pjwestin

pjwestin , 4 months ago

That's not really true, you can get to anarchy from the left or the right. In fact, anarcho-capitalism is pretty much what American libertarians have been pushing for decades. There is an anarcho-communism, which involves abolishing all hierarchies and monetary systems are relying entirely on mutual aid, but I think most of the, "far-left," in America is just marxist, usually socialist but sometimes communist.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

Yeah, I can't believe anyone would be ignorant enough to compare Israel's actions to the Holocaust. The Palestinian genocide clearly has more in common with the Armenian genocide than the Jewish genocide. I mean, forcing the Palestinians into southern Gaza while killing them indiscriminately and starving them to death is just begging for a comparison to the 1915 death marches. C'mon people, more countries than just Germany and Israel have committed genocide, think for a minute about your historical parallels!

pjwestin , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

Hamas hasn't held an election since 2006. In that election, 45% of the population voted for Hamas, 42% voted for the Fatah, and the remaining 13% voted for smaller parties. Half of Gaza is under 18 and 65% percent of the population is younger than the 25 years old.

So what you're saying is that Gazans should expect to be murdered because, in an election held when the majority of them were too young to vote and half of them weren't even alive, a minority of people voted for extremists. Great point dude.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

Totally dude, totally. If I were a child growing up in Gaza, and I lived in poverty, with poor access to food and medicine because of Israeli blockades, while thousands of my countrymen where killed or displaced by Israeli air raids or gunned down by the IDF for protesting...well, obviously I would want to overthrow Hamas. I would definitely hate the group fighting the country makes my life hell, and I would definitely try get Hamas out of power.

Like you said, people are responsible for their government, and the people of Gaza (who are, again, HALF CHILDREN) are responsible for removing these extremists from power, even though they don't hold elections. Another great take dude.

pjwestin , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

A) No, I mean the blockades that have been going on since 2007. They limit necessary supplies to Gaza and are the reason it has been called an, "open-air prison." B) Israel is the occupying force in Gaza and therefore has a legal obligation to supply Gaza with water and power under the Oslo Accords. C) Israel has been failing in that obligation, because for years 97% of the drinking water has been below the minimum safety standards for human consumption.

Anyway, again, really great points, really showing your knowledge of the conflict here.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

Great question! There are two possible answers: 1. Israel is a democratic nation that respects human rights, in which case it needs to behave in accordance with international law or 2. Israel is, like Hamas, a nation of extremists using violence against civilians to achieve its political goals, in which case it needs to be treated like any rogue nation. So, since you invited the comparison, you tell me; does Israel need to hold itself to a higher ethical code than Hamas, or are they the same as them?

pjwestin , 4 months ago

You asked why Islrael should be expected to follow the Oslo Accords if Hamas didn't. I answered. If.you don't like the answer, tough. But please, if you take one thing away from this interaction, make it this; the Palestinians can't, "forfeit some of their legal rights," because of the actions of their government. What you're describing is called, "Collective Punishment," and it is literally a war crime. Congratulations, you reasoned your way into advocating for war crimes. Great job.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

The right to not be killed on a music festival outweighs the right to free water and electricity.

It abso-fucking-lutely does not. A terrorist attack does not justify denying 2.5 million people access to water. You know, cause they die without it. And this isn't new, Israel has been using water as a weapon since the sixties. Look up Israeli Military Order 158.

Anyway, I think in done here. You've don't know basic facts about the conflict, you've defended war crimes, and you've actually suggested other war crimes. You have no idea what you're talking about and you're an awful person. This is a waste of my time.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

I was in the restaurant industry for several years and I've never met anyone who was paid that difference. Sleazy restaurants just won't pay it because most servers don't even know about it. Even in more reputable establishments, when managers see tips are low, they don't just stand around until they have to pay their servers more, they start slashing hours. A tipping strike would be distributive, but it would probably lead to less servers and worse service rather than end tipping.

