Political Discussion

ayayrawn said:
I do need to get off social media for a bit, but me being online or not doesn't make the optics of this suck any less.
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you are entitled to your anger. You can be enraged or offended by whatever you’re enraged or offended by. I am never gonna tell someone that their feelings aren’t valid. My point is that if a meme is gonna enrage ya you’re probably better off from a mental health and well-being standpoint to step away from the conversation and take care of yourself.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
you are entitled to your anger. You can be enraged or offended by whatever you’re enraged or offended by. I am never gonna tell someone that their feelings aren’t valid. My point is that if a meme is gonna enrage ya you’re probably better off from a mental health and well-being standpoint to step away from the conversation and take care of yourself.
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I don't think it's the meme that's enraging. And I know this isn't your intention, but maybe you should take a step back too and realize why people are pissed. The people getting killed can't just step away to work on their mental health, although I'm sure they'd all love to. People should be enraged. If we don't get pissed off over mass murder done with our tax dollars and in our name, then when should we be enraged? It's not a feeling that we should always repress.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
you are entitled to your anger. You can be enraged or offended by whatever you’re enraged or offended by. I am never gonna tell someone that their feelings aren’t valid. My point is that if a meme is gonna enrage ya you’re probably better off from a mental health and well-being standpoint to step away from the conversation and take care of yourself.
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It's not the meme by itself, which would otherwise be lame but harmless, but the context and timing of it, which are significantly worse. I appreciate you lookin out though, I know you mean well.
 
ayayrawn said:
It's not the meme by itself, which would otherwise be lame but harmless, but the context and timing of it, which are significantly worse. I appreciate you lookin out though, I know you mean well.
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I apologize if my reply came off as an attack. The shit going on is the world is terrible and you have every right to feel how you feel.

Some of my people occasionally get sucked into social media spirals where they are actively looking for posts that cause them undo stress, anger, rage, anxiety, and despair. I feel like I need to remind them that social media is a dumb cynical place. If terrible memes are making you feel bad then the best thing you can do is stop looking at them. You can be enraged about all the shit happening right now in Gaza without letting a poorly conceived tweet by Biden’s reelection campaign about Taylor Swift and the Super Bowl get to you. Conflating those two things doesn’t accomplish much.
 
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TenderLovingKiller® said:
That is up to every individual person but if I arrived to a point where conflating a bad internet meme about Taylor Swift and the Super Bowl with the ongoing atrocities occurring in Gaza I would probably want to unplug and reset for my own personal well being.
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Sure it is, which is why you might not need to always share your opinion on how other people should react or what they should be doing on this kind of thing. You can do as you please, of course, including speaking your mind when and however you feel like it, but acting paternalistic can come off as very tone deaf and privileged in some of these situations. Like I said, I don't think that was your intention entirely, but this goes both ways. Your point about social media is certainly true, but so is it true that not being able to get why it's triggering to people and writing it off as social media fatigue is pretty dismissive of genuine issues that are really effecting a lot of people and impact some in very personal ways that you're likely not aware of.
 
Hemotep said:
Sure it is, which is why you might not need to always share your opinion on how other people should react or what they should be doing on this kind of thing. You can do as you please, of course, including speaking your mind when and however you feel like it, but acting paternalistic can come off as very tone deaf and privileged in some of these situations. Like I said, I don't think that was your intention entirely, but this goes both ways. Your point about social media is certainly true, but so is it true that not being able to get why it's triggering to people and writing it off as social media fatigue is pretty dismissive of genuine issues that are really effecting a lot of people and impact some in very personal ways that you're likely not aware of.
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I understand why it’s triggering. I also understand that being angry about that meme is not helping anybody. My point is if you acknowledge that this meme is triggering then stepping away from social media might be a good idea. Being triggered isn’t a good thing. NPR will offer trigger warnings before almost any news story that talks about violence out of respect for listeners. They do this to allow people the option to remove themselves from the situation because putting one’s self through trauma is not beneficial to one’s wellbeing.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
This is probably too nuanced of a conversation to have on a message board. I regret bringing up my concerns. I wish you all nothing but the best.
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One of the things I truly love about this place is that a discussion this nuanced CAN happen on a message board and remain quite thoughtful through disagreement without rancor, spite and malice taking over and derailing the whole thread. I would certainly agree that on the vast majority of message boards it would completely impossible to have even made it this far into a conversation like this — y'all truly are a bunch of special fuckers! And I'm ever so grateful to have the lot of you in my life. Thanks for being y'all through it all. 💜
 
Indymisanthrope said:
I wonder if Trump's NATO statements last week are going to paradoxically strengthen Biden's public commitment to Israel despite the backchannel stories about his growing frustrations with Netanyahu.

