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8/04/2025 12:55 am  #121


Re: MAGA's Hangover and America's Walk of Shame

For the record, I am rabidly antisemantic.

But even under this humble bias, it's been so exasperating as even sophic semantics veer openly into blatant slander, as has been the case with Zohran Mamdani.  The most recent case was on this week's Real Time w/ Bill Maher, with guest James Kirchick stating as fact at least three easily-debunked falsehoods, all of which expressing less disdain for Mamdani as an individual or a candidate rather than bigotry against him as a Muslim and a so-called "socialist/communist", all boogyman constructions. none of which was corrected or even doubted by peer bigot Maher, content to give this absolute fudgesucker a platform.  (And, fwiw, "fudgesucker" is not a homophobic slur against the openly gay Kirchick.  I want to be very clear about that.  There's no double entendre intended here.  I mean it strictly and literally as a fatphobic slur, because this fat motherfucker clearly sucks a shit ton of fudge.  Like George Costanza, he'd guzzle it by the gallon if he could.)

Taken one at a time, Kirchick claims that Mamdani's policies involve "seizing property".  Nope.  Mamdani has made statements in the past expressing these more socialist ideals about private property (and he even once upon a time adocated the abolition of prisons and jais as well), but nowhere in his policy proposals as mayor has he made such arguments or promises.  These past comments appear to have been circulated by those same rich New Yorkers that Mamdani has proposed to raise their taxes considerably, so it's a time-honored scare tactic.  (If anything, I'd be more inclined to chalk this up to my only real concern about Mamdani - his inexperience.)

Kirchick made the hysterical claim that Mamdani wants to "give out free groceries".  I don't believe that's how that works.  A similar aspersion making the rounds, especially by Maher, is that Mamdani wants to "nationalize grocery stores", which plays precisely into the previous anxieties about his secret communist agenda.  Mamdani has proposed placing five public (or "state-run" if you must) grocery stores in each of NYC's boroughs to combat food deserts and as a means to lower, through competition (capitalism!), inflated grocery prices by private grocery corporations.  But, hey, I'll take some free food too. 

But the most insulting easily-disproved slander against Mamdani was Kirchick's claim that Mamdani has declared "globalize the intifada".  The opposite is true, that Mamdani has said that he does not use this phrase, nor has anyone found any evidence of him ever using it (and, don't worry, if it existed, they'd tell you about it).  Mamdani was non-committal about the phrase, he simply declined to outright condemn it, ala it means different things, etc.  "The role of the mayor is not to police language".  And as I pointed out in the previous post about this subject, I think this is an obvious example of Mamdani trying to walk the thin line between his pro-Palestinian protest voters and his liberal/progressive NY Jewish voters (not that these don't overlap to some degree), and without really saying anything too definite either way.  Besides, that ambiguity is now moot, as Mamdani has since then more forcefully disavowed the phrase, and has openly discouraged its use.  When Bill Maher's "blue" guest, Rep. Jason Crow, pointed out that Kirchick had, in fact, just lied on national television about Mamdani using and promoting the phrase - effectively accusing Mamdani of wanting to kill Jews worldwide - Kirchick simply shrugged as if it were a minor quibble.  (No time for apologies, this fat fuck's got fudge to suck!)  Unfortunately, even moderate Dems have taken the opportunity to join in on the slander, dishonestly, like this article a full week after Mamdani's disavowal, as if his disavowal never existed so they can continue painting him falsely as an antisemite.  Fact-checkers need to start cracking down on this shit.

The degree to which Mamdani is being accused of antisemitism should be more alarming than it has been.  Even the word "accusation" seems inaccurate, it's more like it's simply assumed, and an almost superstitious assumption being passed off as obvious fact, or at least the kind of folk-wisdom taken for granted.  This is despite the lack of any evidence to support it, outside of his being a Muslim, an Iranian (who's never lived in Iran), and an outspoken advocate for Palestinian civil rights and an end to the Israeli occupation.  The latter is frequently portrayed as sufficient evidence in our media which prefers to present the "pro-Paestinian" and "pro-Israeli" sides as some kind of zero-sum proposal.  So it's important to lay out the facts as we can determine them, setting aside the conspiratorial notion that Mamdani is not being forthroght about his true beliefs.