The real issue is that propaganda has turned customers against servers, when the reality is that the restaurant is their enemy. The restaurant is paying a starvation wage and expecting you to directly subsidize their staffing costs. The National Restaurant Association spends millions every year fighting local legislation that would pay servers a living wage, while simultaneously forcing restaurant employees to pay for certifications they need to do their jobs. They're pocketing money from both customers and servers while watching them fight over tipping culture.

There are a lot of servers who prefer tips, especially younger people who are more likely to live with their parents and want quick cash. But most older restaurant employees would prefer stability to quick, inconsistent cash. At the end of my time in the service industry, I had moved over to event bartending, where I was rarely tipped but made $30 an hour. If their was a large migration from a tipped wage to a living wage, most servers would see the benefit and get on board.

The problem is, in the absence of any legislation, the only efforts to change tipping culture come from individual restaurants, and they always fail. Many restaurants try a living wage and go back to tipped wage because they just don't do as well. No matter how many times you explain that the server's wage is reflected in the price of the meal, people see a $22 item that usually costs $20 and think it's too expensive, even if they're losing money tipping $4 on $20.

So, a tipping strike would certainly be distributive, but it's more likely to hurt servers and customers than restaurants. Trying to get ballot initiatives to end the tipped minimum wage locally would be more effective, but be ready to fight the National Restaurant Association when they come to town (and believe me, they will).

pjwestin , 4 months ago

That's not true. Sure, you can't criticize presidents in their first year, since their just finding their footing. And obviously, you can't criticize them in their second year, because the midterms are coming up, and you need to be positive to get Democrats elected. But after the midterms, progressives are free to criticize the president as a much as the want...for about two weeks. A month tops. After that, we're getting into reelection season, and criticism will only help the GOP.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

Downvoting for misuse of, "Literally."

pjwestin , 4 months ago

I mean, that certainly strengthens the comparison, but it doesn't change the fact that you mean, "figuratively."

pjwestin , 4 months ago

Yeah, but it's just Websters that acknowledges the use of literally to mean, "virtually," or, "figuratively," and they've gotten so much shit for that they wrote 3 paragraphs after the definition and a whole separate article trying to justify it. It's completely unjustifiable; their definition actually says, "a statement or description that is not literally true." Normally you never want to define a word with the word itself, much less define it as the the opposite of the word itself, but that's what happens when you try to turn an antonym into a synonym.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

Yeah, but there's a difference between a word that had contradictory meanings for generations and one dictionary changing it's definition to reflect misuse.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

The purpose of a dictionary is also to provide clear definitions so that words have universal meanings. There's a difference between adding a second definition to a word to reflect common slang, like adding the drug-related meaning to tweak, and accepting the misinterpretation of a word as correct, like irregardless. There's a reason other reputable dictionaries like Oxford didn't adopt the use of Literally to mean, "virtually," (and it's a little embarrassing that the American-English dictionary did).

pjwestin , 4 months ago

Sorry, don't follow. You mean like, "no lie?"

pjwestin , 4 months ago

I don't see it on dictionary.com or Websters. I don't see any problem with adding it as an alternate slang definition, but I feel like it's gonna fall out of fashion before it gets used widely enough to justify adding it to a dictionary. I also don't see how it relates to what I'm saying, since (as far as I know) it's use doesn't come from people not know what, "cap," means.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

I mean, it's weird that you keep trying convince me that dictionaries aren't the authority on language, but also incorrectly using, "literally," is acceptable now because it's in a dictionary. It's literally the first thing you said to me, and it directly contradicts what you're saying now.

There's nothing wrong with adding slang to a dictionary, but slang comes and goes quickly, so it's not the best idea to clutter up a language repository with meanings that will be obsolete in less than a decade. Remember that summer kids were saying, "on fleek?" Turns out we didn't need to bother adding, "on fleek," to our dictionaries.

You mentioned Urban Dictionary, "getting shit," but as a slang dictionary, it's not bad. Slang dictionaries are nothing new, and they're very helpful for keeping up with the kind of language changes that you're talking about. Regional vernacular and fad words belong in a slang dictionary; only slang that has proven to stick around, like, "cool," "kid," or "chill," should make their way into a regular dictionary.