The left can't be wringing its hands about threats of abandoning our (bound by treaty) allies while simultaneously considering withdrawing support of our (bound by treaty) ally. Those are incompatible concerns. The more the US has to reassure the world that we will honor our commitments to our allies, the less likely it is that Biden will start using strong language to criticize Israel on the record.

Biden's death at this juncture would only catalyze a chain of events that accelerates instability across the globe. For those who have claimed here that this couldn't possibly have been handled any worse, I think your imaginations are failing you.
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Two points of distinction. NATO allies aren’t currently perpetrating gross violations of human rights. Putin and China are much bigger threats to our ways of life than alienating Israel is.
 
avecigrec said:
One of the things I truly love about this place is that a discussion this nuanced CAN happen on a message board and remain quite thoughtful through disagreement without rancor, spite and malice taking over and derailing the whole thread. I would certainly agree that on the vast majority of message boards it would completely impossible to have even made it this far into a conversation like this — y'all truly are a bunch of special fuckers! And I'm ever so grateful to have the lot of you in my life. Thanks for being y'all through it all. 💜
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Oh no doubt and I know I replied directly to you but I was more in a larger sense. My regret had to do with me unintentionally touching a nerve.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
I wonder if Trump's NATO statements last week are going to paradoxically strengthen Biden's public commitment to Israel despite the backchannel stories about his growing frustrations with Netanyahu.

The left can't be wringing its hands about threats of abandoning our (bound by treaty) allies while simultaneously considering withdrawing support of our (bound by treaty) ally. Those are incompatible concerns. The more the US has to reassure the world that we will honor our commitments to our allies, the less likely it is that Biden will start using strong language to criticize Israel on the record.

Biden's death at this juncture would only catalyze a chain of events that accelerates instability across the globe. For those who have claimed here that this couldn't possibly have been handled any worse, I think your imaginations are failing you.
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The answer to the question, “What could be worse than Biden?” says a lot about one’s worldview.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
The contextual circumstances are different, but the substance of action is not. Unless the treaties and supporting legislation have clauses exempting support for certain behaviors it’s still quite a tough needle to thread without signaling worldwide that the US can’t be trusted to support its allies, something which is already in doubt due to Trump’s reckless statements.
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I don’t think alliances are a sustainable practice unless you can break them off, or at least admonish and enforce consequences, for reprehensible behaviour and very little behaviour is more reprehensible than genocide.

The last four years have largely mended American foreign relations in serious quarters but the unswerving support for Isreal and the seeming hesitation to continue support for Ukraine could test that. Trump will obviously destroy it again.
 
avecigrec said:
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson could bring it home, I bet. Then it would be the Wrestlemania Election!
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Omg and Jesse Ventura as his vp…

I kid, I kid,
BUT, given the level of inequality, drastic change is becoming more and more a possibility. Historically, these amounts of inequality have led to all sorts of conflicts, and yes, violence. The reason billionaires shouldn’t exist is not just because of their reliance upon slave labor and environmental exploitation, but because mass indebtedness and giant wealth gaps are ultimately destabilizing for any society. Our grand experiment can only be successful if more people have some wealth and are able to enrich their communities with that wealth. Ultimately, most European nations embraced a form of socialism post monarchy because they understood the destabilizing effect of few haves and many more have nots. It’s not perfect but it’s a lot better than being in debt for the rest of your life due to medical issues or because you wanted an education.

I see us just kicking this can down the road, which only makes things worse. Joe will keep things status quo while Trump will likely hasten and create worse class conflict. He will make laws that make the rich richer and the poor poorer, which will lead to quicker destabilization. The best thing Joe can do is relieve debt—both medical and student loans, and try to influence the Fed not to do any more stupid things like raising interest rates.
Joe Mac said:
Two points of distinction. NATO allies aren’t currently perpetrating gross violations of human rights. Putin and China are much bigger threats to our ways of life than alienating Israel is.
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This is a tinderbox as well.
China and Russia are both working towards the dedollarization of the world so they can achieve global domination. The thing that worries me the most are the countries in Africa and South America where China is helping fund infrastructure. The West could have done this and secured democracy in all these countries but our industrialist thought it was better to exploit the people and put them in debt. China looks like a hero compared to the West.
 
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