnomah County have filed a $50 billion lawsuit against fossil fuel companies for contributing to climate change. The suit includes the normal villains in the space, such as Shell and Exxon, but it was recently expanded to include NW Natural, the county’s utility company. The complaint against NW Natural alleges that it “knew that the burning of natural gas contributed to global warming but misled its customers about the consequences.”
Girl, so embarrassing: Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is simping hardcore for Donald Trump. Aside from relentless ad campaigns on Twitter for Trump and funding a Super PAC with tens of millions of dollars, Musk attended a Pennsylvania rally with Trump last week and has now moved his base of operations to the Keystone State to help win the election in the pivotal swing state. How badly do you want those Trump tax breaks, Elon? Embarrassing! I hate both of these guys.
Is this how you would wield power? Hackers tapped into and took control of dozens of robot vacuums in multiple US cities. They used the hacked robots to yell slurs.
A song for your Friday: The Airborne Toxic Event is playing at the Showbox this weekend, so here’s their song about storms since those are pretty topical this week.
Collapsing wildlife populations near ‘points of no return’, report warns
Global wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 73% in 50 years, a new scientific assessment has found, as humans continue to push ecosystems to the brink of collapse. [..]
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/10/collapsing-wildlife-populations-points-no-return-living-planet-report-wwf-zsl-warns
This seems like a good time to note that the Hannah Art Collective and Pissy Rich did an actual video sneering about closures as “fear-mongering” endorsing and pushing for the pro-closure slate of candidates. No one at the Stranger acknowledged or apologized for this malpractice. Not even the new Chief Editor has followed up. Just memory-holed it while moving on.
Not a good look, kidz.
@2
“Not a good look, kids”
They don’t care.
That rescue of the man clinging to the ice box is something to see. I looked for a longer video, but they all cut off at the time the rescuer meets him.
From the headline I thought it might have been a refrigerator as growing up my parents kept using the ice box when referring to the refrigerator.
@3 – Yeah well their “progressive” brand should be held to account. Austerity policy for kids unlucky enough to be left behind in the public school system? Don’t tell me this town isn’t anti-family. Don’t tell me progressives have my kids’ best interests in mind.
“Since Seattle Public Schools’ budget deficit isn’t going anywhere thanks to a historic underfunding of our schools here in the Evergreen state…”
Losing 5,000 kids in the last five years and adopting a union contract you knew at the time was unsustainable has more to do with this deficit than the current state funding formula.
under Socialism
all Teachers’e required
to work Pro Bono or Else
and taxpayers’re
Forced to live
as Paupers
and
they’re
the Unhappiest
peoples on the Planet
do
Not
believe
those Lying
Scandinavians!
They’re all
Propagandists!
and want You to
Suffer as they do
Maybe stop linking to Twitter if you hate Elon Musk so much.
“Trump has so far been doing an effective job of keeping his multitudinous federal indictments from progressing until after the November election. This disclosure could throw a wrench in that.”
No one cares about the truth anymore – only what they hear in their echo chamber (example A, Trump supporters believe Biden / Harris have control of a weather dominator ala GI Joe baddies Cobra). Unfortunately sanity has left the building.
“natural” gas—heh heh, heh heh
I also hope the recent central district school shootings have not been exacerbated following the recent arrests / subsequent shakeup of the SE Network SafetyNet (and if Nova wasn’t included in the recent proposal, then let’s get that addressed)
@8: So many Dems have spent so many years waiting for Superman to come take down Donald Trump.
Theory: Democrats control the hurricanes. Discuss.
Yo momma so fat the weatherman gives names to her flatulence.
“Please refrain from shooting in or at schools.”
You read it first at The Stranger. You need not refrain from shooting anywhere else.
Perhaps The Stranger can do a feature on these four youth to breathe some new life into their “No Youth Jail” agenda.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/four-teens-arrested-in-connection-with-78-violent-crimes-in-king-county/
@14: Invalid categorical syllogism, i.e. bad logic. Just because refraining from shooting in or at schools is good, does not mean that refraining from shooting anywhere else is bad. It can still be good to refrain from shooting in other places, in addition to refraining from shooting at schools.
For example, if I say “I like apple pie,” I am not saying that I dislike cherry pie. That would be an illogical conclusion to draw from my statement.
I bring this up, because I see a lot of conservatives make this kind of category error when they see the slogan “Black lives matter.” Conservatives assume that if black lives matter, then other lives do not matter, which makes conservatives angry to contemplate. Conservatives’ anger on this point is illogical, the result of an invalid categorical syllogism. Just like in the apple pie example, the inclusion of one does not imply the exclusion of the other.
