It’s more bad-faith horseshit to get leftists to destroy one another, which a lot of leftists love to lap up because their critical thinking isn’t real strong and they love nothing more than being “holier than” some kind of previously respected icon.
MTG’s amendment left intact the funding for offensive weapons, but cut the funding for defensive weapons for Israel. So there is literally no way AOC could win. Leaving aside the fact that it was a kooky MTG amendment that was never going to pass in the first place… If she voted for the amendment, then everyone who is currently screaming that she’s a fake leftist who supports genocide could say “See? SHE VOTED FOR KEEPING ISRAEL’S FUNDING INTACT, SHE SUPPORTS GENOCIDE!” Since she voted against it, they are currently screaming “See? SHE VOTED AGAINST DEFUNDING ISRAEL, SHE SUPPORTS GENOCIDE!”
It’s just more can’t-win, let’s-eat-the-leftest-person-because-we’re-super-leftist-I-promise horseshit.
I’ve also seen people say Bernie is a Zionist, because he says “ethnic cleansing” instead of “genocide.” Both Bernie and AOC’s vocal opposition to genocide doesn’t matter to these people. Actually, it’s that genuine leftism that they represent that makes them dangerous, and worthwhile to engineer cooked-up horseshit to use to get other people to turn on them, so the Marco Rubios of the world can take over un-contested.
Meanwhile Republicans figured out decades ago that alienating your own party (even the “radicals”) doesn’t get you elected, and simply protesting the chosen candidate by just not voting doesn’t actually help you achieve your goals. It’s a hard pill for establishment Democrats and leftists to swallow, but it’s truth.
Republicans weren’t doing Nazi salutes on stage at presidential inaugurations until recently, but they have been pandering to the far right for a very long time. They’ve gradually moved further and further right, while the left has been ignoring their own base in order to welcome aboard the fiscal conservatives (and their donations) slowly jumping ship.
Paul Weyrich created the new right movement. He voted Republican for his entire life, but he also seemed to really hate the establishment Republican party. He was quite vocal about it, and as every election year approached, he would start shit talking Republicans for not focusing enough on conservative social issues.
Before Weyrich and the creation of a moral majority, “fiscal conservatives/Rockefeller Republicans,” who didn’t really care about social issues were the backbone of the Republican party. Abortion was mainly just an issue conservative Catholics and nobody else cared about. Once Weyrich created his movement though, he used public pressure to change the party little by little. It took his whole life, and he didn’t actually live to see the absolute batshit fruits of his labor, but without Paul Weyrich, there would be no Donald Trump and no Project 2025.
There would also be way fewer rich conservatives who have pressured the democratic party to embrace a move towards moderate centrism.
The 1980 presidential election rewarded incompetence, and that incompetence moved right into the White House. If you have to find out who makes the decisions over there, you will go insane. I challenge you to go to the White House and find out. You’ll be in St. Elizabeths in short order, and I’ll come visit you."
He thinks Reagan has ignored issues most important to Weyrich: school prayer, an end to abortion, pornography, government “hand-outs”–issues that appeal to what he calls “cultural” conservatives, grass-rooters most concerned about family, God and country. That concern includes free enterprise, a balanced budget and a pre-eminent weapons system for America
Early in March, Paul Weyrich, the godfather of social conservatives, summoned about 25 prominent leaders from the religious and political right for a secret meeting in his office here overlooking the rail yards behind Union Station.
They fumed that they had been used and abused, like some cheap date. In one election after another, they said, conservative foot soldiers had dutifully worked the phone banks, walked the precincts and turned out masses of voters for Republican candidates who had promised action on issues like abortion, pornography and homosexuality. And the Republicans, they complained, had consistently failed to deliver.
Perhaps it was because he was recovering from painful back surgery, but a few weeks before the Republican convention, Paul Weyrich, a founder of the religious right, was awful grumpy about George
He did this kind of shit nonstop until he eventually shaped the right into what it is today. If you didn’t know who he was, and you just heard the way he described his frustration towards the Republican party when he first got involved in politics back in the 70s, you might just as easily think you were listening to a leftist complain about Democrat centrists in 2025.
