I think we need to say some things more plainly. It is not just wrong to tell Jews to "go back to Poland." It is an incredibly fucking awful thing to say. It is disgusting. The Germans viewed Poles (Slavs) as their lessers. The land of the east--Poland, Ukraine, etc. We can actually use the lens of "intersectionality" to understand. The Slavic lands--the East--that's where you brutalize people. That's where the Nazis made their death camps.

Alright, back to my position of not commenting on the Israel-Gaza conflict. I'll continue to comment on the "related" matter of rising antisemitism in the U.S. No comment on the conflict itself. There are too many people w/ bad motivations. We contribute to an abstraction. I say "related" because there is no real reason anymore to say these "protests" etc have any real connection to the conflict. They don't respond to events in real time. They're just Westerners getting their jollies out over demonizing Jews & turning Palestinians into symbols.

We should talk more about how the monocause & its increasing encroachment into every socio-cultural space is essentially the left-wing inversion of QANON. There are differences, but many of the socio-psychological mechanisms are the same. As is the role of social media. It's also of historical import, in terms of our socio-political psychology, that antisemitism has formed much of the "binding" agent between previously uncorrelated beliefs & attitudes.

We need to address rising American antisemitism in leftwing & other spaces b/c it's the right thing to do. Secondarily: I will continue to stress that it's the right thing to do for *antifascism*. If we don't heal wounds on our own team, the right-wing will rip them wide open.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1938343088922964201

We can already see this happening. We are weaker in our coalition than ever before. Many different folks feel betrayed by many other folks. Meanwhile, the college protests were Trump's "Reichstag Fire" to go after DEI as well as entire fields of study & institutions in academia.

I do not like sweeping people's concerns, fears, or pain under the rug. I do not like gaslighting people. If a significant number of people from a minority or otherwise vulnerable population express concerns, fears, or pain, I believe it is wrong to pretend they are not speaking Perhaps, after hearing people from a group express their concerns, fears, or pain, you will enter all of this differently into your political calculus than I do. That is a more honorable step than not listening at all. If you are intellectually honest about it.

The comparisons between any modern protest movement we've seen & the Civil Rights Movement are simply inaccurate. The inaccuracy is beyond frustrating b/c it contributes to an erasure of history. An erasure of the nature of the movement itself. Here are notes from CORE, 1963


The purpose of the movement was to show the world the apartheid state. Nonviolence was a "philosophy" re: right/wrong, but it was also, perhaps more importantly, a tactic w/in a broader strategy. "You will be peaceful. And you will be beaten. And then the world will see."

Here's what I think.
-We have never paid as much attention to any war as we have the Israel/Gaza war. Even our "own" wars.
-Israel has consistently been framed as the primary agent in this defensive war, with malicious (genocidal) intent against Palestinians
-Why? -Just the fact that we pay more attention to this war should be illuminating.

Why.

Does it require more attention than the Syrian Civil War, Sudan, Ukraine, etc?

Why.

I did know that, in fact. And now I know something else: You are wildly unqualified to make any comments on this topic. The depth of the ignorance that you proudly display as "knowledge" is so freaking profound that I don't think you even know what antisemitism is.

https://twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/1927757527359328396

If you don't know that
-"Jewish" refers to an ethnicity, as well as a religion
-Western antisemitism has, for over a century (at least, maybe longer) been primarily an anti-ethnic phenomenon
&
-Being Christian hasn't saved ethnic Jews before
Please get out of the conversation.

Yes. I would count myself as having been sane about Israel pre-10/7, vis à vis other people, as well as careful about my conscious bias. After 10/7, I realized I--& other Westerners--were subject to greater bias than we knew & this bias can be linked to decades of propaganda.

https://twitter.com/IndivisibleAlta/status/1926641699192734169

This doesn't mean I approve of Netanyahu's conduct in war or his war-planning. It just means I did not view Israel w/ clarity of thought, nor did I understand its history vis à vis Palestine at all. And I would consider myself well-educated in history.

This is important. It also jogged my memory. I didn't always know this history. I only learned about it last year. I learned about it precisely bc I suspected, from my experience on this website, that Russia was exploiting & amplifying antisemitism, as well as divisions over I/P

https://twitter.com/sabina_conrad/status/1926330667811459093

Let me correct myself, before continuing. I said I "suspected" RU was exploiting & amplifying antisemitism. That is incorrect. I actually *knew* this was happening. It was documented. What I "suspected" was that it was *also* happening on this site.