Just thought I’d hold your hand through all that, Mr. Notmyopic, because you very much seem like the kind of person who would get angry about black lives matter! 😉 But now you know that you no longer have to be! Thanks, thumpus!
speaking of x
marking the spot
nyt:
Musk
Is Going All
In to Elect Trump
Elon Musk
is planting himself in
Pennsylvania, has brought his brain
trust to help and may even knock on doors himself.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/11/us/politics/elon-musk-donald-trump-pennsylvania.html
when the World allows You
to amass the Biggest pile
of CA$H ~ it Must mean
YOU should Control
the place. Doesn’t
it? sociopaths
running the
Show
with MUX at the
Helm What could
possibly Go Wrong?
@14,
Holy freaking shit Neale, did you really need to have the logical fallacy explained to you there by @16 done in such a painstaking manner? You’re a sad, stupid fucking embarrassment. I really hope your wife and kid don’t see your contributions here, yeesh.
16: I see your point, but it is predictable and logical to question the seemingly arbitrary importance bestowed on a group as opposed to others. One doesn’t have to be a conservative to see that. If you were to say “apple pie matters” then cherry pie lovers would feel a bit puzzled, if not slighted.
@12: Interesting theory, Swifty. Well, among the Southern states recently slammed brutally hard by Category 4 Hurricanes Helene and Milton, Florida, home of Mal-a-Tardo* and Donald Trump, has been getting hit the hardest.
I know I’D sleep better if suddenly DJT was permanently out of the 2024 presidential race if not rightly doing life in prison for 34 counts of criminal conviction.
*Thank you, kristofarian!
@17 kristofarian: I’m well aware you quoting the New York Times, but jesus wept!
This is further proof that Elon Musk won’t stop until he’s a trillionaire and owns everyone and everything.
You can rock me to sleep tonight, kris.
@19: “question the seemingly arbitrary importance bestowed on a group as opposed to others”
At the time, many were convinced that members of this group were being shot to death by police with particular frequency and callousness. Hence the reminder to the police, and to us all, that the lives of this group’s members do, in fact, matter.
Again, not an attempt to deprecate the importance of other groups’ lives, just an attempt to include this group in the population of those whose lives matter.
“logical to question the seemingly arbitrary importance bestowed on a group”
gasp …
Were you tipsy last night when you let the mask drop?
“Dodge flew into the eyes of hundreds of hurricanes through his work.”
I thought you were going toward his ashes flew into the eyes of hundreds of climate change deniers as the hurricane distributed them across Florida
@6 Paying competitive teacher wages and properly funding schools is critical to reaching “sustainable” quality education for our kids.
No food has entered northern Gaza since 1 October, says UN
The United Nations food agency said on Saturday that no food aid had entered northern Gaza since 1 October, reports the Associated Press (AP).
[..]
Concerns of a hunger crisis have risen in Gaza roughly a month after the UN’s independent investigator on the right to food accused Israel of carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/oct/12/israel-gaza-war-lebanon-hezbollah-hamas-middle-east-latest-news-updates?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-670a4fd08f081a18004e5364#block-670a4fd08f081a18004e5364
A cherry pie lover would have to be a complete narcissist to think someone was disrespecting them by saying apple pie matters. We’re not helping these people by coddling their insecurities and logical fallacies.
@26: Yes, it’s finally time for Hamas to surrender. (Sure, pro-Palestinian protesters in Seattle enthusiastically chant for war, war, and more war, but they’re not the ones suffering, now are they?)
@27: I know, but you see this kind of bad logic all the time, enough that you have to expect it and plan around it. For example, if you say “Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state, and Hamas should be destroyed,” Averagebob will immediately have an absolute meltdown about how you’re dehumanizing and genociding the Palestinians. It’s like, no, buddy, Israel’s right to exist doesn’t imply the lack of Palestine’s right to exist. Hamas being bad doesn’t imply that Palestinians are also bad. But if you don’t constantly and patronizingly reassure the Notmyoptics and Average Bobs of the world that “All Lives Matter,” they will accuse you of all sorts of indecencies.
“Conservatives assume that if black lives matter, then other lives do not matter, which makes conservatives angry to contemplate. “
This is a very generous way to look at it because when you start digging you find these people really think that black lives don’t matter as much, because somehow these people “had it coming”. Pretty much the way YOU think that Palestinian lives don’t really matter. The “all lives matter” retort is a deflection to avoid the charge of systemic racism implied by saying that “black lives matter”
@29 no, no you’re dehumanizing and genociding the Palestinians” because you have no problem with Israel dehumanizing and genociding the Palestinians.
@30, 31: That was beautiful, thank you for that! 😂😂😂
@29 You have a lot more in common with NotMyopicButCompletelyBlind than I do. Your methods of thugs are again duly noted.