“In the early ‘70s, when most conservatives were reduced to wringing their hands and resigning themselves to life in the political wilderness, Paul just seemed to know what was needed to break the liberal stranglehold,” recalled Feulner.
Weyrich waved aloft a monograph from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a right-of-center think tank. The study carefully examined both sides of a controversial issue—the federal funding of a supersonic transport plane (the SST). The Senate had just voted 51-46 to halt government support of the SST, which some conservative hawks favored to maintain U.S. technological superiority over the Soviets. The AEI report arrived in Allott’s office after the Senate debate.
A puzzled Weyrich contacted William Baroody, Sr., AEI president and a member of his church. “Great study,” he said. “But why didn’t we get it sooner so we could use it in the debate?” Baroody explained: “We didn’t want to try to affect the outcome of the vote.” Unspoken was the admission that AEI didn’t want to be too “political” and jeopardize its tax-exempt status. For one of the few times in his life, Weyrich was speechless.
Bernie is a Zionist because he supports the continued existence of Israel and a two state solution. That’s unacceptable to many pro Palestinian activists who want the destruction of Israel.
“Everyone who doesn’t want the destruction of Israel = Zionist”
Well, by that definition, sure, he’s a Zionist. On the other hand, if you say that a Zionist is a ham sandwich, he’s not a Zionist. The point is: Words are fun, we can redefine them to make all kinds of great arguments.
There are some fucking emergencies going on, among them the literal starvation of everyone in Gaza. Go up to the US Capitol building or your local Brooks Brothers, or fucking wherever, and spray-paint “PEOPLE IN GAZA ARE DYING TONIGHT”? Fuckin’ spot on, man, please do. Go and shit on the lefty-est person you can find because you found a tiny chink in her behavior that you can exploit and start bullying her over for the next year and a half? Honestly, man, it really irritates me.
I think the reason they like to do it is because she’s vulnerable. If they were protesting the people actually killing Palestinians, or the people taking over our country and cancelling democracy, they might punch back real hard. That’s scary, so let’s go throw some paint on someone who is in a precarious enough position that she’ll have to just take it.
Yeah. I guess that’s a good way to look at it, is they’re spending so much energy on it because the progressive momentum is steadily building. I just wish their energy would quit translating into success.
That’s some crazy shit to try and distract from the Epstein files.
How the fuck do you know if your “ally” is using a weapon defensively or offensively.
Israeli Cooperative Programs refer to various initiatives and collaborations that involve cooperative efforts between Israel and other countries, organizations, or communities. These programs can span multiple sectors, including agriculture, technology, education, and research. Here are some key aspects:
Agricultural Cooperatives: Israel is known for its advancements in agricultural technology and practices. Cooperative programs often focus on sharing these innovations with other countries, particularly in areas like water management, irrigation, and sustainable farming techniques.
Technology and Innovation: Israel has a robust tech ecosystem, often referred to as "Startup Nation." Cooperative programs may involve partnerships with foreign companies or governments to foster innovation, share technology, and develop new products or services.
Research and Development: Many Israeli universities and research institutions engage in cooperative programs with international partners to conduct joint research projects, share knowledge, and develop new technologies.
Cultural and Educational Exchanges: These programs may also include cultural exchanges, educational partnerships, and initiatives aimed at promoting understanding and collaboration between Israel and other nations.
Economic Cooperation: Israel engages in various economic cooperative agreements that facilitate trade, investment, and economic development with other countries.
Overall, Israeli Cooperative Programs aim to leverage Israel’s expertise and innovations to foster collaboration and mutual benefit across different sectors and regions.
I’m pretty sure there was a genuine amendment defunding the Iron Dome that MTG introduced. I could be wrong but I saw that in sources that don’t just make stuff up.
She proposed a big handful of amendments; maybe Iron Dome is in ICP and they just don’t like to publicize it very much, or maybe it was in one of the other amendments.
