polyploy

joined 2 years ago
[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago

If you would like something to read, a good and free place to start would be this chapter of israeli historian Avi Shlaim's book "Genocide in Gaza: Israel's Long War on Palestine", which is publicly available right here.

Some relevant excerpts about Jabotinsky specifically:

The Zionist mainstream settled on Palestine as the location of this state because of the territory’s resonance in Jewish history and culture. How large should the state be, what should be its character, how could it be realised – such questions provoked heated controversies within the Zionist movement. But almost the full spectrum of Zionist opinion cohered around the essential goal of establishing a state in Palestine populated by an overwhelming Jewish demographic majority.

This objective almost inevitably provoked conflict in Palestine between Zionist newcomers and the territory’s existing inhabitants, who were overwhelmingly not Jewish. Palestinian Arabs had no political stake in an endeavour that sought, as the leading Zionist diplomat Chaim Weizmann put it, to render Palestine “as Jewish as England is English”. On the contrary, Palestinians reasonably feared that Zionism could succeed only by dispossessing them of house and homeland. Palestinian opposition to Zionism was therefore as comprehensive as it was consistent. This fundamental clash of interests was spotlighted by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the ever-candid leader of Revisionist Zionism. In his seminal 1923 article, “The Iron Wall”, Jabotinsky argued that Palestinians would never “voluntarily consent to the realisation of Zionism” because “every native population in the world resists colonists”. This meant “Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population” behind “a power that is independent” of them. Zionism for many Jews was a movement for collective assertion as well as defence through national self-determination. Zionism for Palestinians was a violent colonial imposition.

and later

As Jabotinsky prophesied, expanding Jewish settlement frequently provoked Palestinian opposition as well as resistance. Such opposition was typically overruled by means of discriminatory administration while resistance was suppressed by force. In the Mandate period, the Zionist leadership rejected the democratic principle of majority rule in Palestine so long as Jews comprised a minority, on the correct assumption that an Arab electoral majority would vote to end Jewish immigration and settlement. Between 1936 and 1939, British armed forces along with Jewish paramilitaries viciously crushed a Palestinian national revolt. After the 1948 War, Israel subjected some 90 percent of its Arab citizens to military rule. This emergency regime facilitated the destruction of Arab property and expropriation of Arab land until it was lifted in 1966, by which time the state’s demographic objectives within the Green Line had been substantially accomplished. The pattern repeated in the OPT from the following year. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have lived under Israeli military rule since 1967: three-quarters of Israel’s lifespan as a state. The occupation has been enforced through harsh repression including deportation, arbitrary detention, collective punishment, and unlawful killings. By one estimate, Israel jailed more than 800,000 Palestinians from the OPT between 1967 and 2016; those detained were “routinely subjected to torture”.

[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The ridiculous thing is that by acknowledging you have no idea how foundational Jabotinsky was to the genesis of the state of israel, you've revealed how little of the history you actually know and understand.

There is a direct line from Jabotinsky and Irgun to Menachem Begin, a former prime minister who was a member of Irgun and who later founded Herut, which eventually transformed into Likud, which is literally the current ruling party of the state with Netanyahu at its helm.

These are not fringe figures, revisionist zionism has been the dominant tendency for decades by this point, though it has intensified and become even more vicious and genocidal as the war on terror gave them ample cover and support for their brutality.

You insist it is complicated but clearly have no idea how uncomplicated it really is. The first zionist congress was in 1897, and the zionist occupation of Palestine began shortly after. Colonization started at a trickle but ramped up during the british mandate period. By the time israel declared independence, it had already been engaging in ethnic cleansing campaigns and massacres for years.

Do you not understand that israelis today very literally live in stolen homes, and are in the process of actively stealing and demolishing homes throughout the entire region? Every week more people have their homes and crops taken or destroyed by settlers, settlers who poison their livestock and take chainsaws to olive groves that have existed for centuries. Settlers who routinely attack and terrorize Palestinians under the watchful eyes of the occupation forces, who will step in to detain or murder Palestinians that resist in any capacity. Settler who have planted millions of european trees over the ruins of Palestinian villages to try to cover their crimes.