@32 your fake laughing isn’t a cogent reply
@28
“Demonstrators said free Palestine. So we said it meant war, and butchered 10,000s of women and children. That’ll teach them”
Brilliant logic!
Thumpus the thug is so concerned about Palestinians that he has no comment about UN reports about Israel deliberately starving North Gazans. Just a coincidence ….
but “avaragebob”
it CANNOT Be “War
Crimes” if those supporting
said War Crimes fucking SAY it isn’t!
Anyway, who needs the stupid
International Court of Justice?
we’ve got Wormtongue sadly
@35: “Demonstrators said free Palestine. So we said it meant war,”
Actually, from the beginning, the demonstrators were very clear they meant war, and specifically war to eliminate Israel:
‘The protesters made their demands clear in their rallying chants: “Free, free Palestine,” … “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” and, “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)
So, the demonstrators themselves explicitly equated “Free Palestine” with “intifada revolution” — and no state of Israel.
And we took them at their word, which is why “Gaza Isn’t Driving Votes.”
@38: “Gaza Isn’t Driving Votes.”
Driving votes to Trump, actually.
meanwhilst
bibi’s Genocide
cum keep-outta-Prison
Gambit expands from Gaza/
Palestine to surrounding Nations
whilst the World Wonders how to Stop
nutnyahoo’s Madness: Thousand Murdered
in the last 24 hours with the Promise of TENS
of THOUSANDS MORE TO COME. if we cannot
free bibi his Genocide’ll likely swallow up the Rest of
the Fucking Planet with Many on the so-called “right”
loudly Cheering him on
his Crimes against
Humanity having
no Impact on
them whatso-
fucking Ever.
our
reptiliclan
‘brainstem’
Finally sinking
Humanity. Score!
@39: The losers of our civic debate over Gaza (e.g. Sawant) now want to elect Trump, to punish Democrats and liberals for our daring not to agree with them — and, worse yet, for our winning. Their rule-or-ruin mentality — itself another example of Horseshoe Theory in action — shows how this has not been about peace, or innocent civilian lives in Gaza, but about their attempt to change American policy away from supporting Israel. Their attempt has failed, and failed completely, and their bitterness over their failure can no longer be hidden behind their stated concerns for Palestine, or Gaza, or the lives of persons there. Trump will give Bibi carte blanch to eliminate Gaza, and even possibly to settle the West Bank once and for all. Anyone who can’t or won’t understand that (again, Sawant) loses all claim to caring about Gaza, West Bank, or the Palestinians.
@41: There’s a chance a second Trump presidency might be better for the Islamic resistance than a Harris presidency. Trump is openly contemptuous of Palestinians, Muslims, and Arabs, but he’s no particular friend of Jews. He has a long history of withholding or threatening to withhold support from allies he perceives as insufficiently submissive, most famously NATO and the Syrian Democratic Forces (the latter of which prompted his own SecDef to resign in protest).
I could well imagine a President Trump feeling slighted by the Israelis and cutting off US military aid, or green-lighting Israel’s enemies at the UN, or precipitating the fall of Israel’s government through individualized sanctions. Any of this would be a massive boost to the Islamic resistance and could force the Israelis to accept cripplingly bad peace terms. Donald Trump is unpredictable and self-destructive, and Israel has far more room for losses than gains under a Trump presidency, unlike the Islamic resistance which has essentially no room left for losses but plenty of room for gains. Trump can’t be much harder on the resistance than Biden has been, but he could be a whole lot gentler.
@42: Agreed on everything about Trump, but Bibi has thrived in the unforgiving climate of Israeli politics for decades, and should know how to butter up a buffoon like Trump.
Specifically on Gaza, Trump’s single largest self-delusion may well be his belief he’s been a successful real-estate developer, not just an undeserving heir who played one on a TV game show. Bibi could dangle the allure of all that Mediterranean beachfront property — once, ah, certain ‘arrangements’ are made to ‘prepare it for development’ — to appeal to Trump’s delusional image of himself.
@43: I just don’t see what even a maximally hostile President Trump could do in Gaza or Lebanon that the US isn’t already doing. There’s the obvious suggestion of direct US involvement in combat, but Trump has shied away from direct US combat multiple times in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran, even in the face of easy excuses to attack such as the BAMS shootdown incident. So I think direct US involvement in combat would remain off the table even under President Trump.