Why did a little handful of different accounts all suddenly interject to this same comments section to leave short one-off comments about how AOC is definitely the worst for doing this, all within a few minutes of each other, on this mostly-dead comments section roughly one hour ago? That’s weird.
I mean… it really doesn’t take much to get people on the left to turn on each other. It’s kind of a historic problem with leftist ideological groups in general - they’re awfully quick to declare each other the wrong type of leftist, or not leftist enough, and then refuse to cooperate.
There certainly are outside provocateurs, but I wouldn’t leap to that conclusion in every occasion. Hanlon’s razor applies.
Maybe. It’s real hard for me not to notice the pattern recognition of “Kamala Harris supports genocide!” “AOC supports genocide!” “Bernie supports genocide!”, basically literally any person in American politics who’s trying to do some kind of leftist thing with any level of popularity, there’s some kind of bizarre moon logic whereby they must support genocide and we’ve got to start screaming it at them and never support them again.
I will agree with you that some stupid features of the left tend to provide some nice dry powder for this kind of thing but I don’t remember this kind of thing happening in American politics any time previous to the social-media-mass-shilling age of political discourse. Like circa 2000, there was a super vigorous protest movement, but it was aimed at shadowy neoliberal quasi-governments, fascist police, war machines… you know, the enemy. No one was out screaming at Al Gore for destroying the climate and throwing red paint at his offices.
here is a solution, make it clear you don’t support a genocide ! how is that hard is beyond me. If you are okay with “war crimes” and “using food as a weapon” and “apartheid state” and “illegal occupation” then how people should “trust you”.
This like saying “I am okay with giving Hitler weapon to defend German while he is committing a genocide” or “I am okay with giving apartheid South Africa weapons to protect white people while discriminating against black”
If your morality change based on who is affected do not breach morality.
Al Gore may not have really invented the Internet, but when he was in politics we haven’t figured out how to really weaponize it for political purposes yet. It’s not bizarre moon logic, it’s active manipulation.
“Genocide” is one of those hot button terms that short-circuit people’s critical thinking whenever someone invokes it, that’s why provateuers online like tossing it about. (“Pedo” is another one, which has been in the news lately). Turns out getting lasting peace in the region is difficult and can’t be reduced to slogans…
Which, to point out, he never actually said. He said “creating” - which is actually accurate, since he pushed the policies that allowed for it to exist. Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn support his stance that he was a primary driver behind its development from a policy perspective. I believe they even said no other politician has been as important to the internet (rough paraphrase, someone else can grab the exact quote) as Gore.
The claim that he said he “invented the internet” came from dirtbag pundits, of course.
It was a very, very early instance of the horseshit lie that is easy and bite-sized, and sort of reality adjacent, where anyone who’s trying to explain the reality sounds like they’re making some kind of lame excuse and is easy to shout down and dismiss. In retrospect, it should have been an all-hands-on-deck emergency to make sure that strategy didn’t work and take hold.
I think we need to acknowledge that left-wing groups (especially online) have just as much of a problem with extremists as right-wing groups do. It’s not quite as systemic and weaponized as what’s described in Innuendo Studio’s excellent video, but it is there and it can just as easily result in violent behavior.
Whenever a community turns into an echo chamber, the ideological aspects of that community switch from principles to performances. The members of the community start trying to prove that they’re holier-than-thou, usually to gain nothing more than attention.
but I don’t remember this kind of thing happening in American politics any time previous to the social-media-mass-shilling age of political discourse.
I think you’re right, but I think this has less to do with some false-flag conspiracy and more to do with the accelerant nature of social media in general. I think a lot of this kind of behavior is driven by the one-upmanship impulse, and the effect of online communities is to concentrate a self-selecting group of people with similar interests. The larger the group becomes, the more an individual has to work to stand out and receive recognition from the rest of the group. Frequently the easiest way to do that is to demonstrate some extreme form of whatever the group’s ideology is.
Basically I think a lot of this is just people looking for an ego-stroking. It’s attention-seeking behavior, the kind you see in teenagers. They fall into some community or other and then find a community-acceptable way to exhibit their narcissistic tendencies.
