Exactly.

I will consider contributing financially to Dessalines but not nutomic so long as they spread and maintain reactionary positions against trans people. To be honest I’m even on the fence about Dessalines for maintaining a public relationship with nutomic in light of this.

“Give money to a transphobe so we can have open source Reddit” doesn’t have a great ring.

Right wingers love Sowell tho

Civility should be liberalism and they should be cheering it on to eat socialists in the second panel

Github is basically social media but for tech nerds. Social media networks naturally monopolize, as they primarily have value because everyone else is already there. If you put your project on Github and it is popular you might get 2k “stars” and regular pull requests. If you put your project on an alternative you might get 10X less of both. So people make decisions about the trade-offs between exposure and avoiding Microsoft

The US has been punishing open source contributors from countries they don’t like.

Be afraid so that we can cut your benefits and you’ll forgive us due to nationalism.

All correct opinions are heavily biased.

Reddit liberals are in here trying to make this about their own misunderstanding if a term.

If this was your first response to hearing about occupiers attacking and disappearing someone, reconsider your priorities.

Fun etymological fact: very long ago, tyranny used to refer to an autocratic leader that issued a debt jubilee, generally in response to a peasant uprising. A debt jubilee is where most or all debts are declared invalid, a clean debt slate for society, and was generally necessary to keep society functioning. The mini revolution that appointed the tyrant would be short-lived and the prior systen would more or less remain in place, just with cancelled debts.

Start with a non-job so you can study while working. Then get internships relevant to your major once you know your direction.

A non-job is one with a lot of downtime and where they don’t care if you read. Parking attendant, small movie theater worker, custodian at a place that is well-staffed.

This is the kind of red scare sinophobia that liberals are all complicit in as well. This is why there have been anti-China propaganda pushes: so that you will accept and maybe even help implement siniphobic policies.

The US is a white supremacist, xenophobic state. Those in power actively promote this, they think it is good to give “Israel” (brown) baby killing missiles. “Israel” is their “friend”, you see, just like apartheid South Africa, but far more useful for destroying “enemies” (brown children in other countries) due to its location.

The US itself was founded on settler colonial genocide and chattel slavery. The only reckoning it has evet had about this was its civil war, but this process was left incomplete. It retains most of its settler culture.

HTS and those in their orbit are derived from ISIS and similar groups, itself drawing radicalized fighters from around the world to do heinous things to people. And in Syria/Iraq, funded by the US to destabilize inconvenient governments. Like that of Assad.

It is not entirely surprising that fellow imperialist attack dogs are not first on their list to attack. They are also trying to court “the international community” (OECD) by privatizing (read: scrapping for parts) industry and services. Going after Israel would disrupt that angle. But attacking countries and people that the US has already been helping kill? No worries of retaliation from the “international community”.

The British

Before I respond to anything in this comment, I want to make a note about its nature and content.

It does not, in fact, address basically anything I said. Rather than address what I said, 90% of your comment is just an attempt to rehash pieces the history of “Israel” and Hamas, with some true elements, some misleading elements, and some outright false elements. It is unclear why you wrote most of it and its presentation is incoherent, without clear connection between paragraphs or points. It’s like you are summarizing bits and pieces of Wikipedia and injecting your own takes every so often.

Anyways. I will simply repeat myself where necessary, which is to say, repeat most of my previous comment in one way or another.

In my last comment, I took issue with your presentation of Hamas as terrorist. You claimed, “Using indiscriminate armed violence against civilians for political goals or under political pretenses is about the most reasonable definition of terrorism I can come up with.” and I responded to this with two paragraphs explaining how this is misleading at best and is itself deployed in a racist way via its inconsistent application. I made note of how it is used inconsistently repeatedly and challenged you to consider your own use of the term. In your reply, you did not engage with any of this. Instead, you wrote this:

Yes, plenty of other people perform indiscriminate attacks upon civilians, and many states, including in the west use arbitrary violence against other civilians or even their own. I’m sure people are aware that they are terrorists outside of Hamas.