That being the case, what could Trump do if he wanted to inflict greater pain on Gaza or Lebanon? Not much, I say. Even if he, for example, doubled the supply of JDAMs and 155s, it’s not clear the Israelis could use them more effectively than they are already. The Israelis have already reduced bombing and shelling in Gaza by >90% since the war’s height. There just aren’t that many targets in Gaza left to service. Likewise, something like half of Hizbollah’s military infrastructure has already been bombed. There’ll still be a need for close air support for troops in contact, but those missions just don’t consume that much ammo. Doubling the Israeli ammo supply wouldn’t result in doubling the Israelis’ effectiveness. There’s just not much more Trump can give the Israelis, even if he were fully committed to hurting the Islamic resistance.
What the Israelis really need, if they are serious about inflicting a decisive defeat on their enemies, is 5x the ground combat manpower in the field, to hold terrain once cleared. But manpower is one thing no amount of US aid can supply, even if Trump were maximally committed to hurting the Islamic resistance. It’s something the Israelis would have to do for themselves.
By contrast to his impotence to inflict MORE pain on the Islamic resistance, Trump would have substantial power to inflict LESS pain in the Islamic resistance. Cutting off the current military supply levels, leading or allowing a Security Council action, or sanctioning the Israeli government into collapse would all provide huge relief to Israel’s enemies.
I think, if I were committed to hurting Israel and helping Hamas and Hizbollah, I would give serious consideration to supporting Donald Trump over Kamala Harris. I guess what I’m saying is….Kshama Sawant…is a…genius?? 😃
hmmn
looks like
Wormtongue
& his Chatterbot™’ve
pretty much Colonized tS’s
derr Schlogg. had they only drop-
ped a few 2K Bunker Busters Bombys
they mightta
cleasned it out
in Moments flat.
A definte Lack of
Purpose of Mission
poorly-played,
for a couple
of bibi
bots
@16, Not angry at BLM. Racism sucks.
Turn up your sarcasm detector when reading @14. The Stranger, which has never met a gun, or gun use, they like, now only seems to object and call a shooting out when school is involved.
@38 “Actually, from the beginning, the demonstrators were very clear they meant war”
I really couldn’t care less about your logic free drivel but for the record ‘intifada’ means ‘rebellion, uprising, resistance”, which isn’t equivalent to war or even necessarily the use of violence as shown by the relatively violence free first intifada. But hey, I know this won’t prevent you from repeating the same lame propaganda ad-infinitum. Carry on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intifada
‘The international order is breaking down in Gaza’: UN experts mark one year of genocidal attacks on Palestinians
11 October 2024
“The world faces the most profound crisis since the end of World War II. The atrocities which the world witnessed in World War II resulted in a collective determination to say ‘Never Again’ and to create the United Nations to achieve that goal. However, one year since the 7 October attack by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups against Israel, the world has seen a brutal escalation of violence, resulting in genocidal attacks, ethnic cleansing and collective punishment of Palestinians, which risks breaking down the international multilateral system.
The Israeli military assault that commenced immediately after the October 7 attack, was accompanied by genocidal statements by Israeli leaders. On October 9, the Israeli Defense Minister Gallant ordered a “complete siege, no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” and a full-on assault against the biggest open-air prison of our time. On 28 October, following weeks of air strikes on Gaza, just as the ground invasion began amid violent anti-Palestinian rhetoric by Israeli officials, public figures and others, Prime Minister Netanyahu issued the command: “Remember what Amalek has done to you, we have been commanded. And we do remember.” In so doing, he invoked the Biblical reference: “Now go, attack Amalek, and destroy all that they have, and spare no one; but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
One year later, the promise by Israeli leaders to destroy Gaza has been fulfilled. The Strip is now a wasteland of rubble and human remains, where survivors – men and women, children and the elderly – struggle to hold on to life amid deprivation and disease. Israeli bombs have spared no one – not journalists, students, scholars, doctors, nurses, babies, pregnant women, persons with disabilities, civil servants, people seeking food and safety or humanitarian workers, including UN staff. Entire families have been exterminated and generations erased, with millions of lives torn apart.
Nearly all those surviving are displaced, trapped in ever-shrinking parts of the tiny territory, corralled into crowded camps and shelters with nowhere to flee. Constant bombing has turned humanitarian zones into killing fields.
The enhanced siege, restrictions on aid and relentless targeting of homes and key civilian infrastructure have led to starvation at an unprecedented pace. The decimation of health infrastructure has made preventable diseases incurable and accelerated the spread of illness and epidemics, while the massive destruction of educational, cultural and heritage institutions and the land itself deeply jeopardises Palestinian culture, national identity and existence on the land.
Meanwhile, as the world watches the people of Gaza live in constant terror of impending annihilation, broadcast and shared on social media, a deliberate pattern of conduct threatening the extinction of Palestinians through mass displacement, death, destruction and annexation of land is emerging in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem.
