• 0 posts
  • 57 comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 19th, 2023
  • all I keep wondering is why I didn’t try this sooner.

    I think your experience is the most common way people first try Linux: most people first try Linux when they have a computer that is no longer valuable to them.

    That was what happened to me. I had a Windows laptop that was running too slow for use, and a friend suggested setting up a Linux partition before I bought a new one. I did, and got another two years out of the laptop.

    Now I see a lot of libraries and hackerspaces offering folks help doing this.

  • Dude…

    As the expression goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

    Sure, he’s a morally bankrupt wildly corrupt autocrat. But sometimes his enemies happen to be people I hate too.

    Why is he doing this? I can’t say for certain, but my guess is that the military-industrial complex is on the wrong side of his kleptocracy. If they’d given the right bribes and flattery I’m sure he’d be saying that we gotta build more nukes, but apparently the CEOs of Raytheon et. al. didn’t back the right horse. Plus, Trump likes the dictator club. He’d rather he, Putin, and Xi spent those dollars on presidential yaughts and focused on locking up dissidents than having an arms race among buddies.

    Even still… fundamentally he’s fuckin right. It makes no sense for us to give billions and billions and billions to these companies so that we have the capacity to exterminate the human race a fifth time or something. Killing our whole species once is fuckin stupid to begin with, but planning on doing it multiple times is just advanced levels of stupid, and it’s dangerous as hell to incentivize other countries to get into this red-queen race.

    Sure, his reasons are almost certainly evil as hell. But wherever they are… he’s right that we should cut our military budget in half and negotiate disarmament.

  • I’m not sure what the point of this is.

    I didn’t know who this specific woman is, but it doesn’t sound like any of this is a secret. For instance, it is public knowledge that Qatar has provided financial aid to Hamas, and serves as a go-between for Israel and the US. Netanyanu famously defended his practice of facilitating these cash transfers.

    Also, this all seems sort of secondary when Israel – the US’s close ally – is beginning an extermination campaign in northern Gaza. It’s hard to really discuss any other issue in the midst of what has become a macabre genocide in full view of the international community.

  • This is a good question.

    My analysis:

    First and foremost: It is not a demand that Israel accept a ceasefire, it is a demand that Hamas accept the terms of a ceasefire. Sometimes this is a very subtle difference, but one the key elements of a ceasefire negotiation is that each side is trying to continue fighting while making their adversary look like the aggressor. So far, it looks like Biden has moved slightly, but he still is not applying pressure on Netanyahu to end the war.

    Second: Continuing on that last point, there is no leverage. Biden has persistently chosen not to do anything that would actually apply pressure. He has deferred to Netanyahu’s judgement and supported him while gradually shifting in tone, but it’s become 1000% clear that Netanyahu will stop when he is forced to, and not a moment sooner.

    Third: The focus is constantly on micromanaging the situation. Debating how many civilians can get killed, what fraction of the homes can be demolished, how much territory Israel can appropriate in Gaza. None of this actually addresses the foundational issues: one side is imposing apartheid with genocidal intent on a neighbor that is largely powerless, and the other side’s only real avenue for expressing itself is through terrorism. Which is bad for both sides. If these realities persist, then the cycle that has governed nearly three generations is allowed to continue. There must be a breaking point in that cycle, and referring back to point 2: it’s going to have to be imposed on the leadership in Israel. They WILL NOT accept it willingly.

    In summary, this is a very welcome change in narrative for Biden, but we are far past the point of fiddling with narratives. We need policy action, and it’s incredible that he’s still dug in like this after another state department official just resigned because she said that she was being pressured to be an accomplice in breaking US law against knowingly aiding war crimes.

  • That sounds like a good start.

    I don’t think Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben-Gvir will like that, because they really hate it when the UN tries to do UN stuff at them, but that sounds like a very appropriate request.

    It’s going to be awkward to listen to John Kirby explain into a microphone why having peacekeepers from the unarmed peace force standing in the vicinity of a lot of women and children in the area that Biden has insisted the IDF not kill everyone is helping Hamas.