You are right, plenty of people use the label to further their own goals and the ‘terrorist’ label is mostly used if not misused to discredit groups of people or political movements. Since it doesn’t really seem like the term is going to go anywhere soon, I think it is important to give a precise meaning to the term for this very reason.

This does not address what I said or how I challenged you. I did not ask “how is the term used?” I gave you plenty of direction: it is used inconsistently and in a racist manner. I asked you what function that serves. Is, “discredit” the entirety of your thought process for why a colonized people would be targeted with demonizing language applied inconsistently? You should spend more time thinking about it. I’m not exactly being subtle, here.

Re: precision, that is actually what I am pointing out to you. The term is not applied consistently, i.e. it has more meaning than what you might go and try to look up in a dictionary. You are actually being less precise, using a false facade of semantics, missing the actual semantics going on here. And still trying to push back despite conciliatory language.

I next responded to your boorish claims about Hamas doing lots and lots of terrorism, saying: “Such as? How does this compare to “Israel”? The surrounding comprador states? The US? Canada? Do you apply this logic and labeling frequency consistently or as suggested by dominant propaganda?”

The entirety of your response to that appears to be:

Do we really need to mention every single act of terror committed by the Hamas or otherwise since the dawn of time? This is just shitty rhetoric, the same kind that Zionists use all the time.

This is childish behavior. You claimed, “Hamas have carried far too many terrorist attacks over a far too long period for us to have any doubts that they are indeed ‘terroristic’ as our friend put it”. (PS this chauvinist is not my friend). I asked you to back up your false claim (because we both know you can’t) with examples and to critically examine what you are saying by comparison to relevant countries, including the occupying power and its imperial backer. Rather than do so, you are pretending I have asked the world of you, to name every single “terrorist attack” (you named zero). This is dishonest and bad faith behavior and unless you are literally a child you should know better.

Answer the question or just be honest that you can’t.

I then challenged you to contextualize this in terms of settler colonial genocide, of which there are many precedents following similar models, also with the same kinds of backers from what is now the OECD. The absurdity would be clear if you were honest about this and actually tried to answer. I stated, “When First Nations fought against settlers, were they terrorists and similarly illegitimate? What would you think of someone who watched their genocide and spent their focus on villifying militant groups and alleged specific acts with racialized language while using no such emphasis for the much greater volume of such violence to enact genocide? Many indigenous groups have recognized the need to oppose settlers themselves and settlerdom, the people who stole their and their parents’ land and houses and killed their relatives. You simply dismiss such people as terrorists? Without chauvinist glasses of the oppressor you would probably call them freedom fighters.”

You simply ignored this in its entirety.

The rest of my comment was similarly ignored. Repeating it,

While it is nice to keep it mind, the fact that they also do other things besides terrorism is not an argument.

Of course it is when the absurd premise is to ignorantly broad brush them with the label. The vast, vast majority of the activities of Hamas cannot be described as terroristic, much more so than their accusers.

Or should we also refrain from calling the Israeli state terrorist because it also does other stuff besides indiscriminately and arbitrarily targeting Palestinians?

Do you call “Israel”, which is infinitely more guilty of this and is itself the settler colonial occupier, a terrorist state at its every mention? Do you jump into conversations to ensure it is understood as such?

“Israel” engages in a genocidal campaign of land theft and ethnic subjugation. Describe the actual acts and see how much value your attempt at labeling possesses in terns of delegitimation.

Instead, you populated the rest of your response with an uninvited and, as stated before, problematic attempt to summarize Hamas. The point of doing so is not clear. You explicitly say what you claim it to be, i.e.,

But you do make some good points. Although I understand why you might have thought otherwise, I do think that Hamas needs to be portrayed fairly which indeed we haven’t done so far. Leaving it that way doesn’t do Palestinians, which overall greatly require our support and help, any good.