It has never not been a settler colonial project in service of creating an ethnostate. It has never not been rooted in violent dispossession and ethnic cleansing. There have been figures and groups that sought to soften the brutality, some early on that even had more of a vision of peaceful coexistance with the indigenous population, but that has never been a real manifestation of the zionist project.

While all history has complexity and nuance, it is not so complicated that we can't see a very clear and consistent aggressor and occupier, alongside resistance to it which has been routinely portrayed as somehow unjustified. If you really think it's complicated, I'd wager you've literally never even attempted to understand the history from the perspective of Palestinians. If you had, you wouldn't be saying any of this shit. Do yourself a favor and learn so you stop being a part of the problem.

[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago (10 children)

It's not accurate in the slightest.

It's a genuinely disgusting mischaracterization of violent dispossession and genocide as some kind of sibling rivalry.

This is not an argument between family! Palestinian people are being maimed, tortured, starved, and killed! They have been subjected to relentless oppression, occupation, and brutality under an internationally recognized system of apartheid for decades. The perpetrators of these heinous crimes do not need a stern talking to from a parent, they need to be brought to justice.

What is happening now is the culmination of years of this sort of dismissive patronizing bullshit framing of some of the most despicable things humans can do to others. The genocidal intent motivating these acts is spoken openly and plainly by zionist officials and media, and all foreign backers have made it abundantly clear that they will do their part to try to sanitize and legitimize these horrific crimes.

A reckoning will come, and absolutely no one who sided with israel, in virtually any capacity, will be able to claim ignorance nor innocence. Every one will be remembered for their role in supporting these sadistic genocidal child murderers.

[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 days ago (5 children)

anti-zionist jews are some of the loudest voices and most crucial organizers of resistance against the zionist occupation of palestine. fuck right off you antisemitic piece of shit.

[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

Thank you, way too many people here who seem to completely misunderstand the nature of Miyazaki's resentment towards AI.

He was not simply put off by the appearance of the animations, but rather repulsed by the entire process and the idea that machines could ever replicate the creativity of humanity. This is a man that had one of his animators work more than a year on a 4 second shot, refusing to use CGI in any capacity to speed that process up. The notion that he would have anything but contempt for AI is laughable.

[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I can't speak for all provinces but the three I've lived in all had smaller private clinics for specialists, imaging, specific fields of medicine and so on that are established parts of the public healthcare system. In these cases, the government effectively works as the insurer on behalf of patients, but many of these clinics also offer services which are not covered. The Canadian Medical Association provides a more thorough explanation of this here.

 

“Everyone’s been talking about what the Trump administration and DOGE have been doing, but no one seems to be talking about how, in a lot of ways, it’s been an assault on kids,” said Bruce Lesley, president of advocacy group First Focus on Children. He added that “the one cabinet agency that they’re fully decimating is the kid one,” referring to Trump’s goal of shuttering the Department of Education. Already, some 2,000 staffers there have lost or left their jobs.

The impact of these cuts will be felt far beyond Washington, rippling out to thousands of state and local agencies serving children nationwide.

The Department of Education, for instance, has rescinded as much as $3 billion in pandemic-recovery funding for schools, which would have been used for everything from tutoring services for Maryland students who’ve fallen behind to making the air safer to breathe and the water safer to drink for students in Flint, Michigan. The Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, has canceled $660 million in promised grants to farm-to-school programs, which had been providing fresh meat and produce to school cafeterias while supporting small farmers.

At the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the agency’s secretary, has dismissed all of the staff that had distributed $1.7 billion annually in Social Services Block Grant money, which many states have long depended on to be able to run their child welfare, foster care and adoption systems, including birth family visitation, caseworker training and more. The grants also fund day care, counseling and disability services for kids. (It is unclear whether anyone remains at HHS who would know how to get all of that funding out the door or whether it will now be administered by White House appointees.)