Nothing can justify these acts. For a year, we have implored States to intervene, in line with their moral and legal obligations to prevent these atrocities and preserve the international legal system, human rights and humanity. Our calls have gone largely unheeded, together with those of millions of people worldwide who have used their platforms to advocate for an end to the violence, and who continue to face repressive tactics to silence and punish their voices, in several countries.
The international legal order is breaking down in the face of these atrocities. The International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants remains outstanding without a timely decision by the Court while a genocidal campaign rages. Provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to prevent genocidal acts and preserve evidence of crimes committed in Gaza remain unfulfilled. The ICJ Advisory Opinion declaring Israel’s occupation unlawful, and amounting to racial segregation and apartheid, followed by a widely-supported General Assembly resolution, remains to be implemented. Defiant in the face of overwhelming public sentiment across the international community, Israel continues to act with brazen disregard for international law and order.
The international community’s failure to secure a ceasefire and hold accountable all those responsible for or complicit in heinous crimes, has not only enabled the continuation of unprecedented brutality but widened it to the broader region, setting Lebanon ablaze with violence and destruction.
This spiral of destruction must end. The international community must act with utmost urgency to change the trajectory of violence if we are to avert a full-scale conflagration with unthinkable consequences – most egregiously for the children.
We call on all leaders to move beyond dehumanising and polarising narratives, and actively work for an immediate cessation of all hostilities and crimes in Palestine/Israel and the region, for the immediate release of all persons arbitrarily detained, both Israelis held in Gaza and Palestinians held by Israel.
We call for immediate provision of life-saving humanitarian assistance to all affected people and for such access to be guaranteed by the international community.
[..]
https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2024/10/international-order-breaking-down-gaza-un-experts-mark-one-year-genocidal
@47: “intifada’ means rebellion, uprising, resistance, which isn’t equivalent to war or even necessarily the use of violence”
Ha ha ha! Nice one, Bob!
Daniel Lefkowitz, a professor of language and culture in the Middle East at the University of Virginia who lived in Israel for several years in the early 2000s, hypothesized that, for most Palestinians, the word brings up memories of the First Intifada, a largely non-violent Palestinian protest largely involving work stoppages, boycotts and demonstrations. Some Palestinians also attacked Israelis, mostly with small weapons such as rocks or Molotov cocktails, and on some occasions with firearms or grenades.
“The intifada, the shaking off, was a metaphor of effective claiming of a voice, presenting a situation to the world’s audience, but not engaging in the spectacular violence of the PLO, like plane hijacking,” he said. “So that was seen as a very progressive movement.”
“It was the David-Goliath representation — stones against machine guns,” he added.
But for Israelis, and many Jews, the word brings up memories, instead, of the Second Intifada, a far bloodier Palestinian uprising characterized by suicide bombings on buses and at cafés that killed about 1,000 Israeli civilians.
“So I think the same word quite reasonably calls up different meanings,” said Lefkowitz.
That means it’s impossible to say, definitively, if the word intifada is a call for violence or not — different people understand and use it differently, as is the case with so many words and symbols and, well, the entire narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israelis’ celebration of independence, Yom HaAtzmaut, is a day of national grief for Palestinians mourning the Nakba.
https://forward.com/culture/573654/intifada-arabic-israeli-hamas-war-meaning-linguistics/
“The international community’s failure to secure a ceasefire and hold accountable all those responsible for or complicit in heinous crimes… ”
Witness all the
cheerleading
complicity*
right Here
@ tS
“… has not only enabled the continuation of unprecedented brutality but widened it to the broader region, setting Lebanon ablaze with violence and destruction.” –@47
thanks,
lads!
so is it a Taste for Brutality
a Hatred of The Other
Bloodlust + Land
theft + Retribu-
tion for Anci-
ent slights?
A zillion Excuses
with Justifications
Galore and all this
Little war For who?
arrest bibi
END his War
set
them
FREE.
*C’Mon,
Joe! & get
a Move on!
“I really couldn’t care less about your [Wormtongue’s] logic free drivel but for the record ‘intifada’ means ‘rebellion, uprising, resistance”, which isn’t equivalent to war or even necessarily the use of violence as shown by the relatively violence free first intifada.” –also@47
if it don’t Fit
the Narrative
Wormtongue’s
Here to Whittle it
into proper Shape
like JRR Vancelot a
shameless opportunist
a silver-tongued revisionist
extraordinaire. now with Sidekick
@50: “First Intifada, a largely non-violent Palestinian protest…”
…featuring hundreds of homicides 😂😂😂
@46,
That’s not sarcasm, it’s just blatantly ignorant and objectively disinformative.
sar·casm ˈsär-ˌka-zəm
1 : a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
2: a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual
Buy yourself a dictionary you stupid, myopic fuck.