Merriam-Websters makes a lot of additions that just shouldn't be in a regular dictionary, and seem like they're made only to get attention. They added, "Bootylicous," in 2004. Nobody says bootylicous anymore. Nobody said it in 2004, that word peaked in 2002 at the latest. But they got a lot of attention that year for adding that word, just like they got a lot of attention last year for adding the incorrect usage of, "literally."

Definitions matter. They're supposed to change over time, but they're also supposed to be rigid enough that people can reference their correct/incorrect meaning. If definitions were meant to be entirely fluid, we wouldn't need dictionaries in the first place. I know you think most people only use dictionaries when they're playing board games, but the truth is they are mostly used in academia, where people need to make sure they're using words properly. That's why adding a common misuse of a word to a dictionary is such a bad idea.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

A colloquial use can still be incorrect, irregardless of how common it is (and yes, I'm being ironical in my use of irregardless).

pjwestin , 4 months ago

OMFG dude, I know how words are added to the dictionary. I was a English Lit major and a writing tutor. I understand that lexicongraphers believe that their job is simply recording uses, and not creating meanings. I also know that there's an inherent contradiction in that, since they are also creating a repository that others will use to find the meaning of words, so they're creating and influencing that meaning for everyone who uses that repository. Again, the first thing you said to me was that it was OK to use, "literally," as, "figuratively," because it's in the dictionary. You yourself allowed the dictionary authors to change your usage of that word.

I have explained twice now that I think dictionaries do and should include slant meanings. I have also explained the difference between a regular dictionary and slang dictionary like Urban Dictionary or DARE. I never said slang terms shouldn't be in the dictionary, just that every slang usage doesn't have to be recorded in every dictionary. Sorry Oxford didn't have your use of, "Pop," in it, but it's actually kind of understandable that a British dictionary didn't bother to add the Midwestern-American slang for a word that already had 21 entries.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

This is basically the same argument people made about Obama's second term. "He had to pull back in the first term or he'd lose reelection! In his second term, that's when he'll do all the progressive things that he ran on!" Anyway, he didn't do any of those things, but we did find out he'd secretly put us all under mass surveillance.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

I think you could argue Biden's further left than Clinton economically, but I think Clinton probably would have put more pressure on Israel to deescalate the war on Gaza, given how much he wanted a two-state solution. Either way, regardless of party, every President since Regan has been some shade of center-right to far-right.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

You are pretty much entirely incorrect. Before 2011, Egypt was under the control of Hosni Mubarak, a brutal dictator with mostly friendly ties to the U.S. The Egyptian people eventually revolted, and they were not happy with the U.S. afterwards; they pelted then Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's motorcade with tomatoes and eggs when she came to visit after the uprising.

The Muslim Brotherhood won the majority of the Egyptian parliament afterwards, and elected Mohammed Morsi as President, but their rule lasted barely a year before the were also met with massive protests. The military forced Morsi out and basically established a military dictatorship in 2013. There were always rumblings that the U.S. was working behind the scenes with the Egyptian military to destabilize Muslim Brotherhoods civilian government, but there's no evidence of that. The Egyptian Military government then blamed the Brotherhood for a terrorist attack, a claim the Brotherhood denied, and banned the Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood were repressive and definitely supported terrorism, but they did not rule Egypt before 2011. There were a small blip between U.S. backed dictators.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

Are there any kind of standards on sources here? Raw Story is garbage, and this article basically boils down to a clickbait headline about a Truth Social post.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

Yeah, what kind if monsters would use Palestinian children as human shields?