I am currently more concerned about left-wing antisemitism b/c it has not only spread to the academy, but also because "good people" stand up to it less. The gate-keepers--from academics to journalists--call out right-wing antisemitism. They're silent on left-wing antisemitism.

https://twitter.com/Maxlikesrocks/status/1926315684641833415

Some academics even participated in the spread of antisemitism immediately post-10/7. Others were silent. It's a classic case of group psychology. There are a few extremists. A few good people who speak out, often to their own detriment. And the rest just go along.

Harrison has disputed an account involving him in Tapper's book. When interviewing Tapper, @ezraklein immediately assumes Tapper's position, before going on to explain Harrison's account is driven by blind loyalty. Why is @ezraklein in any position to mediate the truth, here?

https://twitter.com/harrisonjaime/status/1925233651253461067

This approach from @ezraklein flies in the face of regular journalistic practice. The account involving Harrison is anonymously sourced. On a very basic level, Harrison's own version should be given greater evidentiary weight than the anonymous source's.

The white men are playing their parlor games again.
We've gone through so many iterations of "I'm not racist; Here is an example of the one Black person I like" and "I'm not sexist; Here is an example of a different woman I like," that I just had to roll my eyes w/ Rice. Don't have issues w/ her; It's that the REACHING is obvious

Take healthy steps to protect yourself today. If you are a good person, there are other people out there who are getting high on hurting you & others. They seem to be confusing cruelty w/ not just moral virtue, but political acumen. They don't deserve the pain of good people. For those who are making the above mistakes: You are on a bad path. No one is immune to the psycho-social effects of social media. Some of the cruel people are random to me; Others are people I've been aware of for years. I've seen new hives created. I've seen the radicalization

Something I will be clear about: I am light-years more qualified to be commenting on Biden's "cognitive state" than others who opine. I was a researcher in Vanderbilt Medical School's Department of Hearing & Speech Sciences. I am an "expert" in Communication Science & Disorders. The conversation as it is happening now offends me on a personal level. It offends me on a tactical level. It also offends me on a personal level. These offenses increase the more I & others are gaslit into being the less objective folks in the conversation.

The people asserting that Biden had "cognitive decline" have the burden of proof; let's be clear about this. I am often accused of being a "Biden loyalist"--and I do love the man--but that's not what this is about. It's about *simple* truths in a time where truth is shredded. It is very important to me, as a person who cares about truth, particularly in an era of fascism, which is also an era where previously shared premises are being shredded. We have to defend the truth. We have to stick by evidence.

Dems are doing "The Beaver." Party-flagellation is as innate as walking for some; combine that w/ addiction to social media conflict, which can only be fed thru intra-party conflict, & now we have a New Problem, conjured from wholecloth & Streisand-effected to the f*cking moon.

https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/1922802779250188466

"The Beaver," from @agraybee absolutely needs to be incorporated into the social media lexicon, à la "Waffles."

Guys, George Clooney is one of their major sources, both on the record and on background. Clooney is trying to save his own reputation, here, and it is one of the most pathetic things I've ever read. Just look at these excerpts. They're all from Clooney's perspective.

https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1922320791271550993

What is this paragraph even doing in the piece? It's bad enough for the New Yorker to farm out George Clooney's personal narrative as journalism. Do you really have to spend an above-average-length paragraph talking about how fatigued he is from his own awesomeness? Mud huts?

No matter how one feels about whether Biden should have dropped out, run again, etc, this is the height of tactical stupidity. "Oh, yeah, sure, let's dig into this totally toxic & evidence-free argument that makes Democrats furious at each other. That's how we get credibility."

https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1920516404995846287

There's sort of this implicit argument here that Democrats need to do some kind of apology tour. Who are we doing this for, exactly? Swing voters? Is the theory that we need to appeal to swing voters by apologizing for an Old Man Incumbent?

I recommend reading Trump's interview with time on the sentence-level. For example, "Now, some countries may come back and ask for an adjustment, and I'll consider that, but I'll basically be, with great knowledge, setting—ready?" "I completed the wall, what I was doing, but we have, I wanted to build additional because it was working so well." time.com/7280114/donald…

Something people should know about the rural working class is that they experience classism more in terms of education than income &, yes, that experience of classicism--real or perceived--plays out in language as well. If you use words ppl don't know, it can make them resentful The convo about messaging often focuses around "what will capture attention?" Or, "Will people understand?" "Can we explain it?" Etc. That's all well and good. But I'm also asking people to consider messaging in the context of class/education-based resentment.