Every empire falls. Its collapse becomes inevitable once its rulers lose all sense of how absurd and abhorrent they have become
There is only one country in the world right now, in the midst of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is guaranteed dozens of standing ovations from the vast majority of its elected representatives.
That country is not Israel, where he has been a hugely divisive figure for many years. It is the United States.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu was back-slapped, glad-handed, whooped and cheered as he slowly made his way - hailed at every step as a conquering hero - to the podium of the US Congress.
This was the same Netanyahu who has overseen during the past 10 months the slaughter - so far - of some 40,000 Palestinians, around half of them women and children. More than 21,000 other children are reported missing, most of them likely dead under rubble.
It was the same Netanyahu whose government is standing trial for committing what the ICJ, the world’s highest judicial body, has termed a “plausible genocide”.
And yet, there was just one visible protester in the congressional chamber. Rashida Tlaib, the only US legislator of Palestinian heritage, sat silently grasping a small black sign. On one side it said: “War criminal”. On the other: “Guilty of genocide.”
One person among hundreds mutely trying to point out that the emperor was naked.
Indeed, the optics were stark.
This looked less like a visit by a foreign leader than a decorated elder general being welcomed back to the Senate in ancient Rome, or a grey-haired British viceroy from India embraced in the motherland’s parliament, after brutally subduing the “barbarians” on the fringes of empire.
This was a scene familiar from history books: of imperial brutality and colonial savagery, recast by the seat of the imperium as valour, honour, civilisation. And it looked every bit as absurd, and abhorrent, as it does when we look back on what happened 200 or 2,000 years ago.
We have differing definitions of what “vast majority” means. Dumb AF article.
Republicans aren’t literal ghosts that don’t exist.
A majority is greater than 50%. A vast majority would mean significantly more than 50%.
You think 50% of Republicans boycotted Netranyahu’s speech?
Congress does not exist solely of Democrats.
No. I’m saying the vast majority of reps didn’t repeatedly give him a standing ovation. It’s a shit article written poorly and sensationally.
What’s this? https://youtu.be/NkRaG9RolF4?si=w2sVNDI8Fr8x5JSM
Linkerbaan going mask-off.
“Actually, what I really care about is the U.S. collapsing.” Yeah, we figured that out already, thanks for being honest now that everyone has seen through your lies.
i don’t see anywhere where linkerbaan actually wrote that. Removed for false quoting.
I was paraphrasing. The quotes were there for rhetorical effect.
They didn’t imply they did. It was a quote from the posted article. And my interpretation of it was that they were quoting it specifically because it’s the sentiment many people get about ole left lane here.
Now while I might agree with the sentiment. I do still think it might go a little far towards being a personal attack. It’s not without some merit. Though that probably still does not justify posting any reasonably personal attack.
The quote does not appear in the original article either, it was entirely made up and attributed to linkerbaan which is why I removed it.
Fair enough I suppose
I mean, look at it like this… they manufactured a quote and used it to attack another user. We don’t allow attacking other users, full stop, so while the method may have been new, it’s still removable.
On top of that, if linkerbaan or anyone else had actually said that, unironically, it’s a bannable offense.
So really what OP was doing wasn’t just attacking linkerbaan, they were hoping the mods would see the quote, assume it was accurate, and ban linkerbaan.
Removed by mod
Wow thanks. I was about to call all these people israelis since making unfounded claims about nationalities seemed to be fair game.
How a very mask off, and mature of you. No one made any claims as to your nationality. Though I’m not going to shirk from my statement where I suspected that you likely aren’t local to the groups you’re addressing. Or at least person take on a more externalized insulated viewpoint.
Not that being external or foreign preempts you from having valid opinions and views. Far from it. But disingenuous op-ed agenda posting is bad enough. Worse when you are perceived ex parte.
To be clear I would just as much issue with someone constantly posting orange man bad op-ed fluff everyday.
Removed by mod
Do you think my real name is Jonathan Cook and I write articles for Middle East Eye?
This is the sort of thing you constantly, unironically post. Whether or not you’ve posted such sentiment publicly yourself. It really encapsulates peoples perception of you. If you have an issue with that. You may have a you problem.
So what do you think about the article? Do you believe its criticisms unfounded?
Or do people just get very mad when someone points out the emperor is not wearing clothes?
It’s sensationalist and highly biased. Much like the person who posted it here.
I’m no cheerleader for the United states. My family has suffered genocide at the hands of the United States. And still often live as second class citizens in their own homes. I’m no cheerleader for any large Nation or nationalized government as someone who is libertarian / anarchist.
It’s an op-ed and they are entitled to their opinions and critique. That doesn’t mean it has much substance or value beyond that. That’s not what anyone’s objecting to though. It’s the blatant, disingenuous agenda posting. Likely from someone not directly involved or impacted in any way by any of this. And certainly not constructive or conducive to actual debate.
What part of it is biased?
Most political articles are opinion pieces.
Linkerbaan uses deflect.
Linkerban hurts itself
Everyone and everything has a bias. Even wood has a bias. But you never cease to be non surprising. That is an extremely on brand and unserious response from you.
You wrote an 3 paragraphs without addressing anything in the article. Resorting to pure 100% ad-hominems and projection.
Not surprising from Eldrich.
From your post history, your agenda is obvious. I think your specific topics and pointed references are misplaced though.
A country is made of up of people.
A government is made up of factions of people.
A coalition is made of factions with similar ideology.
Saying “This country doesn’t appreciate X” is pretty invalid. I don’t think the entirety of Israel likes what is happening. I don’t think the entirety of the Palestinian population loves Hamas bringing this awful shit storm down on them. What we do know is that small factions of of people decided this would happen: Hamas made a choice to do this, and Israel responded by destroying the populace where few who are aligned with Hamas.
Point your anger where it belongs, at the people making the decisions that kicked this off in the first place. Don’t make generalizations about groups of people, because that’s just idiotic. In the same way Hamas is not all Palestinians, Israel’s government is not all of Israel, and the US is not all of a faction supporting current events in this war.
As far as an “Empire” falling. This is just hopium for the author and audience. There isnt a salient point in this blog that is within the realm of reality, so I’m not sure of its purpose aside from the above.
The vast, vast majority of Israel does support nethanyahu. Most of the headlines about some ministers speaking out, or some sort of unpopularity, is about him not being genocidal enough. Israel is an ideological construct. It is the thing that gets compared to Hamas, because israel needs genocide to exist. There won’t be a Palestine if there is an israel