Head Start will be especially affected in the wake of Kennedy’s mass firings of Office of Head Start regional staff and news that the president’s draft budget proposes eliminating funding for the program altogether. That would leave one million working-class parents who rely on Head Start not only for pre-K education but also for child care, particularly in rural areas, with nowhere to send their kids during the day.

[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Here's a different source for you.

The National Institutes of Health will begin collecting Americans' private health records as part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s controversial plan to discover a cause and a cure for autism. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya told a panel of experts about the plan this week.

The NIH plans to gather information from a wide range of private sources, including pharmacy chains, hospitals and wearable devices with health sensors, like smartwatches.

"The idea of the platform is that the existing data resources are often fragmented and difficult to obtain. The NIH itself will often pay multiple times for the same data resource," Bhattacharya told the panel, according to The Guardian. "Even data resources that are within the federal government are difficult to obtain."

The NIH did not return a request for comment.

Kennedy has made autism research a central pillar of his role as America's official health advocate. He has made a number of conspiratorial, anti-science claims, including that childhood vaccinations could cause autism, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Earlier this month, he called autism an "epidemic" and vowed to find an "environmental toxin" responsible for the disorder by September.

"Overall autism is increasing in prevalence at an alarming rate," Kennedy told reporters at the time. "We're going to get back to it with an answer to the American people very, very quickly."

He further described autism as "a preventable disease."

[...]

Bhattacharya, the NIH director, also has a controversial background in the medical community, questioning early on the lethality of COVID-19 and being a vocal opponent to lockdown mandates.

[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 month ago

That's fair and I understand the impulse. The point of flooding the zone is partially to create panic and confusion, but it's also a way to rapidly scatter a bunch of possible seeds of division or control at once, then focus on tending whatever works best, whatever has the least opposition afterwards.

There's absolutely no situation in which a fascist regime making registries of "diseased" children is unworthy of alarm though.

I point out the vulnerability of kids because fascists always start with their easiest targets. It allows them to normalize, practice, and develop the systems they are building while also instilling fear and eroding opposition. That's why we have to take this shit seriously from the start, the longer anyone waits the fewer there are around to fight back.

[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you think that eugenicist views being more common at the time is any kind of defense you're sorely mistaken, and if you think there's much of a difference between someone who kills kids and one who tries to decide which kids are worth killing first, you're wrong.

That first reply was for everyone else and reality check for you, but seeing as you seem intent on ignoring it I'm not going to bother wasting any more of my time interacting with you. I truly hope you come to realize how fucking disgusting your perspective is, I've tried to explain it to you but I can't understand it for you.

[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It doesn't have to be a kill list, that's what you're not understanding. Medicalizing dissent, creating registries of potential scapegoats and vulnerable people to target or practice on, that's the purpose. They create an outsider group to stigmatize and then broaden the definition as necessary.

You need to look at this step within the totality of the conduct of the regime so far. They are already rolling back child labour laws and openly talking about the need for a baby boom. Children are one of the most vulnerable groups in society, especially in conjunction with other factors like a migrant background or being in foster care. How many kids are in precarious situations with either absent or completely disempowered parents?

They're already putting unattended children in front of immigration judges without legal representation, if the state simply kidnaps and disappears the children of people it's trying to deport without due process, what's to stop them? What do you think these ghouls might want to do with lists of kids?

What you need to recognize is that this is the sort of registry that would be directly accessible by those surveillance initiatives you mentioned. It's not duplicated effort, it's part of the same effort, this is just one of the ways they are trying to define their enemies and undesirables.

[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago (3 children)

"Let's not demonize the Nazi, didn't you know he undertook the arduous and benevolent task of creating a special category just for those of you that were exploitable for your labour? Sure he had a bunch of you exterminated but he sterilized and saved some for work and that should count for something."

Utterly repugnant worldview. If at any point you find yourself coming up with reasons to defend a Nazi, and you don't take a moment to look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what the fuck you're doing, you're failing as a human.