So for anyone else who would, per chance, stumble upon here, I’d like humbly submit my own personal presentation of Hamas, not-so-highly condensed for your own benefit:

You might have noticed that I don’t require nor did I ask for a meandering and confused history lesson. I am not bumbling around here like you are, throwing around settler language and dancing around questions and challenges. I have been quite direct and plain in what I am saying and you are avoiding it, which I suppose is an admission in its own way that you are not up to the task of honestly responding.

Because you have dumped a confused and meandering history lesson and then immediately ran away, there isn’t much reason to go through it point by point and it would take up way too much space. I will poke at a couple things stated just because I can, but if anyone is particularly enamored with any sections I would be happy to tear through them. Feel free to ask. I do want to again emphasize how strangely written this is, making allusions to people you could simply name and making seemingly disconnected points that jump around in time.

[…] in the nineties […] they started launching suicide bombings […]

I will note that you do not actually go over how this is terrorism, but leave it implied by the form of resistance, relying on the audience’s familiarity with islamophobic tropes. I invite you to list the bombings, their targets, and their locations. Re: location, here is a hint: they are nearly all in the West Bank, i.e. demarcated Palestinian territory. You may wish to ask yourself why, say, blowing up a military vehicle (like in Mehola Junction) is not a direct act of resistance against oppressing occupiers and not terrorism. You may wish to ask yourself how much you have internalized islamophobia by the form of weapon used. The occupiers use planes, missiles, and tanks, and kill in far greater volumes, and target civilians to a staggeringly greater degree. I challenge you to, again, go through your own references to “Israel” and ask whether you always call it, “the illegitimate terrorist so-called state of ‘Israel’”, as your knee-jerk response to Hamas is to go into such invective.

other legitimate or terror attacks where committed and directed by Hamas members

Such as? I’ve already asked you to back up your claim that they have committed, “so many” that it justifies saying Hamas, “have carried far too many terrorist attacks over a far too long period for us to have any doubts that they are indeed ‘terroristic’ as our friend put it”

Hamas being largely considered at this point by the Israelis as a mortal enemy of Israel and of the Jewish people

“Israelis” already considered all Palestinians to be such, particularly any that formed any kind of militant resistance to genocidal settler colonial occupation and oppression. They are extraordinarily racist, as in old-timey racist (because they are settlers), and they conflate Judaism with their own violent and horrific projects - itself one of the most antisemitic programs in existence. Your claim here was simply left to fester, unchallenged. Oh good, the “Israeli” settler point of view. Funny how others are not given the same weight.

Israel blockaded the Gaza strip in return

Is it in return? Or was it simply another excuse to escalate and oppress, same as the status quo for decades?

Anyways, I’m out of space.

Sure. When’s the last time they’ve allowed elections to occur, though?

When have you ever tried educating yourself on this topic outside of accepting and repeating the propaganda of those who genocide Palestinians?

Palestine and Palestinians are not permitted a functioning state, including the so-called Palestinian Authority. There was exactly one round of questionable “elections” in the late 2000s following the failed Camp David agreements, the electoral process dictated to Gaza by the UN, but not one allowed to be executed in any remotely fair way due to meddling and destabilization by the occupiers, “Israel”, including wars and invasions during the process. The people of Gaza are refugees and their government, such as it is, is a collaborative relationship between the UN and Hamas, a relationship established by Hamas de facto winning a small guerilla civil war with Fatah with the election they won as words to be misunderstood by Western chauvinists. This is why “Israel”'s genocidal campaign in Gaza heavily targeted UN workers alongside hospitals and schools: they are part of the normal civilian infrastructure responsible for healthcare, aid distribution, etc, and they work alongside Hamas members doing the exact same things but more closely to the people on the ground. There is no process or even just basic societal basis for elections. This is a factionalized struggle for survival. Their democratic progress has been to form solid alliances with other anti-comprador groups and to involve them in governance. And to organize against their occupiers.

Calling them terrorists is using racial “Israeli” propaganda directed at all Palestinians

Nope.

Yep.

