Foreign Minister Penny Wong says Israel has a right to defend itself, and judging its security decisions from a distance is "very difficult", as Israel's government vows to cut off food and water to the blockaded Gaza Strip.
I’m confused about what you think an academic discussion looks like if you’re trying to eschew the fundamental issue of capital-aligned settler-colonialism. The details of recent posturing mean nothing because Labor is fundamentally subservient to capital at home and abroad, which is why it doesn’t matter that there are well-meaning Labor MPs with decent takes, as they are and have been consistently disempowered and kept in the realm of token dissent. The last time an Australian national leader materially stepped out of line they were undemocratically deposed, which would have been called a coup if one didn’t subscribe to the chauvinist double standards of Anglo speech patterns.
Labor could only ever have a serious material dissent on Israel if it did the same on substantive restorative justice for the aboriginal groups whose stolen resources they - and the people who actually run the country - live off of. They cannot reckon with either because they are aligned with the forces that maintain the sociopathic status quo.
OK so it’s not like a bat signal went off and simultaneously a bunch of pollies howled “Uncritical support of Israel” at the sky. They’re people with their own interests, primarily keeping their jobs and privilege. A rare few actually believe in certain things.
As seen by the protests/rallys/celebrations/whatever within cooee of me it’s not a politically sure thing to back Israeli state military escalation. Any big political announcement like this has a bunch of backroom shit going on between factions, with threats being made and horses traded. So a satisfying explanation is going to include discussion of the various players and their factions, what they personally get from this, what compromises have likely been made to the people who’s popularity takes a dive etc.
It’s like if you ask me why a stone rolls downhill and I say “gravity” that’s a cop out explanation (forgive the bizarre analogy, physics is the only thing I have any confidence in my own knowledge of :P). High level abstractions aren’t hugely useful for explaining specific events.
The reason the stone rolls down the hill is actually gravity, though. And we live in a world of gravity-deniers who obsess over the exact details of the stone’s shape and the color of its moss to explain why it rolls down the hill. Some call those things academic and call gravity unsatisfying.
And you might be surprised at how little horse trading is required to support these interests. It is often implicit and has more to do with the fallout from failing to do so and who is in the room in the first place. And who gets to purge in the party and set the narrative. You’ll notice that for years, now, the token Labor voices in opposition to Israel are on the back foot. They enter the discussion with milquetoast criticism of the inevitable supporting arguments rather than leading with their own.
Look at how AUKUS went down. It’s the exact same thing.
The reason the stone rolls down the hill is actually gravity, though
no see that’s not true and I’m not sure why you’re so confident in answering that way when it’s obvious you’re not an expert in thr relevant domain. A bunch of interactions are required to explain the specific motion of the stone, after all it doesn’t move like water would. That sounds like pointless pedantry to the layperson but that’s because you don’t understand the interesting details of the question and don’t care about understanding the system any deeper than just sort of saying the name of the force that provided the broad picture impetus, or any predictive details beyond “eventually the stone will probably be at the bottom”.
I am not interested in a crude overview from a Marxist perspective at the moment. It is not useful to me.
It is actually true and it’s kind of sad that you need to pretend it isn’t in order to avoid the point. You may want to revisit the physics taught to 12-year-olds if you don’t think gravity explains objects falling.
If I were to be generous, I could say that what you should say is that while gravity is one explanation, you’re looking for something more proximal and contextualized rather than fundamental. But then you might risk having to acknowledge the rest of what I said, which squarely criticizes that (and that you ignored).
I would say that yes you’re trying to be pedantic, but it’s really just a cover for being avoidant and failing to communicate. People that are informed don’t have that insecurity.
I’m confused about what you think an academic discussion looks like if you’re trying to eschew the fundamental issue of capital-aligned settler-colonialism. The details of recent posturing mean nothing because Labor is fundamentally subservient to capital at home and abroad, which is why it doesn’t matter that there are well-meaning Labor MPs with decent takes, as they are and have been consistently disempowered and kept in the realm of token dissent. The last time an Australian national leader materially stepped out of line they were undemocratically deposed, which would have been called a coup if one didn’t subscribe to the chauvinist double standards of Anglo speech patterns.
Labor could only ever have a serious material dissent on Israel if it did the same on substantive restorative justice for the aboriginal groups whose stolen resources they - and the people who actually run the country - live off of. They cannot reckon with either because they are aligned with the forces that maintain the sociopathic status quo.
OK so it’s not like a bat signal went off and simultaneously a bunch of pollies howled “Uncritical support of Israel” at the sky. They’re people with their own interests, primarily keeping their jobs and privilege. A rare few actually believe in certain things.
As seen by the protests/rallys/celebrations/whatever within cooee of me it’s not a politically sure thing to back Israeli state military escalation. Any big political announcement like this has a bunch of backroom shit going on between factions, with threats being made and horses traded. So a satisfying explanation is going to include discussion of the various players and their factions, what they personally get from this, what compromises have likely been made to the people who’s popularity takes a dive etc.
It’s like if you ask me why a stone rolls downhill and I say “gravity” that’s a cop out explanation (forgive the bizarre analogy, physics is the only thing I have any confidence in my own knowledge of :P). High level abstractions aren’t hugely useful for explaining specific events.
The reason the stone rolls down the hill is actually gravity, though. And we live in a world of gravity-deniers who obsess over the exact details of the stone’s shape and the color of its moss to explain why it rolls down the hill. Some call those things academic and call gravity unsatisfying.
And you might be surprised at how little horse trading is required to support these interests. It is often implicit and has more to do with the fallout from failing to do so and who is in the room in the first place. And who gets to purge in the party and set the narrative. You’ll notice that for years, now, the token Labor voices in opposition to Israel are on the back foot. They enter the discussion with milquetoast criticism of the inevitable supporting arguments rather than leading with their own.
Look at how AUKUS went down. It’s the exact same thing.
no see that’s not true and I’m not sure why you’re so confident in answering that way when it’s obvious you’re not an expert in thr relevant domain. A bunch of interactions are required to explain the specific motion of the stone, after all it doesn’t move like water would. That sounds like pointless pedantry to the layperson but that’s because you don’t understand the interesting details of the question and don’t care about understanding the system any deeper than just sort of saying the name of the force that provided the broad picture impetus, or any predictive details beyond “eventually the stone will probably be at the bottom”.
I am not interested in a crude overview from a Marxist perspective at the moment. It is not useful to me.
It is actually true and it’s kind of sad that you need to pretend it isn’t in order to avoid the point. You may want to revisit the physics taught to 12-year-olds if you don’t think gravity explains objects falling.
If I were to be generous, I could say that what you should say is that while gravity is one explanation, you’re looking for something more proximal and contextualized rather than fundamental. But then you might risk having to acknowledge the rest of what I said, which squarely criticizes that (and that you ignored).
I would say that yes you’re trying to be pedantic, but it’s really just a cover for being avoidant and failing to communicate. People that are informed don’t have that insecurity.
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