@50
“That means it’s impossible to say, definitively, if the word intifada is a call for violence or not — different people understand and use it differently…” nah. wormmy just KNOWS: he projects what He’d do
onto whomever he pleases, satisfied that’s how it all went down; any discussion to the contrary dismissed outta hand as feeble-minded claptrap cum utter Nonsense.
@53
chatterbots
Wormtongues and
poisoners of derr Schlog
mis- dis- and mal-information
Specialists here to wreak
havoc see To it the Pro-
gressive voice is soon
Silenced muted or
drownded out
working
for Pooty?
bibi? Murdoch?
all pro fucking Bono?
we Hate tS
& its bent.
here we
Are.
@39 I’m struggling to understand how anyone thinks a vote for Trump is a pro-Palisten/anti-Isreal act… the GOP base wants a holy war in the middle-east to bring back Jesus or some such.
Also, Bebe and Trump are both trying to hold on to power to avoid jail time and consequences for thier actions.
@52 “featured”
Can you find any 6 year period without violence in the occupied territories under Israeli apartheid?
@56: COME HERE, BOB!
[I chase averagebob around the room, tickling him unmercifully]
@55: I think the calculus is that President Harris almost certainly won’t do anything to hurt Israel, whereas President Trump might possibly do something to hurt Israel—for example, if he becomes convinced that Israel is “taking advantage of us” or “laughing at us” or some such. There’s also a wing of the GOP, exemplified by Tucker Carlson and the alt-right, that does not see Israel as an ally and would be happy to cut ties. Progressives and Muslims are far from the only American constituencies who feel distasteful about a Jewish state, lol!
fuck off
thumpfer
a Jewish State
NOT subjecting
Palestinians to Oppression
is in Fact amenable to Progressives
when you’ve
gotta speak — LIE —
to establish your Horse-
shit Narrative we can All See You
& wormmy your string-puller’s
equally as Dishonest as
yourself.
Things are getting dire. Time for Kamala to go into the lions den and do Fox News Sunday. If she performs well, that would be a great campaign boost. She has nothing to lose at this point, as the election may already be lost.
@59: lol, trying to walk back some that self-proclaimed “anti-Zionism,” are you? 😉
@47: Why did you go to a secondary source for the meaning of “intifada”? In the original story, the Stranger linked “intifada” to this article, which recounted that both intifadas were violent, and that between them, thousands of persons died violently over a period of years:
“The first intifada was a largely spontaneous series of Palestinian demonstrations, nonviolent actions like mass boycotts and Palestinians refusing to work jobs in Israel, and attacks (using rocks, Molotov cocktails, and occasionally firearms) on Israelis.
[…]
“Unlike with the first intifada, Palestinian tactics centered on suicide bombings, rocket attacks, and sniper fire — which Israel met with even deadlier force. The conflict petered out in 2005, but not before about 1,000 Israelis and 3,200 Palestinians were killed.”
(https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080066/israel-palestine-intifadas-first-second)
@50: Why did you use a speculative source for context on “intifada”? The march in Seattle took place a week after 10/7, an attack of genocidal violence which saw the largest single-day mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust itself. Claiming that the phrase “intifada revolution” implies non-violence in that context doesn’t even pass the sniff test.
So, to recap, the protesters demanded a “Free Palestine,” saying that there was only one way to get it, “intifada revolution,” and at the end of this struggle, there would not be two states on that land. Good luck convincing anyone the protestors did anything other than a call for the (likely violent) elimination of Israel.
And, again, the protestors’ immediate audience responded, in effect, by not supporting the protestors’ demands: “Gaza Isn’t Driving Votes.”
Fuck you
thumper.
you are a Lying
piece of shite
tho that De-
means
Shit.
@63: yikes what an embarrassing meltdown, lol
“The Biden administration is sending an advanced antimissile system to Israel along with American troops to operate it, moving to bolster its top Middle East ally’s defenses against an Iranian attack, the Pentagon said Sunday.
“The deployment of the Thaad system, a ground-based interceptor designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, marks a significant step in American efforts to directly protect Israel against an enemy attack by putting U.S. soldiers on the ground.”
[…]
‘…Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had ordered the antimissile system to Israel at Biden’s direction “following Iran’s unprecedented attacks against Israel on April 13 and again on October 1.
‘The statement added: “This action underscores the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel, and to defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks by Iran.”’
(https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-is-sending-antimissile-system-to-israel-in-move-to-bolster-its-defenses-against-iran-9eebebab?mod=hp_lead_pos1)
Obviously, defending Israel against missile attacks from Iran means the U.S. now directly participates in Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza. Howls of outrage against this deployment from the Stranger (and supportive comments) incoming!
