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Javier E

Opinion | Bernie's Angry Bros - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...sanders-bernie-bros.html

radical Democratic party activism politics

shared by Javier E on 01 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • “There is so much negative energy; it’s so angry,” says the former four-term Democratic senator from California. “You can be angry about the unfairness in the world. But this becomes a personal, deep-seated anger at anyone who doesn’t say exactly what you want to hear.”
  • Boxer’s story is one of the milder ones The Times tells about the Internet trolls whose goals seem to have less to do with building Sanders up than with hounding and humiliating anyone who stands in their man’s way.
  • When Mr. Sanders’s supporters swarm someone online, they often find multiple access points to that person’s life, compiling what can amount to investigative dossiers,”
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • “More commonly, there is a barrage of jabs and threats sometimes framed as jokes. If the target is a woman, and it often is, these insults can veer toward her physical appearance.”
  • The only real analog in U.S. politics today to the Bernie nasties are the Trump nasties. They resemble each other in ways neither side cares to admit.
  • The most obvious resemblance is the adulation they bestow on their respective champions, whom they treat less as normal politicians than as saviors who deserve uncritical and uncompromising support.
  • “Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment,” the philosopher Eric Hoffer observed in “The True Believer,” a book that remains as relevant in our populist era as it was in the totalitarian one. “Whither they are led is of secondary importance.”
  • In the demonology of most mass movements there is usually a near enemy and a far one, and the near enemy must be dealt with first and hardest
  • To this day, hard-core Trump supporters reserve their deepest spite for Republican NeverTrump holdouts (“human scum,” according to the president).
  • Just so with the Bernie Bros, who see more moderate Democrats not as kindred spirits or potential converts but as sellouts, even traitors — the proverbial enemy within
  • But it also goes to the heart of what the Bernie Bros are really about. As they see it, ordinary civility isn’t a virtue. It’s a ruse by which those with power manipulate and marginalize those without.
  • Democrats like Joe Biden who play by the rules of civility and bipartisanship aren’t just falling prey to the insidious manipulation. They are perpetrating and legitimizing it
  • No wonder nearly half of Sanders’s supporters won’t commit to or are unsure about voting for the Democratic nominee in the event it isn’t Bernie, according to a recent poll. Why bother voting for Oligarchy Lite?
Javier E

Yes, Germany supports Israel - but not uncritically, and not for the reasons you think | Joerg Lau | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...israel-right-left-turkey-truth

germany foreign policy israel palestine reasons crisis politics

shared by Javier E on 28 Nov 23 - No Cached
  • When the hard right, the left and an autocrat (who denies Turkey’s genocide of the Armenians) combine forces, you know there is something wrong. Let’s be clear: German politicians do not need to wrestle free of history to navigate the debate on the Gaza war. It is a myth that Germany is uncritical in its support of the Israeli government.
  • When Israel used excessive violence in earlier Gaza wars, Germany raised public concerns. Berlin has constantly criticised the expansion of settlements. More than a decade ago, the then foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, called the situation in Hebron (in the occupied West Bank) “apartheid”. Berlin has supported the Palestinian Authority with over €1bn, and is among the top donors to Unwra, the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees.
  • There was never any love lost between either the Merkel or Scholz governments and Benjamin Netanyahu. Angela Merkel knew he was working with Donald Trump to kill off the nuclear deal with Iran behind her back. And that he was lying about his acceptance of two states. Nobody involved with the Middle East dossier in Berlin trusts Netanyahu
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • So what accounts for the dogged support Berlin extends to Israel in its war against Hamas? You must look beyond immediate crisis. Germany’s foreign policy establishment has suffered a deep shock, indeed the second one, after last year’s realisation that Russia could not be appeased by diplomatic overtures, pipeline deals and “change through trade”
  • Germans had been told they were “surrounded by friends”, as Helmut Kohl put it. They woke up ill-equipped to face a world of sworn enemies. Russia pulverised decades of German Ostpolitik when it attacked Ukraine, and with it the European postwar order.
  • Similarly, Germany had pushed for diplomacy to deal with Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions.
  • Then the Gazan member of Iran’s axis of resistance attacked Israel on 7 October. The Jewish state is trapped in a pincer movement between Hamas and Hezbollah – and the possibility of a wider war. This is an existential crisis for Israel.
  • The cornerstones of Germany’s foreign policy have crumbled. Engagement with Russia and Iran has failed. This is the view from Berlin: these two powers must be stopped, and that includes the destruction of Hamas. This is the reason for Germany’s staunch support of Israel’s war against Hamas, notwithstanding the deep distrust of Netanyahu – and the wish to see him gone as soon as hostilities end.
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