Someone who actively participated in the mass murder of children might have redeeming qualities (and I'd argue the one you think you're highlighting isn't one at all), but none of them will ever outweigh the fact that they are monstrously inhuman.

Do you have any idea how profoundly his work has negatively impacted every autistic person since? We're still trying to excise all the fucked up useless gendered concepts his perspective injected into the diagnostics. The notions that we lack empathy, have some kind of extreme "male intellect" and/or psychopathy, that the way we're born is some kind of defect in humanity that must be studied and purged, that's his legacy.

He was one of the first to try to identify and categorize us, not out of altruism, but because he saw us as a diseased branch of humanity that was situationally useful but ultimately unworthy of life. If that's not worthy of demonization then I don't know what is.

[–] polyploy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 145 points 1 month ago (9 children)

A couple things I would like to highlight for the unfamiliar, and I'll preface this by saying that I am autistic myself.

First, autism is not something for which there are any clear medical indicators, no blood tests or brain scans or anything of the sort are involved in diagnosis. It's entirely subjective and observational, something that states entrust people who are ostensibly professionals to determine.

I point this out because I want people to understand that there is absolutely nothing stopping the present administration from hiring people (or using AI) to simply diagnose undesirables with autism through whatever criteria they decide to deem fit.

This might sound absurd, but we're seeing people with nothing but tattoos being transformed into "criminals", "gang members", and "terrorists" by similar logic.

Second, Asperger was a Nazi, and the child euthanasia program was one of the main projects which experimented with the tools and machinery of mass murder that would later be used in extermination camps. Zyklon B was tested on autistic children and other "diseased offspring" long before it was ever used in the gas chambers.

How long do you think it will take before they are using AI to comb through the social media and medical records of teens looking for any indications of anything they don't like, and flagging them as potentially autistic? September has been RFK's set date since he first started talking about it, and people have been puzzling about that from the beginning. September is the start of the school year.

 

The whole article is worth reading but I'd like to highlight a few paragraphs in particular:

For over two years, the Tory leader has travelled across the country, galvanizing voters around three devastating words: Canada is broken. In one video streamed on his Facebook page, Poilievre lined up with voters outside a passport office in Ottawa, making a show of solidarity to the people stuck waiting six hours just to drop off an application. In another, he stands near a homeless encampment in British Columbia, detailing the human suffering he’s witnessed.

For those of us old enough to remember Poilievre as the most vicious of Stephen Harper’s boys-in-short-pants, it was jarring to see him dominate the political discourse with such ease.

Because no matter how many million of dollars the Liberals spent on some version of “Yes, we’re bad but have you seen how fucking crazy this guy is?”, they had no answer to his message. The Canada we were promised — the one where you’ll get ahead if you just play by the rules and work hard — no longer exists.

Roughly half of Canadians report living from paycheque to paycheque, with that number jumping to 57 per cent for those aged 35 to 54, according to a Léger study published in October. Meanwhile, a generation of homebuyers has been priced out of the market and those who can afford a mortgage are being crushed under a mountain of debt.

Canada’s household debt to disposable income ratio is 180 per cent. That’s the highest of any G7 country. For every dollar Canadians earn, on average, they owe $1.80 in the form of mortgage payments, car loans and credit card fees. In the United States, by contrast, that ratio is 100 per cent.

Over 2 million Canadians turn to a food bank every month just to keep from going hungry. That’s a 90 per cent increase from 2019 numbers.

As rental prices across the country have nearly doubled in the past decade, homeless encampments are now a fixture of life in every major Canadian city. In some pilot programs, provincial governments have outsourced the lodging of homeless people to private condo developers.

Universal public healthcare, the crown jewel of this federation, is coming under attack in provinces across the country. Half of our healthcare system is funded by Ottawa, and the federal government has done little to discourage the provinces’ slide towards privatization.

I don’t think Poilievre will fix any of this but he sees it. And because he sees it, he can turn it into anger, political donations and to a victory on April 28.

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