1) There is no evidence that Mamdani is anti-Zionist.  I have not found any instance of him using phrases like "End Zionism" or portraying it as an existential threat.  He has not called for the disestablishment of the state of Israel, has recognized their right to exist explicitly.  Now, some commentators try to take a 'gotcha' opportunity here by pointing out that he has not expressly recognized the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.  This is not even particularly clever semantics.  Israel is Jewish by definition.  If Mamdani didn't support the right of the "Jewish state", then he wouldn't call it Israel, he'd call it Palestine.  More to the point, Mamdani has shown support for a two-state solution, which is the liberal Zionist position.  And it's clear that, quite apart from a mission to combat Zionism, Mamdani's primary and fundamental concern is Palestinian autonomy, whether that's as a separate Palestinian state or given equal citizenship under the Israeli state: "No matter whether you are speaking of one-state or two-state, it has to be something that has that equality as the bedrock of it."  The only thing that Mamdani wants to eradicate is the Occupation.  It's telling how our media cannot (or are not willing to) discern the difference between these stances.

2) Speaking of the Occupation, Mamdani has accused Israel of perpetuating an apartheid state and conducting a genocide.  I, myself, held back on the term "genocide" for several months after Oct. 7th, but I think it's fairly clear the term applies, when you have multiple members of Netanyahu's cabinet (as well as our own ambassador Mike Hukabee) openly, happily, denying the very existence of a "Palestinian" as either a distinct people or culture, which is genocide by definition.  These terms may hurt some people's feelings, but at this point they're either in denial or they're culpable.

3) There is no evidence of Mamdani celebrating the terrorist attack on Oct. 7th, or for Hamas more generally.  In fact, he immediately and publicly rebuked those anti-Zionist groups, like Within Our Lifetimes, who did celebrate this terrorist violence with their hang-glider memes and their red triangle paint.  "My support for Palestinian liberation should never be confused for a celebration of the loss of civilian life.  I condemn the killing of civilians and rhetoric at a rally seeking to make light of such deaths."  Mamdani has similarly condemned the recent antisemitic attacks in DC and Boulder.  "We have to make clear there’s no room for it in this city, in this country."  But Mamdani did apparently spit fire in a rap song back in 2017 where he gave a shout out to the "Holy Land 5", a group who was convicted for channeling funds to Hamas.  "Look 'em up" indeed, and decide for yourself how much a half-verse in one half-assed rap should figure towards his accusations of antisemitism.

4) Mamdani has engaged in the "Boycott Divestment Solidarity" movement.  It should be repeated that the overall point of this movement is to coerce economically the end of the Occupation.  It is not to disestablish the state of Israel.  They are not boycotting Israeli industry because they're Jews, but because Palestinians are not afforded citizenship and self-determination.  "I think that it is a legitimate movement when you are seeking to find compliance with international law."  Again, it's sad that this even needs to be clarified.  Either way, Mamdani has explicated that as mayor he will not force NYC divestment from Israel, except regarding "NY funding for settler violence" specifically.  Sounds good to me.

5) Mamdani did a podcast with Hasan Piker.  Quite honestly, who gives a shit?  Piker's just a rich Turk cunt, living on his family's trust fund, streaming himself on Twitch for 10 hours a day from his West Hollywood mansion where he clearly spends more money on hot swag than books, spraying hot takes with a mumbled mouth full of his prepackaged prepared meals.  (Some have called Piker the "Joe Rogan of the Left" and, unfortunately and unironically, they're not far off.)  I don't have time for this asshole woke-bro, so unless somebody can show me a transcript of Mamdani cosigning any of Piker's bullshit, this is the non-est of issues.

6) Mamdani has held out the possibility of arresting Netanyahu on NYC soil under the arrest warrent for war crimes by the UN-ICC.  And more happier I could not be to see that day.  "My answer is the same whether we are speaking about Vladimir Putin or Netanyahu.  I think that this should be a city that is in compliance with international law."  Some people actually find this scandalous.


I still believe that Mamdani has an uphill battle to actually win the mayor's seat, although with a four-way race (technically five, but whatever), it does give him an advantage while Cuomo and Adams split the centrist/financial elite vote, and Siwa siphoning off enough right-wing and working class (ie, Staten Island) votes could prove decisive.  Thankfully, there does seem to be plenty of visible support in NYC's liberal Jewish community, which will hopefully prove immune to such immersive slander and fear-mongering.  I wish more moderate-left Dems would take note and step aside from engaging in such rhetoric.  If John Fetterman wants to go cry alone, well, he probably will anyway.  He can take Bill Maher with him and have the saddest Club Random ever.
 