pjwestin , 4 months ago

I think the majority of commenters here don't actually know that Hebrew is the official language of Israel and assume it is a reference to the Jewish people themselves. Others seem to be claiming that since OP chose to use a language instead of a location like in the original episode (Skinner claims it a regional dialect, and when pressed on what dialect, he says, "upstate New York."), he's somehow being antisemitic because he's equating it to, "all Jews," instead of, "Isralis." That's of course nonsense; Israel is the only country to have Hebrew as an official language, and the vast majority of the world's Hebrew speakers live in Israel. In fact, Hebrew was basically a dead language until the Zionist movement revived it in the late 19th century. The vast majority of Jewish people outside of Israel would only speak Hebrew as part of prayers, much like Catholics would use Latin (at least until they ended Latin Mass in the 60s). The idea of, "Hebrew expression," being coded towards the larger Jewish population instead the one country in the world where this language is regularly spoken is just silly.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

Having a militarized police force show up on your doorstep ready to kill you because of an anonymous phone call has been a real threat to Americans for over a decade. Maybe now that it's happening to the ruling class something might change.

pjwestin OP , 4 months ago

Yeah, that's why I outlined how this term went from describing British communists who supported the Soviet's use of tanks during the Hungarian Revolution to generally pro-authoritarian communists to communists who call for violent resistance to capitalism (especially online). There's a difference between a word's meaning shifting over time and someone misusing or misunderstanding a word so badly they've lost its meaning.

pjwestin OP , 4 months ago

Look man, 90% of this community is liberals and leftists picking fights with each other. If I can at least get them to start using the right words when the do it, I'll call it a win.

pjwestin OP , 4 months ago

Yeah, to be clear, I'm not saying that tankie should only be used for British communists that supported sending tanks into Hungary. I think the definition you just gave is the correct modern usage, that's why I included it in the post, and even though I think using it to mean, "communists who are violently anti-capitalist but only online and never IRL," is a stretch, I'm not gonna correct anyone saying it. But go ahead and look at the biggest/most controversial posts of the last week, CTRL-F, "tankie," and see what you get. I'm willing to bet its someone getting called a tankie for criticizing Biden or the Democrats, not defending authoritarian-communist regimes.

I'm sure the biggest offenders will keep misusing the word, but I'm hoping at least some people will see this post and go, "Oh, damn, I've been using that word wrong. Oops." Then they'll probably downvote me anyway, but hopefully they'll stop misusing the word, if for no other reason than the fear of looking dumb.

pjwestin OP , 4 months ago

Yeah, that tracks, I've seen it get used a lot more in the last six months to a year. Some boomer must have used in in their Facebook group.

pjwestin OP , 4 months ago

Yeah, I don't think most people in this community would agree with the definition you just laid out, and as I said, this community is already misusing the word. What you're describing is closer to the, "dirtbag left," than anything else. You're stretching the definition so far past, "pro-authoritarian-left," that it's ridiculous. It would be like if I started calling Biden supporters, "Bernie Bros," and said the definition had shifted to include any supporter of a left-of-center male candidate. It's so incorrect it's made the word meaningless.

pjwestin OP , 4 months ago

I mean, that's the right ballpark...I'd probably shorten it to, "A communist or far-left activist that defends or supports authoritarian regimes that align with their political ideology," but that's just me.

pjwestin , 4 months ago

I feel really bad for this girl. Disqualifying her was the right move, but I highly doubt a fifteen-year-old representing Russia in the Olympics was given much choice as to whether she wanted to use performance enhancers or not. On top of that, she got four year ban from professional skating, which basically robbed her of her peak professional years. Her career was basically destroyed by something that was, best case senerio, a mistake she made at fifteen or, wost (and more likely) case, something that was forced on her by her trainers/managers.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

It's just how liberal centrists sheild themselves from self-reflection. They know there are people to their left, and engaging with their ideas might make them realize their policies and candidates cause harm, so they decide to dismiss them out of hand as aiding the right. This creates a safe narrative where they're always the good guy; people to their right are dangerous lunatics, people to their left are naive fools who are unintentionally helping the lunatics, and they're the only ones behaving responsibly. This allows them to condemn people calling for the end of a genocide without engaging with the fact that their candidate is enabling a genocide.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

I mean, being to the left of Obama and Clinton isn't exactly hard.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

No, I know who you're responding to, but pointing out that Biden is marginally more left-leaning than the guy who repealed Glass-Steagall and the guy who created the assassination-robot squad doesn't really undermine his point. FDR's party gutted the New Deal, Biden being slightly more pro-union doesn't really mean much to the overall trend.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

he has an undeniably better track record than FDR in terms of human rights, civil rights and environmental protection. There's really no comparison.

