General Politics thread

To be fair, this whole post could appear on Breitbart, including your own quote, to describe (just as one issue among many) gay marriage and trans rights. Basically, this describes how any two opposing ideologies view each other when their cause is based on the belief in the irreducible moral rightness of their position (as opposed, for example, to purely pragmatic concerns).

This report from Rojava, from a year ago, is very much worth reading.  (An accompanying video.)  The character of the regime there, which is the product of PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan's inspiration by the works of Vermont anarchist (and Bernie Sanders critic) Murray Bookchin is really quite inspiring and similar in striking ways to the experience of Revolutionary Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, which Bookchin wrote about long before the current Kurdish nationalist movement had been formed.  (The Kurds may be implementing in Rojava, or have the potential to implement, a democratic municipalism that Bookchin would have felt more congruent with his lifelong purpose than in Sanders' Burlington).  As with any regime, and particularly any at war, its behaviour hasn't been beyond legitimate criticism (though the author of the HRW report was impressed with the response of the government to it, even if here's been some subsequent recrudesence).  Nonetheless, that a regime in that region, positioned between the barbarity of Erdogan, Assad and ISIS appears to be as broadly committed as it is to a post-state, multicultural, cooperative, feminist democracy (with gender equality at all levels of administration and a heavily engaged all-female YPJ militia) is quite remarkable and inspiring.

In the course of the past year, they've made great territorial advances. (I wish I could find better sources for maps and comprehensive monitoring rather than trying to piece together events from sporadic reporting; something like Jane's IHS). 

 


Incidentally, I noticed that Noam Chomsky, pace many on the left, and perhaps for the first time in favour of US military action, has argued for US/Coalition airstrikes in support of Rojava.



Turkey is currently holding a salient through Rojava's Shahba region, anxious that they not unite their corridor.  Kerry has proclaimed that there won't be any contiguous corridor and, last August, Biden flew to Ankara where he warned the Kurds not to attempt further to effect one.  As it is, Erdogan has resumed the war against the Kurds in southwest Turkey, killing thousands, and the Turks have bombed the Kurds in Syria more than ISIS by a factor of three to four hundred.

This is also an interesting consideration:

A ray of sunshine in the seeming unending rise of far right politicos in the West today: Norbert Hofer, candidate for the Presidency of Austria, concedes defeat. Hofer - who did very well in rural areas of Austria, there's something familiar - was also the kind of far right extremist that caused Holocaust survivors to warn against his rise.

One can only hope. I guess Marine Le Pen will be the test of that one way or the other.

To the point, then, and removed from all other context: does it make someone an anti-Semite by definition (according to the ADL, yourself, or whatever you like) to not agree with Israel on everything?

Poland? What Poland? You live in the General Government, friend!

In retrospect, probably the least tasteful comparison I could have fascetiously deployed, yes.

Douay-Rheims-Challoner If it’s calming at all, per The Guardian evidently one of the reasons the margin against the referendum was so high was due to the fear from non-populists that the majoritarian aspects of the referendum would make it easier for populists to take power (IIRC there was something like a bonus on the senate for any party getting 40% or more); additionally leaving the EU/Eurozone would require another referendum for a constitutional amendment after the 2018 election. It’s not really a cut-and-dried

The big challenge is dealing with all the bad debts in the Italian banking sector, which this does make a lot harder.

In Harsh Criticism, Kerry Says Israel Must Choose Between Settlements and Two States

And what credible warnings they've been, after all; it's inconceivable that they've not heeded them.

United States vetoes Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements


Netanyahu: If I'm Elected, There Will Be No Palestinian State

Lord Lucan Rice is correct. The resumption of any kind of peace process is basically contingent on the election of a Zionist Union victory in the next election.

We in the rest of the world may see Israel as just being about this one issue, but the people who live there don't, except for the Religious Right, who oppose peace and whom the Likud Party needs to form a government.

If the Zionist List won, they could potentially (and, the other left-wing parties being small and unpopular, likely would need to) form a coalition with Likud, thus taking the pressure off Likud and enabling peace talks. And with the steady erosion of social welfare and emergence of a powerful and unregulated tech sector being major issues, you would expect the ZL to surge in support. Unfortunately, the ZL is poorly led and said economic anxieties have fueled the popularity of the so-called "radical center" party Yesh Atid, which doesn't actually stand for everything.

Long story short, everything would be fixed if Gen. Ashkenazi got off his ass and led the Labor Party.

Perhaps implicitly. Netanyahu has suffered a precipitous drop in popularity since last year, and such action by the UN is liable to cause a rally-around-the-flag effect, especially given the historically antagonistic relationship with the UN originating with the Waldheim years, and especially UNESCO's current attitude toward the country.

Lord Lucan Well, your talk of "massacres" insures that this conversation is over.

In the sense I don't enjoy debating libel, you're absolutely right.