 

8/04/2025 2:20 am  #122


Re: MAGA's Hangover and America's Walk of Shame

Jinnistan wrote:

The only explicitly-denoted intifada movements have been violent by nature, so it's a lot harder to feign as if the use should automatically be understood as non-violent.

Just to clarify a small point. 

There is one intifada - the so-called First Intifada (first in Palestine; there had been previous intifadas in Iraq, Bahrain, Lebonon and Egypt) - which was organized by the PLO as a nonviolent resistance movement from 1987-93, so it is informally known as the "Quiet Revolution". 

But the reason why this particular example of intifada doesn't automatically apply to the current post-Oct 7th invocation of "globalize the intifada" is due to the fact that the primary antagonist to the nonviolent resistance movement during the First Intifada was Hamas, which was specifically created in opposition to the PLO, to combat and challenge their authority during the First Intifada, condemning the PLO's "secularism" and disavowing a negotiated two-state solution as a capitulation.  And Hamas would play a more central, and more violent, role during the Second Intifada (2000-05).  Following Oct. 7th, the largest terrorist violence launched against Israel by Hamas, it is simply dishonest to connotate "intifada" in terms of the one historical nonviolent intifada which Hamas was created to violently undermine.  (And aided, no less, by Israel themselves, specifically to undermine the nonviolent PLO efforts, which might sound familiar....)

And "globalize" also has some uncomfortable connotations which some folks have been motivated to ignore.  It invokes certain "globalists", for example, needed to be "shaken off".  And when the Hamas charter openly calls for the global extermination of Jews, "hiding behind stones and trees", in order to bring about their "Day of Judgment", all while referencing the Protocals of the Elders of Zion and blaming the Jew for causing the Crusades and WWII (among pretty much every other conflict in history), it starts to sound less irrational to see "globalize the intifada" as a call to, say, bring about this Day of Judgment.  Some Jews may be able to survive, as long as they submit to the supremacy of Islam, which should also sound familiar to similarly apocalyptic Christian evangelicals.  The endgame for both Christian and Islamic nationalists is global dominance and submission to their rule, and neither one should be tolerated.

The capacity for the faux-woke to tolerate one form of theocratic patriarchy over any other form of Western liberal government is a baffling phenomenon of moral dissonance which will be studied many years from now.  I hope their parents are sufficiently chagrined.
 


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8/05/2025 12:03 am  #123


Re: MAGA's Hangover and America's Walk of Shame

Well, damn.

Turns out there is a strong faction within the BDS movement who are quite hostile to the two-state solution, basically advocating for a backdoor disestablishment of Israel through demographics.  (The comma is fucking with the hyperlink - go to the Wiki article on  Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions # Critique of liberal Zionism.)

This seems nonsensical to me, at best a motivated tautology.  Basically they say that the two-state solution is "impossible" because they're not really interested in making it possible.  Try to make sense of this:

Wiki wrote:

BDS criticizes liberal Zionists who oppose the occupation but also the right of return for the Palestinian refugees.  According to liberal Zionists, both right-wing Zionists and BDS risk "destroying Israel", defined as turning Israel into a Palestinian-majority state, BDS by demanding equal citizenship for Arab-Palestinians and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees, and right-wing Zionists by insisting on building more settlements, eventually making a two-state solution impossible.  With the two-state solution off the table, Israel would either have to grant citizenship to the Palestinians living under occupation, thus destroying Israel, or become an apartheid state.

That's an interesting sleight of hand there.  First of all, a two-state solution would preclude "building more settlements", but rather than fathom any kind of cracking down on the whole settler-terrorist effort, preventing new and even reducing existing settlements in the West Bank as prerequisite for any future Palestinian state, they just take for granted that these two forces are on an inevitable mutually assured conflict.  This scenario starts to become more reasonable if one presumes that those BDS members making this preemptive case of the two-state impossibility might just not want an Israeli state to survive.  And there's the hypocrisy, accusing Israel of being an "ethnostate", while ignoring that allowing the 'right of refugee return' would necessitate a future Palestinian ethnostate.  So it isn't about whether or not it is an ethnostate, it isn't about equality so much as who gets to be the majority party.  In Israel - proper, not the occupied territories - there's approx 20% Arab Israeli citizens.  In a future two-stete solution, there's no reason to suspect this minority to decrease.  And in a future Palestinian state, they may also cover a similar Israeli minority.  And with any 'right of return', whether in one or two states, the question of capacity is unavoidable, because we're talking about far too many people for either state.  This is a question that will require some complicated logistics, but one thing seems clear: it most certainly does not take the two state solution off of the table, unless you just don't want it there.