Biden is currently supporting the Palestinian genocide as we speak.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

A) Glad you were eventually able to edit your post to more than a single emoji. B) You know that Palestinians aren't Hamas, right? C) You understand that it's not a, "two-way genocide," if only side can actually commit genocide, right? Hamas may want to kill evey Jew, but they've only managed to kill 1,200 people in their initial attack and 210 soldiers since then. Meanwhile, Israel has killed a minimum of 25,000 people, and by there own estimates only 9,000 of them were militants. (Also, 9,000 is a number the IDF gave without any evidence, so it's probably a gross overestimate.)

There's a reason that, of the two groups, only the Israeli government is being accused of genocide in the ICJ, and it's not because the international community likes Hamas. Genocide isn't just a declaration in a charter, it is a specific series of actions against an ethnic group, and it sure seems like Israel is committing those actions.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

the "accusation" of genocide against Israel has been rejected by every key member of the UN as baseless and without merit or evidence.

Well, Israel's allies (France, Germany, Hungary, Austria, U.S., and U.K., by my count) have objected, and most of the other Western nations have declined to take a stance. Meanwhile, more than 25 nations in the Middle East, Africa, and South America support the case. So, if you think that this case is meritless because, “key,” U.N. members don't support it, your ignoring massive international outcry and showing off your Eurocentric bias.

The only thing stopping those missiles from hitting Israeli civilians was the American Iron Dome missile defense system

the United States, who have, thanks to Iron Dome, protected the lives of countless innocent Israelis

Yeah, this is just wrong. It's not American, it's Israeli. We've contributed money and missiles to it, but it was designed and built by an Israeli defense firm and the IDF. Americans want to believe that Israel would be helpless without them, but Israel has a first-world economy and a very well-funded military. This isn't Ukraine; there would economic and political consequences for Netanyahu if Israel lost our support, but they don't need our support to survive. Biden could withdraw support to Israel due to human rights violations without creating an existential threat to Isreal.

We don't get to simply refine words until they mean what we want them to mean.

You're right, so let's look at the U.N.’s legal definition of genocide:

Killing members of the group (check); Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group (check); Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (check); Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group (check); Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group (...nope, not that one).

Any of these constitute genocide, and Israel is at 4 out of 5.

Finally, you seem very concerned with what could happen while ignoring what is happening. Yes, Hezbollah and Hamas could commit genocide against Israelis with enough support and resources. Yes, Israel could have much higher civilians casualties without the Iron Dome (which, again, is an Israeli creation). If these things happened, there should be international outcry and U.S. intervention. But Hezbollah and Hamas can't win a war against Israel, much less commit genocide, and Israel does have the Iron Dome.

But what is happening is that Israel is waging a campaign of destruction that has killed at least 1% of the population of Gaza. At a bare minimum, 64% of those casualties, 16,000 people, were civilians, and most of them were women and children. Their actions have been described as collective punishment and ethnic cleansing by human rights groups, and there is a genocide case against them before the ICJ.

These are not hypotheticals; this is what is happening right now. And they are happening with the support of the U.S. and, “one of the most, if not the most, progressive President we've had in modern history.”

pjwestin , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

Edit: Whoops, replied to the post, not the comment.

Oh, I wasn't ignoring the intent to eliminate an ethnic group; I know that it's necessary for for proving a genocide, and will be the most difficult part of South Africa's case. Maybe they'll find something that can clarify Israel's intent, like an official calling for Gaza to be completely reduced to rubble, or a member of the Iraeli parliament calling on for nuclear strikes to, “crush Gaza,”, or a cabinet official calling what's happening in Gaza an ethnic cleansing, or an Israeli minister calling for settlers to illegally take control of the territory. (Of course, this is just a few recent examples from this war. You could go from the Nakba all the way to the illegal West Bank settlements if you wanted to give the intent in a historical context.)