You can clearly see I differentiated Hamas from Palestinians.

And “Israel” propaganda also waffles on that line as needed, broad brushing when they can get away with it and being slightly more specific when it suits them. When making a case to, say, Western governments, it will call Hamas, specifically, terrorists. It is intended to be a selectively-applied delegitimizing label. But in casual conversions and domestically, it is used much more broadly and causally but to the same effect. And always racially.

If we go through your comment section, will we find the same knee-jerk labeling of “Israel”, which is infinitely more guilty and more is an occupying oppressor? How about your own country, which likely supports the genocide?

Yes, the Israelis look at all Palestinians as Hamas

The “Israelis” look at Palestinians as subhumans just like other Western settler colonists did to their targets. You are seeing an ongoing settler colonial genocide and following the propaganda of the genociders. Would you have called the Sioux terrorists for opposing their own genocide, fighting the settlers occupying their lands? I think so. Rather than recognize the dramatic difference between the actions and basis for them, the violences at hand, you are allowing yourself to be persuaded by the inconsistent, flattening application of settler propaganda, persuaded to repeat it even while feeling that you’re doing the opposite. This is common with a lack of investigation.

as do many people in the West, but I’m not Israeli nor do I care what they think - so what they think doesn’t matter. There’s no Israeli propaganda in my comment, that’s your assumption based on…?

The misleading and false characterizations of Hamas as simply terrorist. This is an easily recognizable trope.

If your entire argument boils down to “Well you’re saying the same stuff as Israel is so you’re just spreading propaganda” then maybe you don’t have thoughts of your own, it’s all just the opposite of what Israel says.

This is just projection. You’re clearly recycling the logic of (racist) Zionist settler propaganda, I am simply recognizing it for what it is.

Israel is a terrorist state but that doesn’t mean every single thing they say is wrong. Hamas are terrorists, plain and simple. They invoke fear through violence.

All substantial violence invokes fear but somehow you don’t seem to consistently use the language that way. Do some self-interrogation on why that is and what purpose this label is serving in your mind on this topic.

Let me know of all the benefits Hamas has brought to the Palestinian people and educate me.

This is asking me to write quite a bit more than I already have. It would be many comments long. Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, it works with UN aid distribution and expertise to manage the infrastructure of Gaza. The people of Gaza had hospitals and doctors due to Hamas via this system, for example. In addition, Hamas is the only ruling Palestinian body that does not function as compradors like the PA, who assists “Israel” in their oppressions. The existence of a militant resistance to the occupation is in many ways thanks to Hamas - along with smaller militant factions, of course. Imagine how much could be listed re: all aid dispersal, all governance of infrastructure, bureaucratic necessities, militant organizing.

I’m not going to write up this comprehensive history for someone who is not only uncurious, but actively resistant to humility and education. That would be silly. If you are curious you can read books yourself and learn the same things.

Nothing you wrote was educational or convincing.

I do not set my bar for educational or convincing based on your responses so that’s okay. You are already aware that you have not actually investigated this topic and this is just disssembling. I did not have high hopes for you being open about this.

Hamas are still terrorists who are holding their own people hostage.

It’s really funny that you claim to not be blindly repeating Zionist propaganda and then say things like this.

Using indiscriminate armed violence against civilians for political goals or under political pretenses is about the most reasonable definition of terrorism I can come up with.

That is not what Hamas does. And by that definition, applied consistently, you would actually need to include most of the groups that Hamas does fight, including “Israel” and its supporting states like the US and Canada. And yet they are rarely named terrorist states, whereas Hamas routinely receives this association by those who live in those countries and help build their materials of oppression. What function do you believe this selective use of language serves?

The application of the label has been racist and chauvinist for ages. Most pick it up by cultural osmosis, not seeing reason to question or investigate it. Now is your opportunity!