@65: I’ve been advocating for THAAD to Ukraine for over a year now. THAAD has never publicly been fired in combat. It’ll be interesting to see what it can do against the highest-speed Iranian MRBMs, especially those with ranges over 2k kilometers (in ballistic missiles, speed is strongly correlated with range). PAC-3 in Ukraine has overperformed expectations against hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, but that’s near the upper limit of what a missile the size of a PAC-3 can hit. THAAD should be vastly more capable, assuming it lives up to the hype…which I guess now we’ll find out.
whilst bibi’s keep outta prison gambit
escalates, bibi from the jailer escapes
draws in these united states we’re
paying for our own complicities
our nuremberg trial awaits
they’re
War Crimes
regardless if We happen
to be the ones Sponsoring them
some’ll cackle at our complicity
bask in their impunity cheer-
lead on with certainty that
They’ll never be on those
Front fucking Lines with
2 Million Palestinians
How Many Million
Iranians “Deserv-
ing Death”! for
their Proxim-
ity there IS
No Human-
ity in bibi’s
Little War.
@67: Or they could try, you know, NOT shooting at Israel! 🤣
@51: “… has not only enabled the continuation of unprecedented brutality but widened it to the broader region, setting Lebanon ablaze with violence and destruction.” –@47
Hezbollah remains in southern Lebanon, in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed in 2006 (!). They could have left anytime (and still can), but they decided to defy the UN and attack Israel instead. It is Hezbollah which has caused this, not anyone else (except Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer).
and Away
we GO!
nyt:
U.S. to Deploy Missile
Defense System and
About 100 Troops
to Israel
The Pentagon announced it would send the Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense battery and its crew
as Israel considered retaliatory
attacks against Iran.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/13/us/politics/us-missile-defense-iran-israel.html
‘a rogue state on a killing spree’
and the Floodgates
opened to Hell
in we poured
a One-man
Genocidal
Rampage
Crime
Spree
over
“the
Holy
Lands.”
It’s just a little Ret-
ribution sorta Gotten
somewhat outta Hand
they
had it
coming!
The
World’s
Got it Coming!
20, 000 headed
to fucking Heaven
Seven BILLION paying
The Ultimate Price ! Welcome
to Armageddon.
suckers,
we are.
one nyt’s reader’s
comment from
the article:
“This war [will] cost Democrats many elections. If a Re-
publican was president it would cost Republicans.
The American people are fed up with paying
for other people’s wars especially this one.
Netanyahu is a war criminal.
DC, [& AIPAC] is out of touch with mainstream
Americans. Pay for it yourselves.
Stop robbing the taxpayers.
It’s 2024 not 1964.”
–Charlotte; Near
Valley Forge, Pa
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/13/us/politics/us-missile-defense-iran-israel.html#commentsContainer
@Charlotte
I concur.
so when our Soldiers
forfeit their Lives We’ll
HAVE TO defend their now-
long-Gone Lives with OTHER
Soldiers Lives and the Reich wing’ll
be calling for The Nukular Option and
away
we go
@71: lol, get a grip. The sky is not falling. The current war in the Middle East is not even a fifth the size of the one in Ukraine and less than half the size of the one in Sudan. Your apocalyptic hysteria reminds of Average Bob the other day wailing that MILLIONS of lives would be lost in Lebanon, which overstates the scale of destruction by two order of magnitude. In reality, a war this size or larger happens, on average, at least once every five years somewhere in the Middle East. It is an ugly but routine feature of life in that region of the world. This one, too, shall pass…and so shall the one after, etc.
‘nothing to see
here. it’s
just a
war.’
a
New
one, for Us
but a good place to
offload some weapons
systems in service to keeping bibi
the fuck outta prison. & now Soldiers
we went to Afghnistan
for what, 20 years?
I doubt the Planet
has the Patience
for another year
of Genocide
nor the
Restraint
bibi certainly
Doesn’t have any
relax
says thumper
our miltary expert
with bona fides a mile long
@60 Phoebe in Wallingford: Why so much stock in FOX TeeVee, Phoebe? It isn’t a reliable news source, and like Elon Musk’s Twitter / X is the epitome of willful misinformation. Have you been rooming with raindrop lately?
If VP Kamala Harris has avoided any pointless sessions in “the lions den” with FOX TeeVee during her 2024 presidential campaign, it’s most likely to sidestep brain cancer.
@70, @71, and @73 kristofarian: Did you miss my comment @21?