And "colonialist" gets further into the antisemitic weeds as well, as ironic as that is.  This only makes sense if you buy into the notion - laid out in Hamas' charter -  that Ashkenazi Jews are fraudulent (the Elders of Zion) and have no historic claim to the region.  These "white Jews" are emissaries of the evil West, going back to the Crusades, while ignoring the existence of Palestinian and West Asian Jews, the Mizrahi, who make up nearly half of Israel's Jewish population, rendering the idea of Israel as a "white colony" a farce.  Unless one subscibes to the conspiratorial nonsense laid out in the Hamas charter, none of this makes any sense at all.  Unfortunately, too many so-called progressives are buying into this bullshit.

And getting deeper - who are the indigenous people of Palestine?  How far back are we willing to unravel perhaps the most ethnically trafficked parcel of land in the fertile cradle of civilization?  Can we get some haplo-genetic tests to find some Canaanites?  The Palestinian Arabs deserve autonomy and liberation, and possible restitution for crimes committed during the Nakba, when Israelis used prior resentments to justify atrocities in the name of Zionism.  Such Zionist terrorist groups, like the Haganah and the Irgun, existed long before the state of Israel, even committing violence against the Turks and British.  There were also Palestinian/Arab terrorist groups during this time as well, also committing atrocities against civilians.  The precision of "justice" gets really foggy the further back we go into these crimes against humanity.

The focus should be on efficacious peace, not the vengence of resentments.

And there's another unfortunate video clip of Zohran Mamdani, from some podcast, where he makes his stance on the two-state solution even more blurry:  "They [American politicians] pledge fealty to the idea of a two-state solution, irrespective of the fact that a second state for Palestinians is physically impossible because it's not even a contiguous piece of land at this moment between where Palestinians live."  Well, there's lots to hammer out in the deal.  The question is whether or not you support going to the table to do so.

Maybe it would be in Mamdani's best interest to sit down with an objective, but sympathetc, interviewer and answer just a few questions, which, I know, not really directly relevant to New York City, but relevant to its Jewish community.

1) Would you support a two-state solution?
2) Would you support a Palestinian state governed by Hamas?

These are the issues which seem most slippery among those particular anti-Zionist protesters who I suspect are trying to launder in some dubious antisemitism.
 


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8/06/2025 3:04 pm  #124


Re: MAGA's Hangover and America's Walk of Shame

He's going to arrest Clinton, isn't he? 
Is it possible Maxwell is to be used, not simply to exonerate Trump, but to give him the leverage to arrest enemies? Something that will probably absolve him with those in MAGA finding it difficult to forgive him for the Epstein stuff? Allow him to ultimately pardon her or shorten her sentence?
 

 

Yesterday 8:46 am  #125


Re: MAGA's Hangover and America's Walk of Shame

crumbsroom wrote:

He's going to arrest Clinton, isn't he?

There's a non-zero chance, of course, but I think it would be extremely difficult to hold her behind bars without something a lot more explosive coming to the surface.

So far the facts are clearly on her side.  As I pointed out earlier, I would strongly recommend Obama, and Clinton too if she wants, to pre-emptively go on the offense and sue Tulsi Gabbard personally for defamation of character.  You want to go to court with this?  Let's go to court, sooner than later.  Where I come from "treason" is not a casual accusation.  Tulsi is clearly playing with a weak hand so call her bluff.  Go all in.  Even conservative commentators have lost interest in supporting this story.  I've already pointed out in detail why the exact evidence she has presented contradicts her claims.  Enough fun and games.  Put her on the stand under oath.

crumbsroom wrote:

Is it possible Maxwell is to be used, not simply to exonerate Trump, but to give him the leverage to arrest enemies?

Again, unless there's something more explosive that we haven't seen yet, I can't imagine anything Maxwell could say about Hillary Clinton, without corroborating evidence, that could warrant her arrest.  And I imagine if the feds had any such evidence, they would have used it already.  And no one is gong to care if there's video or photos of Bill   I mean, they'll care, it'll further tarnish his legacy, but I think most people already have an idea about that.  All it will do is inflame the call to release the names of all of the other participants, which probably isn't in Trump's interest.


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