No it doesn’t. Why would anyone still put any stock in that bullshit after witnessing the pure malice that has infected every aspect of American society?
Hanlon’s razor was never really a great axiom, imo, but now it’s completely dead.
Hanlon’s razor always applies. If you always assume that everything bad that happens is intentionally malicious, with no acceptance of human weaknesses and the potential for mistakes, then you are part of the extremism problem. You are part of the “everyone who does something that I don’t like must be evil” group.
Hanlon’s razor was never really a great axiom, imo, but now it’s completely dead.
If you actually believe this, I’m afraid you’re on the wrong side of the razor.
We don’t need more extremist rhetoric. We don’t need more division. We don’t need to perpetuate the “us vs. them” mentality.
A person calls the police and starts shouting, “help! There’s a DEMOCRAT masturbating on my lawn!” The dispatcher says they’re sending an officer and then asks, “uhhh… How do you know this person is a democrat?”
The caller responds, “they’re not fucking everyone else, only themselves.”
It’s kind of a historic problem with leftist ideological groups in general - they’re awfully quick to declare each other the wrong type of leftist, or not leftist enough, and then refuse to cooperate.
How dare you, you filthy liberal. You’ve made an enemy for life!
Any substantive cut on Israel’s funding needs to be made if it is introduced. I literally don’t care what they’re defunding or who introduced the bill; the less my taxpayer dollars go to genocidal psychos, the better. End of story.
Sure, but this bill was never actually going to do that. If this was an actual bill that could be passed, fine it doesn’t have to be perfect to be worthwhile and it doesn’t matter who introduced it. But this wasn’t that. It was purely a statement bill, and that statement is colored by who wrote it.
You make an important distinction, but by voting against the statement AOC is still saying “I don’t like the idea of defunding Israel’s Iron Dome”.
Is that not something to be frustrated with?
We have virtually no progressive politicians in the US. The ones that are progressive inevitably concede to safe and exhausted liberal ideologies, and this further proves that point.
No she isn’t. That vote means she does not want to support the totality of the messaging amendment, which includes saying offensive weapons are fine, the priority is America First, and that an antisemite should be lead writer on bills on Israel. You guys are acting like this was a real bill that just needed political support to pass and not voting for the Jewish Space Lasers lady’s bill just supercedes every actually meaningful public statement on the issue she’s made.
Yeah, anything MTG puts forward that isn’t already supported by Republicans is likely pointless nuttery (the supported stuff is dangerous nuttery). But more generally, these people all know when a bill is going to be 50/50 and when it’s going to get 400 no votes.
That’s not to say representatives never should be judged for their votes on doomed bills, but their vote should be in the context of it just being a statement itself, and with MTG writing the amendment, the statement is a muddled mess.
This is a bad faith interpretation of why leftists are upset. No one is saying the bill was enough. However, it would have had the effect of blocking Israel’s defense aid, and in this desperate moment where Israel is being allowed to starve a whole people to death with no repercussions, it was something we could have done to mitigate their freedom to continue to do so. In her statement, AOC didn’t just mention the offensive-vs.-defensive aid thing–she also brought up protecting innocent civilians, implying that not providing the defensive aid would result in innocent Isrealis dying. In the context of innocent Palestinians being a day or two from mass death, that is a fucking cop-out.
The bill providing funding for Israel, she voted against. Pretty sure I mentioned that.
So further if your metric for being able to support a vigorously left-wing politician who’s been voting against aid for Israel, calling it a genocide, yelling about it on the house floor, and so on and so on, including pushing for justice for working people whose voice is basically nonexistent within the US congress, is that never once do they say one dumb thing on Twitter, then I would wonder who in or out of politics you would be willing to support. This is like the people who are yelling about how Mamdani is a “fake leftist” and as a good leftist they can’t support him because he’s just a fake for the Democrats and they won’t get fooled again…
Being upset or disappointed with someone is not the same as not supporting them at all. Being in power naturally tends to pull people to the right–it’s in the nature of serving the American empire–and it’s the job of the people to remind them of why we supported them in the first place to hopefully prevent that.
