andrewrgross

andrewrgross, 2 months ago

They do it because they can.

Netanyahu in particular is famous for asserting that policy control flows from him to the US, not the other was around.

He believes that Israel controls the US, and he controls Israel. And for decades, that insane belief has been shown largely accurate.

andrewrgross, 29 days ago

It’s sad, but I realized a few weeks ago that if you map out the direction of Israel, the hard right vision is essentially Iran.

Setting aside the treatment of the Palestinians, Israel was once known for its cosmopolitan night life and high quality universities. Now, its seen a takeover by the militant, backwards, misogynistic theocrats. And as more and more people get angry about losing their rights, the theocrats get more and more heavy-handed in militarizing their society, both inwardly and outwardly. And as the rest of the world becomes more and more disgusted, the country is becoming more and more isolated.

I still believe in a better way: I want to see a one state solution.

People don’t say this often but I actually appreciate what there is to like about Israel. There’s a lot of cool people and great culture and natural splendor. Same for Palestine too. If we can just apply enough pressure and stop saying “tWo sTaTE soLuTiON! tWO sTAte SoLUtION!!” and just say “Enough. It’s time you recognized that it’s been one country oppressing half its population this whole time, so stop oppressing people and give everyone the same rights.”

I say this because the status quo is already over. I think that it can either become modern South Africa, or Iran. Those are the two most likely paths, and I really want the first one.

andrewrgross, 3 months ago

Yeah. My first thought was ‘Surely this means the US will stop arming the IDF. After all, they defunded the UN Palestinian refugee agency that supplies all food in the territory last week over allegations that five people among their thousands of staff engaged in terrorism. No choice but to cut off the IDF too, zero tolerance policy and all.’ /s

This whole thing is a terrible disaster.

andrewrgross, 2 months ago

I think it’s shocking because declaring an ambition that is in line with our needs is uncommonly sensible electorally for Biden.

I fully recognize that his targets during 2020 were not realistic, but that’s appropriate. No goal of this magnitude ever arrives on time, as planned. But if you know that, it means you MUST aim for at least what is appropriate (if not more) because if you scale your ambition to what is sensible, you’ll get even less than that.

I didn’t bother reading the article. I think Biden and his campaign are stupid. Right now, it’s very, very, VERY clear to me that his vulnerability isn’t “the middle”. The very concept of “The Middle” is a fiction at this point. There are moderate, Democratic leaning independents who may or may not show up, and there exist some persuadable voters who are not insignificant, but they are not the deciders in Georgia and Michigan and Pennsylvania. The real, real, real obvious threat to Biden’s reelection is that his base has completely eroded. You can’t build a campaign on courting the tiny slice of swing voters if you’ve got no base for them to add to. The base needs enormous reconstruction. I don’t know if it’s possible, but Biden is running a campaign which looks currently like a case study in how to ignore expert wisdom and lose massively.

I am not a Democrat. I am a progressive, former Democrat. I am squarely the type of Obama-to-Bernie voters that the party really needs to recapture if they’re going to have a future. I want to help Biden, and that means marching in the streets yelling ‘Stop committing genocide!’ ‘We need a Green New Deal!’ ‘Pass the PRO Act!’ ‘Raise the minimum wage!’ ‘Child credits now!’

I’m trying to lead a horse to water, but this old horse really seems determined to die of dehydration out of some misguided sense of spite. C’est la vie, n’est pas? I’ll try not to give up hope, though boy, he and his handlers aren’t making it easy.

andrewrgross, 11 days ago

It’s an okay meme, but I have to admit I’m conflicted on these jokes.

First, lets just point out that Vanity Fair and everyone else who reports on JFK’s brain worm but won’t cover his rallies or policy announcements – let alone Jill Stein or Cornell West’s – is just doing a political hit job on a candidate challenging the hegemony of our two terrible political parties.

Second, although I think that JFK acts like a guy who had his brain eaten by a worm, it’s not really appropriate imo to propagate this impression that this is a legitimate medical concern. This parasitic infection isn’t actually any more debilitating than vaccines, so I think there’s a perverse hypocrisy to dwelling on it when most of us decry his irresponsible spreading of medical misinformation and conspiracy theories.

Anyway, fuck RFK, but let’s be real that he’s definitely not the worst candidate in the race, and it’s honestly not clear whether he’s even the second worst at this point.

andrewrgross, 22 days ago

I second this.

The problem is that investors are no longer tolerant of ‘We made money, here is some money you get for doing nothing’.

They demand ‘We made more money than last year! And not only did they money go up, it went up more than the last time it went up! And next year, we expect it to go up again, and go up faster than it went up this year! And go up more and faster each year until our product is the primary commodity of all people, at which point we’ll create new life and make that our emerging market.’

Nothing is enough for these people.

andrewrgross, 4 months ago

This is a weird story, just because it takes place in front a backdrop of widespread child death and social collapse.

The thing is, it’s STILL a tragedy. It just feels odd. Like reporting “American soldier from Illinois drowns during operation in Normandie” or “Woman killed in vehicular accident outside Bartertown”.

Like… that’s terrible, but they’re in the midst of complete social collapse. There’s no food or water, and also a kid dies in Gaza every 15 minutes. So again, it’s really heartbreaking that this kind – Ahmed Bracha – died. It’s just hard to figure how one writes an article about this particular child dying while apparently trying to get food among so many corpses of children trying to get food.

There needs to be a ceasefire. The siege must end. Hostages on both sides need to go home. This is truly atrocious.

andrewrgross, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

Look, I’m going to suggest sidestepping the fact that an article about what Gazaans want cites IDF spokespeople and “Reports from Palestinian media” without actually citing any and ask a question I don’t see enough.

What instructive lessons does the article provide? What should we do based on this?

If we assume the article is 100% true, we should be demanding a ceasefire and the establishment of a peace process. If this article is true, then the IDF campaign is a horrific humanitarian disaster that is punishing Gazaans and establishing a condition in which Hamas’ power is unshakable within Gaza. There’s no room for a political challenger, and there’s no safe space to criticize Hamas. There’s no possibility of revolution or political protest, because everyone is starving and there is no social or communication infrastructure.

I’m now going to address the elephant in the room: the article is useless as a piece of journalism, because it consists of an unreliable media outlet relying entirely on unreliable sources. I’m not saying it’s wrong, just that it has no credibility or facts. From what I’ve read, Hamas was highly unpopular before the war, but has become far more popular as they’ve established themselves as the only group willing and able to challenge what looks to Palestinians like Netanyahu’s attempt at genocide. You can read about this in the AP, which is an actual news source citing an actual poll:

apnews.com/…/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion-po…

But guess what? If Gazaans want to overthrow Hamas, we need a ceasefire. If the war has made Hamas more popular, then we need a ceasefire.

The war is a disaster. It is a failure in every measure except the intended ones: it’s an exercise in vengence, an attempt for the humiliated generals to massage their bruised egos, and an ongoing attempt by Netanyahu to keep his only remaining supporters – Jewish supremacists – happy while he tries to stay out of jail.

In every other measure – rescuing hostages, securing Israeli safety, defeating Hamas – this is an unmitigated disaster that we need to stop.