Anyway, you've really illustrated why the American centrist is so ridiculous. You honestly want to argue that a nuclear-powered (yes, Israel has nukes, even if they don't admit it) military with a $20 billion budget that is systematically destroying a civilian population couldn't possibly be committing genocide because none of their founding documents say, “genocide.” Meanwhile, you also want me to accept that a terrorist organization with homemade rockets, that controls an area the smaller than Detroit, with a military budget of $350 million, is just as capable of committing genocide. Not only that, any deaths they cause are a genocide, because their charter calls for genocide (which is obviously ridiculous; by this logic, Dylan Roof committed genocide). You are a deeply unserious person and I'm done with this absurd exercise.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

Oh, I wasn't ignoring the intent to eliminate an ethnic group; I know that it's necessary for for proving a genocide, and will be the most difficult part of South Africa's case. Maybe they'll find something that can clarify Israel's intent, like an official calling for Gaza to be completely reduced to rubble, or a member of the Iraeli parliament calling on for nuclear strikes to, “crush Gaza,”, or a cabinet official calling what's happening in Gaza an ethnic cleansing, or an Israeli minister calling for settlers to illegally take control of the territory. (Of course, this is just a few recent examples from this war. You could go from the Nakba all the way to the illegal West Bank settlements if you wanted to give the intent in a historical context.)

Anyway, you've really illustrated why the American centrist is so ridiculous. You honestly want to argue that a nuclear-powered (yes, Israel has nukes, even if they don't admit it) military with a $20 billion budget that is systematically destroying a civilian population couldn't possibly be committing genocide because none of their founding documents say, “genocide.” Meanwhile, you also want me to accept that a terrorist organization with homemade rockets, that controls an area the smaller than Detroit, with a military budget of $350 million, is just as capable of committing genocide. Not only that, any deaths they cause are a genocide, because their charter calls for genocide (which is obviously ridiculous; by this logic, Dylan Roof committed genocide). You are a deeply unserious person and I'm done with this absurd exercise.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

I don't disagree with how you feel about the Democrats, but anyone who was going to ask that question has already asked that question. Your standard-issue lib-dem is gonna get fired up hearing Democrats talk about abortion rights without thinking too hard about how we got here.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

Agreed. Base it off ending draconian drug laws designed to profit the prison industrial complex. Starting with weed.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

if Leftists had voted for Hillary in 2016 abortion would still be legal.

So, this really isn't true in any meaningful way. People like to make a big deal out of the 12% of Bernie voters who went for Trump, but the majority of them identified as conservatives or centrists, while only 18% identified as liberal or left-leaning. Likewise, a lack of turnout doesn't seem to be the issue; black voter turnout dropped, but not by an unexpected margin, and young voters (who tend to be more left-leaning) had very strong turnout. Finally, you could try to blame leftists who voted third-party, but analysis shows that even if every single Jill Stien voter had gone to Clinton, she still would have needed to win over 50% of Gary Johnson's voters (who were obviously unlikely to consider themselves leftists).

You might be able to get the numbers to work if you say that if every leftist who stayed home OR voted third-party OR went to Trump voted for Clinton she'd have won, but that's incredibly hard to prove and probably relies on some specious assumptions (for example, that every Green Party voter was a disgruntled Democrat). At that point, you're pulling so many different groups together under a single banner that it's basically meaningless. You might as well say if women had voted for Hillary abortion would be legal.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

Sanders, God love him, was not going to be electable.

Literally every single poll says otherwise. We'll never know for certain, but there's much more evidence to support a Sanders victory than a Sanders loss, and claiming that Trump would have picked up enough moderates to win is baseless speculation.

pjwestin , 5 months ago

This is an awesome proposal that 99% of Americans can get behind and I can't wait for our oligarchs to kill this legislation before it ever gets introduced to congress.