@70: Nice to read that even you can, on rare occasions, actually keep up. Please see my comment @65 for the same story, albeit with more information — and less witless commentary. As @72 reminded you, there’s no need to panic here, and please recall we’re deploying a DEFENSIVE weapon system. You know, one which will protect military assets in Israel, thus reducing the temptation for ‘use them or lose them’ thinking by the IDF, and also protect Israeli and American citizens on the ground from stray Iranian missiles.
how bibi (& tS’s neocons)
(Paid For or otherwise) uses
Bibi’s keep-outta-prison gambit
to help elect donold eltrumpfster
nyt:
How
Israel’s
Army Uses
Palestinians
as Human Shields in Gaza
Israeli soldiers and Palestinian former detainees
say troops have regularly forced captured
Gazans to carry out life-threatening
tasks, including inside
Hamas tunnels.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-military-human-shields.html
it’s all justifiable
if you’ll only accept
their genocidal premise
74: It’s another audience Auntie, that’s why Pete Buttigieg goes on Fox News to dispel misconceptions. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
@76: Terrible. Well, now that the Israelis are using human shields in Gaza, maybe progressives will be able to condemn the widespread use of human shields in Gaza. After all, if the Israelis are doing it, then it’s obviously wrong! 😃
@78: You’re overlooking the point. To them, it’s wrong only IF the Israelis do it. (Like trying to get Trump elected is only wrong IF someone OTHER than Sawant does it.) They’ll loudly shout about every last case they can find of Israel doing it, all the while maintaining their deeply servile silence to Hamas using human shields as long-standing policy. Every such accusation should be investigated, and if found valid guilty punished, but no one ever expects to see Sinwar in the dock.
😉
@70: Staying a mere five comments and six hours behind me must have been a painful effort for you. Once your deep wheezing finally stops, please accept my thanks for behaving exactly as I wrote at the end of @65.
Wormtongue
& his Chatterbot
cheering on the Genocide
to What
End?
from the Chris Hedges Report:
Extermination
Works. At
First.
Israel will continue its mass killing to achieve its immediate goals, but in the long run the blowback from its genocide will doom the Zionist state.
Extermination works. At first. This is the terrible lesson of history. If Israel is not stopped — and no outside power appears willing to halt the genocide in Gaza or the destruction of Lebanon — it will achieve its goals
of depopulating and annexing northern Gaza and turning southern Gaza into a charnel house where Palestinians are burned alive, decimated by bombs and die from starvation and infectious diseases,
until they are driven out. It will achieve its goal of destroying Lebanon — 2,255 people have been killed and over one million Lebanese have been displaced — in an attempt to turn it into a failed state.
And,
it may soon
realize its long cherished dream
of forcing the United States into war with Iran.
Israeli leaders are publicly salivating over proposals to assassinate Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei and carry out airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear installations and oil facilities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet, like those driving Middle East policy in the White House — Antony Blinken, raised in a staunch Zionist family, Brett McGurk, Amos Hochstein, who was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military, and Jake Sullivan — are true believers in the doctrine that violence can mold the world to fit their demented vision.
That this doctrine has been a spectacular failure in Israel’s occupied territories, and did not work in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, and a generation earlier in Vietnam, does not deter them. This time, they assure us, it will succeed.
Will the international community continue to stand by passively and allow Israel to carry out a mass extermination campaign? Will there ever be limits?
Or will war with Lebanon and Iran provide a smokescreen — Israel’s worst campaigns of ethnic cleansing and mass murder have always been done under the cover of war — to turn what is happening in Palestine into an updated version of the Armenian genocide?
–by Chris Hedges; Oct 14, 2024
oodles, chillingly
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/extermination-works-at-first
cheer it ON
moherfuckers:
Cheer On Israel’s
Highly-Likely Demise
And we’ll
Know Precisely
Whom to Blame @tS.
@74: no, auntie Gee
and Yes, MUX and his abiltiy
to generate Massive Wealth with his
Cunning (and an Emerald Mine) WILL
likely Doom this Planet to another trumpf
Maladministration along with thmpfer & wormmy;s
concerted efforts to turn bibi’s keep-outta-Prison
Gambit into Nukular Conflagration — their feeb-
le protestations, justifications, condmentations
of those calling them out and just on gerneral
‘principles’ IS a Massive Boost to a 1,000-
Year trump Reich — their feeble-minded
Claims to the Contrary notwithstanding.
good comment,
auntie Gee!
Thank you
from our
Master of
Projections:
“Once
your deep
wheezing finally
stops, please accept my thanks… ”
–@tensorna on October 14, 2024 at 8:12 AM
omg,
wormmy!
are you Okay?
better See Your Doktor
asap little buddy! bibi NEEDs you.