• Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      He’s an old old man who had his entire career destroyed for categorically disproving Alan dershowitzs lies about Israel and continuing to fight for Palestinians regardless. He has bad takes on trans people, which should be ignored because it’s not what his work is about and he’s so old he doesn’t own a phone.

      • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        So he’s based on Palestine but gets the wall anyway because there is no liberation without trans liberation. Fair enough

        • Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          i personally think that the man who has fought against the genocide of palestinians literally his entire adult life and had one bad take about trans people a couple years ago probably doesn’t deserve to get executed by a revolution. asking this man to have takes on modern culture is just a dumb idea, and we should wall the people who got him to do it.

          • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            I personally don’t think it’s that hard to understand that liberation cannot be achieved for any oppressed group without liberation of every oppressed group

            • Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              do you genuinely think trans liberation is contingent on either sacralizing or shooting an old man who has fought against the world’s two best propaganda machines his whole life? i’m not saying he gets a “bad trans takes” pass, just that it’s not a useful mental structure for building any kind of liberation. is your political project genuinely centered on finding jesus, or what?

                • Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  that’s not what we’re talking about though. of course general full liberation, whatever we mean by that, will require intersectionality. my point is that do you think it’s actually worthwhile to discount every single person who has an uneducated and reactionary take that they spend very little time engaging with or defending? we’re not talking about a politician, or even a regular garden variety everyday transphobe reactionary. we’re talking about someone who has dedicated their entire life to trying to advocate for the specific and immediate case of palestinian emancipation. so we’re not talking about hypotheticals or building a communist movement in any particular place. we’re just talking about whether or not one should simply mentally dispose of the usefulness of norm finklestein despite his track record on the political situation of occupied Palestine.

                  • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    Can I ask why you’re going to such great lengths to defend someone you have admitted yourself is a transphobe? Can you ask yourself why you thinking defending a transphobe is something that’s somehow valuable to leftism?

            • MorelaakIsBack [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              and even if he’s not there, the math is really simple: you are really good at this one topic, you should be incredibly wary of making any statements on any other issues lest they make you look like a fucking asshole, lessening your impact on your main topic

              • Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                part of the reason why it was so extremely frustrating to see norm saying that shit when he did. he spent his whole life fighting for a most righteous cause of liberation, and then shot through a ton of goodwill with people by saying that shit and doubling down.

      • ashinadash [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        This was truly not enjoyable to learn given I just discovered the guy days ago and really respected what he did. I still do, but with the massive caveat that he probably doesn’t want me to exist or some shit

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      He’s a scholar of Israel and Palestine who has been very vocal about his support for Palestinian freedom. He more or less lost his academic career in a feud with Alan Dershowitz (the Dracula music should play in your head right now) because of his criticism of Israel. He’s a pretty cool guy IMO, although he had some bad takes about trans people.

      • hotcouchguy [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        It was fascinating how he’s so absolutely meticulous in his writing, describing how he goes to such lengths to never get any detail even slightly wrong, so it doesn’t give his opponents an easy gotcha.

        And yet on other topics he just shoots from the hip with crazy old man takes.

        • Vode An@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          The epitome of stay in your lane. THE world expert on a topic doesn’t mean you have good takes on unrelated stuff.