Don't let them lie to you. There's always a next group for Authoritarians, for people of that mindset. And you will not turn that Authoritarian Tiger into a vegetarian by feeding it your friends.

Source: Beau of the Fifth Column. Let's talk about SCOTUS, unity, and a talking point... 3 July, 2023

Because I feel like screaming into the void that is this hellsite today ....

I keep seeing commentary here and elsewhere from leftists, usually young leftists. They blame Biden for what Israel is doing to Gaza. They say they won't vote for Biden because he won't stop what Israel is doing to Gaza. They scream about how Biden is a fascist because he's willing to send money to Israel, while Israel is killing civilians in Gaza.

Let's get the obvious out of the way. What Israel is doing in Gaza is horrific, inhuman, and I have no doubt constitutes war crimes on a massive scale.

Now, go ahead, tell me. How is the U.S. supposed to get Israel to stop?

They're a sovereign country. Why the hell would they do what we tell them to?

They have a hard-right Prime Minister who needs to keep his job in order to avoid going to jail. He's basically their version of Trump. You think Trump would have listened to another country telling him not to do something?

Sure, we can cut off aid. Then what? Israel wants U.S. money, but it doesn't NEED it. It can survive without it, and it can survive without the U.S. as an ally - it's spent the last 80 years making sure of that. And if we stop selling them weapons, I can think of a couple countries willing to step up and sell them whatever they want. Biden has been putting conditions on proposed aid and U.S. arms sales to Israel for pretty much the first time in history. He's been putting the screws to Netenyahu's government in almost every diplomatic avenue possible. Also, that proposed aid package for Israel? A BIG reason that Israel money was even in there was to try and get Republicans on board with the *other*, larger parts of the aid package - like the aid to Ukraine and to Taiwan.

Now you may disagree with how he's doing this, or think Biden should just take the U.S. ball (aid) and go home. Then what? You think that actually solves anything? You think that helps the Palestinians in Gaza? You think Israel's actually going to stop? Or do you just want him to do it because it makes you feel better and then you can stop thinking about it? Serious question here. People want Biden to stop Israel. Tell me how. If you actually want to understand what's going on and what the solutions might really be, this is a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOFdG87ZJgE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvKMbZGbH7U&list=PLKG4P0uu-XSej2c3SALLEXyxT-j7YwCJ5&index=11&pp=iAQB

Possible Shift in US Foreign Policy

A few days ago I talked about some analysis from Beau of the Fifth Column that suggested we might see a shift in US foreign policy soon.

The Biden administration in the US has been opposed to Netanyahu's administration in Israel for a while now, but their criticism has grown more strident of late. Biden has talked about Israel crossing a red-line, said that Netanyahu needs a come-to-jesus talk, and implied that the US might stop providing offensive weapons to Israel as a way to sanction the actions of Netanyahu's government.

Well, Chuck Schumer, the US senate majority leader, gave a speech in which he openly criticized Netanyahu's leadership in Israel. In the speech he claimed that Netanyahu's coalition no longer represents the needs of Israel and advocated for the Israeli people to hold elections to replace him, echoing the sentiments of Jewish people in Israel and the US both.

The reason I think this is important is because this is pretty much the most critical the US has been of Israel's government in my lifetime. I'm personally hoping this is a prelude to a change in how the US provides aid to Israel. Stopping all offensive weapons aid to Israel is important to me because I don't want to be complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people, but thanks to US foreign policy (like all Americans) I am.

If you'd like to see Beau of the Fifth Column's latest video on the topic, at the time of writing it's this one:

QUEERS: KEEP YOUR PASSPORT UPDATED

We can already see a rise in anti-Semitic attacks in places like NYC with the mask off nature of this new rhetoric. You are not safe from this rhetoric just because you live in a city. Berlin was a beacon of progressive values before the Nazi's took over. We don't know what's going to happen in 2 years time, but I will NOT satisfy these fascists with my death. And I advise the same for my queer family. Keep your passports up to date, pay attention to what's happening around you, arm yourselves and your community, and be willing and able to flee when it comes down to it. Stick together and find community. There's power in numbers. And most importantly, don't fucking die.

I love you all 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️❤️

Watch "Let's talk about what fiction can teach us about politics...." on YouTube

I know people are gonna be super sus based on this guy's appearance--and I was too, for a number of years (I am sorry to admit)--but I've been watching his vids for close to 2 years now and... he is compassionate, intelligent, and good as fuck and he also knows his history, politics, civics, and foreign affairs.

Preamble aside, potentiailly good(ish)* news re: B*den and Bibi:

*- if anything out of this nightmare could be considered 'good'...

Also excellent source for helping the unfamiliar parse American politics and for encouraging critical analyses of multiple news sources.

Beau of the Fifth Column talks about three local races where the liberal side won by a single vote.

YOUR VOTE MATTERS

So, for some reason, NATO passed on the opportunity to use a 100% perfect pretext, a pretext that would allow them to frame going to war with Russia as a defensive war. Why didn’t they use it? Is it because the Russian military is in great shape right now? No, of course not. The Russian military is retreating. On its knees. They are 100,000 down, they have issues with force generation, their economy isn’t doing well, they have civil unrest at home. All of their “high-tech” quote toys have already been captured by Western nations and the reverse engineering process has begun, figuring out how to break them. The reality is, there will never be a better time with a better pretext for NATO to go to war with Russia. So why didn’t it happen?

I’m not advocating for it. I’m not going Full Patton here. I’m asking: Why didn’t it happen? Because there’s really only one answer: NATO doesn’t wanna go to war with Russia. Right? I mean, that’s really the only possible answer. It’s the ideal time with the ideal pretext. So they don’t want to go to war.

[Image description: a YouTube thumbnail featuring a white man with a full red-haired beard, wearing a trucker's cap and a grey t-shirt with a rainbow design. Description ends]

Eye-contact. Auto-generated captions.

Summary: Beau of the Fifth Column talks about the recent ruling, from a (Trump-Appointed) Federal judge, striking down Tennessee's law banning Drag shows as unconstitutional. He explains why it's unconstitutional, and why the many other similar laws are also probably going to be struck down. But he also reminds us that the Republicans are going to keep trying, because they have to distract their base from the fact that they have no policy solutions for the problems that people are really facing.

"It's not the end. But it's the beginning of the end."

Analysis.

Some Updates

Here's video that quickly summarizes where things are at on the current topics:

Biden's diplomatic approach to Israel

Signalling of a possible change in US foreign policy to stop supplying offensive weapons to Israel

Progress on the humanitarian aid to provide food, water, and medicine to Gaza

Biden and Netanyahu are now publicly opposed

This is from Beau of the Fifth Column, who provides summaries and context on current events.

Let's talk about the House, laundry, Ukraine, and Johnson....

this gets into why super long, violent conflicts happen from a power perspective regardless of where in the world they are, super helpful for context

On Voting while Left - (something that made me think of tumblr).  A decent message.  (I watch this guy all the time... don’t let his appearance fool you, he looks like a redneck but he’s not... what you’d think a redneck would be).   Just a very apt analogy about both sides not actually being the same.