Okay. I’m upset that people are using this absurdly skewed framing of this whole event and trying to blow it up into the whole of AOC’s Israel stance and ignoring the backdrop of her entire vigorous opposition to Israel in both word and deed. Since I’m upset, can I come to your house and throw a bunch of paint over your doors and windows and write slogans about you? I feel like that would be a good way to “remind” you about good principles of political progress and online discourse.
Or is that something we’re only doing to prominent successful leftists when we’re upset, and that scenario would be a completely different story?
It’s more bad-faith horseshit to get leftists to destroy one another, which a lot of leftists love to lap up because their critical thinking isn’t real strong and they love nothing more than being “holier than” some kind of previously respected icon.
MTG’s amendment left intact the funding for offensive weapons, but cut the funding for defensive weapons for Israel. So there is literally no way AOC could win. Leaving aside the fact that it was a kooky MTG amendment that was never going to pass in the first place… If she voted for the amendment, then everyone who is currently screaming that she’s a fake leftist who supports genocide could say “See? SHE VOTED FOR KEEPING ISRAEL’S FUNDING INTACT, SHE SUPPORTS GENOCIDE!” Since she voted against it, they are currently screaming “See? SHE VOTED AGAINST DEFUNDING ISRAEL, SHE SUPPORTS GENOCIDE!”
It’s just more can’t-win, let’s-eat-the-leftest-person-because-we’re-super-leftist-I-promise horseshit.
Here’s AOC voting against funding for Israel, in an actual bill that was actually a non-Hobson’s-choice opportunity to vote against aid for Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/biden-meets-with-aoc-in-wake-of-her-vote-against-military-aid-for-israel/
And her voting against the actual funding bill providing aid to Israel: https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025212
I’ve also seen people say Bernie is a Zionist, because he says “ethnic cleansing” instead of “genocide.” Both Bernie and AOC’s vocal opposition to genocide doesn’t matter to these people. Actually, it’s that genuine leftism that they represent that makes them dangerous, and worthwhile to engineer cooked-up horseshit to use to get other people to turn on them, so the Marco Rubios of the world can take over un-contested.
Meanwhile Republicans figured out decades ago that alienating your own party (even the “radicals”) doesn’t get you elected, and simply protesting the chosen candidate by just not voting doesn’t actually help you achieve your goals. It’s a hard pill for establishment Democrats and leftists to swallow, but it’s truth.
Republicans weren’t doing Nazi salutes on stage at presidential inaugurations until recently, but they have been pandering to the far right for a very long time. They’ve gradually moved further and further right, while the left has been ignoring their own base in order to welcome aboard the fiscal conservatives (and their donations) slowly jumping ship.
Paul Weyrich created the new right movement. He voted Republican for his entire life, but he also seemed to really hate the establishment Republican party. He was quite vocal about it, and as every election year approached, he would start shit talking Republicans for not focusing enough on conservative social issues.
Before Weyrich and the creation of a moral majority, “fiscal conservatives/Rockefeller Republicans,” who didn’t really care about social issues were the backbone of the Republican party. Abortion was mainly just an issue conservative Catholics and nobody else cared about. Once Weyrich created his movement though, he used public pressure to change the party little by little. It took his whole life, and he didn’t actually live to see the absolute batshit fruits of his labor, but without Paul Weyrich, there would be no Donald Trump and no Project 2025.
There would also be way fewer rich conservatives who have pressured the democratic party to embrace a move towards moderate centrism.
1983:Righting Reagan’s Revolution
1998: Religious Right, Frustrated, Trying New Tactic on G.O.P.
2000: Hard Right Burning for Bush?
He did this kind of shit nonstop until he eventually shaped the right into what it is today. If you didn’t know who he was, and you just heard the way he described his frustration towards the Republican party when he first got involved in politics back in the 70s, you might just as easily think you were listening to a leftist complain about Democrat centrists in 2025.