I agree that the Palestinians are fully legitimate in taking up arms to fight against the occupier but the Hamas have carried far too many terrorist attacks over a far too long period for us to have any doubts that they are indeed ‘terroristic’ as our friend put it

Such as? How does this compare to “Israel”? The surrounding comprador states? The US? Canada? Do you apply this logic and labeling frequency consistently or as suggested by dominant propaganda?

When First Nations fought against settlers, were they terrorists and similarly illegitimate? What would you think of someone who watched their genocide and spent their focus on villifying militant groups and alleged specific acts with racialized language while using no such emphasis for the much greater volume of such violence to enact genocide? Many indigenous groups have recognized the need to oppose settlers themselves and settlerdom, the people who stole their and their parents’ land and houses and killed their relatives. You simply dismiss such people as terrorists? Without chauvinist glasses of the oppressor you would probably call them freedom fighters.

While it is nice to keep it mind, the fact that they also do other things besides terrorism is not an argument.

Of course it is when the absurd premise is to ignorantly broad brush them with the label. The vast, vast majority of the activities of Hamas cannot be described as terroristic, much more so than their accusers.

Or should we also refrain from calling the Israeli state terrorist because it also does other stuff besides indiscriminately and arbitrarily targeting Palestinians?

Do you call “Israel”, which is infinitely more guilty of this and is itself the settler colonial occupier, a terrorist state at its every mention? Do you jump into conversations to ensure it is understood as such?

“Israel” engages in a genocidal campaign of land theft and ethnic subjugation. Describe the actual acts and see how much value your attempt at labeling possesses in terns of delegitimation.

Hamas is the government of Gaza and a large portion of the armed resistance against “Israeli” occupiers. Calling them terrorists is using racist “Israeli” propaganda directed at all Palestinians and cynically leveraged by imperialist countries - like the kind you probably live in and whose politicians you probably provide support - to assist in the systemic violent oppression and displacement of Palestinians. In fact, your entire line could be lifted from bog standard “Israeli” propaganda takes, including the perpetrators of genocide.

Please educate yourself before sharing opinions.

I think it’s representative of my friend network. Perhaps I misunderstood what you were asking. This was a response to “how many leftists do you know?”

And what was that in response to?

No I have not read Sakai yet. This topic is not new to me, I just disagree with you.

These are somewhat contradictory statements.

But very well, I am glad that we have reached the mutual agreement that it is not an appropriate word for non-indigenous people in general, which was my original point that you responded to:

Reading this reminded me about another unpopular opinion: I think “settler” and “colonizer” are poor terms for non-indigenous people broadly.

As I see it, it turns out we both agree. I misunderstood your initial response to that statement as one that was intending to be a counterargument. So, sorry – I really didn’t mean to straw man you; I legitimately misunderstood what your point was.

I introduced the use of the term. When you started talking about your own understanding, I told you I was talking about something else and explained what it was twice and with examples and context. So far as I can tell that was entirely ignored in order to seek conflict. This is a tendency many of us have at the beginning, but we must train it out of ourselves because it is highly counterproductive.

Like, all my friends are leftists. When we talk about politics, they sound like leftists, they say leftist things, and espouse leftist values. My friends are all leftists because my friends’ friends are leftists and I make friends with my friends’ friends.

Why would you think this would be in some way representative? It’s just your friend network.

Regarding “settler,” I think it’s a motte-and-bailey tactic you’re using. The motte – the easily defensible position – is that settler refers to people who are bigoted. The bailey – the hard to defend position, but which is easily equivocated for the motte – is that it refers to any non-indigenous person. […]

You’re wrong in your attempt to identify a fallacy and are doing your own one at the same time (straw man). I have explained at least twice that being a settler is a psychology derived from settler colonialism. Someone else suggested that you read Sakai. Have you done so before trying to contradict and lecture? Have you asked questions about a topic that is clearly new to you?

You keep belaboring this straw man that it means anyone non-indigenous. I think I was pretty clear on this, so can you explain why you are pretending otherwise?

I don’t deny that it’s a useful verbal weapon against bigots. I would merely like it to be well-understood that a verbal weapon is what it is intended to be.

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.