Weyrich hailed as conservative pioneer
Paul Weyrich: Father of a New Right
Bernie is a Zionist because he supports the continued existence of Israel and a two state solution. That’s unacceptable to many pro Palestinian activists who want the destruction of Israel.
“Everyone who doesn’t want the destruction of Israel = Zionist”
Well, by that definition, sure, he’s a Zionist. On the other hand, if you say that a Zionist is a ham sandwich, he’s not a Zionist. The point is: Words are fun, we can redefine them to make all kinds of great arguments.
Supporting the continued existence of Israel is the essence of Zionism.
Spot on. It would have played out the same way no matter what she did.
Yeah. There’s always something to capitalize on.
There are some fucking emergencies going on, among them the literal starvation of everyone in Gaza. Go up to the US Capitol building or your local Brooks Brothers, or fucking wherever, and spray-paint “PEOPLE IN GAZA ARE DYING TONIGHT”? Fuckin’ spot on, man, please do. Go and shit on the lefty-est person you can find because you found a tiny chink in her behavior that you can exploit and start bullying her over for the next year and a half? Honestly, man, it really irritates me.
I think the reason they like to do it is because she’s vulnerable. If they were protesting the people actually killing Palestinians, or the people taking over our country and cancelling democracy, they might punch back real hard. That’s scary, so let’s go throw some paint on someone who is in a precarious enough position that she’ll have to just take it.
Honestly, fuck 'em. Like I say it irritates me.
She’s the chosen lightning rod and MTG is the chosen lightning. Everyone ignores her voting record and stares into the flash.
Because it’s that easy. Textbook. But it shows that progressives are a threat. And we’ll see more of this. Especially at midterms.
Yeah. I guess that’s a good way to look at it, is they’re spending so much energy on it because the progressive momentum is steadily building. I just wish their energy would quit translating into success.
That’s some crazy shit to try and distract from the Epstein files. How the fuck do you know if your “ally” is using a weapon defensively or offensively.
Stupid shit.
Wait, I looked it up and found this amendment introduced by MTG that AOC voted no on. It didn’t seem to have to do with the defensive weapons at all.
It was to defund the Israeli Cooperative Programs. https://www.congress.gov/amendment/119th-congress/house-amendment/55/all-info?s=a&r=3
I googled that program and found the below.
Israeli Cooperative Programs refer to various initiatives and collaborations that involve cooperative efforts between Israel and other countries, organizations, or communities. These programs can span multiple sectors, including agriculture, technology, education, and research. Here are some key aspects:
Overall, Israeli Cooperative Programs aim to leverage Israel’s expertise and innovations to foster collaboration and mutual benefit across different sectors and regions.
I’m pretty sure there was a genuine amendment defunding the Iron Dome that MTG introduced. I could be wrong but I saw that in sources that don’t just make stuff up.
She proposed a big handful of amendments; maybe Iron Dome is in ICP and they just don’t like to publicize it very much, or maybe it was in one of the other amendments.
You know some people voted against it, right?
Actions speak louder than words. She’s supposed to be the vanguard of the “new democrats” that are supposedly going to save the party.
Why did a little handful of different accounts all suddenly interject to this same comments section to leave short one-off comments about how AOC is definitely the worst for doing this, all within a few minutes of each other, on this mostly-dead comments section roughly one hour ago? That’s weird.
I mean… it really doesn’t take much to get people on the left to turn on each other. It’s kind of a historic problem with leftist ideological groups in general - they’re awfully quick to declare each other the wrong type of leftist, or not leftist enough, and then refuse to cooperate.
There certainly are outside provocateurs, but I wouldn’t leap to that conclusion in every occasion. Hanlon’s razor applies.
Maybe. It’s real hard for me not to notice the pattern recognition of “Kamala Harris supports genocide!” “AOC supports genocide!” “Bernie supports genocide!”, basically literally any person in American politics who’s trying to do some kind of leftist thing with any level of popularity, there’s some kind of bizarre moon logic whereby they must support genocide and we’ve got to start screaming it at them and never support them again.
I will agree with you that some stupid features of the left tend to provide some nice dry powder for this kind of thing but I don’t remember this kind of thing happening in American politics any time previous to the social-media-mass-shilling age of political discourse. Like circa 2000, there was a super vigorous protest movement, but it was aimed at shadowy neoliberal quasi-governments, fascist police, war machines… you know, the enemy. No one was out screaming at Al Gore for destroying the climate and throwing red paint at his offices.
here is a solution, make it clear you don’t support a genocide ! how is that hard is beyond me. If you are okay with “war crimes” and “using food as a weapon” and “apartheid state” and “illegal occupation” then how people should “trust you”.
This like saying “I am okay with giving Hitler weapon to defend German while he is committing a genocide” or “I am okay with giving apartheid South Africa weapons to protect white people while discriminating against black”
If your morality change based on who is affected do not breach morality.
Al Gore may not have really invented the Internet, but when he was in politics we haven’t figured out how to really weaponize it for political purposes yet. It’s not bizarre moon logic, it’s active manipulation.
“Genocide” is one of those hot button terms that short-circuit people’s critical thinking whenever someone invokes it, that’s why provateuers online like tossing it about. (“Pedo” is another one, which has been in the news lately). Turns out getting lasting peace in the region is difficult and can’t be reduced to slogans…
Which, to point out, he never actually said. He said “creating” - which is actually accurate, since he pushed the policies that allowed for it to exist. Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn support his stance that he was a primary driver behind its development from a policy perspective. I believe they even said no other politician has been as important to the internet (rough paraphrase, someone else can grab the exact quote) as Gore.
The claim that he said he “invented the internet” came from dirtbag pundits, of course.
It was a very, very early instance of the horseshit lie that is easy and bite-sized, and sort of reality adjacent, where anyone who’s trying to explain the reality sounds like they’re making some kind of lame excuse and is easy to shout down and dismiss. In retrospect, it should have been an all-hands-on-deck emergency to make sure that strategy didn’t work and take hold.
I think we need to acknowledge that left-wing groups (especially online) have just as much of a problem with extremists as right-wing groups do. It’s not quite as systemic and weaponized as what’s described in Innuendo Studio’s excellent video, but it is there and it can just as easily result in violent behavior.
Whenever a community turns into an echo chamber, the ideological aspects of that community switch from principles to performances. The members of the community start trying to prove that they’re holier-than-thou, usually to gain nothing more than attention.
I think you’re right, but I think this has less to do with some false-flag conspiracy and more to do with the accelerant nature of social media in general. I think a lot of this kind of behavior is driven by the one-upmanship impulse, and the effect of online communities is to concentrate a self-selecting group of people with similar interests. The larger the group becomes, the more an individual has to work to stand out and receive recognition from the rest of the group. Frequently the easiest way to do that is to demonstrate some extreme form of whatever the group’s ideology is.
Basically I think a lot of this is just people looking for an ego-stroking. It’s attention-seeking behavior, the kind you see in teenagers. They fall into some community or other and then find a community-acceptable way to exhibit their narcissistic tendencies.
No it doesn’t. Why would anyone still put any stock in that bullshit after witnessing the pure malice that has infected every aspect of American society?
Hanlon’s razor was never really a great axiom, imo, but now it’s completely dead.
Hanlon’s razor always applies. If you always assume that everything bad that happens is intentionally malicious, with no acceptance of human weaknesses and the potential for mistakes, then you are part of the extremism problem. You are part of the “everyone who does something that I don’t like must be evil” group.
If you actually believe this, I’m afraid you’re on the wrong side of the razor.
We don’t need more extremist rhetoric. We don’t need more division. We don’t need to perpetuate the “us vs. them” mentality.
If you are othering, you are wrong.
Yes, even with Republicans.
We take away the power of divisive, destructive autocrats by finding or making common cause.
An old joke to your point:
A person calls the police and starts shouting, “help! There’s a DEMOCRAT masturbating on my lawn!” The dispatcher says they’re sending an officer and then asks, “uhhh… How do you know this person is a democrat?”
The caller responds, “they’re not fucking everyone else, only themselves.”
How dare you, you filthy liberal. You’ve made an enemy for life!
splitter!
Any substantive cut on Israel’s funding needs to be made if it is introduced. I literally don’t care what they’re defunding or who introduced the bill; the less my taxpayer dollars go to genocidal psychos, the better. End of story.
Sure, but this bill was never actually going to do that. If this was an actual bill that could be passed, fine it doesn’t have to be perfect to be worthwhile and it doesn’t matter who introduced it. But this wasn’t that. It was purely a statement bill, and that statement is colored by who wrote it.
You make an important distinction, but by voting against the statement AOC is still saying “I don’t like the idea of defunding Israel’s Iron Dome”.
Is that not something to be frustrated with?
We have virtually no progressive politicians in the US. The ones that are progressive inevitably concede to safe and exhausted liberal ideologies, and this further proves that point.
No she isn’t. That vote means she does not want to support the totality of the messaging amendment, which includes saying offensive weapons are fine, the priority is America First, and that an antisemite should be lead writer on bills on Israel. You guys are acting like this was a real bill that just needed political support to pass and not voting for the Jewish Space Lasers lady’s bill just supercedes every actually meaningful public statement on the issue she’s made.
So I’m exposing my ignorance here, but I have a question.
Apart from MTG’s association, how am I to make the distinction between a “real” bill and a “statement “ bill?
I understand what you’re saying, and have been persuaded by your latest comment; I’m just hung up on that “just a statement bill” thing.
E: I guess it’s literally as simple as “MTG is such a joke that her bills will never pass”.
Yeah, anything MTG puts forward that isn’t already supported by Republicans is likely pointless nuttery (the supported stuff is dangerous nuttery). But more generally, these people all know when a bill is going to be 50/50 and when it’s going to get 400 no votes.
That’s not to say representatives never should be judged for their votes on doomed bills, but their vote should be in the context of it just being a statement itself, and with MTG writing the amendment, the statement is a muddled mess.
"I’ve also seen people say Bernie is a Zionist, because he says “ethnic cleansing” instead of “genocide.”
Liberals when they’re both on the same page but use slightly different rhetoric 😡😡😡
"We’re the People’s Front of Judea! "
This is a bad faith interpretation of why leftists are upset. No one is saying the bill was enough. However, it would have had the effect of blocking Israel’s defense aid, and in this desperate moment where Israel is being allowed to starve a whole people to death with no repercussions, it was something we could have done to mitigate their freedom to continue to do so. In her statement, AOC didn’t just mention the offensive-vs.-defensive aid thing–she also brought up protecting innocent civilians, implying that not providing the defensive aid would result in innocent Isrealis dying. In the context of innocent Palestinians being a day or two from mass death, that is a fucking cop-out.
The bill providing funding for Israel, she voted against. Pretty sure I mentioned that.
So further if your metric for being able to support a vigorously left-wing politician who’s been voting against aid for Israel, calling it a genocide, yelling about it on the house floor, and so on and so on, including pushing for justice for working people whose voice is basically nonexistent within the US congress, is that never once do they say one dumb thing on Twitter, then I would wonder who in or out of politics you would be willing to support. This is like the people who are yelling about how Mamdani is a “fake leftist” and as a good leftist they can’t support him because he’s just a fake for the Democrats and they won’t get fooled again…
Being upset or disappointed with someone is not the same as not supporting them at all. Being in power naturally tends to pull people to the right–it’s in the nature of serving the American empire–and it’s the job of the people to remind them of why we supported them in the first place to hopefully prevent that.
Okay. I’m upset that people are using this absurdly skewed framing of this whole event and trying to blow it up into the whole of AOC’s Israel stance and ignoring the backdrop of her entire vigorous opposition to Israel in both word and deed. Since I’m upset, can I come to your house and throw a bunch of paint over your doors and windows and write slogans about you? I feel like that would be a good way to “remind” you about good principles of political progress and online discourse.
Or is that something we’re only doing to prominent successful leftists when we’re upset, and that scenario would be a completely different story?